After the attempt on Dr. Rosen’s life last week, the team moves their office to Queens.  Moving day proves a bit trying as Nina’s upset at the location, Rachel’s disgusted with how dirty it is, Gary hears a humming sound that’s driving him crazy, Cameron is feeling out of sorts about the whole situation and Bill is his usual Mr. Cranky-pants self.

With Agent Wilson (sad…no Leoben this week) away on another assignment, Rosen meets with another agent, Ms. Sullivan.  Sullivan is a bit prickly and the two hit it off on the wrong foot.  Once they start again, Sullivan informs Rosen about an accident that took place in upstate New York, by Binghamton.  Conveniently, Binghamton is also where the “compound” is.  Technically it’s called the Binghamton Special Research Facility and it’s where Alphas who abuse their abilities are sent to be “rehabilitated”.  Turns out that Rosen’s very first Alpha patient, Marcus Ayers, was being transported when he used his ability to escape.  This act caused the deaths of a couple of innocent people so now he’s wanted for murder.

Rosen gathers the team and brings them up to speed on Marcus and his ability.  Marcus is able to predict and cause chain of events to unfold.  Hence the episode title, Cause and Effect. Once the team is up to speed, Nina’s a bit perturbed because she was close to Marcus.  This leads me to think that out of the other team members, Nina’s been there the longest.  Rosen asks Cameron to study recordings of Marcus because their abilities are very similar.

The back story is this: Marcus was Rosen’s first Alpha.  Rosen tried to help Marcus understand and control his ability because it made him extremely paranoid.  He sees the chain of events, but doesn’t understand why no one else can.  This leads him to believe that everyone is out to get him one way or another.  It makes him unpredictable and very dangerous.

Rosen sent him to the facility because it was his opinion that he wasn’t able to help Marcus.  The only problem is there are things going on in Binghampton that Rosen isn’t aware of.  At the accident scene, Rosen finds little clues planted by Marcus for him to follow.  As he does, Rosen flashes back to the time when Marcus was his patient.  Rosen finally comes face to face with Marcus after Rachel was able to identify ash that was one an item left at the accident scene.

Unfortunately Rosen isn’t the only one who showed up.  Nathan Cley, the facilities DOD liaison, shows up with his team to apprehend Marcus.  Of course this doesn’t go as planned and Marcus gets away once again.  His actions however cause another death so now, for Cley, it’s personal.  Rosen decided to follow-up on Marcus’ claims about the facility by meeting with the head doctor, Dr. Singh.  Much to Rosen’s horror, he finds out that Dr. Singh was basically going to lobotomize Marcus.  No wonder Marcus escaped.  Poor Dr. Singh though….moments after this admission, he meets his maker and is killed.  Chalk up one more death for Marcus.

Gary is able to locate Marcus so Cley and his team, as well as Rosen’s team, move in.  Marcus is, of course 18 steps ahead of them.  The team is under the assumption that Marcus is there for Cley, but while every one’s attention is on Cley, Marcus moves in and kidnaps Rosen instead.  Marcus explains to Rosen that a war is brewing between the Alphas and non-Alphas.   It’s all very Magneto/Professor X if you ask me but that’s besides the point.  Although it is kind of interesting considering this show was created by the guy who directed the latest X-Men film.  Anyway, as Marcus is explaining this, Cley shows up with his team.  Marcus makes a move to surrender, but Cley opens fire anyway.  Marcus is shot and falls over the edge of the bridge he was standing on.  After an extensive search, Marcus’ body is not recovered which leads us to believe that he survived and chances are good he’ll make a return at some point.

This second episode was pretty decent.  It didn’t grab me like the pilot did, but like I said before, it’s going to take a few episodes to really gel. This episode’s main setback, was that it focused on an outside character and not so much on the team members.  Since we’re only two episodes in, I’d like for them to focus more on the team so we can get to know these characters.  From the previews it looks like we’ll get that chance next week, so until then.

About the author

Tracy Ladd has written 532 articles on this blog.

Tracy has been writing about film since her days on the her high school newspaper. Even though she took a decade or two off to explore other things, she's back to doing what she loves. She also bakes, can knit a pretty nifty scarf and makes lightsaber sounds with her knitting needles. Or chopsticks. Especially with the lightsaber chopsticks. Follow her on Twitter: @ReelGoddess

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 at 9:00 am and is filed under Television, TV Show Recaps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.