After last week’s Nina-centric episode, this week’s proves that you can never really go home again.  When you do, it’s just not the same.  Nina gets a taste of this when she heads back to the office and has to face those members of her team that she wronged.  Namely Rachel.  There’s a whole lot going on with this show at the moment, what with the different story lines and all.  Everyone seems to be dealing with some sort of skeleton and things are all around just kind of messy.

The episode begins with a young man named Adam in the morgue identifying his sister’s body.  As he leaves to fill out paperwork, he hears her and turns around to see her reaching for him from the body locker.  He thinks she’s not dead and tries to get to her but the orderlies try to hold him back.  So he does what any normal person would do….he scales the wall Spiderman style to get to her.  As the orderlies finally pull him away, he snaps out of his crazed state and realizes that she is, in fact, dead.

It’s night and all’s quiet at the office.  Nina enters and seems a bit hesitant about coming back home.  Rosen is there to greet her and tells her that Gary is going through some things so he’s decided to live at the office.  Rosen is completely comfortable with having her back, but she isn’t and it shows.  She tells him she knows the drill, no pushing.  He tells her that he’s got something else in mind and tells her that he needs her help in getting information on Stanton Parish.  He tells her that he’s been able to track how Stanton Parish’s money is tied to a charity, which is tied to U.S. Senator.  Rosen tells Nina that he wants her to push the senator into giving them information, but she seems hesitant.  He tells her that he trusts her completely, so she agrees.

The next morning Cameron Skypes with his son,  who was supposed to come to New York, but his mom isn’t letting him.  Cameron is trying to make up for lost time, but his ex is making it hard.  Bill comes in looking a little worse for wear and when Cameron questions him, he admits to still going to the fight club.  Rachel and Gary are getting ready to go to a memorial service for Anna when Nina walks in.  Nina tries to talk to Rachel and apologize, but Rachel shuts her down cold and leaves with Gary.  Rosen gets word of what happened at the hospital with Adam and rounds up Bill and Cameron to go with him, running into Kat coming off the elevator with pillows.  Rosen tells them that he’s going to do a sleep study on Kat to get to the bottom of her memory problem.

Rosen talks to Adam, who was a former patient, and tells him that he wants to help.  Rosen tells Adam that, with his permission, he’d like to send Adam to a clinic where he can get help, both with his abilities and with his grief.  Adam agrees, and tells him that Bill and Cameron will escort him.  Rosen tells Bill and Cameron that an orderly will bring Adam down and tells them that he has to leave.  But while in the elevator, Adam hears his sister crying for help again.  He attacks the orderly and when the elevator reaches Bill and Cameron, the orderly is lying on the floor all bloody and Cameron sees Adam crawling up the elevator shaft.

Nina goes to the Senator’s hotel and finds her in the restroom.  Nina tries to push for the information and gets the Senator to admit to funneling funds to Stanton Parish’s charity, but when Nina tries to get what it was for, the Senator tells her that the info is gone.  Nina lets her go, and reports the information back to Rosen.  Rachel and Gary are at Anna’s memorial, when Gary decides to nit pick the finer points of the service.  Rachel tries to calm him down, but then her phone starts to ring, effectively interrupting the service.  They both leave and head to the hospital per Bill’s instructions.

After Nina tells Rosen what she discovered, Rosen tells her that he wants her to try to push/pull the memory out of the Senator.  She tells him that she can’t do that, but he reminds her that she’s been doing a lot of things that she never thought possible.  She’s reluctant, but he tells her that he wants her to test it out on Kat, who suffers from loss of memory.  Kat is game for everything and agrees to let Nina try.  Nina digs around in Kat’s brain and a memory surfaces.  There is an effect on Nina however because as she’s working, she digs her fingernail into her own palm, a fact that was not overlooked by Rosen.  Kat seems unaffected by the process and Rosen and Nina head out to try it on the Senator.

Rachel and Gary arrive at the hospital and that when things really go bat shit crazy.  Gary sees Anna and is able to talk to her.  She materializes and follows him around as he tries to help out the rest of the team.  Rachel follows her nose and ears to try to find Adam but ends up jumping into the pool because she thinks she sees Nina at the bottom.  Bill gets the crap beaten out of him by a stronger version of himself and Cameron thinks his son is being taken, then sees evil orderlies cutting into him, when in fact, it’s him cutting himself.  Adam sees his sister again in a sink full of water and ends up drowning himself in it.

Rosen and Nina track down the Senator at the airport and Nina tries out the push/pull maneuver on her.  She’s able to get that the missing info was concerning Photic Stimulators and the word August, but that was it.   Rosen and Nina leave the airport and Rosen heads to the hospital.  Once there, he meets up with Gary who tells him about being able to see Anna.  Rosen is able to figure out that a teenage comatose boy is responsible for the visions the rest of the team are fighting against.  Rosen realizes that the boy is an Alpha and his ability is crying out for help.  Rosen goes to revive the boy, but Gary tries to stop him knowing that if he awakens, Anna will disappear.  Finally he lets Rosen in the room and Rosen injects the boy with medicine to wake him up.  Immediately the visions disappear.  Bill pulls Rachel from the pool and revives her and Cameron drops the scalpel.  It’s too late for Adam though.

As Rosen is talking to the boy, he notices a nurse using a Photic Stimulator on the comatose patient in the next bed.  He asks her about it and then notices the word August on the side of the machine.  Putting two and two together, he has Gary compile a list of 2,700 hospitals who are currently using the machine.  He also tells Gary that the only person who can help them figure the machine out is Sklyar Adams (Summer Glau, who appeared last season).

Cameron shows up at his ex’s house to see his son and is relieved when he finally does.  Nina tries to talk to Rachel again, but once again Rachel shuts her down.  She then seems to have a change of heart and lets Nina know that she’s OK and thanks her for asking.

Upset that he had to lose Anna again, Gary decides to set up a Twitter account under @Anna_Lives and announces that a revolution is coming.  Kat meanwhile is suffering some effects from the push/pull experiment.  She begins drawing on a whiteboard and once finished, the drawing is of the woman in her memory, which is most likely her mother.  The big difference here is that instead of the calm, happy look she’s always wearing, her expression is more haunted than she’s ever been so far.  So what exactly does that mean?

This episode surprised me in that it went in a completely different direction that what I was expecting.  While not quite as solid as the previous, still a decent entry in the season so far.  I’m very curious to see where Kat is headed.  I really like her character and love how care-free she is.  Her character reminds me a lot of Kenzi on Lost Girl.  It also looks like we’ll get to see Summer Glau again, which is awesome.  I really liked the Skylar character so I’ll be glad to see her return.  Until next week Alpha lovers!

About the author

Tracy Ladd has written 534 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, August 21st, 2012 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.