Heyla, The Event Fans!
In anticipation of new episodes returning this Monday, I am pleased to present this short analysis of episode 1×9 “Your world to take.” This episode was one of my favorites because we finally have Sophia Maguire (Laura Innes) out of prison, and we get to watch how she operates and how she leads.
We, the viewers, are privileged to be invited to a Sleeper meeting, where Thomas (Clifton Collins Jr.) re-introduces Sophia as the leader to an untold multitude. They all seem to welcome her enthusiastically and to adulate her, however, after the main meeting is over Thomas sets up a much smaller meeting with a few representatives and Simon.
Sophia begins this meeting by saying now that President Elias Martinez (Blair Underwood) is aware of the Sleepers presence their days on earth are numbered. From my understanding the main reason that she and the other ninety-seven prisoners stayed at Inostranka these past sixty-six years was so that the sleepers could move about undetected, to be free to find a way home.
As long as the government felt that the scary aliens were all locked up in one place where they could keep their eyes on them they would not be looking for anyone else. This was a good plan, I think, unfortunately, however, while she was locked away Thomas and his girlfriend, Isabel, (Necar Zadegan) have been forging quite a different plan, than what Sophia originally intended.
Sophia compliments Thomas on the infrastructure he has created to help get them home but says they are still missing many raw materials, isotopes, and rare minerals. She wants to collect the things they were able to salvage from their craft wreck, as well as activate a key module to open a portal. (This just sounds really cool. I love portals.) The tension in the room, while Sophia speaks of going home is soon apparent to her, and so she asks them about it; when no one wants to say anything she locks onto Isabel, (who is first introduced in this episode). Everyone seems to be looking to her to speak, so she tells Sophia that a large number of them have decided that they do not want to go home.
Sophia is sympathetic, but she reminds them all of what would happen to the native populations (without actually saying what would happen), but I wonder if what she is talking about could be The Event? She also reminds them of the directives that they all swore to uphold. She says they are not allowed to harm benevolent civilizations. I am not sure how benevolent we humans are since our government locked away every one of them that they could find just because they did not know who these strange people were. I know that they are aliens, but they are people too.
Who gave them these directives? Who is not allowing them to harm anyone? What would happen if they broke their promises? Did Sophia create these directives, or did they leave behind a fully functioning government back home who gave the directives to them before sending them off? Is Sophia just the leader of the group who were sent down to earth, or is she the ruler of them all?
Apparently their home planet is barely viable, which may be why they sent this scouting team down to the earth in the first place. Sophia does not make it sound like they were looking for a new home; perhaps they came looking for something they could use to save their planet from dying? There are other issues, a male representative reminds her. What are these issues? What could be worse than your planet dying? Is there some kind of war going on among their people? Perhaps Sophia is head of one particular warring side? Whatever she is, she gives them all her word that they will survive, and that by her orders they are going home. But are they really?
Thomas and Isabel are together, and are secretly plotting something which involves Thomas killing his mother and seizing control. It is obvious that Isabel is manipulating him, but he does have desires of his own. Thomas believes that Sophia is unaware of their relationship, and he thinks she does not suspect him of disloyalty either. Isabel keeps warning him that his mother is smarter than he is giving her credit for. When did the Thomas/Isabel movement begin? And why do they really want to stay? I think it is clear that Isabel just wants power, and Thomas thinks he knows how to be a better leader than his mother. But is it that simple? Is there more to the story? I am quite looking forward to finding out when season one continues.
Thomas and Sophia fly to where the portal opening key module is located. Thomas uses his code and then Sophia withdraws the key. After which, Thomas tries to shoot her, but he cannot do it. Poor Thomas! The timing of this leads me to believe that he needed this key to move forward with his plan and that is why he waited until after she had it to kill her, and also why he fought so hard to get her out of prison if he just wanted her dead. He likely could have had her killed in prison, or he could have just left her in there. But maybe her influence, even from within prison walls was so strong that he needed her dead before he could move on with his plan.
I suppose that he may have wanted her out because he loves her, and he hoped that he could reason with her, but when he saw she was determined to force them all home decided then that he had to kill her. And he tried it right after she got the key simply because it was a convenient isolated location. But he does make her give it to him before he tells her to turn around so he can shoot her in the back of the head, so I prefer my first idea. I am hoping this key proves vital in the second half of the season.
Thomas tells Sophia that she is irrelevant, and that he is tired of standing behind her and her words, words which he no longer believes in. Could all of this be pinned down to alien ideology? Sophia sees through him and says she knows about Isabel. She believes that this was all Isabel’s plan. I think she likely planted the idea in his head, but I think the wanting to take over and be in charge comes from within Thomas. The not being able to kill his mother seems to suggest that this part of the plan was likely Isabel’s dream though, and not his own.
Although there was a part of me while watching this scene wondered if Sophia was not exerting some kind of mind control over him. She did tell him he was weak in the plane. She even intimated that she regretted putting him in charge while she was away. If mind control would work on anyone, I would think it would work on Thomas.
Sean Walker, (Jason Ritter) and Leila Buchanan (Sarah Roemer) get a tip that could lead them to Leila’s little sister, Samantha Buchanan (Anna Clark). For the past two years little girls in between seven and eight years old have been kidnapped without a trace until one little girl, Abby Stern (Ellery Sprayberry) escaped. How did she escape? Was she let go or allowed to escape (like they did with Leila, as a way to trap Sean?) Or was she just very brave and clever? Her mother tells Leila and Sean that she was picked up at a truck stop, and that a driver had given her a ride there. This could have been luck coupled with the kindness of strangers, or it was a setup.
Sean and Leila find Abby with her parents, Paul Stern (Josh Randall) and Mary Stern (Bonnie Root). They are reluctant to let her talk to them, even when Leila says that her sister, Samantha has also gone missing. They follow them to a gas station where Leila finds Abby and the mother inside. Abby recognized Leila’s name earlier and she wants to help although she is not able to say much. Her face has prematurely aged in a rather alarming way, due to these injections she and all the other little girls are given in a hospital that she says is not for regular people.
She met Samantha right before she escaped; Samantha had not been given the injections yet. I hope that when Leila and Sean finally find Samantha that she will be all right, and will have somehow escaped those horrible injections or if she has received them that she will not have aged somehow. I am assuming the aging thing is a bad side effect, but maybe it is supposed to do that?
Doctor James Dempsey, (Hal Holbrook) sends Mr. Berg (Peter Murnik) after Leila to bring her back and to give her a dose of something. What is this dose for? What is this all about? The little girls seem to be receiving the same injections, could this be an attempt to try and save either humanity or the Extra-terrestrials from whatever the coming event is going to be?
There also seems to be a scary movement going on here, alien against alien. Could be why Paul Stern did not want to let Sean and Leila talk to Abby. When Sean first sees Mr. Berg at the gas station he believes he is after Abby. When Mr. Berg makes his move, Paul Stern gets in the way and gets himself shot, but the rest of them all run, Mrs. Stern with Abby, Sean, and Leila. We get to watch an exciting chase through a cornfield until Sean knocks Mr. Berg to the ground, and they find a flier in his pocket with Leila’s picture on it. Abby and her mother skedaddle, leaving Sean and Leila to deal with Berg.
Vice President Raymond Jarvis (Bill Smitrovich) wakes up in the hospital, his wife, Erika Jarvis (Kathleen Quinlan) by his side. The car bomb that was meant to prevent him from telling the president about Dr. Dempsey failed. Jarvis is still prepared to tell President Martinez all about it when his wife tells him about the two men who came to their house and threatened to harm her and their children. She asks him what he has done, and is quite understandably upset. He tells her he is sorry, but is he sorry for what he did or just sorry for putting his wife and children in danger? I cannot tell.
After Sophia is done comforting Thomas for not shooting her she gets him to tell her all about what he and Isabel were planning, except that he does not tell her everything, as we learn in the next episode. Sophia confronts Isabel, and Isabel shoot herself in the leg. This is the choice given to her by Sophia, she will either shoot herself to prove her loyalty to Sophia, or she would be ostracized, and not allowed to live among her own kind or have any contact with them. Isabel does shoot herself because being shunned would be a worse punishment for her, I imagine. I love Sophia’s parting words to the sobbing bleeding mess on the ground, “And remember this world isn’t yours or Thomas’.” I think that Isabel got off easy, but I do not think that Isabel would agree, and I wonder if she is going to want revenge in part two of season one?
Thank you for reading my review of The Event, episode nine, “Your World to Take.” The Event returns this Monday, March 07, 2011 8 PM EST/PST on NBC in the United States, with a two-hour mid-season premiere, “And Then There Were More” and “Inostranka”. Be sure to tune in for the continuation of The Event! And courtesy of NBC Universal here is the entire episode for your viewing pleasure!
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