Heyla, to all fans of The Event!
And welcome to my review of season one, episode twelve, entitled “Inostranka”. Of the two episodes shown for the mid-season premiere I was given my choice and I chose this one, although I really liked them both, and I was pleased to se e that a few of my many questions were answered. I would not want them to answer every question just yet, but I was pleased with the ones that they chose.
In episode eleven “And then there were more” Thomas (Clifton Collins Jr.) and his army of followers had snuck into the Inostranka facility and so episode twelve begins right where the story left off in the command center with Thomas taking over . Thomas commands Major Pearson to get on the radio so that he could pull the remaining guards of off their posts one patrol at a time. He was to tell them all to meet in the boiler room. Major Pearson asks why?
Thomas says that his men would be waiting there to disarm them. Thomas says that nobody needs to get hurt. Pearson replies that he is not letting Thomas take over the prison, so one of Thomas men cheerfully shoots him. Thomas tosses the radio to a different army dude and says he has been promoted. He then asks him to do what Pearson would not. He says I cannot. The order has to come from the major. Thomas tells him to order a code eight lock-down, which gets all of the guards to the boiler room like he wanted.
National Security Director Blake Sterling (Zeljko Ivanek) is still interrogating Inostrankan detainee Maya (Clea Duvall) She is getting tired of telling him the same thing over and over again, namely that her people are not the type to plan an invasion. She says that her people are moral and good and that they do not do things like that. Director Sterling does not believe her because she killed her boyfriend, William, on Sophia’s order.
Maya looks like she feels guilty about having done this. She says she will have to live with it for the rest of her life, but that bad things would have happened had William been allowed to speak.
Then Sterling shows her pictures of dead bodies from the plane crash, Maya says her people would never do something like that, Sterling tells her what Sophia said about Thomas and he asks her if it is really so hard to believe that Thomas could have done something like this, or that she and the rest of the Inostrankans could all be capable of doing the same. Maya does not know how to respond or likely how to feel or think. I believe her that most of the Inostrankans are good people who would never do anything like this. Thomas is an exception to the rule.
Corporal Bell (Lee Thompson Young, otherwise known as the famous Jett Jackson) comes in telling Sterling that a code eight has just gone out, which means that all detainees are to be escorted back to their cells and that all guards are to report to the boiler room, so that they, too, can be caught in Thomas’ trap. Obviously Bell does not know that it is a trap, he thinks that it is nothing more than a drill. Luckily Sterling refuses to go. He says he is the director of national security and that as such he does not have to stop his interrogation if he does not want to. He overrides the order given and tells Bell to go back to his post, standing guard outside the door. Corporal Bell complies and calls it in on his radio.
Thomas did not know that Sterling was going to be there, neither did the army dude who got threatened into helping him. He says that the dead major Pearson would have made those arrangements. Thomas agrees that it is a good idea for Bell to stay put. Thomas wants to make Director Sterling pay for what he has done to the detainees there, so he makes Mr-forced-to-cooperate army dude tell him exactly where Sterling can be found.
Maya is still claiming that her people are not a threat , the way I see it they are both half correct, and if they could each compromise on their stories just a little then they would have a complete truth that they could believe together, but neither one seems willing to do that. Maya asks Sterling what it would take for him to believe her, and he says at the stage we are in now I do not think it is possible for me to believe you. My thought then was why bother questioning her if he cannot trust anything she says?
Corporal Bell comes under attack by men wearing uniforms that he does not recognize using weapons that are not army issue. He runs into the interrogation room, slamming the door behind him. Director Sterling takes Bell’s side arm. The fake army soldiers break into the interrogation room but Sterling throws a chair through the window with the two way glass and they all three escape, he has Bell unlock Maya’s cuffs. Then Sterling hides behind the door of the room on the other side of the Interrogation room and shoots both of the fake soldiers through the shattered window. I was quite impressed with his aim.
Director Sterling only wounded the fake soldiers, one of them tells Sterling that they are here to free all of the prisoners because Thomas needs them, and that Thomas wants the director dead. The fake soldier lying behind Sterling shoots him in the back then Bell shoots that guy. Maya escapes, Bell wants to go after her, but Sterling prioritizes. He believes that Thomas must already have the place surrounded and does not believe they will leave there alive, however, he says they need to stop Thomas from leaving with the prisoners. Speaking of prisoners, Thomas’ soldiers release all of the Inostrankan prisoners from their cells.
At the white house President Elias Martinez (Blair Underwood) asks for a progress report. Do they know yet where message is heading? No. Has sterling learned anything new? They have not heard from him. Where is Michael Buchanan? Well, he escaped and Simon Lee (Ian Anthony Dale) is running point on the investigation. Simon, of course, knows nothing helpful at this time, though he suspect that Buchanan got to one of the guards, which means I must give him kudos because he is helping Sophia, as well as Michael and his family. If most Inostrankans are good, and Thomas is exceptionally bad then Simon is exceptionally good. At least in my humble opinion.
Senator Catherine Lewis of Alaska (Virginia Madsen) visits President Martinez in his office. She accuses him of lying to her about Inostranka. Thanks to the files she was able to sneak out of her late husband’s office she now knows that Inostranka is a prison and not a weather station like President Martinez previously told her. Martinez says the only way she could have gotten this information was by breaking the law, Senator Lewis thinks this is funny because he is currently holding people prisoner illegally. So they stand on common ground here, one cannot get one in trouble without getting themselves into trouble in the process.
The President says he understands her outrage, that he felt the same when he first found out but unfortunately he cannot tell her anything else because he says it is a matter of national security. She tells him that those two words are over used and that his administration has managed to rid them of any meaning. He mocks her for only having held public office for 2 weeks and for not having been elected and tells her to use her final ninety days in office to help the unemployed and the obese. He also says he will eviscerate her integrity the next time she questions his and then tells her to leave his office. I am not certain who won here, or who I wanted to win. I think they were both just doing the best that they could under the circumstances.
At Michael Buchanan’s (Scott Patterson) house? Sophia Maguire (Laura Innes) is there she makes tea for Sean Walker (Jason Ritter) and she says thank you to him for saving Leila’s Buchanan’s (Sarah Roemer) life. She introduces herself and tells him about the crash, what she wants and what Thomas wants, and about their people who are on the way. I think she tells him these things because she is hoping that he will help, but she does not want to ask him directly. She may hope that telling him that his world will be destroyed if Thomas gets his way will be enough to spur him on to action. I think it will, too.
Michael tell Leila that he and the other Inostrankans are from a planet that the humans call NGC253 – (why not give their name for it?) He claims they came to earth looking for a new home, but they were found, imprisoned, and hunted. Leila asks if she is human he shakes his head, says she is different even though she does not look or feel it. She wants answers; he promises that he will give them to her, but not now because they have to leave.
Michael then informs Leila that he wants her to come with him, but he says that Sean cannot come with them by Sophia’s orders. Sean cannot know any more about them than what he already does know. If he came it would put them all at risk. Leila says that she does not take orders from Sophia, and Michael explains that he does and that is that.
Thomas speaks to the prisoners. He announces that he has broken away from Sophia and everyone who comes with him must break from her too. He says they should all be free, that Sophia is free but still she asks them to stay. He says Sophia is asking them to put the needs of the humans over their own. Thomas thinks the humans should serve them. Plans are already being made to make a home for them there. He says if you still want to follow Sophia then stay here for another sixty-six years.
One male Inostrankan tells Maya who has found the others that they need to stay to show their solidarity to Sophia. Maya says they need to be smart, who knows what Thomas is going to do they should not turn their backs on him.
Sterling and Bell discover they have no outside communications; the phone is down and the base communicator is not working either. Director Sterling asks Corporal Bell if there is a failsafe, a way to lock down every perimeter. Bell does not have security clearance for it, but suggests that maybe Sterling does. From the command room Sterling is able to successfully reset the security system to put them into lockdown mode. The army dude who is still being forced to help Thomas is just opening the outside door when the lockdown falls into place; Thomas guesses pretty quickly what happened and he sends guards to the command room with orders to apprehend Sterling alive.
Sterling and Corporal Bell see Thomas’ guards coming for them on the monitors so they leave and make their way to the armory. On their way they discover that Thomas killed everyone who chose to follow Sophia. The Inostrankan who had advised Maya to stay was still barely alive he tells Sterling what happened. Sterling tells Bell this is not just a prison break it is a coup de tat. Then a few of Thomas soldiers find them.
Senator Catherine Lewis appears on “Chris Matthew’s hardball” to announce a top secret government program that she has just discovered in her own backyard. As she hopes the president is watching and he is not happy! He actually calls her while she is on a commercial break and as a last ditch effort he says that her husband, Bernard Lewis, knew all about the prisoners from Inostranka and he kept the secret because he knew it was the right thing to do; Martinez tells Catherine that if she truly wants to honor her husbands’ legacy then she will respect the secret that he kept.
She does not buy his argument and she says tell me who the prisoners are and when I go back on the air maybe I will start throwing softballs instead of grenades. But she says, if he does not tell her then she will blow Pandora’s box wide open. The clock is ticking, Mr. President she says, which it really was, she only had a few seconds before she had to go back on the air. The President caves and says, deal. So Catherine goes back on the air and does not say anything about Inostranka. The character played by (Roger Bart) congratulates Martinez on silencing Lewis in time. Martinez believes her silence is only temporary and asks god to help them all when the truth finally does come out.
Leila tells Sean in their bedroom that night that she has to make a choice. Sean says at first he will not leave her, but then Leila explains why he cannot come, and she says that she needs to go with her dad because he has answers. Sean tells her to go ahead, to do what she needs to. Then she says that he is a part of her and how can she choose between him and her father? Sean suggests that they go to sleep for now. He says that they can figure it out in the morning. Then they kiss.
Director Sterling and Corporal Bell are tied to chairs. Thomas tells Blake that he is getting his people out of Inostranka, and Sterling asks why he needs them when he has others coming. He says that they translated the message, and he asks how many are coming and when. Thomas hits him in the mouth. Thomas says I know you changed the code to the gate.
He orders Sterling to spill the new one so that no one else has to die. Sterling claims he has no idea what Thomas is talking about. Then one of Thomas’ friends starts hitting the director again in the mouth. Maya wanders by the command room and sees what is happening. Sterling challenges Thomas by saying that there is nothing he could do to him to make him talk, which I thought was quite stupid, but also brave.
A guard eagerly meets the challenge by pressing his fingers into Sterling’s bullet wound. Thomas tells Sterling that he took away the Inostrankan’s freedom, but now he was bound and determined to get it back for them. Sterling asks Thomas about the detainees he killed who were loyal to Sophia. Thomas does not want to talk about that so he tells Sterling to shut up, then his guard presses his fingers into Sterling’s bullet wound again.
Thomas tells the director that if the next words out of his mouth are not the code he would cover the room with Sterling’s blood. Sterling challenges him to do it. Thomas is about to shoot him when Corporal Bell speaks up and says that he has the code. Blake tries to get Thomas to not listen, but Bell shouts over him saying that he saw Sterling program it into the system. Bell really does have it and soon Thomas is leading everyone outside into the freezing cold snow, he has Sterling by the arm, perhaps to use for ransom or insurance?
Maya sits beside Sterling in the cargo ship, she unties his hands, saying that he must stop Thomas because what he wants will destroy Sterling and his people, but she pleads with him to believe that they all do not want this. She tells him to run, and he does run right past Thomas, Thomas shoots him in the back, his second bullet wound that day. Poor guy! He collapses in the snow. Thomas was going to shoot him again, but Maya shoves past him, so that she can run to Sterling to help him.
So Thomas shoots her in the back. Them someone tells Thomas that they have to go because the next shift of real army guards is approaching rapidly. They take off leaving Sterling alive, he crawls to Maya, and tells her to hold on because help is on the way, her last word is, “believe”. I hope that she just collapsed into unconsciousness and that she will be all right because I really like her character.
Leila wakes up to find Sean has left her. A woman goes to see Dr, Dempsey (Hal Hollbrook) to tells him that Sean and Leila were able to find and free the test subjects. He is quite calm about it. He gets up to play with this weird looking board with crop circles on it. He says that he is sure he and Sean will cross paths again soon in his wonderfully creepy classic villain way.
And that is where the episode ended. The Event returns to the US this Monday, March 14, 2011 with episode thirteen, “Turnabout”. Please be sure to tune in live because it is going to be awesome! In the meantime we include The Event episode “Inostranka” courtesy of NBC. Enjoy!
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