You know, at this point, I think I’m most frustrated that ‘The Event’ doesn’t just outright suck so badly that I could give up on it and move on to better shows. I haven’t been in love with the series so far, but it has just enough of a kernel of an interesting idea in it, and has very slightly improved from episode to episode enough that I’ve been willing to give it one more episode to see where it goes. Then one more episode after that. And then one more. So here I am, still watching, waiting for it to either dramatically improve so that I’m hooked, or lose me entirely.

The ads for the third episode, ‘To Protect Us from the Truth’, promised a huge twist ending. I wouldn’t say that it actually delivers on that. It’s more like a little twist ending. But, again, it’s enough that… dammit… I’m willing to try one more episode.

Here’s the rundown of what happens:

The feds transporting Sean turn their car around as instructed by the state trooper. Just as they’re doing this, a speeding Winnebago comes from out of nowhere and plows into the car. How did none of the characters notice this giant motor home barreling down towards them on the long empty stretch of road? That’s just something we’ll have to accept. As is the fact that none of the hundreds of federal agents just on the other side of the hill heard this crash or the car explosion that follows.

Was this a deliberate act to kill Sean? Unclear at this point. If it was, the people behind it are kind of incompetent. The driver of the motor home is killed, as is the state trooper.

The male FBI agent is also killed. The woman is injured but survives. Sean is fine. He manages to get out of his handcuffs and drag the woman to safety. Then he throws her in the state trooper’s police car and takes her to a motel where he ties her to the bed and bandages up her wound. How did he pay for this motel? (With the woman’s money, I suppose.) Didn’t anyone find it suspicious that this guy covered in dirt and blood, and driving a police car with an injured woman in it, would need a motel room?

Even though she’s tied to the bed, the lady agent (I’m not going to bother learning her name) manages to alert the authorities, who swarm the motel. Sean is nowhere to be found. Turns out that he hides in the trunk of an FBI car and sneaks a ride back to headquarters, where he can hack into the computer server to download info about the woman who kidnapped his girlfriend Leila. You see, it seems that Sean is one of those super computer geniuses who can steal all the internets by typing a few letters into a web browser. How convenient.

What Sean’s not so good at is avoiding being caught. The feds find him and once again capture him about 30 seconds later. Almost immediately after that, some U.S. Marshalls show up with orders to transport him somewhere else. Lady Fed is suspicious and tries to call someone in charge. That’s when we learn that the Marshalls aren’t really Marshalls. They shoot up the joint and kill most of the FBI agents, except Lady Fed, who kills most of them and gets away with Sean.

Meanwhile, Leila is tied up and being driven around in the back of a van. The woman who kidnapped her eventually throws her in a big shipping container at the docks.

Also meanwhile, the President (Blair Underwood) has made an offer to all 97 of the alien detainees. He will set free anyone who gives him info on who is responsible for the plane crash. A guy named William accepts the offer, on the condition that they also set free his girlfriend Maya (Clea DuVall). The government sets them both up in a hotel room in D.C. But before William can talk, Maya kills him herself to silence him.

The government has covered up the plane incident by staging a crash over the Brazilian rainforest. Fake wreckage is being strewn about there. The bodies of all the victims are laid out in a military hanger for examination. The episode ends with… Big Twist Ending!… suddenly, one by one, the victims wake up. Oooh, they’re not dead after all. Shocker!

Well, that was the twist.

The episode has a few flashbacks. (We learn that the alien group split up into two factions in 1944 in order to ensure that someone named Thomas could get away. And now Thomas has apparently gone rogue and is behind the plane incident.) However, generally speaking, the episode structure is much toned down and more easily comprehensible than the previous episodes.

Sigh.

I guess I’m interested enough to give it one more. We’ll see where we stand after that.