‘Persons Unknown’ 1.06 Recap: Turn Around, Bright Eyes

This past week, NBC bumped ‘Persons Unknown’ out of its usual Monday night timeslot and moved it to the Saturday death slot. That’s probably not a good sign. Its ratings must be pretty bad, even for summer programming on the 4th place network. I just hope that NBC doesn’t pull it off the air in favor of 6 year-old ‘Law & Order: SVU’ reruns before we get any closure from this storyline. I, for one, am still digging the show. Episode ‘The Truth’ really just reinforces how much I’d like to see this through to the end.

This is a very Renbe-focused episode. A good chunk of the running time is spent following him and his girlfriend in Rome investigating the story behind Tori’s death. Before they get there, Edick the P.I. seems to have switched allegiances. After rescuing them from a pair of men in blue outfits, he mentions that, “They usually travel in threes.” For some reason, the combination of the outfits and the traveling in threes gave me a weird sci-fi vibe, as if they’re going to turn out to be something like the Strangers in ‘Dark City. I can’t really explain why I feel that way based on one innocuous line of dialogue, but there you have it.

As they’re driving away, Renbe’s girlfriend is acting hysterically whiny about wanting to go home, so Edick whacks her in the face and knocks her out. That’s kind of awesome… ahem… I mean… that’s horrible, just horrible that he would hit a woman like that… But yeah, also kind of awesome. Funny how she doesn’t have a bruise later on, though.

So, they get to Italy and crash Tori’s funeral. Tori appears to have had a Mafioso boyfriend who causes a scene and pulls a gun. Later, Renbe and girlfriend (what is her name, anyway?) get kidnapped after poking around in this guy’s business. He tells them all about the nefarious doings of the Ambassador, and sends them off to sneak into the Ambassador’s office. Renbe makes the worst undercover spy ever, but somehow pulls it off. He finds photos of Joe, Janet, and Tori in the town. Where did the Ambassador get those?

At the conclusion of this storyline, Renbe and girlfriend are locked in a taxi when a convenient ticking noise notifies them that the car is about to blow up. They force their way out just in time. This is one of those annoying TV conventions that makes little logical sense. Who puts a bomb in a car and sets a loud ticking timer that will announce its presence? Why not just detonate the bomb remotely before the targets have any chance to get out?

Anyway, back in town, Moira and Graham are suspicious of Joe, and try to recruit others to watch out for him as well. The only one not buying it is Janet, who still trusts him.

Everyone seems to have accepted that the new girl’s name is Erika. I still wonder why someone would have her own name tattooed on her arm. Is she afraid that she’ll forget it?

So, Erika is the most distrustful of Joe of all, and keeps trying to bring Janet over to her side. She’s got it bad for Janet, who she repeatedly calls “Bright Eyes.” I bet she’s having a total eclipse of the heart. What’s weird is that the nickname would be much more suited for Erika herself, who has much brighter eyes than Janet.

Erika confronts Joe in the hotel elevator and warns him to stay away from Janet. “I got dibs,” she says. A very funny line, but wouldn’t Joe technically have dibs? He was there first.

I like the way that Erika moves around through scenes. She has a very physical presence, and is constantly shifting like a caged animal. She’s a great character, much more interesting than Tori.

Bill announces that he’s fed up being a “monkey boy,” and decides to take more aggressive action to assert control over his situation. As if he weren’t already aggressive enough. His plan for this is to take a sledgehammer to his hotel room and then just smash everything in sight wherever he goes in town. He acts like he’s really lost it. This seems like a good way to get himself “eliminated” from whatever this competition is. (If indeed it is a competition.)

Also fueling his apparent death wish, Bill puts on a big show of harrassing Erika until she stabs him in the hand with a fork. You go, girl!

Joe has been waiting for repercussions for his actions breaking protocol to rescue Janet last week. He decides to come clean and tell her everything, but just then doubles over with a serious attack of stomach pain. It’s clear that he’s been poisoned. He tries to go downstairs to the secret control room, but Tom won’t let him in. Everyone is super suspicious of Joe at this point.

That night, Tom breaks protocol to visit Joe in his room. He tells him that, “I can’t pollute the program by interfering.” He talks about dedicating his life to his belief in this program (whatever it may be) and needing to do what’s best for the greater good, yadda yadda.

As Joe gets sicker and sicker, Janet decides to stick with him, which drives a wedge in her relationship with Erika. She still wants to trust him.

Moira concocts two possible antidotes for the poisoning. Depending on which type of poison it is, if she picks the wrong one, it might kill him. Finally, Erika announces that she recognizes his symptoms as something she’s seen in prison when inmates tried to make moonshine out of antifreeze. Real alcohol should neutralize the toxic effect. She pours a big glass of vodka, but before she’ll give him any, she demands that he tell the truth about whether he’s working with the people behind the scenes. He admits it, takes a big drink, and passes out.

Joe wakes up the next morning with Janet still sitting next to him. She wants to know if he really meant what he said. He confirms that he did. She storms out of the room pissed.

Umm, hello? I’d have about a thousand questions I’d need him to answer at this point. Yet she just walks away? I guess she knows that they’ll have all of next week to pry some answers out of him.

In the final moments, Tom spies on Erika and finds her dumping a bottle of antifreeze down her room’s sink. She was behind the poisoning all along. Tom looks as shocked to discover this as anyone. Then she looks up into the camera in her room and gives it an evil, knowing glare that penetrates right through Tom. She wants whoever is watching to know exactly what she did.

Crackpot theory of the week: I have a feeling that Joe isn’t the only mole in the group. I’m pretty sure that Moira is as well. And despite all his bluster and the show he puts on about acting irrationally, probably Bill too. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that everyone there except Janet was recruited to be part of this program and to play a role. However, I think they’re all working independently, and nobody knows about anybody else. This strikes me as a big psychological experiment, similar to those performed by the DHARMA Initiative on ‘Lost’. Am I close, or just full of hot air? We shall see…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *