This week, we didn’t see any of Hero and the Amazons, but the Yorick and D.C. story lines provided more than enough to make this one of the more interesting and consequential episodes so far.
There was not a lot of action, or particularly memorable scenes, but what did happen will have severe ramifications for many of the plot lines we’re following.
On the road again
At the start of the episode, Yorick, Agent 355, and Dr. Allison Mann have made their way to Ohio on their cross-country trek to San Francisco.
Yorick is feeling guilty about betraying 355 by trying to leave her in the last episode, and is looking for ways to smooth things over. 355 sees through his attempts, but is all business. She’s not overtly angry, but things are definitely still tense within the group.
They scavenge fuel and a camper and head out. Yorick and Allison are riding in the back where he has her tie him up so that he can show her an escape.
Up front, 355 falls asleep at the wheel, possibly because her sleep walking is not allowing her to rest well enough. She crashes the camper into a tree, knocking all three unconscious.
Allison is the first to wake up and flags down a group of women for help, but when they see Yorick with his hands tied, they capture her at gunpoint.
Yorick wakes up naked with a strange woman next to him in bed. Creeping through the house he finds a group of women who welcome him and give him breakfast. When he asks about his friends, they’re surprised because they thought that Mann and 355 were holding him captive.
We then get another 355 flashback that helps to fill in more of her backstory. She is at the scene of a car accident, very similar to the one she was actually just in. A man and woman are dead in the wreckage.
355 awakens in a prison cell, dizzy and disoriented from a head injury. Allison explains how they got there, and that Yorick was taken away.
355 deduces that they’re in a women’s prison, and that the group of women are the former convicts. She starts to improvise weapons and plan their escape, but is still suffering from her injury.
Allison asks if she has anyone back home that knows her real name, family. 355 tells her that they’re dead, killed in a car accident when she was 12. So it’s looking more and more likely that the way Agent 525 described how the Culper Ring grooms and recruits agents does apply to 355 as well.
Yorick is brought into the cell and explains that the women are deciding what to do with them, but that he doesn’t think they’ll kill them. Allison and 355 aren’t as sure.
Yorick asks 355 if she’s OK, well enough to fight? She says she’s fine, but Yorick doesn’t believe her, and tells her to prove it. She quickly dispatches him but the effort is too much and she almost passes out.
Sonia enters the cell and tells them it has been decided that they can stay until 355 has recovered, or they can leave now. Yorick says that they’ll stay.
Later, a party of sorts is going on, an outdoor barbecue with women playing music. Sonia tells Yorick about Janis being in the prison because of a string of murders she was involved in when she was much younger. She also says that the vote to allow them to stay was close and not a sure thing. Yorick says he will do his best to stay out of the way.
We see some of the discontent regarding Yorick’s group when Dom tells Janis that they should have let them bleed out on the road. She is worried that they’re being chased and that when their pursuers arrive, they’ll have many questions about why the convicts are not still in prison and what happened to the guards and the others living nearby.
Earlier, we were told that decisions are made as a group, but it’s clear that Janis still wields some power and she asserts her dominance, but Dom does not entirely back down. She tells Janis that Sonia better not get attached to Yorick, or it could get them all killed.
The cat’s out of the bag
The Yorick plot was mostly filler tonight, setting up new conflicts, but the events in D.C. will likely have greater repercussions for the rest of the season.
We start with a briefing for President Brown by the three soldiers who had pursued Yorick and his group to Boston. After questioning soldiers at the Harvard camp, they learned that Agent 355, who they refer to as Burgin, was looking for Dr. Allison Mann, a geneticist.
They say they did not get eyes on Mann, but one of the soldiers did see that the third member of the group was a man. President Brown tries to deflect the reasoning, but they put two and two together and deduce that man was likely an actual male survivor, otherwise why would Burgin be looking for a geneticist?
Knowing the rumors about a man already from Kimberly, Regina Oliver is quick to pounce on the theory as it explains many things.
The President keeps trying to poke holes in the theory, pointing out that she was tranquilized, but the soldier gives a good description of Yorick, and then goes even further by saying that he had a monkey on his shoulder.
Brown breaks up the meeting, and tells Christine to have the soldiers reassigned immediately.
Later President Brown is outside the Pentagon, giving a speech to the assembled women advising them of safe sites set up nearby with hot food, showers and medical attention. She spies a woman who she thinks she recognizes, and it turns out to be Beth DeVille, Yorick’s Beth.
Beth is invited into the Pentagon and in one of those moments that makes you want to shout at the characters through the screen, President Brown does not reveal that Yorick is alive. Even after Beth says that the main reason she came to see her was to be with someone else who loved him, Brown still does not reveal the secret.
Next, Regina Oliver is filling Kimberly in on what the soldiers reported, while Kimberly’s mother, Marla, the former First Lady, sits nearby. Kimberly fires off questions, believing that what happened is important, but Oliver doesn’t lend as much credence to their stories.
Marla is barely listening until Oliver gives the description of the man they saw, “Six feet tall with a monkey on his shoulder.”
Astute viewers will recall that Marla saw Yorick and Ampersand after hearing a noise while she slept back in episode three. At the time, Kimberly believed she had seen someone, but had discounted the fact that she had also seen a monkey.
Now, with this corroborating detail, Kimberly and Oliver are sure that it was in fact President Brown’s own son who was at the Pentagon, and is now on the lam with Agent Burgin.
This is also where we start to see a change in the power dynamic between Kimberly and Oliver. I had assumed that Kimberly would always be second fiddle to Oliver’s stronger character as she tried to take over the presidency.
But now we’re seeing Kimberly assert herself over Oliver, thinking much bigger than simply getting a member of their party into the Oval Office, or whatever passes for it now days. This is no longer just about politics.
Kimberly tells Oliver that the only thing that matters now is Yorick Brown. He must be brought back to D.C. where he can be used to bring back men.
“God chose him!” Kimberly says. “It is not up to us to question that.”
“And then all this pain and suffering will finally be over. And we’ll be a nation of mother’s again.”
All of this is playing not only into Kimberly’s political and religious fervor, but to her almost fanatical desire to be a mother again. We’re only a few months removed from when she lost her three children to horrible deaths, so that particular motivation will likely be the strongest of them all.
President Brown is called to the War Room, where’s she’s told that a new strain of influenza is spreading in Europe. “Nobody’s flying,” she says, “We probably won’t get hit with it.” Hah, somehow I don’t think they’re as safe as they think they are.
Christine is speaking with Beth, who is asking about conditions at the Pentagon. Christine explains that the Secret Service is at one-quarter capacity, and that they had to barricade the subway entrances. “Could someone get in?” Beth asks. We find out why that idle conversation is so important later.
Just then, Marla Campbell, who had been listening to Kimberly and Oliver, walks into the War Room in her nightgown and starts ranting at President Brown about how “You made me think I was crazy.”
She’s referring to Brown discounting her story about seeing a man in the Pentagon, but the rest of the women don’t pick up on that fact.
Back in her room, Kimberly confronts her about her behavior. “I have to get out of here,” Marla says. “You have to control yourself,” Kimberly replies.
Marla says they should go home to Lynchburg. Kimberly tells her that the town is gone, flooded after a nearby dam burst. Kimberly tries to impress on her that there’s hope now, with the prospect of Yorick returning, but Marla just wants to go home. Kimberly prays for Yorick’s safety, while Marla sits stoic.
President Brown tries to get Beth to stay with them at the Pentagon, but Beth begs off, saying she has friends nearby. Brown tries to give Beth her jacket, but Beth protests that she can’t wear that jacket out in public because of the United States Government patch on it.
They say their goodbyes and Beth leaves.
And then, in what is surely going to push Kimberly’s plans and ambitions to new heights, Marla, her mother, finally gets dressed and leaves her room. While Kimberly is looking at Yorick’s photo on the wall of fallen men, Marla goes up to the roof, and throws herself off.
That would have been a jarring enough event to end most episodes, but not tonight. In the final scene, Beth walks out of the Pentagon, and into a waiting van. “So, you saw her? They let you in?” she’s asked.
She explains that they have warm water, food, power. “It’s like a time machine,” she tells them. “But it could all fall apart, and it wouldn’t take much.”
“Let’s go!” is the reply. “Everyone’s waiting.”
Quick Thoughts
The Yorick parts were mostly filler tonight. We did find out more about 355’s past, and it was good to see her needing Yorick’s help for a change. But we’re still not back to the true friendship between her and Yorick that I would prefer to see.
If Kimberly was tenacious before, she is going to be ferocious from this point forward. She will surely blame President Brown, for the death of her mother, not to mention already hating her for politics and the fact that Yorick is alive.
Where I had thought that Oliver would be the main antagonist of the season, it’s now clear that Kimberly will fill that role.
And now we have Beth spying for some unknown group who appears to be planning a physical assault on the Pentagon. All of which could have been sidestepped if only Jennifer had confided in her about Yorick.
I’m sure she was thinking of “national security” but Yorick will certainly not understand how his mother could have let the love of his life just walk out like that, knowing that his main goal is to find her.
I’m really looking forward to the final three episodes, and hoping that they wrap up at least some of those stories without leaving us hanging for all of them over the long break until next season.
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