TV Review: Terra Nova Episode 1.09

Hey Tyrants!

Time for another Terra Nova review, this one of Episode 1.09. Secrets get revealed. Lies get uncovered. But will all that drama make the show more interesting? Let’s see!

Review:
We start the episode by finding out how Mira has been getting a lot of her intel on Terra Nova. You ready for it? A dragonfly harnessed with a recording chip of some kind being used as a makeshift carrier pigeon. Makes perfect sense…I think! So is there no spy?

Back to the main story. Boylan, as you remember, was arrested by Taylor last episode, for selling medical supplies to the Sixers. Taylor is holding him in a remote cell and asking who else is involved in spying on Terra Nova while using semi-advanced interrogation techniques (dehydration, excessive heat, drugs and loud noises). Boylan claims to know nothing. But Taylor thinks he’s lying.

The Shannons are prepping for the Harvest Festival, which celebrates when Commander Taylor led the First Pilgrimage to build Terra Nova. Zoe will be star as Taylor in a children’s play directed by Maddie. It’s a family affair! Josh, who’s still grounded, asks Jim about Boylan and where he’s been for the past few days.

When Jim asks Taylor, he actually gets the truth and is shown where Boylan is. Taylor is called away by Washington, leaving a delirious Boylan alone with Jim. Boylan, thinking Jim is Taylor spills something about the Pilgrim’s Tree and something hidden there. So Jim investigates and after finding the location of the tree, discovers a decomposed corpse buried at its base.

Meanwhile, a military caravan that Lt. Reynolds is part of gets ambushed by the Sixers. The Sixers precede to rob all of the contents, but don’t kill anyone.
 Also, that pesky dragonfly is buzzing around Maddie’s dress rehearsal for the children’s play and gets swatted down by a soldier. And Maddie discovers something off about the bug, and I don’t mean just the enormous size of it.

Taylor and Malcolm look into the dragonfly issue and find out that its being used to spy on Terra Nova, right as Reynolds and his men return with news that the Sixers robbed them. And since Boylan was imprisoned during this there is no way that he is the spy. So Taylor releases him.

So Jim secretly sneaks said corpse back into the Terra Nova lab where his wife Elisabeth examines the body. She reveals that the person’s identity is not on record and that their right arm was missing below the elbow. Plus, there is some type of time displacement marker for anyone who has stepped through a portal for one of the Pilgrimages. This person has a marker, but its not associated with any official Pilgrimage. In her investigations, Elisabeth determines that the person died between the Second and Third Pilgrimage.

Detective Jim goes back to Boylan, who is cleaning up his bar after Taylor raided it. After some cajoling, Boylan reveals that he used to be part of Terra Nova’s armed forces years ago and that he helped Taylor covered up the murder of whoever the corpse was. But in exchange for that silence, Boylan got ownership of his bar.

One small hitch, Malcolm discovers Elisabeth’s secret CSI: Terra Nova investigation and tattles on her to Taylor when she doesn’t tell him anything. So the Shannons have to lie their asses off when Taylor asks more questions about how they came upon the corpse. But both Jim and Elisabeth figure that Taylor is on to their game.

Malcolm then discovers that the dragonfly was being directed by someone using subsonic resonances. Not only that, he has healed the dragonfly’s wings so they can now release it to find out where the subsonic signal is coming from.
And during the children’s play, they see that Taylor had a commanding officer who ordered him to go through the portal, Col. Philbrick. And guess what? He’s missing part of his right arm. Elisabeth and Jim put one and one together and head back to the lab.

Unfortunately, they get intercepted by Taylor and a few of his men. Taylor had found the signal tracker at the Shannons’ house and thinks Jim is the spy.

During an interrogation, Taylor pretty much knows Jim is not the spy, but offers to forget about the accusation if he drops his murder investigation of Philbrick. Jim refuses and wants to know why Taylor killed his commanding officers. And here’s where we get a huge backstory overload.

Basically, Taylor found out that there was a mysterious organization that had different ideas for Terra Nova and wanted to strip-mine it of its resources the same way that they did in 2149. These are apparently the same people who sent the Sixers on the Sixth Pilgrimage. Taylor fought them tooth and nail, which is why this organization wanted him gone. And they had somehow gotten to his son Lucas, who was working on a two-way travel route way between 85 Million B.C and 2149 without that pesky alternate timeline issue. But Taylor found him out and destroyed his son’s work, earning Lucas’s eternal hatred.

Two days later, Lucas fled Terra Nova and Taylor followed him. He then saw his old commanding officer appear through a smaller unsanctioned portal. Apparently he was in league with this mysterious organization and came to relieve Taylor of his command over Terra Nova. When Taylor refused, Philbrick tried to shoot him, but Taylor fired first. How Star Wars of them.

Taylor banished his son from Terra Nova forever instead of killing him and then disposed of Philbrick’s body with Boylan. And since then, Lucas has been leaving drawings of his work on rocks all over the place to irk dear old daddy.

With all this said, Jim is convinced and reaffirms his loyalty to both Taylor and to the sanctity of Terra Nova. So Taylor lets Jim go and everyone returns to celebrate the Harvest Festival, which has fireworks.
Meanwhile, far away from Terra Nova, Lucas watches the fireworks balefully from his makeshift campsite.


Thoughts:
This was actually a much better episodes than any before. The side stories were kept at a minimum, with the main focus being on the A-plot of establishing the bigger threat behind the Sixers along with the enmity between Taylor and his son. Also, the slight deification of Taylor as this larger than life folk hero was an interesting touch.

But it does now seem that Taylor’s only agenda is the preservation of Terra Nova’s mission, nothing more. On a smaller note, no follow up on Curran from last week and whether he successfully infiltrated the Sixers.

However, we are no closer to finding out whom the Terra Nova spy is. All in all, this was one of their best episodes yet. Til next week!

CCE