HUZZAH! New Episode!

Spoilers

Well, let’s take it down.

Things are spiraling.

The entire series has been setting up the board. Faction after faction have been maneuvering things. Now that Targonanne’s faction has a name and we can figure out his motives, a good chunk of the first half of the season makes sense. But as is the case with this series, answering a question raises two more. And still the pieces on the board keep moving. Amazingly, all the teams have splintered, more or less at the same time into different plans and goals, and worse, different means.

You gotta love Zana for setting the record straight and not gritting her teeth and playing along with the crowd. Zana’s collapse and the end of the episode… I have no idea what to make of that, so I’m gonna shut up for a while till we learn more.

Jareth’s whole world makes sense again. Internal Affairs. What a great place for Jareth. He can have his cake and eat it too. University is still wise in all things, and when they do happen to have bad people, he can take them out.

The tayoden. Golly, I wonder what message you’re trying to send there.

The Mike/Katherine thing works. It fits, it makes sense, but it’s supremely bad timing. For crying out loud he kept Arkahn at arms length for over a year, plus the entire second season because he was hung up on Shauna. Then suddenly on what, for all accounts, looks like the day before he gets to her, this happens. What ‘this’ is we won’t know until the next episode.

Nevertheless it rings true. Katherine always liked Mike, and for better or worse was the main voice saying “Mike’s right, maybe there is a reason why we’re here.” through the exposition scenes. The missing element was respect. For all his enthusiasm, he acted like a dummy for the first season. It all came crashing back to seriousness in Season 2. Katherine can respect that. Especially since she’s looked back on her own life and decided there’s not a whole lot to be proud of in herself.

But if Mike’s got any brain-cells that haven’t been swiftly shut down, he won’t do this now. Fetching though Katherine must look with red puffy eyes and snot covered face, this isn’t a moment to take advantage of. As I have said before, Mike’s a natural Galahad in training.

Now that I think about it, Mike and Katherine have more in common than most anyone at this point, and I’m not just talking about what planet they come from. They’re both… all mouth to hide behind, especially around each other, the fact that they can get real comfortable in the way they act, the way they feel about pleasing their parents, and then of course Shauna.

Mike’s was the driving voice behind the Shauna-hunt, and Katherine’s the only one as desperate to get there as he is.

I make that point because for the second season, most of the characters have been working to different agendas that just happened to be running parallel to each other until now. Less than a week after the girls get kidnapped tortured and blown up, and the gang has no problem slitting up to do whatever they like without checking in with each other. Don’t kid yourselves, they aren’t on the same team any more.

Must have more Second Shift! Two months again? I can wait that long. Really. I can.

You can read more of Matt's work at mattstephens.me