If you have not seen this episode yet and do not wish to be spoiled, do not continue reading!
Recap:
In the Red Band World
Britten is out running and soaking in the hot and hectic life of L.A. At home, he gets a call from Hannah, who is off in Oregon visiting a college she’s thinking of attending. The next day, Britten calls Hannah to ask where his phone charger is but gets his voicemail. Searching the house, he finds the charger in the nightstand, along with an estimate from a moving company to move their things from L.A. to Oregon.
Angered, Britten speaks with Dr. Lee, who asks if Hannah has been telling him what she wants and he’s been selective in his hearing. Lee asks Britten to put himself in Hannah’s shoes and describe their situation as she would see it. During the exercise, as Britten admits that Hannah wants things to be good again, Lee wonders if Britten fears that Hannah would want to leave him more than leave their life in L.A.
At work, Vega brings Britten a lead on a home invasion case. They go to investigate it and find a boarded up coffee shop with a unique exclamation point logo on it. Vega says it was supposed to be a pawn shop and Britten asks where he got the info. Vega admits it was from a C.I. who came up and asked him for $100 for the info. Britten tells him he’s been taken and should consider it a “rookie tax”.
Hannah returns home and they talk about the moving estimate. She says that she does want to go to Oregon and felt bad for wanting it so she didn’t mention the estimate. She assures Britten that she does want him in her life and that he reminds her of Rex and would never want to give that up.
Meeting with Dr. Lee again, Britten says that he would move to Oregon with his wife. Dr. Lee postulates that he needs both worlds to be in the same place to maintain and that it could have a negative effect by drastically altering one that would provide no context for the other.
In the Green Band World
Britten and Rex put up with the world-famous Los Angeles traffic. At the station, Bird comes in to say that don’t have anything that will help them with any current cases and asks if Britten wants to go to lunch. Britten says he’s going to go up to a park and doing some running. There, he comes upon a barking dog that backs into some bushes. Following the dog, he finds a body with some distinctive symbols carved into it.
Britten and Bird present the case to Captain Harper, telling her that it has all the makings of a victim of the Gemini killer who has struck in a number of other states. An aspect of the case is that when one person is killed another will be killed within 48 hours. Harper calls in the feds to help and Britten is introduced to the FBI’s expert on the Gemini murders, Special Agent Elizabeth Santoro.
Santoro has been in Portland working on a book recounting her 12 years on the Gemini case that resulted in her figuring out who the killer was and a confrontation where she ended up killing the suspect. She suspects this case is a copycat because some aspects of the case not known publicly are missing, particularly that no $2.00 bill was found at the scene. Dropping Santoro off at her hotel, Britten grabs Bird to go look for the dog at the park. They find it, sedate it, and take it to the Medical Examiner, who finds that the dog had eaten the $2 bill.
Santoro insists that it’s a well-informed copycat and that she got the right man. She suspects that it could be a disgruntled or disturb law enforcement officer and asks to pull files. Meanwhile, Britten and Bird realize the killer would need a base of operations and assume that he would use a motel near a park. They split up and Britten checks out a place called the Mudflap Inn, but turns up nothing. Across the street, he sees the storage unit of the moving company Hannah got her estimate from in the RBW.
Taking it as a sign, Britten inspects the building and stumbles upon the Gemini killer’s base. There, he finds a napkin with the same exclamation point logo he saw at the coffee shop he and Vega went to in the RBW. The killer appears and Britten chases the guy to the roof but he disappears. As Santoro, Harper, and other cops investigate the scene, they question why Britten would check the place out. He feeds them a soft story and convinces Harper to let he and Bird go do their job. After he’s left, Santoro and Harper talk about Britten’s file being among the ones she pulled and Santoro admits that she thinks Britten could be a suspect. Gemini, hiding in a vent duct, listens in on their conversation.
Britten takes an hour to go investigate the location of the coffee shop to confirm the symbol. He returns to the station to find everyone waiting for him. They’ve received a phone call from Gemini and play it once Britten arrives. In the call, Gemini mentions the book Santoro is working on, a detail she says Britten is the only one in L.A. to know about. They traced the call and it came from Britten’s home phone. Santoro announces her suspicions and Harper questions Britten about his odd hunches. When he can’t offer a solid answer, she demands his gun and orders him to stay at the station while he gives permission for them to search his car and his house for clues.
Bird drops in on Britten in holding while he writes a statement. He talks to his friend and partner about putting up with his hunches and how he’s got to tell him what’s going on. Britten evades again and Bird hands him evidence photos from the moving storage place before turning them over to the evidence room, tells him to work his magic. Britten points out a picture of the napkin with the exclamation point logo and has Bird run a search on it. They find out there are six locations of the small coffee chain and find which ones are near parks. Britten remains something about Santoro’s first day and looks at pictures of the first body crime scene. In one, Santoro has a cup from the coffee place and they realize one of the shops is in the hotel she is staying in.
Santoro is drugged and kidnapped by Gemini and taken to a park. Though the park is locked down, he flashes Santoro’s FBI badge and the cops let him in. Britten and Bird arrive and asked if anyone has come through. They mention the agent and take off into the park to look for him. They find a car parked and take off into the woods. Britten and Bird come upon Gemini as he begins to carve into Santoro. He shoots at them and takes off running. Bird gives chase while Britten carries Santoro out of the park.
Bird emerges from the woods but Gemini got away. Britten accompanies Santoro to the hospital, where she’s united with her young daughter. Later, Britten meets with Dr. Evans to talk about the possibility of moving in the RBW. He says he’d stay in L.A. with Rex in this reality. Evans thinks this is a good turn of events as the separation will cause him to realize this is the true reality and allow him to let the other one go. Britten bristles and says that he is what makes both realities work.
In traffic again, Britten receives a call from Gemini. He says that he’s broken into Dr. Evans’ office and knows all about Britten’s condition. Seeing some kind of commonality between the two of them, he tells Britten he hopes he never wakes up.
Review: Taking the last couple of weeks off from reviewing Awake so I could see how I enjoy the show without so critical an eye – though I did still find myself taking some notes – I came to a conclusion about something that is bugging me with the show: its format. The concept of the show is fascinating and the writing, though hobbled, is generally good. The acting and the production are also first rate, but the format really seems to be detracting from the show reaching its full potential. Come to find I’m not alone in this assessment as a recent commentary on io9 really expressed my concerns well. I won’t retread what they’re saying except to summarize that the show’s rigid structure of relying on two cases each week that offer clues to the opposite case actually shortchanges the effectiveness of the show.
The episode two weeks ago where Rex is kidnapped in the Green Band World (GBW) was paced well enough and threw in a wonderful twist with Cooper, the main “antagonist,” for lack of a better term, dying at the end of the second act. This forced Britten’s ingenuity and offered a fair argument for having the cases in each world as involved as they are. Last week, though, both cases involving Rex’s old babysitter weren’t compelling and seemed to be half-written as they decided to focus both storylines on trying to teach Britten a lesson about not giving up on troubled Rex. (Dylan Minnette did outstanding work with Rex’s storyline.)
It’s clear each episode is supposed to offer Britten insight for his personal life, but the strong focus on the procedural aspect requires that the cases be well-fleshed to retain our interest as an audience. For me, I’ve felt that if they could find a way to focus on just one case or not feel limited to resolving everything in a single episode, the show would actually be stronger. As if responding instantly, the show throws a curveball with its format this week and once again feels fresh and thrilling. The choice to have only a single case, while still offering clues to that case in the other world, not only gives us a better connection to what’s going on but feels a much more organic way to address the two-world concept.
Above and beyond that, we’re introduced to some intriguing elements that could provide long-lasting threads throughout the season if not the series. After establishing a big checkpoint for mythology for the show a few episodes back by revealing Captain Harper (Laura Innes) wrapped up in some sort of conspiracy responsible for Britten’s accident, they’d all but abandoned anything beyond the emotional journey of Britten trying to put his now two lives together. While it’s welcome and commendable for the show to shine such a focus on the emotional landscape of its premise, there hasn’t really been much else to hold on to the show to keep coming back week after week. Now with Britten on the FBI’s radar, Gemini fully aware of Britten’s condition, and the possibilities that entirely shaking up one of his lives present, the show changes the game.
At some point, Britten really is going to have to either come clean about his unique advantage in the course of his duties as an officer of the law or he’s going to have to take time to come up with something more definitive and deflective of excuses for his “hunches”. Both Bird and Vega have called him out on this, and while both have given him a lot of leeway, they are both near breaking points already. Hats off to the show for addressing this so explicitly and so early on. Harper has her own issues with Britten’s seeming clairvoyance and it was engaging to see her have to face it head-on. Despite whatever she’s embroiled in and trying to keep him contained, there appears to be some care for him as a subordinate, and the scene with asking for his gun was quite effective.
Elizabeth Santoro (Megan Dodds) makes for an interesting foil, and though the concept of the lead character being a suspect in the very case he’s investigating isn’t thoroughly original, it was a joy to see someone outside of Britten’s normal sphere of operation work to piece together his methods. It was an intelligent choice to bring in an outsider with no attachment to the detective to shed a somewhat objective light on the proceedings and cut right to the questions that others like Bird, Harper, and Vega were allowing to go unanswered. Britten still managed to be elusive and, with the real Gemini killer revealed and kidnapping Santoro, he was able to skate through again. That final shot of Santoro in the hospital after Britten rescued her was a wonderful piece of work by Dodds, simultaneously expressing her joy for still being there for her daughter; disappointment that she did, in fact, finger and kill the wrong man for the Gemini murders; gratitude for Britten saving her life; and a brainful of questions on Britten’s seeming special abilities. She could conceivably never be seen on the series again, but with Britten on her map, it would be a lost opportunity not to see more of her.
Then, there’s Gemini. It’s a bit of a mixed bag when you establish a personal relationship between a cop and a serial killer on a series. In ways, it’s nice to have a nemesis, a Moriarty to return to now and then to really present a challenge to the hero. Conversely, you run the risk that the adversarial relationship overwhelms anything else going on in the series and that can become stale quickly. In this case, they don’t really establish that Gemini is exceptionally intelligent, but then again, they don’t play Britten like he’s a supercop. He’s a regular lug who has learned how to do his job well, and in that regard, Gemini actually seems somewhat fitting of an adversary. It’s also interesting to have the killer break into Evans’ office and learn all about Britten’s condition, setting up that traditional cat-and-mouse relationship and adding another wildcard to the cover Britten is trying to maintain.
With those threads now established, Awake goes one better and introduces a rather rogue concept to its premise: what if Britten completely changed everything about one of his worlds, would it destroy that world? Both worlds? Do nothing? It seems unlikely that the show would pursue this to its fullest, as it would appear to utterly handicap the cheat to share clues between the two worlds. Yet, they establish a slight model of that idea by not having a case in the Red Band World (RBW) for Britten to work. Instead, he’s trying to piece together Hannah’s frame of mind as she’s gone off to Oregon to look at one of the colleges she’s thinking of attending. He still manages to find clues that help him with the Gemini case in the GBW, just in other contexts. This could conceivably work if they were to move the Brittens to Oregon in the RBW and it adds some fun questions to which reality – if either – is the “real” one.
All in all, “Oregon” proves to be a pivotal episode for the young series as it continues to find identity and purpose. It’s impressive that they aren’t resting on their laurels and driving home the “established” formula as procedurals are wont to do. I have no illusions that they won’t fall right back into the two-case formula as the show progresses, but hopefully, they’re able to use this episode as an example of ways in which they can tweak and push their format and have the courage to step out more often.
