Helix - Episode 1.04 - Single Strand - Review & Discussion

Helix was back for its fourth hour on Friday with additional clues about Julia, the reveal that Sarah has a tumor, and a couple of cases of murder. The show continued to excel in areas it has done well so far, such as creating the mood of isolation, paranoia, hallucination, and fear. Visually, it created a nice contrast between the beat-up storage areas in Level R and the lush offices of Hataki, with paroramic views of the arctic. The story has also continued to unfold in a comfortable pace, with questions following answers, and twists to the story around every corner.

But the show’s weaknesses have also become apparent in its first four hours. Among those are gaps in logic in characters’ choices, too much focus on the romantic triangle (quad?), cliqued character writing, and forced dialogue – such as Julia’s long exposition over the body of Peter in the previous episode, and Alan’s reminiscing over of his and Peter’s childhood at Peter’s bedside.

Personally, I’m still loving the show. It’s delivering what it promised, which is a twisty mystery in a isolated locale with long endless corridors and secret passageways. Despite occasional weak moments, I’m still riveted to see where this goes and discover who will survive in the end.

Tension Rises

This week we saw the tension grow as the infected quarantined group realized they were condemned. They reacted with mutiny in shutting down the oxygen supply to base. This lasted until Hataki, accompanied by Daniel, used a secret passage to visit and reassure them. Hataki promised them they could trust him, only to kill them after they’d restored the oxygen. The betrayal added a twist, but plotwise, I couldn’t see its rationale. The inevitable discovery of the dead bodies would fuel the revolt, not quell it, and the three mutineers had agreed to restart the oxygen scrubbers – at least for now. Who was to stop someone else from turning them back off again?

The bigger, more gruesome murder, however, was Doreen’s. After making a breakthrough in her research, she made the fatal mistake of trusting Balleseros, who injected her with something and fed her to the rats. RIP Doreen. As one of the more down to earth characters, I’m sure Doreen had her fans, but I found a lot of dialogue and snark forced – and she had unforgivable lapses of judgment, such as coaxing out the infected monkey wearing next to nothing in the way of protective gear. Before departing though, Doreen slipped in one really good line to Balleseros: “I haven’t had nearly enough sleep, coffee, or cigarettes to deal with any more of this Fox Mulder crap.”

This murder seemed more plausible plotwise. While it’s still unclear who Balleseros is working for (he told Doreen he was working for the Pentagon), and what his end game is, it’s starting to become clear that he’s working against Hataki, and that he doesn’t want leaks of what’s going on at the base to get to out. Doreen was ready to bring her findings about the virus to Alan.

Had I not listened in on an interview with Executive Producer Steve Maeda a few weeks ago, and heard Maeda talk about their plans to introduce other characters for short appearances, I would be worried about the shrinking central cast. This is, afterall, an isolated outpost, and I doubt we’ll see much if any from the rest of the world through the remaining nine episodes of this season. And frankly, most of the central cast are only marginally interesting.  But I got the impression that we’ll continue to meet more colorful people on the base for shorter or longer stints as the season progresses.

The Disease & Julia

We learned from Doreen’s research that there’s an unidentified protein that binds itself to specific cells to deliver a message. The protein is man-made, and it moves DNA around for its mysterious purpose of turning people into something else. We also saw that whatever type of creature this infection turns people into, they apparently report to Hataki – our mysterious scientist with the glowing blue eyes.

This leads to the question what Hataki’s interest in Julia is, and whether he wanted Julia to get infected when Peter attacked her. An early theory of mine was that Peter thought Hataki had a cure and wanted to keep Julia safe, so he infected Julia to force Hataki to unveal the cure. I’m now wondering if Peter’s attack on Julia was forced by Hataki. In a cognisant moment, Peter unveils to Alan that he wasn’t working on research of any importance – that Hataki appeared to only bring him there to learn more about Julia. And we also learned that Julia believes she had been at the outpost as a child but doesn’t remember it. I’m still thinking this all ties back to her parents. Hataki had asked her about them in the Pilot. We had learned that her mother was a cellular biologist who died when Julia was a child, and she doesn’t answer the question about her father.

Is Hataki’s interest in Julia research based? Is she, for some biological reason that go back to her childhood, the key to success in his objective – which is still unclear? Or is his interest in her personal?

Julia’s New Friend

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Julia’s new companion, Jaye. My first thought was that Jaye was a hallucination. We know the infected start to hallucinate, and there were a tripping feel to the way the figure first revealed herself – all masked – and then disappeared once Julia rounded the corner. But I’m also wondering whether she is real and part of another group that we have yet to see.

Peter and the Cure

What are your thoughts about this “cure”? For a doctor who had presumably spent a lot of time on it, Dr. Duchamp seemed very reluctant to let Alan use it on Peter. You would think that he would welcome the chance to try it on a human – especially one who was dying anyway. Do you think it’s purpose is really a cure, or something that progresses the illness?

Sarah’s Tumor

The big mystery behind the shaking hands was revealed by an infected oncologist to be that Sarah has a tumor. The scenes between those opened up a host of character-writing issues, such as why Sarah is letting someone who believes she is infected rest in her bed; why she didn’t immediately get security backup; and why she’s letting the woman blackmail her even though it’s clear that the woman is infected and is a danger to not only the population at large, but to Sarah herself. Yes, she’s worried about her career if her deception comes out, but she’s already there at the outpost. Isn’t the risk of being endangered by the woman more of a threat?

Speculate away in the comments, and let me know what you think about the series so far.