After the thrill ride of the previous four episodes, I found ‘Brother’s Keeper’ to be an anti-climactic, almost waste of an episode that, for the most part, didn’t really go very far. A lot of it took what we discovered in ‘Things Fall Apart’, and took it back to how things were in ‘Sitting Ducks’.
Stephen’s resignation from Ultra lasted all of a few days in the show’s timeline. Jedikiah’s suggestion that he (and his family and friends) will be safer with him at Ultra than on the run is almost laughable. Isn’t this the same man that sent a kill squad after Astrid? And, to make it worse, The Founder promised that Astrid was free to return to her former life, and sent a kill squad after her – and Stephen’s mother! How can Stephen trust either of these people when looking at the last few days?
When you also take into account that they killed tried to kill Stephen’s father (who has since told him in Limbo than The Founder is dangerous), how can it be possible for Stephen to be safer when he’s working for Ultra? Has he learned nothing from the last few months? It really irritates me that Stephen has gone back to work for Ultra.
As for Marla, I completely agree with Stephen’s frustrations. While I appreciate her reasons for keeping everything a secret, how can she possibly justify drugging her own son for a whole year? She doesn’t exactly have the right to take any control over him, especially considering he’s been protecting the family since the show began. Again, I don’t really see the point of Marla changing her mind from “We need to pack” to “we can stay” other than to fill story for an episode.
John just about managed to prevent the episode from sinking even further into the murky water. Cara’s request for him to come back was one of those moments where I felt like banging my head on a table. They’ve had one moment since she found out about what he did to Roger, and that is it. She kicked him out of the lair, and yet somehow this correlates to her still loving him? Seriously, are we meant to believe this? I was so glad that John turned her down. The two don’t exactly go well together anyway, but it would have really ticked me off had they had no progression on the John/Cara story from the previous episode.
From what I gauge on social media, I appear to be the only person whose jaw wasn’t on the ground when it was revealed that Jedikiah is keeping Roger on ice. This had been something I’d been expecting for a while, so to see it confirmed wasn’t all that shocking. What will be interesting is learning why he has his body – whether it be to experiment on him, use Stephen to bring him back (which could be his ultimate purpose that The Founder referred to in ‘Death’s Door’) or just so no one else can have him.
The breakout story was a little dull, and just felt placed in the episode for the ending. It didn’t really interest me beyond the surprise that they were twins. But even that wasn’t that much of a surprise, especially considering that he wasn’t in Ultra’s files, so he couldn’t be part of the Anex project as then he would be. But it was good of Cara to let him go, and give him the money as a sort of apology almost for his brother dying.
Odds and ends:
- Is it just me, or has Cara become REALLY annoying since she took over as leader? Alongside her delusions “John wanted to leave.” Seriously John, what do you see in her?
- Lol at Russell thinking Hilary was hot. And “a day after Tomorrow person.”
- Those flashbacks to Roger returning after four years and being warned by Jedikiah were interesting. He obviously came back for one last goodbye as he knew his time was up.
- Hilary didn’t actually make contact the second time she punched Nathan (the non-powered brother).
This really wasn’t one of the most memorable episodes for me. This kind of backwards story development is one main thing that really annoys me about TV shows. The point of development is to develop something, not create an idea then go back on it. Please The Tomorrow People, sort it out.
Here’s tonight’s promo. Hopefully 'Enemy of My Enemy' will be better than 'Brother's Keeper'.
