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Believe - 1.09-1.12 Summary & Series Review

Jun 25, 2014

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After watching the final four episodes of what is now a series, it's even more of a shame that Believe was put in this unfair midseason time slot and was canceled. What transpired over the last quarter proved that this was a show that had so much more potential.


Episode 1.09 "Prodigy" picks up right after episode 1.08, in which Channing had been captured by Skouras after blocking Bo's electromagnetic signature by installing a chip in their computer system and where Skouras also happened to pick up another signature from a young woman named Danni, who seemed to be living in condemned conditions.

It's this episode through both the story with Channing and Danni that climatically gives the following three episodes a strong finish, as the last three episodes side-step a story of the week for a more serialized story line, where Winter and Roman are eventually forced to work together, but not before a showdown between the two men, which results in Channing being shot, Danni becoming ill like many of the other kinetic beings hanging out at Orchestra, and where Tate allows for Bo to call her own shots with little resistance, including going to Roman himself.


What was great about these last episodes was seeing a lot more complexity and similarities between Roman and Winter. With Roman it's no secret that he treads on the unethical all the time, but despite that the second season would have unleashed his second secret Project to viewers, it was nice to see that all of his power hungry pursuits only lead to the ruin of Orchestra itself. For Winter, whom I think despite only wanting what's best for Bo and trying his best to protect her over the years, has shown a more unethical side in his own beliefs from time to time, but not taking Channing to hospital straight away really proves just how far he's willing to go too.


I also enjoyed episode 1.10 "Collapse". It was nice to finally catch up with Agent Elizabeth Farrell again and for Bo to be compelled and fated to save her and her daughter Socha from a bomb left at the subway, although I always like that Bo constantly finds herself concerned about her abilities and the realization that people do get hurt around her, despite that most of the time it is not her fault. I felt from early on that Farrell and Tate may become love interests and even though this episode didn't accumulate to that possibility, it's easier to see given that Farrell does finally let Tate go after he saved her life from the chase with the bomber that she is at least struggling with morality and duty and I would suspect that in the future she would be more apt to help them and eventually get closer to them.


Danni was another a great choice to introduce in the last batch. For all of the other kinetic beings, Danni is a character that tends to stick out. Her lack of control of her emotions and tragic past just felt right being the lynch pin to force Bo to grow and have an opportunity for Bo to be with both her parents together and also reflect what happens when one is left without nurturing and left alone too long. And looking back at earlier episodes, do I think there were hints leading up to Danni and her fire-tornado all along! In episode 1.06 "Sinking" Bo drew a fire-breathing dragon as a metaphor for the boat explosion! In episode 1.07 "Bang & Bamg" Bo's extrapolations after getting sick and falling into a coma had her going through her memories that revealed the past in healing and saving Channing, but also her fears manifested into a chimney-smoke-moster!

By having the last few episodes be more serialized it also improved on other things some of the earlier episodes lacked, which was how to generate some suspense. Believe never needed to be a mystery show per say, but considering it does have a cat & mouse-like structure to it, it would have benefited from not explaining and going back over itself as often as it did and allow the audience to debate with themselves and share in the wonders of Bo. In addition the other characters outside of Bo and Tate started to finally feel more part of the universe, as the focus became more on Roman, Winter, Channing, and Zoe.


I also loved the ending. By having Nina appear to Bo and the mysterious butterfly, which I'm now starting to think was Nina all along, was seen by both Bo and Tate, who follow it to Orchestra where Nina tells Bo she has to be strong now and save Danni. Bo takes both her parent's hands and it gives her the strength to go inside Danni's firenado. Just by touching Danni, she's able to give Danni what she's been craving, --words of love and forgiveness beyond the grave from her brother. Orchestra burns down around Roman, but Danni is saved, Winter walks away, Channing is healing, and Bo and Tate begin to start to their lives by themselves together with the butterfly never far behind.



And for anyone who might be wondering how the season ends and if the series is worth their time, I will say that it ends in a good place and on a good note without any major cliffhangers, but a few loose ends that would have brought us into the second season --and for Johnny Sequoyah and Jake McLaughlin alone, it was worth the watch. Johnny Sequoyah is a young actress to be on the look out for! Believe was a charming heart-warming series about family, weaponization of people, problem children, saving and finding ourselves by helping others, and dealing with fate! On the down side it has some execution problems, some occasional far-fetched plots, and some plot holes, but made up for it with a decant cast and interesting concept.



So how about you? Did you like the end of the series? Do you wish it had a second season? Any favorite moments or theories out there? Let us know in the comments below!


Bad Robot Factor:
Each week after my review I will bring this section relating to many things Bad Robot in relationship to the episode, as I feel certain Bad Robot often makes a point to reference themselves with similar characters, subject matter, riffs, easter eggs, aesthetics, contrasting situations, & occasionally shared pop cultural references. So this section is to explore the possibility of those things, which may provide some and insight speculation and at the very least food for thought and/or trivia. I also think it's just fun to be able to reminisce!

Subject #...

The series has had a lot of things reminiscent to Fringe including that theses people with kinetic abilities, like Cortexiphan Subjects, tend to demonstrate things that are in some way problematic for them or the people they care about. Danni in particular was reminiscent to the telepath Simon Philips, seemed emotionally unstable like Nick Lane, and ends up having something comparable to stage four cancer like the cancer-giving James Heath!





Note: Simon Philips was featured in the episode "Concentrate and Ask Again" that revealed a government sponsored weapons program called Project Jellyfish. Olivia Dunham (as a child) and Cortexiphan subject Sally Clarke were also like Danni in being pyrokinetic! Fringe directly references Stephen King's Fire Starter, but I think Believe also alludes to it as well.

Hope Will Light The Way!

Subway tunnels and characters being burred/ trapped in a cave or underground ("The Moth", "Tuesday", "All the Time in the World")  are also familiar things to see, but "Collapse" in particular seemed to wink at Revolution episode, "Kashmir", which in itself winks to Alias episode, "The Passage Pt. 2".  Bo also demonstrates a new ability that allows for particles of light like little fireflies to help light the way out! Both Revolution and Believe have promos with the log line, "Hope Will Light The Way" and Revolution's mythology featured nanites, in which looked like little fireflys and in themselves may go back to a Fringe concept with the Observers about still being limited about knowing outcomes and not always seeing all the variables. A missing track off of Violet Sedan Chair's Seven Suns Album is titled Green Mana.



Additionally "Collapse" may also reference Fringe episode "Bad Dreams" too which starts out with Olivia seeing herself murder a mother in the subway station! Music, equations, and magic particles play to many of Bad Robot's works on metaphysics, fate, and course correcting concepts. In Believe there are a few times like in "Prodigy" where we see Bo deal with course correction herself by dealing with visions, premonitions, and/or extrapolations of herself and reality...

And lastly if FBI Agent Farrell were to become a love interest to Tate, it would be similar to FBI agent Olivia Dunham falling for Peter Biship when one considers despite being more technologically savy than Tate, Peter Bishop began the series as a bit of a criminal or con man.


About the Author - Darthlocke4
Laura Becker (Darthlocke 4) is a long time commentator, TV addict, and aspiring writer participating with other fans on SpoilerTV. She writes reviews and analytic type articles. Some of her other interests include philosophy, cultural anthropology, reading, drawing, and working with animals, as she grew up and continues to work on her family's horse farm.
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22 comments:

  1. Great review, always great to read your Bad Robot factors, will miss the show.

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  2. Yep, I'll miss it a lot. It was a good show but at least it had an ending I could live with.

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  3. Great review. I really liked the show, despite its faults (as you mentioned). The two leads actors (who played Bo and Tate) really drew me in from the start, and made it worth the watch. Hoping to see them both again in worthy projects. It's a shame that this was cancelled. It was different and yet still relatable.

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  4. I miss what this show could of become, had NBC gave it a change. Strange i became so attached? It is very different, from everything else i watch. My usual type of shows: The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Orphan Black, Continuum, Person of Interest, Penny Dreadful, Rectify, True Detective, ect. are all fairly dreary. Maybe it was nostalgia, for the days when things were more black and white, with less gray areas. But whatever it was, this show was special. Instead of leaving an episode, shocked or dismayed; i left feeling good about it. I guess Bo had that affect on everybody. ;)

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  5. I thought it was going to be 13 episodes.

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  6. Well,phooey, I was really pulling for this show to pull itself together and fill out and densify and it gave glimmers of doing just that towards the end and now it's gone. Wish Tate had been able to prove his innocence to the authorities since he still had death row waiting for him but the people who could have cleared him went kaboom. And I would have liked to have had the mystery of the kinetics's disease solved ( and why Bo didn't have it). Anyway, I enjoyed the adventures of Bo while they lasted.

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  7. I loved Awake, but found the writer's interview after the finale where he said the "real world" would never be revealed, even if given time to end right, bugged me. I'd have enjoyed the whole ride, but hated the ending simply because a mystery needs an answer in my mind.

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  8. I can relate to that dreary show thing. I have a lot of "depressing" shows as I call them myself. I watch POI and TWD too. But I watch many different types of shows. Believe was on my list for the father/daughter relationship and originally because it was a Bad Robot show and since Person of Interest I've become really interested in Bad Robot.

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  9. Me too, but clearly they cut one out.

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  10. Well I wouldn't have mind if it was a little more grey at times, but I definitely think it had a hopeful vibe. One thing that I didn't like about Revolution for instance was that it felt like Kripke kept turning into a misadventure show where the character took two steps forward and ten steps back, where I think most of Bad Robot's other shows, especially the family sagas (Alias, Fringe) always felt like there was progress for the most part. It was certainly rare to have a show that just made you feel good or positive about life! :)

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  11. I wish so much NBC would have either given it another time slot or have made it a summer show on a night where not too much was on. I think between the end of The Walking Dead and the beginning of Game of Thrones along with Resurrection, it just never had a real chance at a big audience.


    Ya Tates back story could have been fleshed out more, but unless they had some other kind of twist with that, then I think they did it that way just to tie up some loose ends.

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  12. I liked the premise from the get go, but JS and JM really had me hooked, just a great and rare parent and child dynamic, especially because I think there were times when roles were reversed!! :)


    Thanks for reading! Keeping my fingers crossed that they turn up again soon elsewhere!

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  13. That's how I feel too. I hope NBC releases it on DVD/Blu-ray, but I have a feeling that they won't, because they didn't with Awake (miss that too) or Undercovers (I was curious about the two unaired episodes, because on of the plot descriptions matched MI:GP plot and because the series got a little better right when it was cancelled and Alan Dale's character was introduced!)

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  14. Thank you! :)


    I will miss it too!

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  15. I feel ya right back!! I'm not over Awake either XD

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  16. I agree completely about Revolution. With Believe, the only gray area i wished they had, was when it came to Winter- Skouras- Orchestra. With Bo, i liked that she was good, with no gray area.

    I just started on Fringe & Alias, a little over a month ago. I'm in season 1 of both, and watch on Saturday night if i'm home. From what i've seen, they definitely progress, Alias more so than Fringe. But i've been told that changes in season 2, as Fringe starts tying things together.

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  17. Mainly i watch science fiction, horror, fantasy, spy/ terrorism thrillers, and serial killer/ detective shows. I prefer overarching plot serials to case/ monster of the week procedurals. Lost, Battlestar Galactica, & The 4400 ruined me that way. I stopped watching sitcoms, except for occasional reruns, about a decade ago. I dumped my last reality: Big Brother last season. I do watch one nighttime soap: Dallas.

    I watch about 50 different series a year, and have plans to try about a dozen more. Most are only 10-13 episode seasons though, so i could 4 or 5 in a row, and only take up an hour a week.

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  18. What i don't get, is when NBC has these sci-fi/ horror/ fantasy series, that pull 4-6 million viewers in, why they just don't send them over to SYFY? After all, they're owned by the same corp. Even if, they lost half of the viewers, from the switch, they would still be a hit by SYFY standards.

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  19. Ya Fringe season 2 does start to become more cohesive, but season 3 is really when the story is just golden! Alias gets a little "fringey" in season three, but season 4 kind of takes Rambaldi stuff and puts it in the back seat until the end of the season four (ABC didn't like it and the serialization again)! I hope you enjoy them both. :)

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  20. Me either, I guess they think it's just not worth producing on disc. There's probably some way to burn it. At least we can buy it through places like Amazon, but I tend to like to have the product in person, you know, in case the internet goes out or the clouds crash or something :p

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  21. Haha. Yeah I like to have the discs too. They can be watched in places without internet. I have a portable DVD player.

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  22. Yeah sounds like me too, except i love horror, especially supernatural horror. My top shows (at the moment):
    The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Les Revenants, Orphan Black, Sleepy Hollow, Continuum, Penny Dreadful, Person of Interest, True Detective, Agents of SHIELD, American Horror Story, 24, Vikings, Hannibal, Salem, The Americans, Arrow, Dominion, Helix, Rectify, Doctor Who, Homeland, & Falling Skies.

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