Continuum - Minute of Silence - Review

The fallout from Betty's death drove much of the action in this episode of Continuum, but there were plenty of other twists, too.  Carlos wore his angst on his sleeve (again) as Alec dealt with challenges at Piron and Kiera took a stranger with amnesia under her wing.  Meanwhile, Kellog got proactive about making Alec acknowledge and accommodate him, while Curtis made his move against Kiera.

This week's glimpse into Kiera's past life in the future showed her busting an illegal "citizenship extraction" ring by going undercover.  Interestingly, although the doctors performing the procedure seemed a bit scary and the "bite down on the sterilized bit" routine was downright terrifying, these people just wanted to evade the iron grip of the Corporate Congress by wiping their identity from all known systems. That's something we can understand and sympathize with. And as Kiera was ordered to arrest all of those present, her face reflected yet another moment of moral conflict wherein she wondered if she was really fighting for the right cause.

Back in the present day, after poor, dear Betty's funeral (meh), Carlos was all amped up about going after her killer.  However, Dillon, who was pretty much on the ball this week for once, let on that he'd had to give the case to another unit to finagle Betty an honorable police service despite her Liber8 connections.  This sent the grieving, increasingly disillusioned Carlos into a gloomy state of mind that propelled his actions throughout the rest of the episode.  Kiera has been honest, kind, and understanding with her partner since she got to this timeline, but despite this, Carlos still doesn't trust this version of her. I feel as if it's perfectly clear that this Kiera is about as close to the other one as is actually even possible.  Does that negate the inherent, uncanny creepiness of the whole time-traveling doppelgänger / replacement scenario?  No, so I can see Carlos' point from that perspective even though I think it's time he let it go enough to bond with the Kiera who is still alive.

Carlos, however, has still been brooding on the matter and decided to bring Alec into the loop by giving him the ten cent tour of the location where he's keeping Past Kiera's corpse (which is holding up really well, b.t.w.  Well, until the end of the episode, anyway).  While this allowed Carlos to confide in someone who does totally understand what he's going through, Past Alec actually didn't know about the whole "two Kieras" thing and felt betrayed that Kiera had not informed him of it.  This is insult to injury after Kiera previously failed to clue Past Alec in on there being a second Alec running around.  Awkward.  

While investigating a series of thefts on high-tech companies which were perpetrated using brand new contraptions such as invisibility generators, Kiera and Carlos worked with a grumpy Alec and discovered connections that led them fortuitously back to Neelon, a.k.a. Betty's killer.  Along the way, it became frighteningly clear that the VPD is being heavily surveyed by Neelon and is also easy enough for Liber8 to hack into.  Lucas had no nefarious agenda this week, but simply wanted to help catch Betty's killer, showing again that Liber8's members are not the heartless baddies they may have appeared to be in previous seasons.  I did also like seeing the usually cool and calm Dillon get rough with Neelon when the villain wouldn't divulge who was pulling his strings.  

Kellog served Alec with papers informing him that he was being sued, and it was totally legit, since Alec did go back on his previous contract with Kellog's gestational SadTech when he jumped ship for Piron.  I loved the nonchalant smugness with which Kellog carried out this plot, eventually leading Alec to simply buy SadTech and employ his conniving frenemy.  I'm happy to have Kellog - hopefully - brought into the more central plotlines, and it will be interesting to see what will happen with him working with Alec.  With pressure mounting for Alec to make Halo happen sooner than is really feasible as per Jason's estimations (gotta love it when Jason's the voice of reason), Alec had so many problems at Piron that he ended up doing something drastic later in the hour.

To me, the best and most fascinating portion of the episode involved a new character, currently only known as John Doe.  The man woke up with no memory and an injured leg as an apparent result of being hit by a truck.  Why is it that the only thing he can recall is the name "Kiera Cameron"?  What an intriguing question.  Especially since we quickly glean that John is actually from 2077 as well, given his description of how the Vancouver he remembers looked and his owning sci-fi books entitled...well, 2077.  

John Doe is an instantly likable character who formed a special rapport with Kiera.  There's an attraction between these two naturally, but that increased once they realized that they both have the same extremely rare problem - having been ripped from their own time and deposited in the past.  There was a touching vulnerability between them as they seemed to reflect the same feeling of painful isolation in living so far from the world they knew...even if John doesn't remember much about that world.

We learned that like Kiera, John had a family in 2077, something else the two have in common.  John flew into action when Keira was viciously attacked by an absolutely shameless Curtis (that's your big plan, Curtis?  Jump Kiera in the street outside her apartment?  Tsk, tsk.  Simplistic), helping her fend off her insatiable would-be assassin.  Kiera figured out that the pain in John's leg had abated due to a medical technology from the future which was common among the military, giving another clue to John's true identity.  What's really weird is that Kiera doesn't recognize John, which means that he knows her name even though she apparently did not personally know him in her past life.  Hmm!  I can't help but wonder if John is actually a friend or foe, but I like his developing relationship with Kiera quite a lot and look forward to seeing more of him on the show.

The last scene of the episode featured Alec returning to the sight of Past Kiera's corpse and helping himself to a chunk of it.  Since the body probably has clues to what made the Halo technology work, his purpose is clear, but the scene was unsettling.  Frankly, I'm starting to feel sorry for this poor corpse.  No one will let her rest in peace.

What did you think of this episode?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

About the Author - Virginia Mae Fontana

Virginia is happy to be reviewing The Vampire Diaries, Hart of Dixie, Nashville, Beauty and the Beast, Witches of East End, Covert Affairs, and Continuum for Spoiler TV. She is a college English instructor and enjoys obsessing over films and pop music - in addition to tv shows, of course! You can find her blog, SugarRushed, at http://virginiamaeblog.blogspot.com/ and her Twitter handle is @SugarRushedBlog