In episode 1.10 the audience is treated to another episode centered around Laurel's paranoia, as Germaine's pregnancy takes a frightening turn when the baby seems a little aggressive, causing Germaine great pain.
Laurel tries to stick up for Gareth, as he's caught a little off guard by the situation and where Ben is falsely making accusations about Gareth that are not true, but in the end, Laurel does right by everyone on the political front, as she completely edits the documentary and takes the entire Gareth segment out, which helps smooth over some of their previous relationship problems. Ben
It's Germaine's story that seems to let the audience at first believe that Laurel is taking things too far when not only she pushes for every test possible, but also upon hearing "You Might Think" coming from the doctor's (Greg Edelman) phone at the hospital, she turns to Rochelle for a second opinion. Rochelle is glad to help, but before the episode is over, Germaine has the baby, only for Rochelle to scold Laurel a bit for crossing some lines and potentially scaring Germaine unnecessarily. However, final scenes reveal that either Germiane and/or the baby too might actually be infected, as Germiane coldly leaves the baby with the star lights shining over the crib playing, "You Might Think"!!
The episode also included what seems to be an evolving or transitional philosophy of the space ants. Red and Ella come together with Red's One Wayers, which still includes Jules and with Laurel's News Public Radio connoisseur and democratic stalker, Noah---the two characters met when Jules moved into an apartment right next door to Noah's. They seemed to be on the verge of having a romantic relationship, up until that same evening when space ants came and took both of them over, resulting in a fun road rage scene the next morning at the beginning of episode 1.04. Red and Ella explain that Noah and Jules really aren't each other's enemy, as they have more in common than they might think, explaining the real enemy are people who don't want war!
Early in the episode Gareth already had doubts about his boss, as he begins to write a tender of his resignation, but nothing could truly prepare Gareth for witnessing Red cater to his inner queen, as she laid some more eggs!
This leads Gareth to meet up with and find more common ground with Laurel that later brings him more into the inner circle of team anti-bug at a brief round table discussion at the CDC with Laurel, Gustav, Rochelle, and Dr. Dexter Wu! Those characters don't seem to really want to inform Gareth either, but Gustav does let it slip that they believe the bugs come from outer space, which cause Gareth to further space out himself, which Red senses and probes Gareth about all throughout the episode.
Other parts of the episode also include both Luke being vetted to head the CIA, as in, become the director and also have Laurel suspect that something wrong with Red's balanced budget legislation, in which the senate is suppose to vote on soon. She ends up working with a man named, Cole Stockwell (Patrick Breen), who provides much comic relief between various scenes with his quirky personality that includes interpreting and understanding legal jargon in the budget book, but also his amusement for "40% Cotton" material percentage in Laurel's sweater, which sort of oddly ties back to Ben's obsession with the "1%" from the previous episode.
Luke's vetting process includes two CIA officials interviewing a series people to get underneath what could be seen as problematic issues and of course, from Scarlett to Germaine, to FBI Agent Onfrio, and to Laurel--with a slip-up coming from Gustav by mentioning getting the bugs to eat "monkey brains" all paint Luke as an adulterist with lackadaisical office standards and with a crazy sister whose obsessed with bugs, characterize Luke in some pretty unfaltering light. Laurel also tries again to gloss it over by showing them her latest documentary she made from the previous episode by calling all of her bug-talk as an artistic oversight, as someone who just loves to metaphors!One would think that still all of these things would just be an automatic disqualification or reason for some concern, but Luke is still able to privately meet with Bob Isenstadt (Dakin Matthews)...the director of the CIA director. Ultimately Bob tells Luke that they knows all about the bugs and how Laurel was one of the first to discover them, but that Laurel's interference has made it very hard for them to there job. He asks them that they both stop with the bug-hunting so that they can execute their secret plan to deal with them themselves. Luke understands and agrees, as Bob tells him, he'll be in touch about the job...
Other parts of the episode include Gareth trying to process everything, in which he calls his mom and the audience get to see a snap-shot of the lives his parents lead, but this scene also serves to drop the bit of information about Gareth's ex, Maryanne, who had stopped by and mentioned tot hem that she didn't understand why Gareth broke up with her. Gareth also figures out where in the budget Red may have hidden something and it's the farm bill. Laurel tells this to Stockwell and he finds out that Red set aside money for structures to built, but not on any known farm land. Laurel immediate recognizes the town names--it's the same places he was looking at to build camps!
Laurel and Red have a bit of a back and forth. Red tries to threaten Laurel with Oppo Research (a phrase rather familiar to The Good Wife Fans), but then turn around and bribe Laurel with 2 million dollars so she can go off an finish her documentary, while Gustav has Laurel bring along monkey brains, which could cause Red's Queen to want to come out of Red's head. Laurel denies Red's offer, but in scene where monkey brains in a Tupperware container seem like normal food conversation, Red takes the bate and takes the container from Laurel before she exists his office.
What I liked:
Episode 1.10 I think was a little underwhelming, because by itself it seem to only serve as a episode with more introductions to things, such as Laurel's ex Ben, the possibility of babies being infected, and episode was filled more with conspiracy, then substance--but I did like getting to spend more time with secondary characters like Germiane and thinking about the possible scope and political advantage the bug-people could have along with a potentially scary new way to colonize. I also thought it was interesting in the sense that we get a episode where, in some ways, Laurel was more alone. Taking a break from Gareth, having her ex dominate the documentary, and even being scolded by Rochelle all seemed to play into that notion. However, one also could see Laurel's resilience, as she pressured Luke to quit all of his affairs, and in the end she took matters into her own hands and edited the documentary and did right by Gareth. I also liked that Jules and Noah re-entered the picture and the way Red and Ella were able to spin there hate into love!
However, with only two episodes left, as episode 1.11 did not address most of those things, I am wondering if it serves as the stepping stone to what would be the second season? There is not that much to go on what the second season would exactly be, except that it would take place at a new location, Wall Street! Wall Street happened to be briefly mentioned in the episode and with so many unanswered questions and secondary characters to consider, it just doesn't seem possible that the story of the first season would be completely wrapped up in it's final two hours.
One bit of food for thought is that, much like the episode where Luke needs to hire a lawyer, because Red is accusing him of leaking intelligence information to Claudia Monarch, Luke and the people around him are getting interviewed just like in this episode. But interestingly in that episode Dean Healy was not seen interviewed and the same happened here too! It makes me wonder why that is, or rather, if Red Wheatus is really the bigger fish and/or if there are not more queens?! For whatever reason it feels like the writers are holding out on us with Dean and moreover how Luke and Laurel keep loosing family all around them...
I also liked how it was The Farm Bill of all places where Red had hidden his agenda, because of the fun way it connects back to Ella and her animal rights issues, and how the show uses the insects as "metaphors" for animal rights and/or neurodiversity issues and I am reminded of the great literary novella of George Orwell, Animal Farm!
The show is just a wonderful treat that I think only gets better with age! It's going to be such a shame to most likley see it go, because there is just so much potential, fun writing, and great great characterizations here!
So what did you think? Any predictions for the finale? Do you think Grace is infected and not just Germian? Are Gareth and Laurel really back together? Is Maryanne a threat to their relationship? Do you hope the show gets renewed? How do you feel about a new location and do you think many of the characters would go to Wall Street or just a small handful of them? Will anybody be "saved" or "cured" in the finale or will someone who has yet to be infected, become so with no help in site? Sound off in the comments below!
