February 1, 2007: What If They're Connected?
Sorry if I'm moving a little quickly for some of the readers out there I figured it would be best if I made sure this blog kept up with the episodes available online, since I assume most people are watching them as soon as possible (
Day Break withdrawal and all that). I'm hoping to knock out the tenth episode either this Saturday or Sunday, and then we're back to one review per week until the series concludes.
Now that the boring logistics are out of the way, I have to say: this might be the best episode of
Day Break yet. It's chock full of twists and turns, insanely dangerous moves by Brett Hopper (at this point, I'm willing to compare him to a time-traveling Jack Bauer), and a couple of lines of dialogue that had me laughing out loud. Did they save up all their best one-liners for this one episode? Writer John Hlavin deserves some credit for his witty dialogue: I especially liked Andrea's comeback "Well this morning, I had breakfast with Count Chocula." when Booth's right-hand man tries to make it clear he's well-connected.
And before I forget, Brett mentions more than once that Booth is only the most powerful guy in the conspiracy that he knows of, and there's probably bigger fish pulling
his strings. I'm not sure how Brett comes to this information, or if it's just a hunch, but I doubt the show's creators would have made him say it if it wasn't true. So apparently the master villain of
Day Break still has yet to be revealed, which leads me to believe it's a character we've met already. My vote is on Jennifer's husband, and that his previous "kidnapping" was a ruse to get the files in the briefcase without anyone figuring it out. Whoever it turns out to be, I hope the show remains consistent to the character development they've given us so far after all, why would somebody like Andrea or Detective Choi help out Brett every other version of this day if they're running the conspiracy?
But Spivak, for once, proves that he's a good guy who's useful at more than acting like a jerk. I almost wanted to cheer when he showed up with the SWAT team at the last possible second to save Brett. And although he insisted on putting Brett in handcuffs right after rescuing him, he was nice enough about it to almost apologize. And Choi, who's been much more of a reasonable guy since the very beginning, was grateful enough for Hopper's insane courage that he took over the duties of arresting Brett in order to take him to the Garza crime scene. We didn't learn anything new there, except that Garza tried to send Hopper a fax the night before he died: police files on Miguel Dominguez, the legendary killer who supposedly murdered Isabella (on orders, I'm guessing, from Tobias Booth) according to the evidence at the crime scene. Only problem is that he was serving time in prison at the time of the murder, which severely complicates things. It's strange that Garza would try to send Hopper this information, but it's nothing that we didn't know already. At least now Hopper has a new direction to look for clues to the conspiracy though.
In addition to planting the murder photo in Booth's speech and knocking out the "reformed" gangbanger who's on Booth's payroll and then driving away with his car, Brett's craziest moment of the night was easily charging into the summit with nothing but two grenades and a plan to stall for time by talking. Nice work. Good thing the cavalry arrived when it did, because two seconds later and Hopper might have been torn to pieces. And it was even the second time that day Brett had the bad luck to walk into a room filled with gun-toting lowlifes. "Alright, now on the count of three, we're all going to lower our guns." Yeah, good try man, but I guess that routine really doesn't work too often outside of the movies.
As much as I liked the big moments, there were also a couple of smaller touches that I really appreciated. One of the most frustrating things for Brett is not only having to re-explain to his friends and loved ones why he knows so much day after day, but he has to put up with their annoyance that there's so much that he's not telling them. Rita puts her foot down and demands that he open up to her, and so the very next day he starts the morning by explaining exactly what's happening to him. Her response is hardly what he must have expected: "I can't believe you just told me that!" I guess it wouldn't really work to mention that it was her idea in the first place, but it's a fun way of bringing to the surface one of the show's themes: that minute changes in our everyday lives can alter our thinking completely. One day she wants to know everything in order to trust Brett, the next she'd rather be ignorant.
So nine down, four to go. And the next one promises to reveal Garza's true killer as well. I'll be back over the weekend and then we're all caught up. Until then
