SPOILER ALERT
If you haven’t felt your blood boil yet, well… I hope it is boiling now. We’ve long suspected Lt. Leeds was involved in retaining creatures of the past to suit the agenda of the organization he works for, and finally we came into confirmation of this in The Great Escape, which features Leggy (now full grown? maybe he took the adult angry bird, too?) escaping from captivity. Where, in the episode Angry Birds, I wasn’t fond of the story setup used to accompany the creature, this one was better. Still, I reflect back on the original series and its season three episode in which Danny, Sarah, Connor, and Abby are attacked by a mob of terror birds and I see that as the ideal setup because we get to see the full range of terror these babies can wreck.
The Special Projects Team is at its lowest attendance rate in this episode. Dylan and Evan venture out to recapture Leggy on their own and must simultaneously work against the men Colonel Hall has deployed to recover the terror bird. We have not yet met Colonel Hall and I believe this is the first time we learn the name of the man behind the operation. This episode didn’t have the same layers that the previous episode did, but it was instrumental in connecting the dots between Evan’s unofficial civilian Anomaly Containment Unit and the purpose behind Project Magnet and Ken Leeds’ recent remodeled office.
The force at work behind making Lt. Leeds feel as though his work is useful comes about through the effect of Colonel Hall’s might. We’ve long suspected, but before now it was merely speculation, that Lt. Leeds was a pencil sharpener for Project Magnet. He was grandfathered into this operation and his idealisms are too idealistic. Each stage of the “Assess. Contain. Remedy.” plan has subcategories, to which Leeds is no longer privy. This process seems to have started before the series even began and has been a gradual edging-out of Leeds’ role in the department. Leggy’s escape helped to significantly agitate this situation because Leeds finally sees that not only is he not in control of Project Magnet, he hasn’t won Evan’s trust either. What’s worse, his “for the greater good” mentality has been purported by Colonel Hall in order to bring about Hall’s own agenda.
Leeds’ line: “I’ve never lied to you. I may have omitted certain pieces of information from time to time.” is super symbolic of his own journey of realization, and, not unironically, of the way we as viewers have been treated throughout this season! The unintentional narrator has not lied to us, per say, merely… we weren’t given the full scope of what has been going on. Leeds’ goes from contentedness, after having Project Magnet fully reestablished, to being courted off to prison for taking down a commanding officer, letting Dylan euthanize Leggy, and letting Dylan and Even escape.
The agenda we have been waiting to see come to the forefront is finally being exposed! And it’s good. It’s very well thought out. For a show where four episodes ago I wasn’t even sure was going to address these questions, this was the episode that set the yarn unraveling.
Basically, I see now Leeds’ purpose as a pawn in this larger agenda at play. He is the old painting of Sirius’s mother that the Order of the Phoenix could never remove from Number 3 Grimauld Place. Except…maybe in reverse. Bad analogy. Anyway, to Colonel Hall, Leeds is the smell of damp mold that just won’t leave the basement after a flood and since he can’t (or won’t) kick him out, they’ve got to work around him, making Leeds think he’s doing valuable work when, in reality, he’s not managing all the work.
Leeds: “Why wasn’t I notified of the situation?”
Douglas: “Well, that’s on a need to know basis, Lieutenant. And I guess you didn’t need to know.” Leeds: “It’s my name on the door and I’m not about to take responsibility for something that I had no control over.”
Douglas: “Don’t get squeamish on me now, Leeds. You signed off on the budget, including the blacked-out lines. Two million dollars for pool maintenance. You knew the drill.
Dylan’s ability to balance Evan comes into play extremely well as they follow the leads that Leeds indirectly provided for them. Their conversation while on Leggy’s tail brings about some more ethical questions concerning the Anomalies (most specifically: is Evan working on a method to manually open Anoamlies? No, absolutely no!). But in the last two episodes, Dylan has also been given the extraordinary opportunity to become the advocate for those creatures that cannot speak for themselves and she makes the hard decision to put Leggy out of his misery before Hall has the chance to put him back into captivity. I just can’t say enough good things about their partnership, Dylan and Evan that is. It is going to be the thing I miss most about the show’s cancellation.
Lieutenant Leeds tranqs Major Pain In The Douglas, giving Dylan and Evan the chance to escape, and then takes the fall for offing Leggy. What this does for me is to solidify that, although Leeds was privy to the plan to capture and retain prehistoric creatures, his intentions were never to do more harm than good. He was clearly surprised when he learned that Leggy had been experimented on, and as we’ll see in the upcoming episodes, he didn’t know of Hall’s full plan for why Evan’s technology is so desperately needed. I believe him, mostly because he’s too weird and awkward to have that sinister quality that Leeks had in the original series. Well, I guess Leeks was awkward, but he was that bullied-and-oppressed type of awkward.
Finally, to wrap it up, Leeds seems to have anticipated that he was going to take the fall or at least be apprehended by Hall’s men. He’s acting in a rogue capacity, after all. And because he thought ahead, he made Evan and Dylan a key card, or some sort of badge, and placed a little sticky note that read “Welcome to Project Magnet.” Dun dun dunnnn.
Favorite Setup
One of my favorite, classic scenes is very near the beginning of the episode. The dino hunters are tracking the terror bird after its escape and go through a door that the bird ripped to shreds. The state of the door might indicate that the bird escaped through it and out into the open and Evan goes to the ledge of the outcropping and sighs: “It could be anywhere by now.” Then someone lets out a shriek from behind them and they go running, only to find the bird rooting through the rubbish bins. Classic.
Favorite Conversation
Evan: “How did you know that would work?”
Dylan: “Because I saw the look on your face when I suggested hiding in there.”
Evan: “I never made a face.”
Dylan: “Don’t take it personally. All men are trained at an early age that entering the ladies room is bad. It’s a learned behavior.”
Evan: “Yeah, I prefer to think of it as polite.”
the quantum bubble 