Season 4 Spoilers Ahead
My last Continuum blog was posted on June 28, 2014, and it really feels like it’s been that long. Since then, Falling Skies finished it’s run, in true flopping fashion, I began podcasting for Arrow, and I’ve been blogging for businesses, rather than television shows. It feels good to sit back down and think about this show, and yet with this episode under my belt I will know the sad fact that now only five new episodes remain.
Before the premiere of season 4, I sat down to watch the final two of season 3, both as a refresher and a motivator! Get the adrenaline flowing and the brain juices pumping. I’m glad I did. Having run low on time for many things this summer, a Continuum rewatch came in short, sporadic bursts, ending tonight. I wanted to begin this post with a small lead-in from last season because it felt right. I’d forgotten just how awesome that team-up in the season 3 finale was, between Travis, Garza and Kiera. I’d forgotten that Sonya died. I remember the story, but a couple details escaped me.
Looking ahead at season four, it’s hard to know what I want. Darrell and I struggled with the same thing at the beginning of our season 5 review of Falling Skies over on Berserker Cast. With so many storylines, with so much action and so many possibilities, what can I even begin to ask for? Lucky for me, this show has been one of the few in which asking might yield poorer results than not asking. Kind of like that restaurant in Bones, was it Bones? Like, season 1 or something, where Booth takes Brennan to this restaurant and tells her it doesn’t matter what she orders because the cook will bring her what he thinks is best for her. And Brennan, in her typical controlling fashion, thinks that nobody knows what she wants better than she. And yet, the cook brings her the meal and she loves it. That’s how I feel. Sometimes I feel that I know what I want (resolution, happy ending), but it’s so hard to ask for that when a show like Continuum has delivered time and time again.
Time to watch the episode. Everything that follows is a review of the season 4 premiere.
Lost Hours: Summary
In the season four, and final, premiere of Continuum, we pick up quite literally where we left off at the end of the last season. Scooting back in time just a couple of minutes, we get another view of the action as Brad and Kiera turn on the beacon and expectantly wait for nothing to happen. Heavily armored soldiers from the future arrive and chase Brad and Kiera until one finally knocks Kiera out cold.
Kiera’s CMR goes into simulation mode, detecting head trauma, in which she experiences a scenario where she’d woken up in 2080 after having been asleep for three years. She’s welcomed back to life by her son, and then the facade begins to crumble when Mr. Fairweather shows up and starts leaking the air out of her nice, little bubble, stating that emotional stress has become a concern. The elder Mr. Sadler appears at her bedside, tells her she did an excellent job and that she changed the past. But his voice slowly turns into the younger Alec, and then his appearance changes as well, and this version of Alec tells her she saved the future.
Abruptly yanked from her simulation, she rejoins the real world and gets caught up to speed. Meanwhile, Brad is getting up to speed as well. The soldiers who landed are from his time and they state that things on their end, in the future, escalated and their timetables have been moved up.
Conflict abounds from several directions in this episode. Kellogg has assumed control of Piron, making the efforts of the events in the season 3 finale rather vain. His biggest threat is Lucas and Alec, as they both strive to regain control of the technology that will bring about Kellogg’s dismal future as the alleged leader of mankind. Kiera believes her fight in the here and now has come to an end and wants Alec to help her find a way home. It just so happens that her way home can be a byproduct of sabotaging Kellogg.
The future soldiers have their concerns about Brad’s association with Kiera. She’s on the target list, after all. More ominous is the fact they all report to a future version of Kellogg, which means their presence here is obvious proof that the key to changing the future was no longer about which Alec would fundamentally change the course of technological advancements. This is not in the best interest of either Liber8 or Kiera, and their partnership is tenuous, but nonetheless existent.
The season premiere sets much in motion for what is already promising to be a fantastic season!
Nothing Didn’t Happen
In my post about the season 3 finale, I talked about Kellogg being the factor that blinded our heroes, and anti-heroes, from seeing the outcome of their actions in full. The soldiers arriving in the now was, as Kiera says, proof that they failed. It was super fascinating to see the subtle transition of focus in two ways: 1) Kellogg has been playing offense for three years and, suddenly, he has to play defense; 2) the fate of the future shifted from Alec’s shoulders to Kellogg’s.
The introduction of the new soldiers was really well done. Because Brad has an automatic in, there was an ideal blend of implied facts and story backfill based on what Brad did or did not know. Brad’s been in the present for several months, now, but we’re not told how much time has passed in the future. We’re only told that since Brad left, things got worse. But the soldiers are suspicious of Brad because his mission was to find the Timers and neutralize them. 
Based on the fact that Kiera is still alive, there is evidence that he did not carry out his mission.
As the future soldiers go about their business, cannibalizing the suits to build something, Brad’s curiosity in their operation causes Nolan (portrayed by Lisa Berry) to tell him: “You can’t see what we can.” Hashtag things people from the future say. There is definitely a degree of distrust between Brad and his fellow soldiers and Ryan Robbins does a really good job of portraying a guy who wants to explain, but is hesitant to reveal a change of heart (and for good reason). In spite of the general distrust, Marcellus defends Brad by pointing out that he provided the supplies and location for them as they had established.
It’s about this time that Kiera infiltrates their undisclosed location with her invisibility cloak. Her CMR is spitting out various readings like unrecognized weapons and abnormal magnetic field and ambient energy elevated, which is such a cool concept to explore. Two different futures, each with its own set of technologies, all going head to head. But the technology that Time Travel Team 6 has (Alec’s words) isn’t fooled long by Kiera’s invisibility. Vasquez gets the drop on Kiera and a fight breaks out, which escalates and climaxes on the rooftop, where Team 6 holds her out over the roof’s edge to question her.
In the brief moments Kiera has an opportunity to defend herself, she is able to get a warning in about Kellogg. It’ll be very interesting to see how that warning is taken in the next episode, whether it’s ignored completely or the future soldiers try to understand what it meant. Kellogg is only interested in Kellogg, Kiera tells them. But they come from a future where they trust Kellogg. History is repeating itself in a very timey-whimey fashion. Three seasons ago, a lone CPS Agent traveled back with a bunch of terrorists, holding fast to a false idealism of society. The strength of the terrorists was greater, in that situation. Now, the group of future soldiers travel back and go head-to-head with someone who has been actualized, who understands the false perception of her past and humanity’s future. But now the strength lies with the group of soldiers who hold fast to the idealism of their society, their past and humanity’s new future. Whether it is a false idealism, I suppose we have yet to see.
When it’s all said and done, Marcellus sends Kiera off the edge. BUT! Her wicked awesome suit has an app for that and saves her from feeling the full impact of landing on the roof of a car. Very, very cool effects.
Change the Past, Save the Future
With the full scope of Continuum in mind, the team ups that happened in the season 3 finale and now in this episode are positively exciting. I know everyone isn’t besties, but it is so dang cool to see Kiera, Julian, Alec, Lucas and Garza all in the same room… and not in combat. You’ll remember that before Sonya became a suicide bomber, she told Julian the truth about their origins, that she and Liber8, Kiera and Jason were all time travelers. Julian remembers being told that he’s a murderer and asks her just how many people he’s killed. Thousands, she says. But that doesn’t necessarily need to be his way this time through. He has the power and time to change that.
What makes me think it is possible is the fact that Julian does have a political mind. It’s not conventional, by any means, as far as government is concerned. But political, meaning of the ideas and strategies of a group, Julian is very much a forward thinker. He’s joined with other activists who are serious about making change and outsmarting the enemy and, in the process, not making oneself a target.
It just so happens that Alec recently acquired a need for Julian’s skillset! Even though these half-brothers have never seen eye-to-eye, Julian can, at least, see the sensibility in the scenario Alec outlines. Kellogg is a threat.
The other half of this team up, Garza and Lucas, are less inclined to follow Kiera blindly. Actually, that’s misleading, I don’t believe Alec follows Kiera blindly. He might have, at one point, but he’s fully immersed now and is making judgments well out of scope of Kiera. I hope that he’s making them with more than just himself in mind, and based on what we’ve seen in this episode I’m inclined to believe that he is. For now. At least, that’s what it looks like. That said, Garza and Lucas are still not excited about this situation. Kiera presents a major vulnerability because of her attachment to Brad and they don’t want to bear the brunt of her compassion. They’ll go along with the plan, but do not trust her.
It’s hard to tell for sure, but I think at least by the end of the episode, Kiera has a couple questions about Brad’s loyalty. Several people plant the bug in her mind throughout the episode, like Carlos saying: “I’m not judging, I’m just saying, if you have questions maybe you should press Brad for answers” (in response to Kellogg’s dig about Kiera’s boyfriend being suspect).
The irony in her mounting suspicions, if there are in fact any, is that she pretty much resolved at the beginning of this episode to find a way home. She completed the mission she was sent here for and now needs to take care of herself. In spite of how close she and Brad became over the course of season three, even walking away from the site of triggering the beacon hand-in-hand, the moments she spent inside her CMR’s simulation reminded her of what she’d left behind, what was, hopefully, waiting for her in the future. It just makes me wonder whether some of her questions about Brad might be coming out of this place of knowing that her heart isn’t totally invested in the here and now. Perhaps she thinks that Brad isn’t either.
From my amateur observation, it seems like Brad is taking strides toward reconciling the future soldiers with the present day society… because of Kiera.
That Tall Guy
Dreads and height, Vladimir Ruzich has it all! I don’t have much to speculate on about the traveller, but the actor they’ve chosen to portray him makes the whole situation very interesting. What was also interesting was that Curtis plants the idea of assassinating Kellogg into Garza’s mind, as a proposal that it would be in everyone’s best interest if he died. Was that look on Garza’s face something along the lines of considering it?
Next Week
Season 4 Episode 2 “Rush Hour”
Last Question
I think I’m trying to read too hard into the episode title. Any thoughts for what Lost Hours is referring to?
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode as well! Leave a comment or shoot me an email. Or find me on Twitter. As for me, I’ve gotta go listen to Mike and Dave now.
the quantum bubble 