Really speaking our language.
Alphas took a quantum leap forward with last night’s episode. Gone were the uninspired tropes of poor TV writing, replaced with genuinely inspired cohesiveness and even more importantly, good ol’ fashioned enjoyment. After a few weeks of being distracted by the form and quality of the show, I think we can finally get back to thinking about what’s really important: the characters.
This week’s episode focused on Gary, the real heart of the Alphas team. Am I right in assuming that we’re all secretly most satisfied when this idiot savant is on the screen? More than any of the other characters, Gary seems to be the most sincere and the most fragile. In Gary, we see a humanity that the others lack, even though Gary, as equally as any of the others, falls right into the familiar archetypal patterns we all know so well.
This humanity goes beyond acting ability, as all of the actors only four episodes in seem to have really gotten a hold of their characters. This elusive quality — this magnet for our identification — comes from something deeper; it comes from the way his autism shreds the difference between his surface and his depth of character. Everything that “normal” people keep inside, Gary shows on the surface. His truth, so alien to our day-to-day life, precisely represents the struggle we each feel every day as we march through social situation after social situation in that great balancing act of life.
What makes his character arc so strong this episode is that he exposes what Dr. Rosen calls the “new and exciting” experience of making a new friend. He starts feeling utterly connected to Anna, a fellow alpha with similar cognitive problems and abilities. We all know the feeling of that beautiful mirror of a new relationship; we feel like the other is exactly the same as the self.
And we follow Gary as he quickly discovers that Anna is not nearly is as similar as we thought. Not only does she support Red Flag, the terrorist organization who sent the puppet master after the team in the first episode, but she’s in fact their leader. What’s so indescribably powerful about a true “freak” being the head of this group is that it forces us to identify with their philosophy as much as it forces Gary. They want the right to live free from the oppressive influence of the government power structure.
This parallels not only Gary’s need as an alpha, but his need as a young adult. He similarly needs to liberate himself from the power structure in his life — his mother and Dr. Rosen — and Anna helps him to realize that he needs to recognize that he needs this freedom. This is the crucial moment in these two someday-lovers relationship: Do their similarities overpower their differences in a way that will allow them to continue to grow?
The answer, at least for now, is ultimately yes. Despite each of their needs to defend their friends and associates in ways that the other won’t like, their relationship will continue. Of all the alphas to fall under the sway of Red Flag, choosing Gary, the most essentially “alpha” and the most essentially “human” is a powerful move. Do you also feel like Red Flag really isn’t as antagonistic as we originally thought? While Dr. Rosen and friends might not be joining their ranks any time soon, they certainly are drifting further away from the government agenda and closer to Red Flag’s revolutionary attitude.
I hope the writers recognize that, much like Gary and Anna, this episode really speaks the same language that we do. For the first time, the show’s implicit promise to deliver a truly excellent superheroes show is coming to fruition.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.