Just as the plot hits cruising altitude, ABC wants to talk semantics.
Rumors about the fate of ABC’s 60s throwback have persisted for the majority of its short flight, culminating with a tweet by series regular Karine Vanasse (Colette) stating, “Well, we received THE call, #PanAm is only coming back for one more episode after Christmas…”, a statement which ABC was quick to deny, claiming that the series will finish its intended 13-episode run.
Oh, I see. ABC wants to play the semantics game.
Since ABC thinks we won’t recognize a deflection when we see it and refuses just answer the bloody question, Pan Am is going into Holiday Hiatus Part Two in a place that I like to call TV Purgatory. Will the series be saved or damned in 2012? Well, the numbers don’t look pretty.
I’ve been waiting for Pan Am to dazzle me all season long, you know, outside of just being pretty to look at. I’m clinging to the wreckage of its once clear potential like it’s a Tickle Me Elmo during Christmas/Armageddon 1996.
Lucky for me, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” returns that solid grip.
Colette and Dean play hooky from work because they’re adults and steal away to Dean’s parents’ farm for a romantic flying lesson in ye olde cropduster. While the rest of us may have forgotten Dean’s engagement to Long Lost Bridget back in the Pilot, Dean’s parents have <em>not</em> and it’s awwwwwkward.
Flying lessons don’t happen, but when Dean goes out to comfort a distraught Colette, they bring the Mile High Club down to Earth. In a barn. Yeah. I’ve never been in a barn that I was entirely comfortable standing in, let alone stripping down and frolicking in, but clearly, I’m just not that adventurous.
No, actually I’m pretty adventurous. That barn was suspiciously clean. Every set that Mike Vogel (Dean) and Karine Vanasse (Colette) tread upon during their time in the spotlight was jarringly picturesque. From the possibly plastic apples at the farmers market to the pristine barn…I love when Hollywood tries to do rural. Really. It makes me giggle. We either get Thomas Kinkade or Deliverance. Psst, more often than not, we’re just as mediocre as everywhere else, there’s just less of us.
Whatever. That’s my biggest complaint about this particular storyline. So uh, go team.
On the other side of the pond, the rest of the crew shows up for work in the morning and there are more sexcapades. Maggie faces the potential hypocrisy of her lifestyle when she smuggles her fellow almost-revolutionary, Sam, onto the flight. He wants to go to London to protest a nuclear arms summit. When he realizes that one of the featured speakers for the summit, Chris Rawlings, is in first class, he sneaks up front to pick a fight. Maggie intervenes and gives Sam her best “Sit-down-and-shut-up-so-I-don’t-get-fired-you-moron,” to which Sam basically calls her a sell-out and a hypocrite.
As someone who is regularly on both sides of that argument in that I hate The Man but don’t have a trust fund to draw on, thus negating my ability to properly stick it to him, Maggie’s story really grabbed me this week. If we could have more conflicted Maggie and less the-world-revolves-around-Maggie, she could probably very easily surpass Colette as my favorite.
Okay, so she ends up sleeping with Chris Rawlings. I liked the build-up. I thought they had a nice debate going. I also liked the fact that the writers didn’t use Rawlings as a caricature of a war-mongering nuke-em-all politician, which they very easily could have done. Rawlings lets Maggie make her disarmament argument to him. Even back on the plane, he was willing to listen to Sam, even though he insists that neither Sam nor Maggie will ever change his mind on the matter. As far as Maggie’s supposed over-the-top arson act, inadvertently setting the bathroom curtains on fire when she burns Rawlings’ pro-nuke speech, well, we’ve all had those moments. Sometimes we get carried away when we’re trying to save the world. I understand, Maggie.
And lastly, the Cameron sisters, whose stories, though more succinct than the rest of the cast’s this week, are no less compelling in their cliffhangers. Laura realizes that Ted is awesome just as he reconnects with a childhood crush. Kate spends almost the entire episode telling her superiors that this would be her last mission and she doesn’t want to be a super spy anymore…until she shoots a an enemy asset right as he’s about to gank one of her superiors. I guess this won’t be her last mission after all– unless, of course, the series is cancelled, which has the potential to be a real tragedy if the show is finally, finally getting its act together.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.