The Event 1.8: The "Republican" VP and the Anti-24

A direct down-to-Earth Event 1.8 tonight - no aliens or EBEs or possible time travelers or whatever they are - just humans against humans, sharp shades of 24, though, come to think of it, we can't be sure what the head bad-guy (Dempsey) played by Hal Holbrook really is.

But we can be sure what the Vice President is.  He's a human traitor, who set up the assassination attempt on the President.   The VP is Dempsey's pawn.  Dempsey appeals to him to reach across the aisle, and join Martinez, in the first bipartisan ticket in history.  Which won.

Ok, the word "Republican" was never used, and I don't recall anyone saying that President Martinez is a Democrat.   But given that Martinez started the season wanting to release the EBEs, given that Blair Underwood is playing the President as tough but not always jumping to take the military option - well, the conclusion that we're looking at Obama and a Republican who did not get the nomination of his party in the last election, but instead went on to run and win on bi-partisan ticket, seems pretty well taken.   Does make The Event an anti-24, since 24 was regarded by some (not me) as being a pro-Republican show?  

To be clear,  VP Jarvis not so much an evil man as a weak man, whose family would be in jeopardy if he didn't do Dempsey's bidding.  But as Martinez rightly tells Jarvis in their confrontation - so to protect your family you would kill me, my family, not to mention the 200 people on the plane?  Apparently so.   And Dempsey got the same results from Leila's father.

So the question remains: who is this Dempsey?  At very least, a big "Republican" contributor, a political wheeler and dealer, and also someone who commands a pretty big private and deadly security force.   We've come upon such villains in 24, but not with possible alien/time traveler connections, which is why I think The Event is weaving a story worth watching.

See also The Event Debuts on NBC ... The Event 1.2: Aliens! ... The Event 1.4: 24 Back in Action! ... The Event 1.6: Not Only Aliens, Immortals! ... The Event 1.8: The Portal and its Implications

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

The Event 1.7: The Portal and its Implications

As The Event has progressed on NBC, some viewers have contended that the aliens - the ones who caused the plane on the verge of crashing into the President to disappear and materialize elsewhere, the ones who don't age - are really not aliens or extraterrestrial biological entities (EBEs) but human beings from our own future.   Although episode 1.7 tonight had the reporter repeat her assertion that they're EBEs (not different from aliens, just a better name for them), we also saw a conversation between Sophia and Thomas (revealed as her son - nice touch!) in which they talk about building a "portal" to get back "home".

So suddenly the humans-from-the-future hypothesis has a bit more traction.   At very least, the presumed EBEs are not trying to build a star ship to get them home.  They're working a portal.  Of course, a portal can be used for jumps across space, or jumps across time, or jumps across both at the same time.

Here's a brief primer:  Space ships and star ships travel mostly across space (though they can also go through time via worm holes or some other wild encounter out there).   Time machines are the old-fashioned vehicle of choice for the time traveler - as in H. G. Wells - but portals have been responsible for some pretty significant temporal journeys too (Harlan Ellison's "The City on the Edge of Forever" is a great example, and probably my favorite Star Trek episode from the original series).   But portals are also the vehicle for jumps across the universe in Star Gate.

So where does that leave us regarding the portal and its significance in The Event?  Although Sophia and Thomas's people could still be aliens or EBEs - and I still think they very likely are - the portal does open the possibility, at least a crack, that these folks are humans from our future (or, for that matter, a past in which a branch of our ancestors were technologically highly sophisticated).   We do seem to know for a fact that their DNA is different from ours - Simon (who survives the blast) escapes detection tonight when an EBE agent swaps out Simon's DNA for a human's.   Different DNA points towards alien or EBE, but could also be the case for humans from our distant future or past.

Meanwhile, we also had a pretty good Blake back story - his wife was a Russian spy - which although seen before in Alias, had a very different resolution in The Event.  And we meet Hal Holbrook, who plays a very old, very bad guy, who at very least is responsible for killing Leila's mother, kidnapping her sister, and who knows what else.   He's presumably human, because he's obviously aged, but for all we know he could be another kind of EBE, maybe a rival group - though, on a third hand, he doesn't seem to be commanding the kind of EBE power we've seen.

Will be fun to see how these portals progress in the weeks and months ahead ...

See also The Event Debuts on NBC ... The Event 1.2: Aliens! ... The Event 1.4: 24 Back in Action! ... The Event 1.6: Not Only Aliens, Immortals!

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book