Episode Report Card Sobell: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT He Sees Dead People
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 15 | Aired on 12.15.2008
I wonder, is it the cause you believe in, or the man. I mean, are you an ideologue or just a silly schoolgirl following the brooding boy who finally noticed her?" Dr. Sara snaps that she's the girl who's looking for the bastard responsible for killing her father. General Von Baldy is the soul of solicitousness as he asks, "Would you like me to make a few phone calls? See if I can point you in the right direction?" It's too bad he's not pointing directly at himself -- that would be delightful. Dr. Sara rolls her eyes. Then the two spar over whether or not Michael's actually receiving medical treatment or if the One World Conspiracy is wiring him to receive the new digital television signals being broadcast as of February 2009. General Von Baldy tells her, "I know your opinion of the work we do here, but know this: not everything is as it seems." Also, one other patient has had this procedure, and that one's lived a long and happy life.As this is going on, Dream-Michael is puzzling over the collage on the wall. He tells Westmoreland, "It is the job of a structural engineer to make sure everything he creates is designed to withstand the weight placed upon it. What I built here" -- he gestures to the collage that represents his many theories and schemes -- "does not hold up." As Michael keeps ripping things, Westmoreland asks, "If you discovered that a structure you'd built was deficient, would you tear down the building or find a way to fix it?" Michael says, "I've tried to fix it. I've tried to make things right. All I've done is add more weight to it. And now... now, it can't take any more. All I wanted to do was save my brother's life." Westmoreland asks, "Did you do that?" Michael admits that he did, but he'd like to wallow in wondering how many other people died as a result. Westmoreland asks, "Knowing that now, would you have let [Linc] die? And that makes you feel like some kind of murderer?" Ah -- that's Michael's real hang-up. Westmoreland glibly comments that people who kill ten other people are serial killers, while people who kill thousands are war heroes. Michael protests that he's not at war -- he's merely trying to get the One World Conspiracy's little black book. Westmoreland tells him, "Not everything is as it seems. But you know that, don't you?" Michael looks back at his collage and we see that his labors were really a way of him rearranging the pieces so the word "Scylla" appears in cut-out in the middle of it all. Oooh, it's all symbolic.