Episode Report Card Manimal: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Reckoning
By Manimal | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 11.17.2001
Romania. Why didn't the title say "Bucharest"? The Strings of Melodramatic Madness play as Fisher/Fontanetta walks down the hall with another doctor -- whom I will dub Dr. Ratched -- and Sydney, in a wheelchair. Fontanetta explains that "Miss DeCamilla" (I think) is bipolar, and that during some relief work up north, she suffered a psychotic break, as well as auditory hallucinations and believing the government wants to kill her. He then lists all the heavy, experimental medication she's been on, and says that until he can find her parents, he needs a place to keep her. The Romanian mental institution looks exactly the way you would think a Romanian mental institution would look -- dreary beyond belief. Sydney scans the windows and sees various patients, until she finally comes across the slack-jawed, marble-eyed Shepard. Dr. Ratched menacingly asks how Fisher/Fontanetta found out about this institution when there are so many in Bucharest. Note to self: Skip Bucharest on next tour of Eastern Europe. The doctors stop, and Sydney is taken to her cell. She struggles. It's sad to watch. They lock the door. It looks like a big cage. There's a bare lightbulb. It's all so One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that I'm wondering if Ken Kesey got some royalties.
Los Angeles. Will knocks on the door of Kate/Eloise. He says that he's coming in, so easy on the pepper spray. One of his knocks pushes the door open. He walks into a completely clean, empty apartment. He pauses before he exits and touches the wall. His fingers are smudged with fresh paint. Someone on the forums asked why he did this, since he probably could've smelled the fresh paint, but I'm guessing the writers had him touch the wall so that Will would know something had occurred in the apartment that would require a coat of fresh paint. Just a guess.
Funeral. Apparently funerals are worthy of four whole forehead-creases for Vaughn. The Plaintive Piano of Mourning tinkles, and a woman sings as the camera pans across the funeral grounds over. And over. And over. Again. Vaughn glances over at a sad child. His brow furrows even further. Who wants to chip in and buy Michael Vartan a new facial expression for Christmas? Vaughn walks over to the widow and the child. He squats down and tells the kid, "Your dad was a hero." The kid throws himself at Vaughn and squeezes his neck. Who can blame him? Vaughn looks so cuddly and harmless, like a plush toy.
SD-6. Marshall watches a screen and says, "Oh no." Then he shoots out of his chair and starts yelling about a worm and runs into the server room to shut down the hard drive. The Bass Drum of Doom (slightly heavier and more repetitive than the Bass Drum of Major Burn) starts. He pants like he's run a marathon. Sloane brings on a heavy dose of the scary and calls someone, saying, "I think we have a mole."