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Cameron and Nina bring in a Red Flag suspect named Dr. Kern, who is quickly installed in the new anti-Alpha holding cell. We soon learn three things about him: he's got no optic nerve and "sees" his surroundings by using a form of sonar; he's an obstetrician who's been distributing mutation-promoting vitamins; and he's played by Brent Spiner. What seems more immediately urgent, however, is that there appears to be an invisible invader walking freely around Alpha HQ.
Soon Rachel is also invisible, as in missing, and with Kern's help they realize there's another Alpha in the mix, an assassin who's after him. His claim is that they'll only be able to survive if he helps them out, but rather than cutting him loose, they figure out a way to flush out the invader on their own, using Gary and cameras and a giant mess. But not without Cameron taking an invisible knife to the gut. So the good news is that the formerly invisible assassin, Griffin, is soon locked down, but she warns them that all the cracks that have been suddenly appearing around the office are the work of Kern, who is using his sonic abilities to shake the whole building down around them.
Sure enough, Kern is able to blast right out of the cell using sonic waves, incapacitating the team long enough to get to Griffin. Luckily for her, Bill recovers (and his powers, absent since tangling with Jonas last episode, also return) in time to distract Kern -- allowing Griffin to kill Kern and make her escape. Before leaving, she gives Bill the clue "Stanton Parish," whatever that means. She also got away with all the goods on what Kern was up to OB-wise, so all that's left for the team to do is try to clean up their trashed office and feel stupid about having tried to hold an Alpha there in the first place. Also, it looks like Cameron has finally convinced Nina to date him, against Rosen's advice, if anyone cares.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Rosen and Bill stride purposefully through the halls of Alphas HQ, discussing a Red Flag prisoner that Cameron and Nina are apparently bringing in. "Good thing we got this thing up and running," Bill says, as the two reach a locked room that contains what is apparently a specialized Alpha holding cell, equipped with bulletproof glass, surge suppressors and fire-foam, as well as an emergency lockdown system. Let's hope those will be relevant to whatever still-unknown powers Cameron and Nina's prisoner possesses. Their expository conversation continues long enough for us to learn that Bill hasn't gotten his super-strength back since meeting Jonas, and Rosen says he's working on that; as glad as he is to have Bill around as an investigator, the DoD wants them to be a group of Alphas. Bill's still pointing out that Rosen isn't one (because we have to be reminded of that every week) when Gary comes in to bitch about all the Dr. Evil stuff the Alpha cell doesn't include. He also misses the old Bill, whose veins used to pop out (they really did), and also remarks on Bill's current ex-Alpha status. Bill really is a lot less tense, so much so that he's just amused by Gary these days. He even chuckles when Rachel comes in over the intercom acting like it's a police radio, reporting that Nina and Cameron are coming up in the elevator with one "Dr. Kern."
When the two of them arrive wheeling a clearly unconscious and restrained white-haired man in a cardigan, seated unconscious on a Hannibal Lecter hand truck, everyone's so keen to get him parked in the shiny new Alpha cell (because he's so scary, I guess) that nobody notices the elevator door's failure to close behind them...almost as if an invisible person blocked it, then followed them out. Rosen seems to sense something in the apparently empty hallway, but it's a little too late to make him an Alpha now.
After the credits, they're putting their still-unconscious prisoner into an MRI while Rosen's still trying to sell an uninterested Bill on bringing his powers back, but Bill insists he's happier without them. He certainly seems a lot more laid back, that's for sure. I bet he still touches other people's food, though.
Cameron and Nina are hanging out in her office while she updates the computer file on Kern. They discuss how quickly Kern got suspicious of their "happy couple" act, which allows Nina to tell Cameron that the possibility of a relationship between the two of them doesn't exactly have Rosen's seal of approval. She admits that Rosen thinks she'd be bad for Cameron, and doesn't entirely disagree. You can tell this is a serious conversation because Cameron's voice is shaking and Nina's not wearing makeup. Luckily, Bill calls them into a meeting before this can get much heavier. Less luckily, Nina leaves her computer unlocked with Dr. Kern's dossier up on the screen, and the invisible visitor starts scrolling through it. This is creepy -- whoever it was probably heard their whole personal conversation.
Rosen reports his findings from Kern's MRI to the group: Kern, even though he wears glasses, is blind. No optic nerve, you see. Which explains why Nina couldn't Push him, but doesn't explain Cameron's account of how he darted for the door. Rosen figures that Kern's an Alpha (duh), and Gary suddenly interrupts by freaking out that his phone (the one he got from Skylar) is gone. Rachel finds it and hands it over, but Gary's still upset because someone's obviously been snooping in it. Rosen gets things back on track, saying Kern is suspected by DoD of doing some kind of research in some capacity as both a Red Flag member and an obstetrician. They've cleaned out his office, and Rosen asks Gary to do the data mining, which requires a lot of flattery from just about everyone in the group to get him to agree to. And Gary also agrees with the flattery.
In the Alpha cell, Kern suddenly wakes up, handcuffed to the table, and looks around with eyes that seem to be working just fine.
While going through some of Dr. Kern's urine samples, Rachel becomes aware of subtle aural and olfactory clues of a human presence in there with her, which is odd, because there aren't any visual ones to go with them. She wanders out into the hallway, wondering if it's Gary, but he appears just long enough to snap at her for disturbing him before disappearing back into his office. But Rachel's invisible visitor hasn't exactly disappeared. I mean, any more than a person can disappear who is already invisible.
Bill and Rosen walk into the cell with Kern, and Rosen has Bill take the gag off Kern's face, which is when Kern turns out to be played by Brent Spiner. Nice to see him again, even if he does look eighty. He also wants a lawyer, which Rosen politely says is out of the question, seeing as how Kern is being detained by the DoD on suspicion of connection with a terrorist organization. Lawyers are so 20th century. Rosen has Bill uncuff Kern, stand him up, and turn him around so Kern's back is to Rosen, who then suddenly flings his coffee cup at the back of Kern's head. Kern easily dodges it as though he saw it coming, which would be tricky even for most people with functioning eyes. That's enough to confirm Rosen's theory that Kern uses echolocation or sonar to "see" his surroundings. Which we get to see for ourselves as Rosen explains Kern's abilities to him while looking like he's in a POV shot from Daredevil. "This isn't going to end well," is Kern's only response. Maybe not, but if Rosen had been wrong about Kern's ability to dodge that mug, it would have started even worse.
By now it's dark, and Bill's on the phone to Agent Cley about picking up Kern. And he's also oblivious to whoever is in there with him, unseen. Well, mostly oblivious.
Cameron goes asks Rosen to back off him and Nina, and Rosen's refusing, as Cameron's and Nina's employer and psychiatrist (like that's not a big hairy conflict of interest), when Rachel awkwardly interrupts with some urgent findings from Kern's stuff. Cameron pouts out of the room so Rachel can tell Rosen that she looked inside some prenatal vitamins Kern was hawking and found live human DNA inside. Basically, mutation pills. Rachel suddenly smells blood, which they follow to Nina, who just has a nosebleed. Rachel's main concern is whether Nina was picking. The hell?
Rosen goes and visits Kern in his cell, although he's careful to sit outside the open door this time. After Kern diagnoses a minor heart issue of Rosen's (which Rosen was already aware of), he reminds Rosen that he's a doctor too. That allows Rosen to bring up the One-A-Day Plus DNA pills. Kern says he's concerned about the future. He brings up the anti-birth defect medication Red Flag targeted a few episodes ago, and says he's working on the "counter-agent." Rosen declines to answer Kern's question about whether anyone on his team can read minds, so Kern says he knows what's : "Men with guns will whisk me away to some government facility. That would be a tragic, tragic error." Kern goes on to make some remarks in support of Red Flag, calling the terrorist parts of it "fringe elements." Kern claims he shares Rosen's goal of Alphas and humans coexisting in peace, and invites him to work with him, claiming that Red Flag might even let in non-Alphas someday. Rosen just offers to do what he can if Kern spills what he's up to, but Kern passes, saying he's sad for Rosen. "I'm not the one going to Binghamton," Rosen zings, closing the door. "What makes you think I am?" Kern responds. Uh, everything? So far, that is.
Rachel follows the invisible presence out into the hallway, looking curious, even as she can see the carpet being flattened in spots. She follows it all the way into the elevator, where she hangs out long enough to give whoever's invisibly stalking her plenty of time to grab her. Which, of course, they do.
Outside the Alpha cell, Cameron and Bill are discussing what horrible music they can subject the supersonically-sensitive Kern to when Bill notices that someone's snooping around in their computer system. More urgently, Nina comes in saying that Rachel's gone. Everyone starts looking for Rachel, and Gary has to struggle with "glitchy" security camera footage to find her, only coming up with a moment where she seemed to disappear from the cameras entirely. Nina finds blood on the carpet, and Cameron spots a crack in the wall over a doorframe. "Was it like this when we moved in?" he wonders urgently. Probably wouldn't be relevant to the plot if it were. Although, that's not a thick enough crack for someone to have stuffed Rachel through. Nina, maybe, but not Rachel.
Rosen bursts into the cell with Kern demanding to know what he's doing and where Rachel is. Kern protests his innocence, saying he hasn't met her and pointing out that the number of heartbeats in the office hasn't changed since he woke up; there are still eight. "Yours, mine, and the six members of your team, I assume. We haven't been properly introduced." Rosen says there should only be seven, and Kern suddenly comes over all serious. "Have things gone missing around your office? Computers turning on randomly? People sensing someone nearby without ever seeing anyone?" Again, Rosen doesn't answer, but he doesn't have to this time. "You have an unwelcome guest," Kern informs him. Rosen is starting to get what Kern's saying, and Kern offers to help, "Or we're all dead." Rosen's skeptical, but Kern insists it'll only get worse.
After a quick shot of Rachel bound, gagged, blindfolded, unconscious, and stuffed in a ventilation duct, we see the remaining team members in the conference room, watching Kern loudly begging them over the closed-circuit camera to let him help. Nina mutes it so Rosen can give them all a lecture about senses and some big word that means the ability to tell when another human is present, then moves onto everyone's natural blind spot, demonstrating the latter concept with that trick with two dots on a piece of paper. He's speculating that there's an Alpha somewhere in them who can stay inside everyone's blind spots, possibly by expanding them somehow. Which doesn't explain how they're not all walking into walls, but that's the least of my issues. Nina argues that all the security cameras in the office would have picked up the intruder (not to mention the cameras that, you know, film the show), and Gary reminds everyone that those are acting glitchy as well. However, the cameras in the building across the street are working just fine, and they happen to look inside their windows every fifteen minutes. Gary helpfully brings up one of those feeds on the screen, and now they can see what a camera across the street sees, which is six people in the room: Rosen, Cameron, Bill, Nina, Gary, and...a woman in black standing right behind them, plain as day, in real time. The Alphas all freak out and Cameron gives chase to someone he can't see, only to get slashed across the stomach by a butterfly knife. While everyone's worried about that, the blast doors come slamming down. Blast doors?
Well, the good news is that the emergency lockdown crap works, but it's trapped them all inside with an enemy they can't see, who had the foresight to disable the phones and change all the passwords. Rosen figures their best hope is for Gary to try to override the locks, but Gary seems too busy trying to throw chairs through the windows.
Nina's got Cameron bandaged up, and is about to get him some pain pills. "Addict," he reminds her. Then she helps him get his shirt back on and tries to deflect his arduous stare. He probably had a better chance before he put his shirt back on. Meanwhile, Rosen is still trying to calm down Gary, who's referring to their intruder as a "witch" who took his phone. "That's a word my mom uses when she's angry," he explains. "She uses another word, too." Bill is also discovering that as well as everyone's phones, the intruder also has his gun. Right on cue, five gunshots echo down the hallway from the direction of the Alpha-cell. And you can tell they're heroes by how they run toward the shots.
It's all over by the time they arrive. A shaken Kern looks out at them through the five marks in the side of the tank and observes, "Bulletproof glass. Excellent idea." Rosen shoos Gary back to the offices to work on overriding the locks, with Nina and Cameron as escorts, while Bill demands to know where "Blind Spot Girl" is. Kern says she tried to shoot him. "Or free you," Rosen says. Kern says this is no way to find common ground, so Bill demands a name. Kern gives them one: "Griffin," although it's probably an alias. "Red Flag considers her an unsanctioned variable." Meaning she's in it for the money rather than any kind of cause, which Kern has some unsolicited thoughts about. He repeats that he can help find her, but Bill and Rosen still aren't buying it. Waiting for another markdown, I guess.
While Gary's stumped by the blast doors, Cameron's doing a pull-up to search above the ceiling for Rachel, which is just what a guy with a sliced-open abdomen should be doing. Sure enough, he starts bleeding again. "Why do we always have to fight other people with abilities?" Gary carps. "It's annoying." Meanwhile, Rachel comes to in her ventilation duct with zip ties on her wrists and duct tape on her face, but even so it's not hard to tell she's not happy.
Bill meets Rosen in his office and takes off his jacket, prepping for a shot. Rosen therapy-speaks about how he'd hoped Bill would be given the chance to make his own decision in his own time, and Bill says that kind of talk used to make him cranky. "I'm afraid it will again," Rosen says, jabbing Bill with the needle. Rosen says it should start working right away. Meanwhile, Rachel is wiggling along the airshaft. Rosen puts Bill to work trying to lift one of the blast doors, but the super-strength isn't kicking in, even though Rosen insists the drugs should be. He accuses Bill of not really wanting to get it up, not really, and of course he means the blast door, but he sounds more like an insecure girlfriend. After goading Bill some more to keep trying and watching him strain himself a bit longer, Rosen calls him off and says they need to go on the offensive.
So they all go to work trashing the place, squirting mustard and fire extinguishers everywhere on Rosen's theory that random, abstract colors will make it harder for Griffin to blend in. While they keep making a mess, throwing powdered creamer on the carpet (the best use it can be put to), Rosen stations Gary alone with a camera-equipped laptop to a pillar in the middle of the lobby. Hard to see how that could go wrong. Soon the laptop camera captures running feet, and there are footprints in the creamer. There's confusion as everyone runs from one room to another, but everyone ends up locked in the MRI room -- except Gary, who's out there alone with her. I suddenly want to play chess with Dr. Rosen, for money. Bill tries to smash his way out, but Gary's got a plan to defend himself against the attacker: waving his DCIS badge around and ordering her to stop hiding. Well, that knife becomes visible again for a moment before the ads hit, but I don't think that's what Gary meant.
Apparently being invisible really slows you down, because Gary's still untouched for the whole commercial break and well after it, although that knife keeps darting in and out of the shot. Suddenly Rachel runs up from behind and clubs the attacker unconscious with the laptop. Turns out the invisible woman is much more visible when motionless and flat on her face.
Cut to later, when she's duct-taped to a chair as Rosen shows her to the two dots and asks how she does the same thing with, you know, herself. Griffin offers to show them in exchange for cutting her loose, but she's not dumb enough to have actually thought that would work. Rosen brings up the "unsanctioned variable" phrase Kern used, although she prefers the term "ronin," which instantly lands her in a category of my own, labeled "tool." She says she's been on Kern's trail for two weeks, and offers to just take him off their hands. Rosen says that's pretty much the opposite of what Kern said. Griffin brings up the cracks Cameron's been noticing, and Rachel looks around and notices even more, on walls, and support columns, and even in the security glass she's standing right to. Griffin duhs that their "sonic Alpha" has been trying to break out since he woke up. Rosen asks who she's working for, but she's not saying anything beyond that it's someone interested in Kern's research. She's already got that off their computers, but she gets a bonus if she brings in Kern as well. "Let's just call a truce. You let me take him out of here, I get my fee, you get to live. We all win." Well, except Kern.
While they're mulling that over, Rachel notices that Cameron's bleeding again. In the infirmary, Rosen can't stop the bleeding even with stitches, probably because of the vibrations going on. Cameron kind of mocks Nina's concern from the operating table as she stands over him and then notices that more cracks are spreading in the walls. Everyone who can do so rushes to the holding room, where Rachel is now able to hear the vibrations. Kern isn't looking too good either, all sweaty and evil, even as he says he wasn't hurting anyone. Rosen warns that Kern will kill himself too. "All I wanted was to bring more Alphas into the world. Why is that wrong?" Kern whines as the floor bucks under him. Rosen gives Bill an ether-soaked rag to go into the tank and knock Kern out with, but the vibrations have heated up the doorknob so Bill can't get in. So this high-tech containment facility has everything but oven mitts. All the metal, in fact, is getting so hot that Kern is able to snap the chain on his handcuffs (although the cuffs don't seem to be burning him or even singing the sleeves of his cardigan) and stand up. Then he turns and faces the glass wall, and, looking like the star of Mr. Magneto's Neighborhood, blows the holding tank clear open, flattening the team and blowing out every internal window in the office. He steps over them and heads out of the room. So much for the state-of-the-art Alpha tank.
After the ads, Bill is the first to regain consciousness, and he carries Rachel to safety to Gary. He then encounters Nina trying to help move Cameron, who looks to be bleeding out. Bill helps him to his feet and tells Nina to get him to the blast door while he finds Rosen.
An external shot of the building makes it look like the whole building is shimmering, as though it's going to disappear from the Alphas universe entirely and wind up on Fringe instead. Inside, Kern has gone to confront the Griffin, and he's so pissed at her that waves of sonic power are blowing back her ponytail and making her bleed from the ears, like the dark side of an old Memorex ad. He wants to know who hired her, but she's not talking even now. Bill shows up in the shaking hallway outside, and Kern sends him sprawling with another sonic blast. Bill fights it, hanging onto the shaking window frame, and as Griffin rips free of the duct tape holding her to her chair, Kern takes just enough time to smash her against the wall. His more immediate problem is Bill, whose ability has finally kicked in, allowing him to...uh, push down the shattered window frame and stand there staring at Kern all, "How you like my dick now?" Kern tells him, "It's too late," which is all he says before Griffin appears out of nowhere (as she does) and sinks a shard of glass into Kern's neck. "So much for my bonus," she sighs as Kern collapses to the floor and the place quits vibrating. She suggests Bill go freelance, and when he says that'll never happen, she says she owes him one, "and I hate owing people." By way of paying him back, she says, "Stanton Parish." Bill asks what that is, and she says, "You better find out." And vanishes. Like, literally. Bill didn't even get to say "see you."
The morning, they're trying to straighten the place back up. You know, having Bill do his usual vending-machine wrangling while they ignore the great slabs of drywall that were shaken loose last night, and God only knows what kind of irreparable structural damage. The whole place should probably be condemned. Instead, Bill talks to Rosen about the context-free clue Stanton Parish, not knowing if it's a place, or a person, or a county in Louisiana where Harry Dean Stanton is desperately trying to get a Big Love/True Blood crossover series off the ground. Gary is all "I told you so" about the Dr. Evil stuff, and Bill just teases Gary about his idea for fighting Alphas from Gary's bedroom. Gary claims to be annoyed by the return of this version of Bill. "You're the old Bill again," he says. "You're damn right I am," Bill says, cracking open a stray soda. I don't know, he still seems less pissy, but that's okay.
Cameron finds Nina cleaning up her office, and is taking it as a sign of how much she likes him. She's still trying to deny it, but when he kisses her she seems receptive. Or she's afraid that if she pushes him away his wound will open up again and his spleen will spill out on her shoes.
Rachel finds Rosen surveying the damage in the room with the wreckage of the holding cell. Actually he's cleaning his glasses, probably because the room looks better with them off. "I don't care what Cley says. This was a bad idea," she declares, really going out on that limb. Cley's ideas usually are. Rosen gives Rachel props for saving everyone, and she says Griffin appears to have gotten away clean, probably with all the goods on Kern's vitamins. She asks him if things are going to get harder, and he just gives her a rueful grimace. Either that's a yes, or he's thinking back to that conversation with Bill when he was struggling with the blast door and couldn't get it up.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter , or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.
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