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We start out slow and then all of a sudden it's an exposition avalanche! It's Harvest Festival time in Terra Nova, which commemorates the time Taylor came through the portal with a noble spirit that embiggens us all. But present-day Taylor is preoccupied with the search for the Sixer spy. He's interrogating Boylan, who deliriously reveals to Jim that there's something buried by the Pilgrim's Tree (the legendary tree where Taylor lived when he arrive). Jim does some literal digging and finds a skeleton that Boylan later confesses having helped bury at Taylor's behest. At the time, Boylan, reveals, Taylor blamed it on his son, Lucas, and that was the night Lucas vanished.
Jim's investigation -- in which he involves Elisabeth -- winds up causing him to clash with Taylor, who arrests Jim on suspicion of being the Sixer spy himself. Turns out it's more of a test of Jim than a legitimate arrest, and Taylor reveals that there are bigger interests in Terra Nova than Hope Plaza: people who want to strip-mine Terra Nova of the resources that this new world has to offer. Lucas -- who was working on technology to make the portal work two ways -- helped bring Taylor's old commanding officer across to relieve Taylor of his command, in the interests of those nefarious strip-miners, but Taylor refused, and killed his old CO after the CO drew a gun on him. Keep in mind this is all according to Taylor's account, but he sells Jim on his sincerity in protecting Terra Nova from the same people who turned the Earth into the 2149 hellscape that they're trying to escape.
In the end, Taylor appears to actually be the benevolent dictator he seems to be (as opposed to the benevolent messiah with the hidden agenda), but they're no closer to discovering who the Sixer spy is. The latest Sixer ambush comes after Boylan was brought into custody, so it's not him (or not only him). But the fact that the Sixers have trained dragonflies like carrier pigeons in order to spy on the colony is kinda cool.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. If he had one bullet in a gun while watching Terra Nova, he knows exactly what he would do. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Terra Nova's got a great big convoy -- well, three rovers and a couple of motorcycles -- heading out into the jungle, while we get an extra-special dragonfly-eye view... a dragonfly that's actually some sort of robot that returns to Mira. "What have you got for me today?" she asks, after it lands on her arm.
Taylor's interrogating Boylan about what information he's been feeding the Sixers. Boylan says it's just a strict medical-supplies-for-money arrangement, and he hasn't told them anything. Taylor's not buying it, and he's not going to let Boylan rest until he starts talking. I mean, he pretends to suggest Boylan get some rest, but then he flips on the sirens so that Boylan can't sleep. I'm not sure that would work on me, but I also don't think I'm that hard to crack. "Daniel, tell us what you told the Sixers or I'll put on this CD by Lady Antebel--" "OH GOD I'LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING."
Over at the Shannon family homestead, the happy clan are all painting lanterns for the "Harvest Festival," which you're thinking is some kind of Terra Nova Thanksgiving, only it actually commemorates the day that "Commander Taylor" came through the portal, which is starting to get a little messianic. And then it's even worse when you find out there's some play about it, and Zoe, for some reason, is going to play Taylor, complete with burlap beard.
Josh -- who has been grounded for that whole "stealing medicine to give to the Sixers" thing, and he's lucky he wasn't banished -- wants to talk to his dad in private about Boylan. No one's heard from him for since the bar's been closed, and Jim says Boylan's been "detained" and Josh asks if he's being interrogated and Jim characterizes it as being questioned -- like how much of a fascist is Jim anyway? -- and Josh insists that Boylan just had a business arrangement, nothing more. Because of his guilt over his own involvement, he just wants his dad to check and see how Boylan's doing. "I'll see what I can do," says Jim.
So Taylor's seeing off another patrol -- which involves Mark, Maddy's idiot boyfriend -- when Jim strolls up to casually ask about Boylan being locked up in Taylor's compound for two days straight, which Taylor calls "standard interrogation procedure." Even TAYLOR calls it an interrogation, so I don't know why Jim is being such an apologist. Jim asks if he's making any progress, and Taylor invites him to have a look for himself.
Boylan's sweaty and singing softly to himself, having lost his mind over whatever Taylor admits to having spiked his food with, but he still hasn't divulged how he's been communicating with the Sixers. And despite being a hard-ass with his son, Jim's a little more skeptical with Taylor, pointing out that Boylan did shoot a Sixer, although I can't believe Taylor hasn't considered the possibility that Boylan did that to cover up the extent of his involvement. Jim's a little creeped out -- although I don't know how he could be surprised -- at the extent of Taylor's ruthlessness. But before Taylor can put on "Stuck in the Middle With You" and slice off Boylan's ear -- see, Taylor also wants to know where his son is -- Washington comes in to say there's some sort of problem with the power grid at the new housing development, so Taylor leaves. Jim stays behind, on the pretext of giving Boylan some water to "flush out his system," and the delirious prisoner starts babbling about how it's buried right where he left it, at Pilgrim's Tree, and that he's going to tell the whole world. "And it's all over for you, Taylor," he says.
So Jim heads over to Malcolm's lab where Malcolm pretends to note a "flicker of intelligence" in Jim's eye, and Jim makes a crack about Malcolm's "three remaining hairs." I don't know that Malcolm has any less hair than Jim does, so that joke makes no sense. Then Jim asks Malcolm for info about Pilgrim's Tree and Malcolm explains that it's the tree that, according to the lore, Taylor lived in when he came through the portal. Please note that even though Malcolm helps Jim, he doesn't feel any obligation to be less of a dick towards the guy.
After Malcolm points out the co-ordinates on the map, Jim heads out to do some old-fashioned night-shovellin' at the tree, where he digs up a human skull. Hey, maybe it's just the skull of someone who goes into the fatally-full-of-dinosaurs-when-convenient jungle!
So he brings back what's left of the human skeleton to the infirmary, where Elisabeth examines it and tells him it's the body of a middle-aged-man who's missing his right arm below the elbow. She hasn't determined the cause of death yet -- he's been decomposing for four to six years -- but a hole in one of the ribs indicates the possibility of his having been shot. She asks if Jim's told Taylor about it yet -- everyone is very conspicuously calling him "Commander Taylor" at all times this episode, instead of just "Taylor" -- and Jim fills her in on how Boylan seemed to think this would be something to use against Taylor.
Elisabeth's a little bit surprised, but all Jim is willing to suggest at this point is that he thinks Taylor would do anything if he thought it was for the good of the colony. Elisabeth agrees to find out whatever she can.
Let's spend some time with the convoy! They've no sooner checked in with Terra Nova when we see that they're rolling through trees covered in Sixers, who knock a tree down across the road and then swing in on ropes to raid the convoy and plunder the equipment.
Jim's gone back to Boylan's cell to try to get some answers, but Boylan's still delirious, and Taylor comes in before Jim can find anything out. Jim covers by pretending he's trying to run the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine, and Taylor pops a boner over getting to be the Bad Cop, when you know he's actually thinking of the Crazy Cop/More Crazy Cop routine.
Outside, the adorable moppets are rehearsing this crazy Taylor Passion Play thing, and judging from the costume of the girl playing Washington, the play is set in a time before Terra Nova received huge industrial vats of black eye liner. Oh, and Maddy is directing the play, because of COURSE she is, and no wonder Zoe got the lead. Again I wonder how this colony ever got along before they were blessed with the Shannons. (Except for Josh. He seems like punishment.) The play takes a break when one kid mouths "I have to go to the bathroom" to another kid and then looks directly into the camera for a moment, which was kind of funny.
Then the dragonfly from the opening segment practically dive-bombs the kids, who start screaming, and a soldier whacks it with the butt end of his rifle and it falls, twitching, to the stage. And from its movements, I thought it was a robot dragonfly, but it's actually just a really big actual dragonfly... although Maddy does notice a microchip on it, and she calls the soldiers over to have a look.
So Malcolm and Taylor are examining the dragonfly in the lab, with Malcolm calling it the Cretaceous equivalent of the carrier pigeon: the Sixers have apparently learned how to train them to come home, so to speak, most likely by scent or sound. The microchip it was carrying is beyond repair, so there's no way of knowing what the message was or who it came from or was intended for. Taylor wants to let the dragonfly go so they can follow it home, but the wings are damaged and it won't be flying again.
Washington comes in, because they've got a problem, she tells Taylor, and they go out to greet the bloodied returning convoy. "They knew everything about us," Mark tells Taylor, and Washington tells Taylor that she put the convoy together after Boylan went into the hold, so he can't be the mole. Taylor orders him released, and then Maddy comes running up, concerned about Mark, and then she plants the most awkward fake kiss on him and they act all embarrassed, which is kind of how I felt watching it.
Over at the infirmary, Elisabeth is going a good job of keeping the body a secret: she's closed the transparent door to the room she's working in. Jim comes in and asks if she's found anything out. She has: that this body doesn't match the DNA of anyone on record, plus the molecular signature indicates he came over sometime between the second and third pilgrimages, not through any official ones.
So Boylan's picking through the wreckage of his bar when Jim swaggers in and says, "Wow, love what you've done with the place," which is awfully nice of him, and he tells Boylan that he found the body. Boylan plays dumb at first, and Jim says, "You were drugged and confessed to killing the guy," and Boylan, outraged, yells, "I did not!" and Jim is all, "A-HA! So you do know what I'm talking about," and he's pretty proud of himself for tricking Boylan like that, but that makes NO SENSE, because I'm pretty sure that I would vehemently deny confessing to killing someone whether I knew about the death in the first place because I haven't KILLED anyone. I mean not yet. There are still a few more episodes left of this show to get through. Regardless, Boylan denies confessing to killing someone is by no means proof that he knows what Jim is talking about, but they both act like it is, so never mind.
Boylan spins a story about helping Taylor bury a body between the second and third pilgrimages (back when they were "mates), and that it had something to do with Lucas, who brought the guy through, apparently, but Boylan never knew what the details were. He did, though, blackmail Taylor with the information in order to get his bar. Some mate.
Back at the infirmary, Malcolm's found the body, and he's pretty pissed at Elisabeth, who gets all hilariously defensive, and tries to act like Malcolm's in the wrong for butting in. "I am chief science officer for all of Terra Nova. Your work IS my work," he reminds her, and he goes to fetch Taylor.
And then Jim is there and the Shannons are comically inept at coming up with a cover story. Jim pretends to have found a note pinned to his door pointing him towards the Pilgrim's Tree (if he thought about it, he'd realize that Taylor would know who wrote this supposed note since NOBODY ELSE OTHER THAN BOYLAN knows about this). Taylor says he'd like to see the note, and Jim has to pretend to see if he still has it. At any rate, Taylor confesses to nothing, and says he figures it's a Sixer, since those guys falsify their DNA records. Jim and Elisabeth exchange worried looks, since they know Taylor's wrong at best, lying at worst.
Back at home, Elisabeth worried that Taylor's on to them, and he won't like it if he thinks Jim is building a case against him. Then we watch Zoe rehearse her Taylor monologue, which, for Jim, goes from cute to creepy as he listens to the Dear Leader speechifying whilst he imagines being eviscerated by Taylor.
Over at the lab, Malcolm shows Taylor that he's figured out what the dragonfly responds to: sound. He rings a tuning fork that Taylor can't hear, but Malcolm explains that the frequency can only be heard by some insects. You know, I'd like to have seen that requisition order for the new world. "Yeah, we need a tuning fork for the lab, one that can only be heard by some insects." Anyway, Malcolm's excited about getting the dragonfly to lead them to the spy, which confuses Taylor, because he thought the dragonfly couldn't fly anymore. "I imagined to surgically repair its wing," says Malcolm. I always enjoy it when a plot point like "the dragonfly's flying days are over" is negated by a plot twist that is, essentially, "Psych!" Anyway, they'll release it when everybody's at the festival.
And finally here we are at the Harvest Festival, with lots of weird scenes featuring extras and meaningless, half-comprehensible dialogue. One guy's got major armpit sweat stains, which is nice. And then everyone settles in to watch the play, which features Zoe-as-Taylor reporting for duty to his commanding officer, General Philbrick, who sent Taylor on the Terra Nova mission -- and he has only one arm. Jim and Elisabeth look at each other all, holy shit!
They leave the play, putting Josh in charge of Zoe and Maddy, so I guess they'll probably be dead by the time they get back. The parents discuss what they know of Philbrick: that he went missing in South America and his body was never found. Why would he have been sent here to Terra Nova? Since he was Taylor's CO, the only reason Jim can think of is to relieve Taylor of his command. But that's when Taylor strolls up with Washington, Malcolm and Reynolds to arrest Jim, because the dragonfly flew straight to the Shannons' house. Taylor says they found evidence at the house that proves he's been communicating with the Sixers. "You're working for Mira. You're a spy, Shannon!" Elisabeth asks to see the evidence, and Taylor ignores her, and Reynolds takes his potential father-in-law away. You know, considering they both think Taylor killed Philbrick and they don't know why, I think Elisabeth might be a little more upset about Jim being hauled off like this. Instead, she barely looks more than mildly inconvenienced.
So Taylor comes to see Jim in the holding cell, and he wants him to drop the investigation into Taylor in exchange for his freedom, but Jim ain't havin' it. "You want to stop me, you lock that door and throw away the key!" yells Jim, rather melodramatically. Taylor, essentially: "Meh, either way." He's on his way out the door when Jim asks why Taylor killed Philbrick. That pulls Taylor up short. "If I hadn't, he would have killed me," he says. He refused to let Philbrick relieve him of his command, because he was sent by the same "vile people" who sent the Sixers -- people who want to strip and plunder Terra Nova instead of treating it like a new start. But the pipeline only goes one way, says Jim, perplexed. Not if my son has anything to do with it, says Taylor, who explains that the day Lucas came through on a pilgrimage was the proudest day of his life. But what he didn't know was Lucas was on the other side from the get-go.
We get an awesomely cheesy flashback with hilarious shaky hand-held cam that shows Taylor destroying the work Lucas was doing to make the portal go both ways. "He hated me from that minute on. Two days later he went OTG," says Taylor, who followed him, and found General Richard Philbrick arriving through a little personal portal. Palace coup, says Lucas. "I'm here to replace you, soldier," says Philbrick, and Taylor protests that Hope Plaza put him in charge, earning derisive snorting from Lucas: "Hope Plaza has nothing to do with it. They're not in charge of Terra Nova, never have been." Philbrick says there's bigger players involved. Anyway, Taylor refused to step down, Philbrick drew a gun, Taylor beat him to it and shot him dead. And then he has to put up with his own pulling a gun on him (shaky though it may be). Taylor knocks the gun out of his hand, and then points it at his own son. "Go ahead, kill me," says Lucas, like what is up with the whiny douchebag sons on this show? "You're my son. I won't do it," says Taylor, who nevertheless calls his son a traitor not fit for Terra Nova, and he never wants to see his face again. Lucas darkly threatens that he will see his face again, and just hope he shows the same kindness Taylor showed him.
And that was the last time he saw Lucas, five years ago. Now he writes calculations on rocks, taunting Taylor, who has kept it all to himself. Because if people knew Terra Nova is based on a lie, they'd probably lie down and die. Jesus, what an optimist. "I'll fight, even if I have to do it alone," he says, adding that Jim's free to go. He says Jim will have to forgive him for playing rough, but the fate of the human race is at stake and blah blah blah. It's worth pointing out here that the preceding story is solely Taylor's version of it. Anyway, Taylor's own son is out there formulating an equation that will allow his friends to have their way. If Jim were in his place, would he bow? Or would he fight? "I would fight. I will fight." I like the way Jim just listens to the last person he talks to.
So it's nighttime now and everyone's dancing to the music, except for Elisabeth who's being guarded? I guess? By Washington and Reynolds? Taylor and Jim come back, and Taylor says it was all a mistake -- that the dragonfly was drawn by Jim's gun charger, which emits the particular frequency. Elisabeth and Jim go to get their dance on, while Malcolm's suspicious of this whole thing and Taylor implies he planted the frequency emitter in Jim's house. Malcolm asks him why and Taylor just smiles and Malcolm doesn't ask any more questions, because why would you?
So Jim fills Elisabeth in on what Taylor told him, and Elisabeth is shocked that Taylor's son is behind the whole thing. Yeah, ACCORDING TO TAYLOR, you geniuses.
And then Zoe comes running up so everybody can praise what a great little actress she is, which is kind of sadly ironic on this show, and Mark even pretends to think that she IS Taylor. Then Mark asks Jim for permission to ask Maddy to dance, because we've gone far back enough in time that Jim OWNS Maddy, and maybe Mark could show a little embarrassment over the whole "arresting Jim falsely over Taylor's made-up bullshit," but he doesn't say a word and Jim doesn't seem to worried about it.
And then Taylor takes the stage to make a speech about giving thanks for everything they have, and announces the newest addition to the community, a baby named Alexander Nathaniel Duncan. "Nathaniel," huh? The new parents pass the baby over so Taylor can hold it and, swear to god, for a couple of seconds it looked like this was going to be some sort of blood sacrifice and Taylor was about to eat the baby. I was a little bit relieved when he merely passed him back to his parents and then gets back to his Mussolini speech. "You're my friends, my family, my loved ones, and today I give thanks for each and every one of you," he says, and the fireworks go off in the distance while everyone applauds and only Jim looks less than a hundred per cent devoted, although it could be constipation. In the jungle, Lucas looks up, sees the fireworks in the distance, and goes back to being a dirty jungle hobo traitor or Terra Nova's true hero, whichever.
Daniel is a writer with a wife and daughter in Newfoundland. Wait, were there even any dinosaurs this episode? Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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