For the second week in a row, Stephen didn’t quite feel like
the main character of The Tomorrow People
— which is a very good thing, since the more we see of the other stars doing
their thing, the more fun this show seems to become. And this week, it was all
about a gang of mutie criminals. Where’s Dredd when you need him?
Spoilers ahead…
Just like last week, this week’s episode is all about the
consequences of Cara becoming the leader of the Tomorrow People — will they
follow her? Will they think she’s weak? And she gets a brand new foil who’s
basically designed to highlight that conflict: Julian, the leader of a group of
mutant gang who prey on the 1 percent.
Turns out Cara used to be part of Julian’s crew when he was
just getting started, and she showed mercy on one of their targets — who then
shot Julian’s girlfriend. Ever since then, Julian has always hated her. And now
he’s back in New York and plans to act out the plot of Tower Heist, at least as far as anybody knows what the plot of that
movie is.
The basic storyline here is that Cara has to show someone
from her past, who used to bully her, that she’s tough and she’s a great
leader. And she has to lead the Tomorrow People into action — even though as
she herself points out, the smart thing might be just to sit this one out and
let Ultra and the criminal gang wipe each other out.
But what makes it a bit cooler is that: A) Julian has
figured out a way to turn the Tomorrow People’s weird inhibition against murder
into a kind of drug, getting “high” off the headrush he gets when he
almost kills someone. Love this. B) We get a contrast between Cara’s nurturing
of Charlotte, the young breakout that she rescued from Ultra’s Citadel, and
Julian’s exploitation of vulnerable young people. And in the end, Cara wins
because she helped Charlotte harness her screamy head-bursty potential. Yay.
Oh, and Garza from Continuum
is part of Julian’s gang — presumably infiltrating them on behalf of
Liber8.
Anyway, the more awesome Cara gets, the more fun she is to
watch. (Partly because her other mode appears to be lip-quivering martyrdom.)
And the relationship between her and John is getting more fun, too, as John
resolutely backs her leadership while making sure everybody remembers that he’s
still Mr. Awesome.
Also, Russell tails Julian, and doesn’t screw up as badly as
everyone expects — although he does manage to get his ass royally kicked.
The episode’s “B” plot has to do with Jedikiah
suddenly announcing a brand new rule — but for once, it’s not a new rule of
how the Tomorrow People’s powers work. (Although as usual, this episode treats
teleportation as something that’s either super easy or impossible, depending on
what the writers need.) Rather, the new rule is that trainee Ultra agents (like
Stephen) get winnowed down, and the ones who don’t make the cut have their
powers removed. Because Ultra loves to waste valuable resources.
Stephen is one of three candidates, along with the ultra-competitive
Hillary, and some other dude, whose name is Other Dude. In the end, Stephen and
Hillary work together to take down Julian’s gang after Cara’s done all the work
for them. And the let Other Dude share the credit, too — it would be funny if
Stephen and Julian just high-five each other while watching Other Dude lose his
powers.
More importantly, thank goodness we had an Astrid sighting
in this episode — and Ultra noticed that Stephen has a non-mutant friend who
knows about his mutantitude. This is going to lead to Consequences — meaning
that Astrid gets to be a damsel. Um… yay?
