The third episode of the NBC “supernatural thriller” appears, and no – it’s not getting any better.
Bo and Tate continue to wander aimlessly (at least as far as we know), travelling undisguised, as usual, on public transportation to New York City. Hi-jinks, of course, ensue.
We’ve said before: there are only two kinds of dialogue in Believe: exposition and bickering. We begin with the latter, as Milton Winter and Skouras meet in a coffee shop. Why do they meet? To give us a recap of the show’s premise. No other reason, really: Skouras says, “let’s have a truce,” which he’s obviously offered a million times before, and Winter refuses, as he most certainly has a million times before. Was there anything new on the table? Some new approach, some bargaining chip that would change the game, up the stakes? Nah. Let’s just have a face-to-face chat. Which implies that the two of them have some kind of open line of communication (how else was the meeting set?), and that this easily could have been done on, say burner phones. No matter: nothing is resolved but the recap is givben. At least I hope the coffee was good for Agent ahh…for Roman Skouras. (It would have been SO cool if he had been eating a piece of cherry pie, but…no chance. God, I miss Twin Peaks.)
After the exposition: bickering. Bo and Tate poke at each other, Tate reminds us—as if we’ve forgotten – that he’s a fugitive and she’s an Amber Alert, but no matter: he’ll wave around his piece of paper with the address Winter game them and head straight for it anyway. (Quick cutaway: the Feds have spotted them on a traffic cam and knows right where they were two hours ago. Why they couldn’t use the same tech at Grand Central or on the Amtrak to spot them then, who knows – mostly ‘cause it serves the plot’s purpose to get in some NYC exteriors.) Bo nearly gets run over, and Tate takes the moment to make a spectacle of himself and pickpocket a purse from a rich woman right in front of more traffic cams, though he was bitching about their exposure not five minutes earlier. Again: dumbest fugitives in America, still at large only by the dumbest fugitive-chasers this side of The Following.
Before titles we get a glimpse of Nina, Bo’s dead Mom, who was a cheap-ass fortune teller when Skouras found her. More exposition, and then an ominous warning from Skouras’ assistant: “Bo’s getting stronger, and if we don’t intervene she could end up sick. The more she channels, the more likely she’ll end up like her mother.” Why not say what that was that happened? Wouldn’t you say, “her head could explode just like her Mom’s did.” Why do the ominous line? Not because it’s good dialogue, Lord knows. Because it’s good television just before the commerical. Also, doesn’t this idea interfere with the “Save the girl, save the world?” bit? If using her power kills her, how’s she gonna solve all those world crises? Anyway…
After the titles and commercials: more exposition. A ten-year-old flashback of Milton’s and Skouros’ first meeting. Even the staging is stilted: a huge penthouse office with almost no furniture (Ooh, Skouros is so sterile and unemotional!), he greets Milton with his back to him, looking out over his domain, and turns to face him only when he has a new ominous line to deliver. (Who does that? Nobody but supervillains, that’s who!). And then they tell each other things they both already know: You’re a renowned scientist from DARPA and MIT, you’re a jillionaire, Nina, Bo’s Mom has these powers (what, no PowerPoint presentation?) that they both know about. THANKS, guys, we never would’a known without the scorecard. “There are 47 conflicts around the world,” Skouras says, “Nina could end them. All of them.” The question that remains is how? How does Skouros imagine a single twenty-something woman who can move pencils with her mind could somehow become a superhero who would change vast complicated multi-generational worldwide political movements? It’s just a given to these days, like “Nina can turn into water, soshe could prevent every fire in the world.” But…wait, uh…
Bo and Tate, well aware they’re under constant surveillance now, stroll into the Rich Lady’s penthouse and ‘sneak’ their way upstairs when Bo causes a light bulb to blow. Not a power failure—they immediately scurry onto an elevator. Just a blown bulb. And of course the doorman never notices or calls security or the cops. He’s got a light bulb to deal with, damn it!
Okay, I was wrong, you got me, with powers like that Bo CAN save the world. I mean, god – light bulbs? I was a fool I had no idea.
When they meet the rich lady upstairs, Tate tries to hit her up for a reward, again apparently not concerned that American’s #1 Most Wanted at Miss Amber Alert might get recognized and turned in. (See “Dumbest Fugitives,” above). The woman, clearly of Middle Eastern origins, grudgingly gives Bo a few bucks; Bo vibes that she lost her husband and her son, who were supposed to follow her to the U.S., to escape “the fighting in your country” (No names! No names!), but “they didn’t make it.” Meanwhile, Tate’s busy stealing jewelry in the living room –including a piece we see in Bo’s visions, that belonged to the dead little boy (who, frankly, looks like a girl in the flashbacks). Damn, now we’re supposed to feel sorry for the rich lady refugee (but they are so much nicer than those dirty little urban peasant refugees, aren’t they? Peasants have so little worth stealing.). Bo, clueless as to Tate’s larceny despite her awesome psychic powers that will save the world, waves b’bye as they leave.
We’re then subjected to some entirely unconvincing cop-talk rat-a-tat, straight out of poorly remembered scenes of Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive and its secret sequels. We’ll skip that fact that the agent keeps barking things about “this is a real-time situation!” when in fact she’s working on visual intel that’s at least twenty minutes old, and in twenty minutes anybody can hail and cab and get out of your “10 block radius” in a few seconds. Quick! Commerical! Ba-DOOM!
We flash back ten years again, to Winter’s first meeting with Nina (boy, I wish I hadn’t changed a bit in ten years. Amazing; nobody in this show ages. Or gets a different hair cut. In ten years.) Only two facts matter here: Nina’s mom had powers and was institutionalized when Nina was a teenager; Nina has powers and she’s pregnant.
Back to the present. Helicopters buzzing Manhattan, and once again they mention their real-time, spot-on intel that, oops, at least 12 minutes old. (They really should call Finch over on Person of Interest). HE doesn’t have problems like this.)
Quick bicker-scene with Bo and Tate on their way to the now pointless safe house. Purpose: to remind us that Tate’s a dishonest prick. You’re welcome.
They make it to the safe house, where there are new fake passports waiting, but no food or money. (No, it doesn’t make sense. Don’t ask.) We see Milton’s HQ, where they know that Bo and Tate have made it to the safe house, but, despite all their high-tech expertise and equipment, are totally unaware that the FBI is closing in. There’s some dissension in the ranks, and one of Winter’s men quits, bringing their team to five. So they’re NOT the super well-funded high-tech group we thought – which, of course, doesn’t jibe with their country-spanning, jet-jumping, multi-city-safe-house Amber-Alert-jamming op that we’ve seen so far, but…never mind. Whatever works for the scene, right?
The cops close in on the safe house (think they better check the definition, there. It was ‘safe’ for approximately, um, zero seconds), but Bo and Tate sneak down the fire escape which totally works because New York cops and the FBI would NEVER think of covering the fire escape while raiding a third-story apartment…but only after Bo has to be coaxed down from that third floor like a scared kitten, “because you’re yelling at me!” These are the heroes of the show: a timid little girl with no real clue about what’s going on and her fake-real-fake dad who steals things and badmouths people. Gotta love ‘em.
A lot of back and forth scenes none, none very moving or enlightening except to learn that Winter promised Nine while she was giving birth that he would always protect Bo, no matter what. That is supposed to explain why he took her from Roman Skouras, broke her dad out of prison, sent them on the run with the FBI and the scary rich people chasing them, and offers only sporadic and mostly incompetent support, while not telling either Bo or Tate that they’re related. ‘Cause that’s protecting her, see. And he has force d these two people together because “she’s stronger with her father,” though there’s no evidence of that at all – she’s as weak and inconsistent in her powers as ever, constantly confused and/or terrified, and he’s a douche. But hey: he made a promise ten years ago, so he can do any stupid thing he wants.
Oh, and we get a long monologue (this show loves monologues) from the Rich Lady, that establishes her son went missing – not dead – years and years ago, but she still waits. Which leads us directly, without pause, into the scene at the pawn shop where they’re going to hock that jewelry they stole from Rich Lady—the shop that Bo selected…so she can meet a young Middle Eastern man there and YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHO HE IS. (Okay, so that’s two definitions these guys need to look up: “safe house” and “surprise ending.”)
Cops closing in (supposedly). And even though Winter and Channing know exactly where Bo and Tate are – that wonderful GPS anklet, remember? – Winter insists they go to the pre-arranged pick up point forty minutes from that spot. Why? Because “he trusts Bo.” The ten-year-old girl. Who won’t move if you yell at her.
So do Bo and Tate, aware that the clock is ticking, give this newfound Son of Rich Lady her mom’s address? No. Even though they’re on the run from the Feds and the Rich, even though they have to make a rendezvous point in mere minutes, they stroll back to Rich Lady’s penthouse so they can witness the reunion. And when they leave, congratulating themselves …
Two cops are waiting outside. They arrest him on an anonymous tip that he burgled the apartment upstairs, not as part of the overwhelming dragnet that apparently Tate eluded by walking a couple of blocks uptown.
Commercial! Are they real cops!? Please, no, they used they “fake cops” bit last week.
We cut for another ten-year-old flashback which is so brainless it’s barely worth describing. But: Roman brings together world leaders in his previous seen penthouse cavern, points an armed drone at the penthouse and leaders as it flies over New York City, and makes Nina blow it up—the first and only time he’s tried this. It works (would have been GREAT if it hadn’t), but it induces labor. Let’s play a game: list how many things are wrong with that idea. And by the way, modern-day armed drones, similar to the ones shone in the bad CGI, weren’t introduced until nine years ago. Just sayin’.
No, they’re real cops. But Bo, under threat of being separated from Tate, suddenly gets super: she uses her mind-powers to break Tate’s cuffs, get him out of the cop car, disassembles a policeman’s pistol in mid-firing, and electrifies the turnstile in the subway so they can escape and be reunited with Winter. (Whoa! Electrical powers? That’s new.) And in a last dialogueless (thank god) flashback, we see Nina die in childbirth. The end…for now.
So this is the big reveal of “what happened to Nina”? She used her power one time to stop that armed drone, which induced labor and killed her? So why the hell is Roman absolutely convinced that Bo can become a superhero? Seems like one good blast and she’s dead. And, by the way: he’s got other superpeople in captivity already, who seem almost as capable, lined up for future use. So it’s not like she’s one of a kind.
So get used to it: there are no rules, there is no connection to real-world society, science, politics, or even logic, and Bo can do whatever the writers want her to do (or not do) whenever it serves the weak-ass story.
That, anyway, is what I Believe.
