Point 2x07 "Protect the Guilty"

[Dale]

"Protect the Guilty"
"Protect the Guilty"

Starring
Michelle Rodriguez as Alex Weiss
Jeremy Davies as Derek Shan
Christoph Waltz as C.O.
Ken Leung as Wells
John Leguizamo as Scott Cereghino
Michelle Monaghan as Sophie
Adrian Lester as Harding
Thandie Newton as Tanner

[Dale]

2x07– “Protect the Guilty”

“Protect the Guilty” opened with a flashback (I’m assuming anyway) to the Coffee Shop killing from Tanner’s flashback in “The Reluctant Lamb” before turning our attention to Alex Weiss, post shooting with Johnson.

Again, Alex’s brother’s death feels so convoluted. She didn’t need her brother to die to be apart of this. She fights people like Johnson, because that’s what she does, that’s the Alex we’ve known since Season1. She didn’t need the extra motivation in my opinion. Introducing a brother and killing him off as an incentive for Alex to go after Johnson feels so tacked on and cheap to me. I really think it would have been far more interesting to see Tanner die and have Alex react to that instead of her brother Luke, but maybe that’s just me. Earlier in the Season, I said things felt so planned out, with a focus being put on Tanner’s snitch. That particularly thread seems to have been dropped all together in favour of this one and I don’t like it.

This episode also gives us an Alex flashback, investigating the coffee shop incident. The hostage taker Earl apparently wants to give himself up, but to Alex alone. And we later revisit one particular line spoken by Earl as Alex interrogates a Photographer who had been parked outside “Home”, Derek’s safe house. I didn’t think much of either plot line to be honest, other than seeing the difference between Alex then, putting her trust in Earl and Alex now, beating Mike in the head with her gun.

The conversation with Harding and Wells was reminiscent of the one between Harding and Wells. I think its interesting using Harding as a conduit, acting as the voice of the audience to give us some information on these characters. Wells has had the most time out of the new trio to establish himself and he put across the same type of stuff he always do in this short scene. I do get the suspicious feeling that Harding is vetting them all, trying to find a weak spot and exploit it

The ending, with Tanner being caught in the bomb’s explosion doesn’t really do anything for me. Like I said, she seems like Alex-Lite and I’m far more invested in Alex as a character. And like I said earlier, I think using Tanner’s death would have made for a far better catalyst for Alex’s rage and motivating to kill Johnson that Alex’s tacked on brother did. Also, Johnson has always been pre-pared as a pretty piss poor villain, so I think seeing him concoct a scheme to hire Mike as a photographer, find out where “Home” is and use Mike to blow it up whilst Clare struggles to save Tanner’s life would have made for a far more thrilling plot line. Especially if Tanner came around moments before hand and had the name of the snitch on the tip of her tongue just as the explosion went off. Also, earlier in the Season, Derek and Alex well all about getting to Tanner so she could tell them about the inside man she had in Johnson’s organization. Here, Tanner’s lucid, awake and alive ... and nobody asks.

Overall, this episode had its moments. I like the contrast that was shown between Alex in her flashbacks and current day Alex and how much harder, less trusting and colder she has become. Although I felt the execution was as strong as it could be. I see what you’ve tried to do these previous two episodes but I can’t help but feel a little let down. The Season seems to have veered off course somewhere and lost some of the focus that it had in the earlier episodes. The dialogue has also taken a step down after some really good work in the previous episode and this episode featured a few impossible plot points (how in the hell did Mike not notice the C4 strapped to his jacket? What if he got hot whilst taking Photographs and took it off? Good idea in theory but failed somewhat in practice). I hope to see “Point” get back on course with the next few episodes and deliver some good, strong episodes leading into the Finale.

Score: 6.8/10