'PERSONS UNKNOWN' 1.10 - "Identity"

[SPOILERS] There were moments of "Identity" I found enjoyable, but developments still feel contrived, and things aren't as tense as they should be three hours from the end. The show has also done a poor job of fleshing out its ensemble (spending too much time focusing on soppy Janet and dopey Joe), so "Identity" was almost specifically engineered to give us some insight into more character's histories. Too little, too late.

The reviews are in, and it's bad news...

This week, Kat (Lola Glaudini) and Mark (Gerald Kyd) appear to have stumbled upon the town and thus provoked a lockdown of the hotel containing the abductees. The new Night Manager, Liam Ulrich (Alan Smyth), apologized for the inconvenience but gave each captive a personal gift as compensation: Joe (Jason Wiles) received his dog-eared Bible with a photo of an old flame inside; Blackham (Sean O'Bryan) received an old football with the obituary of a coach who made his school days hell; Charlie (Alan Ruck) got a newspaper containing an article about his recent disappearance and suspicion of embezzlement; Erika (Kandyse McClure) was given a poster of her son Anton; Moira (Tina Holmes) had the scarf she used to murder her sexually-abusive father and complicit mother; Graham's (Chadwick Boseman) box contained the leather belt he used to be beaten with as a kid; and Janet (Daisy Betts) was reunited with her childhood dolly. She even received a phone call from her mother, possibly because the Night Manager appears to have taken pity on her.

There's the suggestion here that Management have been following each character's lives from birth, which is a fun idea. Have they each had their lives steered towards this experience, for some important reason to determine their futures? I also appreciated the instances when characters seemed to grow closer over their mementoes, by opening up to each other about them. Charlie admitted that Blackham maybe isn't such a "donut hole" after hearing his inspirational story of a sporting victory (a little too easily, but we'll let it slide), while Moira and Graham grew closer after realizing they both share a background of abusive parents.

Charlie also appreciated the fact his crimes in the outside world have been covered-up by the Management, which I suppose means they have leverage over him now, or he'll come to appreciate their meddling. I guess there's a chance Persons Unknown will end with each character being psychologically improved thanks to the "therapy" they've endured here, but I doubt the show will stray too far from a happy escape.

One thing about this episode left me scratching my head: were Kat and Mark in the same town as our captives, their presence necessitating the temporary lockdown, or had they just found another identical town run by the Organization? The town they were in looked abandoned and the men in blue overalls had delivered five dead bodies into the bank's vault. Were those people inhabitants of that town who had been "flushed" (killed), as Joe believes is going to happen to their own group now? Or were those people just unconscious and newly-delivered to the town for later placement in the Program? I couldn't decide exactly what was going on here, and I've heard conflicting opinions about this whole subplot. What did you think? Was the confusion about Mark and Kat's whereabouts intentional, or an example of bad storytelling and direction?

I'm telling you, bandana's are back

My biggest gripe with "Identity" was the ridiculous notion that, like Joe before him, Ulrich appears to have fallen in love with Janet and is giving her preferential treatment. Just what is it about Janet that men find so irresistible? I know she's smoking hot, but it's bizarre that Ulrich is so deeply attracted to her after one day on the job. It would have been more plausible if it was the original Night Manager who's beginning to fancy Janet, so I don't understand why they replaced that character so close to the finale. The fact Joe knows Ulrich (he believes he's a man he shot dead once) also confused me, and Ulrich's character feels like too much of a replacement for Tom -- another conspirator who shares a history with Joe. In fact, the show is guilty of taking us down alleyways that just lead back to where we started (the largely pointless Joe-centric run of episodes, and now Ulrich fulfilling Tom's role).

Overall, "Identity" would have worked better had it been an earlier episode, because it feels very late in the game to start giving us reasons to care about characters like Moira and Graham. And I'm not even sure we do care about them, anyway -- they just have an attention-grabbing back-story invented to give weak characters an intriguing veneer. I guess my main complain with this show is that it hasn't settled down to feed us its mystery in a more cohesive and clever way; it feels extremely improvised, with lots of distractions that are probably trying to disguise a weak ending.

Asides

• In a ridiculous move, NBC have decided to release the eleventh episode as an "online premiere" this Friday, ahead of the two-part finale on Saturday. Extremely irritating for TV viewers, but I hope to get hold of the online episode to review it. If I'm unable to do that, I'll either have to skip the episode and read a written recap, or put my reviews on hold until the missing episode becomes available to me.
• Graham's line of dialogue "by hook or by crook" was a clear nod to The Prisoner, almost certainly. Nobody says "by hook or by crook" otherwise.
• I did like the scene where the bank vault bodies were revealed to all have missing thumbs (very bizarre, inspired lots of questions), but then revealing it was the work of Stefano and leading us into a vehicular chase over a tin of severed digits took the edge off it.
• The conversation with Janet's mother wasn't very convincing. She didn't even ask her daughter the obvious question "where are you?"

WRITER: Sandy Isaac
DIRECTOR: Jonathan Frakes
GUEST CAST: Joanna Lipari & Alan Smyth
TRANSMISSION: 7 August 2010 - NBC, 8/7c

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