Review: The Event "Turnabout"

Non Spoiler Review:

Thomas and Sophia vie for control of their people this week, as her son attempts to secure nuclear fuel rods for the teleportation array. Sophia must convince Martinez to trust her again while she finds power slipping from her grasp. Of course, we get Sean, and the amazing return of Vicky. Plus some Leila.  

Nothing particular exciting warrants comment, aside from a useless bar room brawl to give Sean some purpose (and an edge) now that he's Leila-less. The Event is suffering from too many lazy plotlines rather than focusing on revealing more of the alien situation. Well...okay, it's suffering from a lot of things. But this week I noticed that more.

Spoilers Now!

Thomas takes all the former detainees to a community he owns in the mountains. Some will be taken to the array to finish infrastructure and design. He tells a man named Hanson (whose face is messed up real bad) they'll need a lot of fuel for the array. 

Sterling is back to work and recovering. Martinez is briefed on the Inostranka breakout. He's not impressed that they escaped so easily and tears his general a new one about royally screwing up the Inostranka security. 

Simon contacts Sophia to let her know the bad news. Thomas killed 44 of their people who wouldn't swear loyalty to him. Sophia has the name of the man Buchanan used to procure materials for the array—Hanson. Meanwhile Buchanan is passing Leila and Sam off to his friend Carlos' family. Leila still wants more answers, so he gives her a hug and tells her they'll be safe. But Carlos is thinking of listening to what Thomas has to say, though he does outfit Buchanan and Sophia with supplies and sends them on their way.

Sophia zeroes in on Hanson in the next scene, but when he tries to make a getaway Buchanan heads him off. Sophia gets tough because she knows they'll have to kill Thomas, so they torture him to find out where her son is, and how he's going to power the array. Hanson is trying to get uranium from a nuclear power plant in California. 

Sophia calls Martinez with a frantic message—Thomas is teleporting uranium rods out of the nuclear power plant to create their giant portal. The pressing problem is the teleportation thingie itself...the last time he did it was in 1986 at Chernobyl. Everyone in the war room is like "Oooohhh". A strong magnetic field will disrupt the portal, though, (which is why they couldn't teleport the detainees because of the polar anomalies). She says everything she kept from Martinez was to protect him. And hangs up.

Sean's in a hick bar and gets hit on by a girl right away, except her boyfriend isn't too impressed and starts a fight with her, prompting Sean to just get up to go and leave, except the guy won't let him without a fight. So they get into it. Sean manages to beat him up and gets kicked out. 

Then he breaks into a house (!) and eats apples and chicken, but this girl walks in and it's just his old friend, Lisa. She heard he killed someone on a cruise ship but he says it wasn't that and was about the president nearly getting assassinated and crazy experiments and maybe aliens. She doesn't want him staying there. He says he doesn't plan too. He's also talking with his mouth full so he's turned completely bad ass. He just wants her white trash boyfriend to set him up with a fake ID so he can get to Mexico.

Martinez is having some crazy second thoughts about trusting Sophia, and instead suggests putting a tracking device on the rods and allowing a meltdown. But Sterling steps forward to say he believes her after what Maya said at Inostranka. Okay fine, then. The president opts to move the rods, but he isn't happy and angrily folds his arms.

Simon oversees the movement of the rods and advises Sophia. But Hanson is still awake and they've left him alone to rip off a piece of his skin and produce a handy transmitter to alert Thomas. "Sophia took the bait," he says. It's all a ruse to move the rods so they can swipe them (because he can't really teleport). Thomas tells him to take out Sophia.

Carlos and his wife are having a debate about Thomas and Sophia and how Buchanan went native and had a family. If Thomas succeeds and their people come over, it's going to be bad news for the native population. Leila gets nosy and asks what that all means, but Carlos thinks she's just half of two things and not one of them, and definitely not trustworthy. And that's for her father to tell her. Argh!

Vicky's back! Getting groceries. She gets home, only to have a gun pulled on her by Sean, who's not there to kill her, though. He wants to know who she's been working for and she'll help him stop them (Mexico didn't workout).

Buchanan leaves Sophia alone in order to bring the car around, which gives Hanson time to break free of his handcuffs and sneaks up behind Sophia to try to strangle her. He nearly succeeds but Buchanan gets back in time to shoot him. Sophia finds the transmitter and realizes they been played.

The nuclear rod convey is hijacked with an old school ambush. Simon's the only one left to fend them off. But he manages to disappear by the time Thomas gets there, and they take the truck. 

Martinez is informed by Sterling that the convoy was attacked. Just then Sophia calls and he lets loose on her about tricking him. She says she needs more time to find Thomas and stop him. But Sterling's managed to trace the call to San Francisco. All they need is one more call to pinpoint her location. Martinez authorizes the use of lethal force to bring her in.

So, another episode devoted to setting up the teleportation array, and confirms that Sophia likely doesn't deserve to be leader anymore. So much would be solved if Sophia, Buchanan, Carlos, etc. just told the truth to the people they want to trust them. But why give the audience answers at this point? This show is already tired and worn out beyond repair.