Review: The Event "Loyalty"

Non Spoiler Review:

Now that Leila and Sean are reunited, perhaps we stop the running around for an episode or two. No such luck. We also get to follow Sophia around town as well, as she stops for coffee and takes various mass transit. And we get Sterling, Martinez and their entourage in their favorite place, the war room, watching people running around on their big screen. They are much like us.

Aside from a more eventful ending than previous episodes, this one was again light on answers. Aside from a few character moments for Lee this time around, it felt like another stalling tactic. 

Spoilers Now!

Sean and Leila are enjoying their happy time together for the first time since...well, the cruise. Remember that? Unfortunately Sean has to break the news that Leila's mom is dead, he's not entirely sure what has happened to Michael, and her sister Samantha is still missing. So Leila is determined to get answers from the injured D.B. Sweeney who Scully is holding in another room. But to no avail. That sparks the happy couple to go look for answers themselves, take the SUV and abandon Scully with her captive with no explanation whatsover. Scully already had trust issues with Sean, and this will not help matters.

I've lost track exactly where in the United States they actually are, but they get to Leila's house in the next scene, where they rummage through boxes to get some answers about her father (whom D.B. Sweeney said was hiding a lot). Paula Malcomson shows up, playing a crazier character than she does on Caprica. She's a conspiracy nut, and like all television conspiracy nuts, knows just enough about the truth so as not to spoil future episode reveals. She helpfully explains that Michael once few over Alaska and stumbled upon the secret installation which houses aliens.

Meanwhile, the president and Sterling are tracking Sophia. She was given a radioactive miracle liquid that allows them to track her via satellite (sadly, she now has lymphoma). When Lee learns this, he gets to Sophia at a coffee shop (Thomas is giving her directions) and drops the tracking liquid in the milk so everyone who doesn't take their coffee black shows up on the satellite (and all the coffee drinkers downtown, and possibly some tea drinkers, get lymphoma). This alerts Martinez that they have an insider, and Lee's cover is blown when he refuses to be tested for the isotope residue. He flees and meets up with Sophia and Thomas in an abandoned building as the FBI begins to close in on them.

Thomas and Sophia share a brief moment of catch up (considering they haven't seen one another for 60 years), and Sophia is all "What happened to you" and Thomas is all "Don't judge me, I know what I'm doing." Once Lee arrives with the FBI on his heels, Thomas has another trick up his sleeve and the building begins to quake. As Sophia and Thomas escape into the sewers, Lee refuses to abandon his men to the imminent collapse, and Martinez and Sterling watch in horror as the structure implodes into a crazy energy vortex. 

Lee's flashbacks center around an affair he had in the 1950s. Thomas interferes and tells him to leave her or he'll take care of her (and he likely isn't referring to a monthly allowance), so Lee does so, only to run into that old woman later in life who notices he has not aged a day. Lee goes to her on her deathbed to have some closure, given he treated her so miserably.

I will throw out one bone to the show, and say Lee is growing on me, but this flashback really did not further the backstory along at all, other than to impress upon us that Thomas has been up to a whole lot of nefarious stuff in the shadows these last sixty years.

Yawn. The show has lost so much momentum, and Sean and Leila's ridiculous behaviour is detracting from the pace. Here's an idea. Instead of spending every episode on a chase, how about next episode Thomas and Sophia sit down for coffee (black) and reminisce about the Alaska crash and everything they've been up to since?

Rant!
Oh, and just a note. A few reviews back I mentioned I hoped we don't spend a lot of time learning how Sean got on the plane, found out about the terrorist attack, or that Michael was the pilot. I did not, however, mean, let's not spend any time at all. Aside from an airport security shot of Sean boarding the plane, we've heard nothing yet of how he got from the cruise to the airport?