Review: The Event "Everything Will Change"

Non Spoiler Review:

The Event reaches its mid season cliffhanger, and contrary to the episode title, not much changes at all. All we manage to learn is Martinez, Sophia and Dempsey are all extremely incompetent and weak leaders. What's notable is that the flashbacks have disappeared, at least for the time being.

The plotholes continue, without even considering Sean and Leila's ludicrous shenanigans. At this ten episode mark, it's doubtful the show can resurrect any compelling story to see it through to the end of the season. As we end on what passes for the cliffhanger, it provides little interest in what is to come.

Spoilers Now!

Sean apparently didn't kill Berg, the attacker, but he's ready to. Grabbing a syringe from him as he wakes up, Sean demands to know where Leila's sister is, and then injects the guy with it. Berg stumbles away in horror, and when they catch up, he's now an old man.

Martinez and Sterling confront Jarvis in the hospital, but Jarvis is now suggesting he has amnesia. Martinez vows to destroy him, but Jarvis muses the public won't be sympathetic to the president covering up the greatest conspiracy in history. He tells him he's just as much a bit player as he is. And he'll stay as vice president. Martinez seems to back down and leaves with Sterling, as they are summoned back to the war room after an Omalan (Pakistan?) missile installation is discoverd on satellite. The Omalan government declares they know nothing about it, and it might be a terrorist group, or (gasp) someone else.

Sophia, Simon, Thomas and Isabel are sitting in a circle sharing tea. Sophia wants to clear the air—change is difficult and they will make it through their challenging times. With the key module, they'll need an interface for the portal. Thomas takes Isabel back to the hotel. But Sophia doesn't really believe her son is giving her all the information on their financial accounts. Sophia confides in Simon—her own investigations have learned Thomas has a separate set of funds with Isabel. She sends Simon to look into Steven Grant, Thomas' banker, and learn where the money is coming from and what it's used for.

Thomas knows Sophia is on to them, and tells Isabel they need to escalate their plans. Many will die before they're done. Simon comes upon the dead banker, so assumes Thomas was behind it. Sophia finds that Thomas also took the key module and he and Isabel have disappeared. Perhaps tea wasn't such a good team building exercise after all.

Old man Berg wants to be taken to Willowbrook hospital, but Abby's dad runs up through the cornfield just briefly enough to warn them to leave it alone, then runs off again, because some things are better left unknown. And old man Berg dies. Dempsey is later advised that Berg hasn't shown up with the new subject. Their current subject, Samantha, seems to be responding better than expected, however.

Bam! Leila and Sean are at Willowbrook hospital in, like, the next scene, and decide to check it out. Leila grabs a name off the patient roster while they're at the front desk, and she poses as a poor woman's niece to get into the patient area. Sean heads off to check out the rooms and leaves Leila with the crazy woman. Unfortunately, Sean gets caught, and the two are kicked out with a slap on the wrist, except one additional crazy man who overheard Leila and shouts out he's heard little girls crying in the floor. Leila knows he's telling the truth because she sees the water tower behind the hospital.

At night, they wait until security takes out the garbage and sneak in, taking the elevator to the bottom levels. But the rooms appear to all be empty and abandoned, so Leila's plan is to run through the hallways screaming Samantha's name. What they do find is LEILA written on the wall. 

The Omala installation appears to be under control of tribal areas, and the ambassador says they can't get to it before the missile launches in two hours. A corporation built the installation for the warlords, and Sterling finds that the corporation has a board of directors composed of 97 names matching the detainees.

Martinez can't get F-16s there fast enough and the missile can reach the west coast. Simon informs Sophia of the situation. Thomas orders the launch. In the war room, they soon realize that the US is not the target, nor are sensors detecting any radiation of a nuclear payload. The missile goes into space and releases a satellite that broadcasts a transmission away from earth. 

Sean and Leila find a room full of burned records, so they search through it and are fortunate enough to find a folder for Abby's father, Paul. In all the photos going back decades, he looks the same. Sean suggests he may be an alien (as per Madeline's explanation). Leila doesn't want to think about that. Then Sean finds another unburned folder for Michael Buchanan...and guess what, he hasn't aged a day since the 1940s, as well. And so we leave The Event on that uneventful ending.

The outrageous plot devices continue. Sophia can't seem to manage the key component they retrieved, and allows Isabel and Thomas to run amok. Martinez backs down at the merest threat from his vice president, and everyone watches helplessly as events unfold around them.

Sean and Leila's misadventures have gone beyond absurd, bumbling into secure locations with ease. Dempsey should have a lot to worry about, given all his operatives are beyond incompetent—when they are not managing to get killed, they haphazardly dispose of secure information. Wasn't Michael Buchanan's photo shown among the detainees as early as episode one?