Helix: Plan B Review

Helix tears itself down as it readies for its final two episodes of the season. What will remain when the smoke clears?

After the devastation on this week’s episode of Helix, “Plan B,” it’s easy to believe the show is ready to tear itself down by the finale in a similar fashion, almost as if it knows this could be the end of the series as well. With two episodes remaining, I’m anxious to see how everything ties in to the events of the far future where Julia struggles to find a different cure. Given the desolation of that future, I wouldn’t be surprised if the show has decided to go down in a blaze of glory.

Everyone has their own Plan B in this week’s episode, and no one’s is as drastic as Peter’s. Under Anne’s guidance, Peter has somehow tapped into his life as a Narvik B vector and become a heartless killer. I can’t really reconcile his new penchant for violence with his apparent devotion to a child he recently acquired in such gruesome circumstances. His change in personality, while completely unbelievable, at least makes him more interesting. I’m genuinely curious to see what Anne’s end game is for the two of them.

Amy’s end game at first also appeared to be coming together, and I was ready to express my usual dissatisfaction about the ease with which the young Amy manipulates the two immortals, Sarah and Julia. I should have known that Julia had a Plan B. I thought her idea of putting Sarah’s unborn child into a mortal body, not only to make Amy immortal but also theoretically to allow the baby to develop, was a brilliant one. But alas, it was all a trick, well-executed with a glorious pay-off. Nothing gave me greater pleasure (frighteningly so) than to see Amy meet her gruesome end in the all-killing, face-melting fog.

And that, of course, is the real Plan B in the episode title. The CDC has decided that enough is enough, and extreme quarantine measures are taken. Those inside the protected abbey (a bit easy, don’t you think?) have survived to finish out the season, but quite a few island inhabitants were lost along with one very important Mother root. Alan may still be able to create a cure for Kyle with Soren’s help, and that gives small hope for an end to the plague by season’s end. If only that were the only problem facing humanity.

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Ilaria’s Narvik C plan is only a couple of days away, and I find myself wondering why they didn’t just encourage the mycosis outbreak instead of tailor-making their own virus. In any case, Julia’s other Plan B, the infertility measure, has been foiled by the death of the Mother root, but her interaction with Alan in this episode brings new light to her supposedly humane plan of reducing Earth’s mortal population. More accurately, it makes Alan’s plan of taking out Ilaria altogether seem much more like the way to go. This planet has got bigger issues than this one disease!

So what’s in store for those left on the island? Will Alan find a cure? Will Julia have to seek other solutions? What are Peter and Anne up to, and how is Landry involved? How did Landry survive his fall unscathed while the immortal Sergio did not? What fate is in store for the immortal fetus?

The fact that I still have these questions must mean I’m still engaged to a certain degree. Amy’s death appeased me somewhat, helping me overlook this episode’s shortcomings, which, once again, extended to the believability of the character’s actions and motivations. With all the dismantling this show has done in the last few weeks, perhaps underneath it all is a beautifully concise Plan B at its end. I’ll let you know when I get there.

Rating:

3 out of 5