Starting in the future, we have a crowd of people queuing
up for “citizenship extraction” (which invalidates birth certificates) and
apparently very painful, unpleasant process to remove a chip from their arm.
And in the present a man wakes up after 2 months in a
coma – he doesn’t remember much, not even his own name. But he remembers Kiera’s
name.
At the police station, everyone returns from Betty’s
funeral and Carlos tries to confront Dillon about investigating Betty’s murder –
but they’re too close to it, Independent Investigation has taken over and it’s
not like this particular police department has the best reputation at the
moment. And he may have handed over the investigation just to ensure Betty’s
Liber8 connections remain buried.
Kiera goes to the hospital to see the mystery man – but she
doesn’t recognise him. But the doctor decides to farm him off on her anyway
because he’s perfectly healthy and she has no-one else to hand him over to. I’m
pretty sure this isn’t standard procedure.
Carlos has taken up day drinking and decides to show
Corporate Alec the other Kiera’s body. This turns into Carlos and Alec deciding
they can trust the dead original but new Kiera is scary and unknown.
So when Kiera calls Alec for help with her John Doe, he’s
snarky and uncooperative and really really passive aggressive. Alec’s day gets
a little worse when he learns that Kellog is suing him – because the contract
he signed for Sadtech with him had anti-competition rules and Kellog getting a
sizeable cut of every one of Alec’s ideas. Working for Piron breaches that. Oh
and Kellog adds that, since he’s from the future, he knows that Sadtech ends up
beating Piron
More bad news – even working with Jason he can’t get Halo
to work without a patch on the back of the neck which is ugly and not likely to
be wanted. And he’s losing talent to Sadtech. Jacqueline, his lawyer/assistant
also points out that Kellog has reasonable grounds to sue and Jason has no good
news about Halo – the things he needs to make it will be very easily available.
In 10 years.
To another plot – a guy sneaks into a building and steals
something and then escapes pursuit with impressive agility and parkour skills –
and some future technology that makes him invisible.
Dillon, Kiera and Carlos meet about the theft (and taking lots of proprietary information) using high tech and inside knowledge without a leak and come up Liber8 (this is deduction. To be fair, though, every time someone jaywalks in the city, Dillon screams “Liber8”). But Kiera takes time off the case because she’s obsessing with John Doe and has found a hotel he apparently was booked in. Which shows he’s either poor or has poor taste (it’s not the most up market) and that he had a sci-fi book about 2071 (I smell time traveller). He also has some random digits tattooed on his wrist. And yes, he looks around and realises he knows the city – but not the time.
The future-tech enabled parkour thief hits Piron and
steals a Halo bracelet.
Kiera goes to see Alec about the robbery and he’s shaken
and a little upset (and still a little passive aggressive) and they follow a
lead to WCIT, a company that is making the invisibility cloak. Kiera mentions
the attitude change of Alec to Carlos and Carlos actually wonders if Alec may
be involved in the robbery.
Kiera goes to see her John Doe and talks about being from
the future. And she trusts him because some reason – and she invites him to
crash on her couch.
Alec is called in for an interview with Dillon and Carlos
where Alec is both sarcastic and passive aggressive – and it turns out that the
agreement between Piron and the police means Alec gets to read all the police
files (oooh there’s a little element they didn’t mention before). His theory
is, again, Liber8 and that the inside man theory still works because of the
number of wifi toys that are present in high tech offices and companies – ideal
for hacking. Cut to someone who is using Dillon’s computer camera to spy on
them.
To which Lucas calls Carlos and offers to point him
towards the robber (who isn’t Liber8), not a quid pro quo – just a freebie,
because Lucas also wants Betty’s killer brought to justice.
Alec has a plan for Kellog – buying him out, Sadtech and
bringing Kellog into Piron which he snarls at Kellog was his manipulation all
along while Kellog plays innocent. Kellog leaves with a grin on his face once
Alec can’t see him.
Kiera is bonding with John Doe when Curtis attacks – he manages
to knock Kiera through a window (and unconscious) but before he can shoot her,
John Doe fights him, with his walking stick (he has a damaged knee). John Doe
has some serious skills and easily fights off Curtis.
They get her to her flat and with Carlos – and John’s
knee is now completely healed. This is apparently a future tech thing that is
common for soldiers in the future. Anyway Carlos wants Kiera to join him
searching a security company without a warrant because Lucas told him so,
despite Dillon telling him to leave Betty’s case alone. Kiera sees the flaw in
this plan. But Carlos has “chosen sides” (which he says is Betty’s side… but
Betty had a side as well – Liber8) and they’re following up the
proof that Sonmanto was behind all the crimes leading to Betty’s death
They head into the building and find that Three Point
Security has done exactly what Alec said – hacked into all kinds of computers
to spy, including the police precinct. And Kiera’s tech sees right through the
invisibility cloak that parkour guy is hiding behind. They catch him and take
him in, remove the bugs from the police station and the thief tells them that
he can point them to who is behind the Fermotas gas attack – which all points
to the suspect from the last episode. And ballistics on a gun found matches the
bullet that killed Betty.
Of course he asks for a lawyer and Dillon hits him
because this is “justice” on Continuum.
Kiera searches through John Doe’s things and finds a dog
tag – complete with futuristic recorded video of him and his family. He still
doesn’t recognise them.
And we return to the future where people were being
de-citizened – and Kiera pulling her gun and shutting the place down for being
an illegal business. Kiera asks the doctor why he would be part of this – and he
replies with how the corporate congress is severely abusing the citizen chips.
He reminds her that legal and moral are not the same thing – and her boss tells
her to book all the civilians even though they’ve done nothing wrong.
Yes it’s another Kiera-sees-the-future-is-evil-but-still-went-along-with-it
moment.
Back in the present, Alec decides to drill Kiera’s CMR
out of her dead doppleganger’s head.
I’m a little disappointed. After Betty’s death Kiera and
Carlos were both having major revelations and opinion shifts on the nature of
the world, the corruption in the police force and that maybe, just maybe,
Liber8 had a point. I expected this to be developed a bit more, advance a
little… and it didn’t really do much
Instead we have John Doe. And he may be an interesting
storyline but we already have Alec and Kellog, Alec, Jason and Piron, the
Freelancers, Curtis, Liber8, Carlos’s various angsts, Alec’s conflict with
Kiera, Dillon and the corruption of the police force, Betty’s murder: does this
show need another thread?
