There’s a fight coming on Colony – but it may not be between the Resistance and the Occupation. Katie has decided that Will’s taking the Occupation job, in order to have a chance to get Charlie back, isn’t enough – she’s going behind his back and taking the information he tells her, in confidence, back to the Resistance. This can’t help but be a major conflict in any marriage – “hey, honey, you know those secrets you told me?”
Ooh, I knew this episode was going to be good – getting more of a look into the lives and lifestyles under the Occupation. Last week, things didn’t look too different from normal – except for the drones, and the big wall. But we’re starting to see what’s really happening – people grabbed right out of their workplaces; food rations; and the nearly instantaneous class division between the people living in the Green Zone – being given homes of who? people killed in the Arrival, or removed forcibly from those homes? And class divisions have sprung up between “the haves” and the “have nots” – Katie’s sister Maddie is considered a “have not” and not good enough to be seen with the man who is third in charge of Water and Power? How quickly did conditions deteriorate? We’re less than a year into this Occupation, and Katie has a hiding place in in a vent at the Yonk, Carlos and Lucille have made a priest’s hole in their RV?
COLONY — “Brave New World” Episode 102 — Pictured: Josh Holloway as Will Bowman — (Photo by: Jack Zeman/USA Network)
Will is an interesting character (beyond the hair – I’m not jealous of Josh Holloway’s hair at all, as much as I love him). Former government agent, hiding out with an assumed name because government, military and law enforcement-types were killed (by whom?) at the beginning of the Occupation. Had they not been separated from their son during the Arrival, and had they not had to worry about being killed because of his occupation, what side would he have been on? Would he have been part of the Resistance? He doesn’t seem to have had anything to do with the people his wife is involved with. Left alone, would he have chosen to just keep his head in the sand, living with whatever happened to keep his family safe? Would he have become a freedom fighter, risking his family for the good of humanity? Or, if he wasn’t worried about being hunted down and killed, would he have been a collaborator from the start? Life isn’t black and white. Choices aren’t easy. I think he’s naive if he believes that he’ll get Charlie back quickly – there will always be “one more” task to do before that happens, one more obstacle, one more request to prove his loyalty, or at least his obedience, with his son being used as a carrot, and the threat to the rest of his family as the stick held over his head.
Phyllis (Kathy Baker), Will’s new boss, has made her choice, it seems – collaborate to keep people who would be less humane from being in her position. “How do you live with this job?” Will asks. She replies, “By focusing on the big picture. Have people already forgotten The Arrival? Every defense mechanism in this city was wiped out within 8 hours. Do you really think a handful of guerillas is going to make a difference against them? All they’re going to do is take more innocent lives, and ensure that conditions in this block are much worse.” They could be much worse, we can imagine (remember Falling Skies? Much worse.)
COLONY — “Brave New World” Episode 102 — Pictured: (l-r) Josh Holloway as Will Bowman, Kathy Baker as Phyllis — (Photo by: Jack Zeman/USA Network)
Will’s new co-worker, Beau (Carl Weathers), seems be working for the Occupation as the lesser of two evils – he doesn’t seem particularly enthusiastic to catch the Santa Monica Gateway bomber, does he? I think Beau could be a Resistance spy; at the least, he’s resisting by not putting in much effort, trying to slow down the hunt.
Katie has put her conflicts aside, but I’m not sure we completely understand her motivations. If it’s only to get Charlie back and protect her family, you would think she would welcome Will’s potential to be able to do that. Instead, she seems to be endangering him and the rest of her family – by undermining his position by turning information over to the Resistance. She tells the cell leader, “”I’m doing this for my family. When this is over, however it ends, I will not be one of those mothers who has to look at her children and tell them she did nothing.” What she’s doing could put the bullseye right on them – unless her motivation is not just Charlie, but removal of the occupiers. I hope we get farther into her reasons for what she’s doing – right now it doesn’t make much sense. She tells Will, “We live in a moment where we do what we have to do, for the people we love. You are protecting our family.” And she isn’t, not really, but it takes people looking beyond themselves to fight any threat – what’s her personal goal?
And now I’m confused and scared by the little bit we saw as Carlos and the others walk into the Factory. Forced to strip, and then put through – what? disinfection? radiation? perhaps a process that’s really more psychological than physical, meant mostly to intimidate? Why are they there? Occupier food? I think we already know we don’t want to join them. It feels very Nazi-esque, very concentration camp.
The biggest mystery, left completely unaddressed so far – WHO ARE THE OCCUPIERS? Are they alien? They seem to have been awfully well-prepared to set up this transitional government, build the huge wall, create the Factory. Theories, anyone?
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