Episodes: 26 (hour)
Seasons: Two
TV show dates: January 10, 2014 — April 10, 2015
Series status: Cancelled
Performers include: Billy Campbell, Kyra Zagorsky, Neil Napier, Catherine Lemieux, Jordan Hayes, Mark Ghanime, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Meegwun Fairbrother.
TV show description:
This thriller TV series follows a team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control. They travel to a high-tech research facility in the Arctic to investigate a possible disease outbreak and find themselves pulled into a terrifying life-and-death struggle that holds the key to mankind’s salvation or total annihilation.
Doctor Alan Farragut (Billy Campbell) is the head of the Center’s Special Pathogens Branch. Brilliant and intense, he’s seen his share of action battling outbreaks and saving lives around the world. None of that compares to what he finds at the Arctic Biosystems base.
His ex-wife is Doctor Julia Walker (Kyra Zagorsky), a Senior Scientist at the Centers For Disease Control. An authoritative genius, she co-heads the rapid response team’s mission to the Arctic Biosystems facility. Doctor Peter Farragut (Neil Napier) is a research scientist working in mutagens. He has a complicated relationship with both his brother, Alan, and his brother’s ex-wife.
Sarcastic and generally light-hearted, Doreen Boyle (Catherine Lemieux) is a veterinary pathologist and an experienced member of the rapid response team. She specializes in the diagnosis of diseases through the examination of animal tissue and bodily fluids. Another member of the rapid response team, Sarah Jordan (Jordan Hayes) is highly intelligent and motivated to impress.
Major Sergio Balleseros (Mark Ghanime) is the Army liaison with the rapid response team. As part of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and a systems engineer, he has more than average knowledge of viral pathogens.
Handsome and charismatic, Doctor Hiroshi Hatake (Hiroyuki Sanada) is the head of the Arctic Biosystems research facility. He appears eager for the assistance of the CDC in containing the situation within his base but his true motivations aren’t completely clear.
Daniel Aerov (Meegwun Fairbrother) is the head of security at Arctic Biosystems. Having worked with and for Hatake for most of his life, he’s fiercely loyal and dedicated to helping the head of the facility.
Episode #26 — O Brave New World
We learn that it’s Julia who got the shot off at the end of the last episode. Now she’s trying to close the hole she put in Alan’s neck but it’s not going well. Jules reminds him he has a son to live for, and gets a glare in return.
Sarah’s injecting the Immortaletus’s jar with the fluoro-McGuffin fluid as Kyle grouses that “that lunatic” Peter has vanished. “Thinking he’s crazy is your first mistake,” Sarah mutters. Well, not exactly. Thinking he’s crazy is right on; it’s thinking his nuttiness is benign and not tying him to a tree that’s the misstep. Anyway, Kyle’s trying to call the chopper back to the abbey, but Sarah ixnays that: they need to find another way off the island. “We need as much of the cure as you can carry.” She heads off with Immie to “make a deal with the devil.”
The editors amusingly cut to Amy, getting her first look at her new face and wailing in horror. HA ha! She bitches at Landry for saving her, then says her new face makes her “free” to do whatever she wants, to whomever she wants. Kind of the same as how she was before, no? Amy vows blight on her “Immortal sisters.”
Peter pushes Anne and the baby in a wheelchair as Anne inhales a marijuana mixture for the pain. A redshirt named Carson mutters that someone’s desecrated the council hall, but Anne’s thrilled: the mother tree’s roots may still be viable and Peter can deliver Mother to Ilaria instead of Jules. It’s not the money Peter cares about, it’s Ilaria’s power and influence.
Soren finishes giving yet more blood. Kyle fantasizes about the pizzas he’ll eat and the sleeping he’ll do at home and explains what PlayStation is to Soren. Soren’s more focused on the unfairness of his mother’s death and how “someone should kill” Peter in return. No argument here. Kyle blah-blahs about the criminal justice system and promises Soren Peter’s not going to hurt anyone else … just as the lights go out. While Kyle’s hunting for a torch, Soren grabs a scalpel and peaces out.
We dissolve from Alan in the infirmary to the future timeline, and Jules in the same bed. Caleb tells her she’s been there five days. How the tables have turned, she wheezes, admitting that the last time she was in this room was 30 years ago, when she shot Alan. “That doesn’t make any sense,” Caleb meta-commentaries. “Love rarely does,” Jules sighs. Caleb confesses that he was also “here” 30 years ago. As Jules looks alarmed …
… we return to “the present,” where Peter is traveling the catacombs under the abbey — and getting stabbed in the leg by a shrieking Soren. “Soren!” Peter crazy-eyeses, yanking the scalpel out of his thigh. “You really shouldn’t have done that!” Agreed: next time bring a stepladder so you can stab in the heart.
Jules demands to know who Caleb is and why he stole Hatake’s sword. He can read the writing on it, can’t he? He recites the letters forged into it, and Jules recognizes them as an RNA sequence: “It’s a recipe for a virus.” Like DXM-7? Jules shakes her head: Hatake said it was his legacy. Why would he create an Immortal-killing disease when he lived for spreading Immortality? (Well, why would he have teatime with his family’s corpses? “Sense” isn’t necessarily relevant here.) An agitated Jules yells at Caleb to tell her everything already, she’s dying! He wants to, but she needs to answer one question first: Does she know the way to San Jose?
Anne’s in the office. Ash swirls past the window outside. She thinks the creaking she hears is Carson. No such luck: it’s Amy and Landry. Amy goes on a bitter rant about Anne not caring about her. Anne admits she was wrong to enable Michael: “It was abuse.” Too little, too late — Amy gets in Anne’s face to say that, inside, Anne’s a monster like Amy, and she’s not getting another chance. She snatches the baby, who starts crying when he’s handed to Landry (hee). If Anne follows them, Amy will kill the infant.
Alan mutters about symbiosis. Jules urges him to stop talking so he doesn’t tear the sutures, but he protests giving Mother to Ilaria. Jules feels she has no choice. Sarah comes in all “the hell?” Alan shrugs, “She shot me.” “And he’s still talking,” Jules cracks. Try the veal, it’s delicious! Sarah takes the job Jules offered at Ilaria so she, her team and Immie can get off Killigan’s Island. Jules is on board. Alan, not so much; when Jules returns to the room, he’s gone — and so is Mother.
As Amy sets her plan in motion by making the baby cry, Sarah and Jules look for Alan. Jules snits that she should have let him bleed out; Sarah’s like, well, he did this to himself. She asks if Jules is prepared to kill Alan, because he won’t stop. She’s going on about burying herself in work when they hear the baby’s cries and follow the sound to the dorm room where the baby is lying on a top bunk. Sarah puts Immie’s rolly-case down to retrieve the full-term infant as Jules finally starts to smell a rat. A gang of rats, really: Amy’s lured them into a trap with the vengeful vessels.
Sarah lets a vessel take the baby and stops Jules from shooting into the crowd of them, because blah blah all mommies understand each other blah — and she pleads with the vessel who’s unpacking Immie. Amy took her baby, too! Don’t punish Immie for Amy’s sins! The appeal works. While we’re reporting Sarah to STFU, Parents, Kyle chews Soren out for running off. Soren’s pleased someone cares enough to worry about him.
Alan’s pouring gas on the tree when Peter pulls a rifle on him. Alan eye-rolls that Peter doesn’t know how to work the gun. Don’t need to, Peter smugs, and belts him with the barrel, then pours gas on Alan and stomps on his hand while monologuing about family. “You, Alan,” he says, striking a match, “are not my family.” Alan, bleeding and about to get lit on fire, still pulls one last “this idiot” face before flames encircle him.
Kyle packs up cure tubes and explains that whoever makes the serum gets to name it. He suggests “Sorenol,” but Soren goes with “Olivia.” Smelling smoke, they rush out to see the abbey in flames and the USS Independence radios that they can see the fire, too. Another chopper’s coming in at oh four hundred. Time to find Sarah.
Elsewhere, Jules spots the fire and assumes Alan set it to destroy Mother. She heads towards it, but Sarah refuses to endanger Immie.
Amy lights a lantern, eagerly anticipating the Sarah-corpse she thinks the vessels will have left. Instead, the vessels set upon her; she begs Landry for help, but he takes the baby and ditches Amy to be torn apart. Good night, Sister.
Jules finds Alan, finally; he gasps that Peter has Mother. Outside, Peter wheels Anne out and goes back in for the baby, over her remonstrations — but first, he runs into Soren and Kyle. Kyle pretends to reprove Soren for stabbing Peter before punching Peter in the face himself. Sarah rounds the corner: “About time someone did that.” The three of them take off without subduing Peter further.
Landry emerges and hands the baby to Anne, then turns back to the burning abbey. Anne asks where he’s going. “Home.”
Choppers drop down as Sarah and Kyle wait impatiently for Jules. Future Jules at last puts together what “Do you know the way to San Jose?” means, as we see her trying to haul Alan off the Abbey property — on the way to Alan’s aunt’s house back in the day, she and Alan caught a flat and needed to tow the car … to San Jose. City Hall was right down the street; while the auto shop fixed the tire, they got married. She’ll never forget what he said: “Your love is gonna kill me.” Alan says it again as Jules slings him onto the ground outside the Abbey. Future Jules, in tears, asks again who Caleb is. Cut to …
… Soren watching the abbey burn. Cross-fade back to Caleb, removing his prosthetic left eye. Jules: “Soren?” “I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”
Seattle, where Alan’s rolling down a hospital hallway. A medic is bagging him. Sarah and Jules flank the gurney. Soren and Kyle made it out, too; Kyle hands off the case of Olivia to a navy officer while, down the hall, Jules rips into Peter: Where’s he hiding Mother? Mother’s next to Anne’s bed — along with Ilaria’s Claire. Jules blows past Peter’s smug credit-hogging to pull Claire aside: What’s going on with Narvik-C? Claire pretends she’s never heard of that strain; she doesn’t remember telling Jules about it, and neither will anyone at Ilaria.
Soren marvels at the city lights as Kyle’s contact comes in to ask if they have enough to arrest “Dr. Farragut.” Kyle shares the information Alan gave him about the bank box, but the Farragut they’re arresting is Peter. Niiiiice! Anne howls, “ELIIIIII!” as he’s taken away. Sarah paces a waiting room whilst From Here To Eternity is on the TV. A doctor comes in and shakes his head, and she goes into Alan’s room, still wearing the Immie backpack, and locks the door.
Shivering with fever, Jules asks if it was Alan who created DXM-7. Caleb says it was Alan and Hatake together; after Ilaria engineered the fungus that would control human procreation, Alan and Hatake in turn built the virus that would kill Immortals … but they also built a cure, namely Caleb’s blood. It’s why Alan hid Caleb on St. Germain. He hands over the vial of blood he’s just drawn from himself; Jules hesitates, saying maybe her greed for more time means she doesn’t deserve to be cured. She puts the vial to one side, about to crush it. Caleb stays her hand; he wishes she’d change her mind. “And I wish I could see Alan one more time.” Caleb frowns significantly as …
… in the present, Alan comes to, calls for Jules and Sarah and starts yanking tubes out. He staggers to the sink to splash water on his face, and we’re pretty sure what he’ll see when he lifts his head is silver eyes in the mirror … bingo! He’s horrified, and smashes the mirror.
In the year 2029, we watch an Ilaria ad touting their commitment to sustainable food resources: Ilaria Fresh. A woman named Nicole Wilson is called out of a futuristic waiting room as a voice-over says something about a competitive program and declining birth rates. Nicole explains to a bored nurse that she feels like something’s missing in her life: “A child, I mean.” The nurse sighs that “it’s a nine-month commitment, very rigorous” …
Nicole’s brought in to see the doctor. She stares, flabbergasted, at the seemingly thousands of pods suspended in the room, and the robotic arm delivering them to the doctor — specifically, Sarah, wearing a lab coat with an Ilaria patch and recreating Michael’s sicko baby-farm with advanced technology. And we still don’t know where Alan is. (courtesy Syfy)
First aired: April 10, 2015.
What do you think? Do you like the Helix TV series? Do you think it should have been cancelled or renewed for a third season?
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