Helix Season 2 Finale "O Brave New World" Review

In arguably the most massively scaled Helix episode, we've finally reached the finale of this twisted gem of a season. I say "massively" not so much as an emphasis on the episode having a huge climatic moment (like some of the past episodes), but mainly because of how many things actually take place in this one episode. It's quite a bit to take in once the Ilaira stuff starts to hit pretty hard. I honestly had to take my time with this episode a bit more than the others trying to piece together what everyone was saying to each other. So much like my Season 2 premiere review being more of a compilation of scattered thoughts, I ironically may have to do the same here.

Continuing on from such an intense ending with last week's episode of Helix, we find out that Julia did in fact shoot Alan before he could make the first move. Surprisingly enough we find Julia trying to stitch his constantly bleeding neck wound telling him that he tried to shoot her first. I honestly wasn't expecting this type of follow up, but that's why I love this show. There's a surprise around every corner (and "Boy is this episode full of them!"). You can tell from Alan's face while Julia is stitching him up that he still isn't finished with his task at hand. Alan isn't given much to do this entire episode, but his thoughts about Ilaria and Julia's plans on using "Mother" to control the population leads him to to a very significant moment in this episode.

Helix [S2] Ep. 12: "The Ascendant" Review

In one of the most darkest intros of the series, we see Peter's descent into darkness as he brutally disposes of Winger's body along with her squad with the help of Anne. If that wasn't twisted enough, we see him and Anne in the shower having sex directly after (while they're still covered in a little blood). My reaction to this was a strange mixture of shocked and understanding. I was shocked obviously on a visual surface level watching these two chop off body limbs and make out right after. However, my understanding comes to this scene as showing a sort of release for Peter's pressure building direction throughout the series. I remember in past episodes of the season always thinking how something big was going to happen to Peter after being shut down from everyone in and out of the pit. This in a sense is sort of Peter's absurd and psychotic "reward" for holding up all this time. Looking at it

Helix [S2] Ep. 11: "Plan B" Review

In one of the most all around satisfying episodes of the series, episode 11 offered up possibly the greatest ending so far. In one climatic and quite intense scene, we finally see what I would describe as one of the ticking bombs set a few episode back finally going off. In this episode we also see the continuos rise of a new villain (another ticking bomb set earlier in the show). With so many things to talk about, let's start from the beginning.

A very brutal foreshadowing

With another great intro to add to the books, we get a scene that not only fed strongly on my love for animals, but basically sets up for our epic episode finale. An unknown scientist shows off a chemical weapon to a group of military officials that instantly irradiates a caged monkey. With one of the officials  accepting the chemical compound as being useful, we get a glimpse of an entire room filled with barrels of the stuff. Another amazing job with the visual FX for the series as the quickly decomposing monkey looked incredible (depressing to watch, but incredible). Continuing on to the island, we see Peter holding onto the same baby that he basically help murder a tortured woman for in a strangely comforting children's bedroom setting. I say "strangely" as nowhere on this island has ever looked remotely settling, but I guess the children got the better end of the stick in their community. As Sister Anne walks in speaking to Peter

Helix [S2] Ep.10: "Mother" Review

Definitely one of the more tougher episodes that I've reviewed in quite some time. There are so many major things to get through, so as usual, I'll tackle the individual areas of interest. However, I won't be going in a scene by scene chronological order as some stories can easily be wrapped up in one section. In this episode, we seem to have two main character arcs happening with some other very significant character moments sprinkled in. What I loved about this episode so much is how every character had their own respected spotlight even if they didn't necessarily do much this time around. Ensemble shows are understandably the most difficult to tackle from a writing point of view as certain characters can easily end up being overshadowed. When a series or film does it right however, it becomes one of the best entertainment experiences ever (The first Avengers film or The Walking Dead for example). Helix is fortunately another great example of this practice as characters are given their fair share of development as well as significance to the story.

The badass heroine meets the power hungry fiend

The intros for Helix episodes can usually go in any direction from guano crap crazy, brilliant, epic, exciting, or down right uncomfortable. In this case, we're given something a little more badass as we see Julia and Amy watching over a large fire smothering over the pile of dead bodies. These ash turning bodies of course belongs to the loving and strange community we've grown to distrust throughout the season. Amy tells Julia (adding onto her feeling of leadership) that she should've came to her instead of Sister Anne. Amy offers a deal to trade "Mother" for immortality knowing that Julia is also an immortal next to Sarah (someone's getting quite impatient when it comes to living forever). The badass aspect comes when Julia threatens to basically kill Amy if she didn't hold her end of the bargain. Julia has slowly, but

Helix [S2] Ep. 9: "Ectogenisis" Review

Soren's eye?

Throughout the season so far, I was wondering how far they would've went with the infected as individual characters themselves. We've only seen them pop up here and there as savage animalistic forces with one stand out moment with Sarah protecting the kids from their infected father. That was the only time that the infected actually had some individualism to their character until now. Episode 9 starts off actually introducing an infected couple living in the woods showing even more of the humanity side of them. At first I wasn't entirely sure if I was onboard with the whole idea of the two being a nagging couple (a savage infected nagging couple by the way) until I realized how much it adds to the mystery of the pathogen. With Season 1, we saw the "vectors" acting like monstrosities right out of a "28 Days Later" sequel, but as the season continued, we also saw a high level of intelligence and communication. I feel as though Helix as

Helix [S2] Ep. 8: "Vade in Pace" Review

Leading off an epic and grand scaled finale in last week's episode, we see the end result of Michael's "thinning" plan. Emphasizing on the mass amount of death and tragedy on the island, we get these great shots of the infected people outside laying dead on the ground reminding that even with Michael's genocidal plans, there is still the dangerous pathogen going around. We see the shock of the CDC team and especially Ann as men, women and children lay lifeless in front of them. The best part of the opening is arguably with Michael's narration of the situation leading to him telling his men to kill off everyone else that's alive. The way that the scene transitions to Kyle crying over the young girl that we saw in the last episode as well as Anne breaking down in tears during the

Helix [S2] Ep. 7: "Cross Pollination" Review

Talk about an intense and epic climax, this is definitely an episode to remember. I remember when I first heard about the concept of season 2 being about a cult living on an island, I immediately thought about a suicidal scene as it is popular amongst cult followings in the real world. I never thought that the show would've taken it to that point, but my word did it push the envelope this week. Before I get to the iconic moment, let's backtrack to all of the significant moments that lead up that event.

Michael's badass villain transition

First off, we're finally given the origin story of Michael showcasing not only the era in time in which he begun his mission, but also the reasoning. Narrated by Madam Durant to Julia (continuing their conversation from the last episode), we see the year 1601 as Michael walks along a trail surrounded by peasant workers in the field. I really loved this scene as it illustrated a different atmosphere and setting from what we're used to seeing on the show. One of the reasons that I praise this series so much to others is the surprise and mystery factor  that not only lies in it's story but also in it's execution production-wise. You simply never know what the creators will throw at you and here is a perfect example of that. In this flashback, we learn that Michael fell in love with one of the peasant workers and even took the liberty marrying

Helix [S2] Ep. 6: "M. Domestica" Review

Looks like my wishes came true from my past episode review in focusing a little more on the Ilaria storyline. It's always great to see Julia being utilized more as I've always loved her transformation as a character. We start off this week's episode with both Julia and Sergio (awkwardly ending a sex scene by the way) trying to make it in time for one of their Ilaria board meetings. If you go back to my Season 1 finale review, one of my favorite scenes from that episode was seeing the actual "puppeteers" of this powerful corporation for the first time. I love that we actually get a brief, but very significant inside look at the way they operate in shaping the world for their benefit. What we also get to see is the cold hearted, but rightfully understood reasoning behind their goals in wiping out the majority of the mortals to preserve the population. The host of the meeting's presentation spoke of the immortals

Helix [S2] Ep. 5: "Oubliette" Review

Those of you who follow my Helix reviews can imagine how excited I was with this intro. Out of the entire series, this is possibly my favorite intro as it finally puts the spotlight on my favorite story arc of this new season so far. Not only do we get to see Ilaria's pursuit on Alan, but we get some sneak peek imagery of the "Paris Incident" as shown in a few case files. The impactful moment in this intro however is the character who this mysterious Ilaria agent is speaking with. My intrigue to last night's episode heightened once it was revealed to be the "too cool and innocent to be a good guy" CDC member himself, Kyle Summers. Honestly, didn't see that coming seeing as we already have a double agent in our mix of scientists being Peter (I'll get to that later). Another thing that made this intro stick out to me was the constant cuts to seeing Kyle rescuing Sarah after she was stabbed. A brilliant way of showing sort of a two sided image of the character bringing up a new question for this season, "Can we really trust

Helix [S2] Ep. 4: "Densho" Review

The fourth episode of Helix has arrived and thank the Gods of television that the intro is at least decent enough to sort of wipe away the filth of last week episode's intro (I even got over the music choice quickly because of it's charm). Here we open with what seems to be a bee attack on one of the townspeople resulting in another horrific fungi sprouting death (now that's an intro worthy of being on day time television). In this episode, we're finally given something to go on with this specific outbreak as Kyle suspects that the bees are the ones carrying the virus. I guess you can say that the bees are this season's version of the Vectors of Season 1.

As our CDC buddies go investigating, we see Peter helping Alan recover from his hidden ambush attack. I was looking forward to this moment to finally get some answers on the Paris incident as well as some brother to brother confrontations (season 1 didn't have enough Peter/Alan moments for obvious reasons). Even though I didn't get that result quite as in depth as I wanted, it was still great to see Alan and the team together once more. We do get some of that confrontation that I mentioned between