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Alphas 2.08 “Falling” TV REVIEW

THE ONE WHERE A new street drug turns regular folks into invincible Alphas; Rosen deals with the informant.

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VERDICT Judging from the opening sequence, it’s clear that someone (I’m looking at you, Nick Copus) has seen Chronicle . The breathless night-vision shaky-cam that follows the trio of thrill-seekers as they throw themselves over the side of the building is a note-for-note cover version of Josh Trank’s found-footage teen superhero movie, but remains a pretty affecting opener.

Dangerous new designer drug Jump was far from the most important part of this episode, but it worked well as a twist on the tired Alpha-of-the-week formula. Spinning things round and having a normal guy exploit an Alpha – a well-executed twist that was played just right – helped give “Falling” a sense of urgency that it desperately needed.

Kat’s full induction into the team gave her something to do – at last – although the slick, leather-jacketed rooftop running super-agent role didn’t feel like a good fit. She’s a character that the writers don’t appear to know what to do with yet, and hopefully once she’s a fully FBI trained Alpha operative she’ll feel a bit more coherent. Although surely she’ll have to go back and re-take her FBI course every other month?

We’re still getting bombarded with the tedium that is Rachel and John’s relationship, though for what reason God only knows. There has to be some purpose for this snore-inducing twaddle other than to demonstrate how hard it is for Rachel to get down and do the bad thing? My money is still on John being a Parish operative under deep cover. We can but hope.

All of this, from the drugs menace to Rachel’s love life and Kat’s integrations into the team, was inconsequential though. The real focus here was, of course, Rosen’s confirmation of his discovery of Dani as Parish’s mole. Really, I couldn’t help but feel that Rosen’s dilemma was pushed a little too far aside in favour of the all-action Jump plot. Sure, it was important to see how close Dani and Hicks have become (especially since their relationship has taken place largely off-screen), but the real meat of the matter wasn’t addressed until the final five minutes.

Rosen’s struggle over what to do with his daughter, and his eventual decision to turn her in, was truly heartbreaking stuff. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of Rosen’s struggle and thought processes. Instead, he was running around in the background frantically attempting to reach a solution, only stopping to chat to Nina about getting a false passport for his turncoat daughter.

His gut-punch of a set-up on Dani gave us a clear view of his hardening attitudes to Stanton Parish and anyone associated with him. Parish is dangerous to everyone, and Rosen has realised that in order to combat an enemy who is unafraid to go down into the mire in order to win, you’ve got to follow him down there, whatever the cost.

BEST LINE
Nathan: “Kids have to learn to deal with their own problems, right?”

Rob Power

Alphas season two is currently airing in the UK on 5*, Tuesdays at 10pm

• Read our other Alphas season two reviews