Touch 2.13 "Leviathan" REVIEW

Touch 2.13 "Leviathan" TV REVIEW

Episode 2.13
Writer: Tim Kring
Director: Nelson McCormick

THE ONE WHERE Jake and Amelia are smuggled on board a container ship and experimented upon so that Nicole Farington can find the rest of the Amelia sequence. Desperate to find his son, Martin tortures Nicole's hitman to give up her location. Armed with evidence of her scheming, he storms the ship, saves the kids and triggers the destruction of Aster Corps. Go Martin!

VERDICT So long, Touch ... With Kiefer Sutherland currently in negotiations for 13 new episodes of 24 – and wow, we really didn't see that coming – Fox have finally made public what everybody already knew and canned Tim Kring's Heroes follow-up. And please forgive me if I breathe a massive sigh of relief here. While Touch has certainly had its fair share of wonderful moments – most of them in season one, but there have been one or two this year as well – it's really struggled to be anything more than “ordinary”, particularly recently. A show that started off with the intention of being some beautiful, spiritual odyssey ended up becoming a “bad guys versus good guys” thriller that wasn't half as thrilling as it thought it was... which is a terrible shame, because all along Touch has been bursting with potential. It's been hard to watch it slide so far downhill, and this is a mercy killing.

The final episode was clearly written with the show's cancellation in mind because it wraps up almost every loose end, and thus, thankfully, it's fairly satisfying. There are one or two nods to a possible future season, mind you: we still don't know who Amelia's father is, and Martin promises to find him; Jake hints that he'll start communicating more because he still has a lot left to do; Martin is now the “Protector” of the 36; and the mysterious cypher device comes to life in the final scene, signalling who knows what. But overall Touch knows it's through, and makes allowances for that fact. Jake and Amelia are safe (she's lost her powers, too, so she can live a normal life), Trevor at Breakwire gets the scoop of the century to reward him for all the back-up he's given Martin this year, Detective Lange clears Martin of all charges and thanks him for his help, and Martin has a modicum of peace again.

The only thing that doesn't quite work is the resolution to Avram's storyline. So he gets kidnapped by a rabbi, barely complains, accepts everything the guy says and then buggers off back to New York to continue his research without seeing Jake again? Really? Is he a man or a mouse? Grow a pair, Avram! The only good thing about his seemingly pointless character arc is the rabbi's office – it looks like something out of Harry Potter.

NUMBERS GAME This week Martin finds the hitman by using the numbers 318, which Jake helpfully slipped into his pocket last week.

IS IT JUST ME, OR…? Did anyone else wonder why the nurse looked so gobsmacked when Martin woke up in hospital and announced that his son had been in the car with him? Surely Trevor – who had apparently been waiting for hours – would have raised the alert after realising that Jake and Amelia were missing? It's not like Martin would have left them with anyone; Trevor is his only babysitter now!

YOU'RE NOT THINKING THIS THROUGH, ARE YOU? Nicole Farington might be the CEO of a global company but she really isn't as smart as she should be. Her big plan is to pay off her company's billion-dollar debts by using the Amelia sequence to calculate what to buy and sell: the numbers would prevent her from ever making a loss. “We get the right sequence, Aster Corps could control the entire global economy,” she says, smugly. But, er, if one company started gambling on the stock market and never, EVER made a loss, wouldn't people start to get suspicious? Wouldn't investigations be launched? Wouldn't they be shut down after being accused of insider trading and fraud? Nicole needs to have a little meeting with reality... which she does by the end of the episode, luckily.

BITCHFACE OF DOOM Just check out Jake's scowl when Nicole tells him he'll be okay (after she's just kidnapped him). Brrr! You wouldn't want to mess with that kid when he's angry!

WHOOPS Tanner is a professional hitman/assassin/bad guy and yet he stupidly loses a glove (that just happens to have a perfect fingerprint on it) when he kidnaps the kids from Martin's car. Presumably he'd been wearing it to avoid leaving prints on the car, so how the hell does anyone lose a glove from their hand and not notice?

HIS NAME'S BAUER, JACK BAUER... The scene in which Martin tortures Tanner for news of his son is basically Kiefer Sutherland auditioning for the role of Jack Bauer in 24 again, just in case we think he's softened up over the years playing a worried dad. Remember the Martin we met in the show's pilot two years ago? He's not here to take your call right now.

BREAKING NEWS Breakwire's news story on Nicole Farington must have been written very quickly by Trevor, so we'll forgive him for spelling her name wrong (twice). Gotta love this line, too: “...making Nicole Farington one of the most hated women in American history.” Don't mince your words, Trev!

THE CAR'S THE STAR Beautiful continuity here: the car from season one which brought Amelia and Jake together helps them escape after it gets lodged in a door.

MMM, CHEWY The moral dilemma this week focuses on Calvin, who has to decide whether he loves his brother so much that he'll sacrifice Amelia and Jake's lives for him. In the end he tries to help the kids, and his brother dies anyway, but at least he's taken a few steps on the road to redemption. Nice to see he still gets arrested, too.

AMELIA UNSEQUENCED Love the scene in which Amelia says goodbye to Jake, then disappears like a ghost. For a moment I was actually fooled into thinking she was going to die, just like her mum. Psych!

BEST LINE
Jack Bauer... sorry, Martin Bohm: “I WANT MY SON BACK! I WANT MY SON BACK!”

Jayne Nelson

Touch season 2 is currently airing on Sky1

• Read our other Touch reviews