Alphas: "The Quick and the Dead" Review

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

"Bill, it's not Gary-vision. It's electro-magnetic perception."

Fresh off his recent role in The Amazing Spider-Man, '80s film star C. Thomas Howell guest starred this week as a young man named Eli whose super-speed powers caused him to age rapidly. Now, newly sprung from Binghamton, Eli is tracking down the old doctors who warped his brain with dangerous experiments in order to try and reverse the condition. It's not the most original TV idea in the world as you've probably seen this spin on Frankenstein's monster play out on shows like The X-Files, Fringe and the like, but fortunately the elements that helped "The Quick and the Dead" rise above last week's season premiere had very little to do with the case.

Team building. Or team re-building, I should say. This episode had a lot going on outside of the case, mostly surrounding Cameron's relationship with Dr. Rosen's daughter, Dani. Dani, a spy for Stanton Parish who has both her father and Cameron unknowingly feeding her inside information. And one of the things I liked best about this newly created dynamic was that it made Nina even more of an outcast. Last week, I mentioned that she was already an awkward fit for the team, so I'm glad the writers decided to run with that and make her behavior even more reckless; even using her ability on Cameron right after she apologized for ruining their relationship with her ability. And then, Nina using her ability on Dr. Rosen at the end just solidified her new role as a "wild card" in the mix. No, she's not Wolverine, but I'm glad the team now has a full-fledged dissenter.

Also, I thought another powerful moment in this episode was watching Cameron see the pleasure that Dani can bring to someone else with her extreme emotion-transference ability. Because, you know, he had just gotten done denying that his relationship with her wasn't enhanced by her powers. So there was a bit of underlying hypocrisy there, even though one could argue that Nina's abilities, while also manipulative, are far more dangerous.

And what a joy it was to have Gary back. Even if it was a more hostile Gary who wasn't taking kindly to sharing his refrigerator with government "jerkasses." His scenes with Cameron were freakin' hilarious ("I'll kill you first. I get up at 7:42!"). Again, there are so many things about Gary's rudeness that could come off as annoying on TV, but actor Ryan Cartwright does an exemplary job of making him sweet and satisfying. Plus, I love how protective the rest of the team gets when it comes to Gary. Even when Gary's the one not behaving properly.

I'm not sure if the characters of Gary's mother and Bill's wife are casualties of some Season 2 cost-cutting, but there are noticeably gone. It's hard to get a handle on Bill sometimes and his wife was a good way of previously doing that. This time around though, Bill got to butt heads with Rosen over certain ego/leadership issues and perhaps, going forward, Bill will have a closer side-by-side relationship with Rosen that will help round him out. Of course, most of the credit for shaping Bill back in Season 1 has to go to Gary.

No, the "case of the week" wasn't stellar, but I liked that it remained connected to the Parish plot; with Parish being the one responsible for Eli's condition. Also new to the as of this episode? The possibility that you can create an Alpha. And I don't mean "in utero," like Brent Spiner's doctor wanted to do back in Season 1. It wasn't all super clear, but it seems as though the brain warping that was done to Eli specifically gave him his powers. It could be that Eli had dormant powers that were awakened or it could be that he was genetically pre-disposed, Fringe/cortexiphan-style, but we'll probably need the fog to lift a little bit more here.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com