Salvation Episode 9 – Patriot Games: When Fiction Reflects Facts….

Photos: Ben Mark Holzberg/CBS

Did the writers of Salvation use a crystal ball when conceiving this series?  I’m asking because Salvation episode 9 – “Patriot Games” – has some uncanny reveals.  What is becoming clearer by the episode is that Salvation has more depth to it than anyone who saw the pilot could give it credit for.

Salvation episode 9 had me glued to the screen from start to finish.  At times I was holding my breath!  No, it’s not Game of Thrones, but once upon a time you didn’t need giant sets and a dragon to be considered great television.

What We learned in Salvation Episode 9 – “Patriot Games”

If you don’t want to be spoiled for CBS’s Salvation episode 8 come back after you’ve seen it.  This is your spoiler warning!

Grace Has Taken Some Self-Defense Classes

Salvation “Patriot Games” picks up where we left off in last week’s episode.  Darius Tanz (Santiago Cabrera)   has just left Grace Barrows (Jennifer Finnigan).  She’s grabbed food and bottle of wine from the fridge, called her daughter Zoe (Rachel Drance) to let her know she’s alright.  No sooner is she off the phone when a man grabs her from behind and tries to strangle her! Grace manages to smash the man in the head and kill him.  Then, in shock, she calls her father.

This was a well-staged fight, just sayin’! It’s good that Grace doesn’t come off like a kung fu master or a supersoldier.  What we see is a woman using instinct and a basic self-defense move – a kick in the groin – before she clocks him with a lamp.

Grace’s Dad is Hardcore CIA

Another small tidbit resulting from this fight is learning that her dad, Hugh Keating (Mark Moses), works for the CIA.  We knew he worked for some agency before, but now it’s specific. Also, whatever he does for them involves knowing who to call to make a body disappear like it’s never been there.  With that kind of information at his disposal you know Grace’s dad has to be into some seriously down and dirty stuff for the CIA.  He is not a paper-pusher! 

I love, love, love this father-daughter relationship!  I hope her dad doesn’t turn out to be a bad guy. (With CIA you can never tell.)  Hugh is able to identify the gun Grace’s would-be-killer used and realizes this was a hit.  When Grace tearfully asks how she’s supposed to walk into work the next day he gives her fatherly/CIA advice.

 You’re going to walk into that Pentagon like you’ve done a thousand times before – because there’s nothing else you can do.  And when you come across the person who never expected to see you again – you’ll know it.

The man is totally bad*ss!

Amanda is Still the Worst

As a character Amanda Neel (Rachel Drance) continues to be the show’s weakest link.  Saying she has a degree from Columbia does not make her smart.  Actions do, and all we’ve seen from her is stumbling into things and the ability to blackmail people.  Now she can’t even do that right!

Someone drops a flash drive with all the information from Project Atlas on it.  Of course, everything on it is unconfirmed.  Nevertheless, she convinces her boss to let her run the story, and major news organizations pick up on it.  

(The situation is similar to the Trump dossier run by Buzzfeed back in January. By the end of Salvation episode 9 you may question whether or not this is a  coincidence by the writers.)

Amanda and her organization get slammed for publishing it.  Now she needs to get a source on the record, so she goes to Liam.  She threatens Liam with telling his girlfriend Jillian Hayes (Jacqueline Byers) about the kiss they shared if he doesn’t help her.  Liam says no, just as Jillian is approaches.  Without missing a beat she tells Jillian about the kiss that meant nothing – at least not to her.

Needless to say this fractures the already fragile relationship Jillian and Liam had been working on since she came back.  Not only is Amanda’s move petty and spiteful – it’s stupid.  She’s just played her one hand on the first attempt!

Atlas Was No Accident!

Remember how the advisor to the president  Claire Rayburn (Erica Luttrell) described that meteorite hitting Russia as an accident during testing Atlas?  Well, guess what she, General Randall Calhoun (Brian Markinson), and Deputy Secretary of Defense/Grace’s boss/Grace’s (ex?) boyfriend Harris Edwards (Ian Anthony Dale) hate most about Amanda’s story?  Amanda’s story says that it wasn’t an accident – and Harris confirms that it wasn’t!

Say what now? ……Nooooooooooooo!

I totally wasn’t expecting that!  It was bad enough that America even invented the weapon.  With this the country really has been reprehensible!

There’s Still a Darius/Grace/Harris Triangle

You would think that your boyfriend having you arrested and calling you a traitor to your country would be enough to call things quits.  Last week Harris certainly seemed to be done with Grace.  Apparently though Harris isn’t totally over Grace.  For one, he’s very jealous at the idea that Grace and Darius are a couple.  Claire is not happy.

Grace meanwhile is overwhelmed by everything going on.  Especially since for a while it looks like Harris may have been in on the hit put out on her.  Harris is dismayed that she could even think such a thing, but as she points out, all things considered, it’s a fair thought.

Darius is clearly in love with Grace, but he’s respecting her wishes.  Grace is likely in love with Darius, but doesn’t have the clarity to realize it.  Does Grace still love Harris?  Since he’s not at all the man she thought he was, it seems unlikely.  However, there’s almost always a part of a person that still loves their ex.  Being that all of these events have happened so quickly, her hesitations make sense.

Teenagers Do the Darndest Things – With a Little Help

Harris’s son Dylan (André Dae Kim) is still in the thick of the hacker group Resist.  He’s trying to convince Zoe to spy on her mother – for the cause.  He convinces her that Darius and her Mom are up to no good – along with the government.  By the end of the episode, she’s agreed to help him.

With an in from Amanda – in exchange for Darius agreeing to go on the record about Atlas – Darius goes to Dylan’s Resist group for help.  He needs for Dylan to shut down the Russian cyber and satittle grid for twenty minutes.  He offers the group a million dollars to do so.  Dylan at first says no, but then “the big boss” who apparently has been listening in, sends a message that they should take the deal.

For now, Dylan’s hacking abilities are ou helpful, but the situation raises a red flag. Being that the founder of Resist was murdered in the pilot this big boss is a mystery.  What’s not one is why they took the deal.

Dylan tells his comrades that itt wasn’t for the money.  Because of the wire transferring being done Dylan says it will finally give them a way to get into Darius’s computer systems and see everything he’s doing.  The consequences of that won’t hit until next week, but it’s safe to say they won’t be good.  (I’ll get into that theory later.)

The President is Crazy – And Most People Know it!

Last week I commented on what an interesting choice it was to have the center of power be centered around the Pentagon.  Well, this week we discovered it’s more than that.  It turns out that in this fictional story the President is “not well.”  She’s mentally ill (the president’s a she)and her advisors, like Claire, the members of her cabinet, like Harris’s boss, and the the generals, have all known!  They have been covering for her and catering to her crazy whims – like Project Atlas.  As we’ll see though, they’ve also been making a lot of decisions on their own.

The hit on Grace came from the White House on a special hard to trace phone.  Frankly, I’m not convinced that Claire either made that call, or influenced the President to do so.   She seemed to be the most surprised to see Grace back that morning.

Next Up: The Plot of Salvation Episode 9 & Why You Should Watch This Show!