Photo: Sven Frenzel/CBS ©2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved
Episode two of CBS’s Salvation is titled “Another Trip Around the Sun” which, given the overarching plot has an obvious point. With an asteroid on a trajectory to smash into the earth in about six months every day counts. It’s also a way of expressing the dichotomy of life. Every 24 hours is just another trip around the sun. It seems, mundane, predictable, even boring.
Yet the fact that the world turns at just the right spot in the universe for life to exist is a miracle. It took billions of little things to happen just right to create our world, events that come in high against the law of averages. As for the 7.5 billion people on the planet, well, we all know that even simple and ordinary things can get complex.
CBS’s Salvation – Episode 2: Recap and Review
What does all of this have to do with this week’s episode? As discussed last week, CBS’s Salvation is a typical broadcast network show in that the pilot introduced us to many characters that feel familiar. This isn’t a necessarily a bad thing – especially over the summer – but it did leave me with some concerns. “Another Trip Around the Sun” relieved some – but not others. Nevertheless, this episode had some honestly tension-filled moments – enough to make me want to tune in next week.
Where We Left off
Last week the Pentagon’s spin doctor Grace Barrows (Jennifer Finnigan) found out that the experimental rocket that was supposed to save the world from the giant asteroid, (“Sampson”) failed. This information didn’t come from her boss, the Deputy Secretary of Defense Harris Edwards (Ian Anthony Dale) – whom she’s also secretly sleeping with. (Apparently no one at the Pentagon has managed to detect this.) He told her the test went fine – but she didn’t believe him.
Because of her doubts, Grace had her IT pal Walter Carnahan break the rules and access the classified video of the test. Unfortunately, she inexplicably asked him to email her the file that she didn’t even have clearance for. (One of the many moments last week that bugged me.) After she left he tried to so. That resulted in this big red flashing warning sign on his computer.
Apparently just knowing the name “Project Atlas” is enough to get a person killed. Hence some super smart person running this project had its name pop up in big bold letters for anyone who accidently tried to access the file…. Regardless though, the fact that knowing this got Walter killed makes the opening of this second episode of CBS’s Salvation very interesting….
The Plot Thickens – Happy Birthday, Grace.
“Another Trip Around the Sun” opens up with Grace getting flowers from a “secret admirer” for her birthday. Of course they’re from Harris. (Hopefully he didn’t have his secretary order them.) Once alone, Harris has another present for Grace – a “A4” security badge.
If you’re going to be on the task force you need the highest level clearance, so I can tell you everything…. The rocket test failed, Grace. I couldn’t tell you before, but now, no more secrets.
Does Grace tell Harris that she already knew? Nope. However, by the end of the episode it’s pretty clear that Harris already knew that she had – but isn’t telling her that.
Now, viewers witnessed Walter’s murder last week. Did he get Grace the clearance to save her life? Maybe….
Project Atlas
It turns out that Walter was smart enough to tell his sister a that he’d accidently seen some classified information at work called “Project Atlas.” The sister then told the reporter Amanda Neel (Shazi Raja) about it. Walter’s sister believes that it – not, “a robbery gone wrong” got him killed.
Amanda first springs Walter’s death on Grace at the end of a press conference. Grace was already suspicious when she saw Walter had been replaced, but it’s still a shock for her She plays it off well enough. Then she goes running to Harris –
Did we kill Walter Carnnahan!?
What’s the big takeaways from this scene? Grace has no problem thinking Walter got taken out for accessing that file of the failed rocket experiment. Harris assures her the government wouldn’t take out one of its own. He then cajoles her with romantic talk about the plans they’d had for her birthday – which happens to be that day. It’s “had” because now that she can’t transfer out of the department they really, “have to keep it professional” – he said with his arms around her in his office at work.
Amanda gets Grace to meet with her later that night, which is when she tells Grace about Atlas. When Grace has dinner with Harris he quietly freaks out.
Grace, don’t say that word to anybody – ever.
Interesting Science
After the rocket blew up, the Harris has to do a presentation on plan B. Since tech millionaire Darius Tanz (Santiago Cabrera) and M.I.T. student Liam Cole (Charlie Rowe) have also became a part of the team looking for a way to save the world, they, along with Grace are in the room as well.
https://youtu.be/dF7UHyEo8dE
Okay, I’m taking a pause to say I loved seeing Derek Webster as Dr. Garrett Strauss. He and Carbrera’s Darius made one intense face off!
Webster is one of those consistently working actors that always stands out. At the same time, he makes each role so unique you may not immediately place where you’ve seen him before. He’s most recently been on NCIS New Orleans as FBI Agent Raymond Isler – and on Ray Donovan as D.A. Jackson Holt. This guy stays busy!
Getting back to the science of things we’ve come a long way from things like the “hyperdrive” in Star Wars. Unlike the fictional technology that let ships travel the galaxy beyond the speed of light, the explanation of the EM drive is based on actual science! NASU also really does have a satellite currently orbiting Jupiter – only it’s called Juno. Granted, nowhere in the real science is there a mention of needing “100 kilos of enriched uranium.” That part may be right up there with the plutonium needed to run the “flux capacitor” for the Delorean time machine in Back to the Future – but it certainly makes for a great complication!
Liam, the girl, and the Professor
Speaking of Back to the Future, what’s a sci-fi romp without an eccentric professor? Darius sends Liam back to Boston to find Dr. Malcolm Croft (Dennis Boutsikaris) – Liam’s professor whose apartment was trashed in the first episode.
https://youtu.be/70K5QZIyJAE
As you can tell from the above setup, there’s amusing tone underlying this part of the story. The trip is mostly a chance for some humorous cloak-n-dagger hijinks with Liam playing the reluctant spy. However, it also gives up a bit more information about Jillian Hayes (Jacqueline Byers) – the science fiction writer that Liam met and fell in love with last week. The two are still in touch and Liam gets to play the secretly gallant boyfriend by using the the money Darius gave him to pay a group of young guys to go to her bookstore reading of her first (self-published) novel.
Liam finds the professor and brings him – and his research – back to Darius’s lab. That’s where Liam discovers that the man he’d noticed following him was the head of Darius’s security. More importantly, we learn that Darius sees Liam’s relationship with Jillian as a problem.
About That Billion Dollars
This component of the story was the most annoying. First of all, Harris balked at getting two billion dollars because it had to go through Congress and appropriation committees – but 1 billion was doable? What was truly just ridiculous was how Darius got the second billion. Catherine Adams (Zuleikha Robinson) is some woman he’s had business dealings with before – and has slept with before as well. There’s a vague sense that she still has a thing for Darius.
I’m sorry, but no one gives away a billion dollars for a roll in the hay. Adding insult to injury, we have no idea why Catherine has such easy access to huge sums of money. We do however know that people who have and keep that kind of income are smart about money and business. Catherine giving Darius and the government that money makes about as much sense as the woman in a porn film who starts stripping off her clothes for the pizza delivery guy.
What’s really annoying is that they could have made this work. Knowing what Catherine did and why she has so much money would be a good start. They mention she’s funded several projects for him – two that lost money. How much has she made – and lost with him? That at least would point to why she’s willing invest again. There is so much more pertinent information that could have been laid out in that dinner conversation that would have made Catherine’s role believable. Having her act like she wants to scratch Grace’s eyes out didn’t help make this less of a male fantasy character either.
The State of Grace is Consistently Inconsistent
Grace helps Darius get his the 100 kilos of enriched uranium by using her relationship with Harris to get access to his passcodes for a government storage facility for the stuff. That caper was very well done – a real nail-biter. (It also makes you think twice about how safe those fingerprint locks on our phones really are.) The only problem is one of her earrings falls into his briefcase! However, she doesn’t have time to retrieve it.
The tension around this uranium heist continues to build!
It helps that the audience doesn’t know the entire plan, so there’s nice twist in its execution.
Darius gets his uranium, but there’s still the issue of the earring. Grace ends up going back to Harris’s place for sex – after saying they shouldn’t because she’s no longer transferring out of the Pentagon. When he’s asleep she sneaks downstairs to get the earring out of the briefcase – but it’s not there!
Grace is becoming interesting as a character because what she says she believes and what she does don’t always match. Using sex to try and get the earring back is just one example of this. For instance, the plan to take the uranium was her idea. She told Darius that she’s been a rule-follower her whole life, but because, “the fate of the world” is at stake she’s thrown the rule book away.
The thing is, Grace threw the book away when she started her relationship with Harris. Granted, it’s also true that she’s afraid of the world ending. Grace goes home before going to Harris’s. There she finds a video card from her daughter Zoe. The images are of Zoe and her mother as Zoe has grown up. It ends with Zoe blowing her mom a kiss with the words, “Here’s to the next chapter.” Grace bursts into tears because there won’t be one if they can’t stop “Samson.” The next time we see her she’s throwing herself at Harris talking about not wasting what might be their last few months alive.
It’s good to have characters that aren’t perfectly good or bad because it’s more realistic. This is especially true for female characters. Actresses don’t get the chance to play that as often as actors. The question for me about Grace is will she ever get honest enough with herself to realize she left that playing by the rules girl long before she found out about an asteroid being on course to destroy the world? This is evident not only because of her and Harris. Grace’s job is such that she’s had to become comfortable with keeping secrets and lying to the public. It’s easy for her to be deceitful.
The Wrap Up: Where Does Episode 2 of CBS’s Salvation Leave Us?
Episode 2 of CBS’s Salvation started out with Harris seemingly trying to be open with Grace and the two of them promising no more secrets. By the end of it we know their relationship is doomed to fail. All these two do is lie and keep secrets from each other!
Harris obviously found Grace’s earring. He may not know why she was in his briefcase – but he knows she was. When Grace sneaks back into bed to go back to sleep we learn that Harris has been awake the entire time. That’s when the light dawns that he must have gotten Grace the clearance because he knew she’d seen the test results.
As for Darris, don’t you think there’s something fishy going on? Why is Gillian a problem? Is just that he thinks she’ll distract Liam? He had his security guy buy a copy of her book. Maybe her science fiction is too close to the real thing?
There are still things about CBS’s Salvation that need work. Aside from what I’ve already mentioned in this review of, “Another Trip Around the Sun,” there is at times some cheesy dialogue. However, this is only episode two and there is enough that’s improved to keep me tuned in. For one thing, the show is setting up a good old-fashion conspiracy that’s peaked my curiosity. (It’s a great distraction from the painfully real conspiracy theories occurring in the news.) I’m also interested in finding out more about what Darius is really up to.
Are you enjoying CBS’s Salvation? If you have theories about what’s going to happen next, share them in the comments!
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