Salvation: Seeing Red/From Russia, With Love Makes New Alliances

Photo: Ben Mark Holzberg/CBS

Salvation, “Seeing Red/From Russia, With Love” was another two-hour special.   The episodes mixed what I like to think of as comfort TV with some uncomfortable questions about the moral authority of the US government. …Talk about interesting timing.

I never thought there could be a show that would remind me of both Castle and Designated Survivor.  That’s the closest analogy I could think of – and it still doesn’t quite match.  In Salvation, “Seeing Red/From Russia, With Love” there’s some romance, some political conspiracy, some predictability – and some surprises.

Salvation:  It’s All About Relationships

Photo: Christos Kalohoridis/CBS

If you thought Salvation was going to be all about whether or not the asteroid Sampson would pulverize planet earth you probably aren’t happy.  It did start out with some interesting science, but then, not so much.  The science isn’t the point of this show though.  For the time being that part of the story is more background than front and center.   Salvation isn’t a “relationship” show, per say, but it does talk a lot about them.

A “relationship-driven” show is often considered a code word for romance.  It’s a strange misnomer since part of   the definition of drama  is “a story involving conflict or contrast of character.”   There’s nothing like the interactions of people to do just that.  

Salvation, “Seeing Red/From Russia, With Love” does feature strong romantic entanglement storylines.  However there’s far more than that going on in the episodes – and with the show in general.  Whether they are romantic, platonic, familial, or work-related, the relationships between people – and countries – play a prominent role

The Darius and Grace Thing

Photo: Christos Kalohoridis/CBS

It’s the romantic relationship-building in Salvation that most remind me of Castle.  Unlike that show though there are six other storylines going on besides theirs.  Still, watching the connection between Darius Tanis (Santiago Cabrera) and Grace Barrows (Jennifer Finnigan) turn the corner from friendship to something more is fun to watch.

Yes, there were a ton of TV tropes that run through the episode: the couple that’s not yet a couple having to go undercover, the kiss that’s not really a kiss, truth serums, sex under the influence.   Tropes aren’t necessarily a bad thing.  It’s kind of like rewatching your favorite movie.  It doesn’t matter that you know the lines by heart.  You laugh at the same joke – because it’s still funny.  Oftentimes you’ll notice something new you didn’t see before.

Anyone who watched the pilot for Salvation knew that Daris and Grace were going to end up together. The thing to remember with classic network television – like many of the old classic movies – is that bar is less about originality and more about execution.  Did a show use these boilerplate ideas well or not?  Can you buy the situation happening?  These are the things to look for.  In the case of Salvation, “Seeing Red/From Russia, With Love”- the standard moves to get a couple together were used well.

From the very beginning the question for me was could they pull off this paring  without turning her boyfriend/boss Harris Edwards (Ian Anthony Dale) into an unreasonable jerk.  It is really hard to do a triangle where the odd man/woman out isn’t set up to be totally hated by the viewer.  It then never makes sense that anyone could have liked the person in the first place.

Why The Harris & Grace Breakup Works

Salvation manages to avoid the whole “Harris is horrible” thing.  They do so because over these eight episodes Salvation has shaded things in enough gray that both Grace and Harris have a part in how this ended.   You can see Harris’s point of view and understand it – even though he is overall on the wrong side of things in terms of the government.

The irony of this relationship unravelling is in the fact that the death knell is Grace lying about what the Russian Ambassador told her about Project Atlas being the reason the Russians were furious.  It was Harris told her to never mention the project to anyone.  She was keeping a secret that he told her to and it leads to shattering the last bit of trust he has in Grace.

As much as Grace and Harris seemed to work well romantically it was in part based on their work.  It worked because they were they on the same side.  Grace was the spinner of whatever government secrets Harris and the Pentagon had to sell to the press. When she began questioning what the government was doing their relationship was doomed.  Harris is in too deep to ever question the choices he’s made.

One could argue that what’s going on with Grace and Darius is also because of the work they’re doing.  The difference is what they’re doing is based on core shared values, not the actual work itself.  In Grace’s job she’s probably had to hide a number of things from the American people. When her friend in the IT department was killed she knew it was possible the government had killed him.  It was a way of showing she had no fairytale illusions about what the government was capable of.  Not until this situation with a giant asteroid that could destroy the world occurred did she find lines in the sand she couldn’t cross.

Will their romantic alliance hold? The show is being coy about it, but it certainly looks like it!

https://youtu.be/AnJEdQuhbRo

Keep reading to find out about what’s up with everyone else on Salvation: Seeing Red/From Russia, With Love!