HELIX (2015) – S02E04: ‘Densho’ Review
The initial hook of ‘Helix’s Season 2 is revealed in the 4th episode titled ‘Densho’. We already know what’s causing the disease, but there are so many more elements at work that it’s only now that we are getting a sense of what’s going on. Despite the reveal, the hook this season seems to focus more on the inner workings on the cult and how the story carries over from Season 1, than the biological disease hook. It’s turning out to be a pretty interesting show, as connections to the last season are added. Sometimes ‘Helix’ is intentionally vague and mysterious, even though the situation doesn’t call for it, but this episode is very removed from those gimmicky elements.
‘Densho’ opens with a perfect timeline of how people are getting infected with the disease. We’re taken through the life of the infection with the typically out of place and cheerful music that we’re used to with ‘Helix’. The sequence shows us a bee stinging one of the cult workers, and then how he gets sick, and eventually goes psycho and kills his pregnant lover (?) only to end up dead himself. The rest of the episode is the CDC team putting together what we just saw, with Alan’s help of course.
Alan is ‘found’ and treated by Peter, and after helping out the team with his expertise, the brothers go at it. Alan reveals to Peter that Julia is part of Ilaria now, the evil immortal corporation. Alan also finally reveals that his presence on the Island is because he believes that this island and the Arctic lab from last season are all part of a larger Ilaria plot. After an abrupt end to that conversation, Alan spies on Peter later as he contacts someone on a satellite phone, similar to how Mark Ghanime’s Sergio did last season, and lo and behold it’s Sergio on the other line back in an Ilaria Corporation building all suited up, giving Peter orders. This obviously adds more fuel to the pit fire of burning questions!
Why is Peter working for Ilaria? Especially given his falling out with Alan over the high moral ground he took regarding his rampage to find Ilaria and Julia? It seems that until his conversation with Alan, Peter always thought that Ilaria was holding Julia captive, so why would he work with them, unless of course there’s more at work, which there must be.
Julia on the other hand is having a gay old time with daddy dearest, who wants to embalm and statue-fy her along with his dead adopted son and dead wife. Julia attempts to escape and is successful after a weirdly intense fight scene with Hataki. The fight scene is like this Zack Snyder attempted 300-esque sped up / slow mo thing which was unnecessarily cool. After Julia axes Hataki and wins, he hands her his Samurai sword, claiming it’s his legacy and that the marking on it means ‘Densho’. Seeing that it’s also the title of the episode that must be significant. Julia leaves her dad for dead as she wanders the forest wounded, until she drops and passes out. While Sarah, keeps berating the mother of the taken boy, until she snaps and ends up stabbing her in the stomach, (where her immortal fetus is!). The last shot is Julia in the woods and Sarah on the floor in a weird yin yang juxtaposed shot in the future and past.
On top of this cliffhanger ending, other moments in ‘Densho’ actually cause me to formulate my own theory.
Michael is an Immortal & everyone’s father!
In the beginning of the episode, the infected man accuses his pregnant lover of being with another man, to which the woman explains she is carrying a communal baby. (Creepy). News of her death causes Michael to reacts more emotionally than he has shown so far. In a private meeting with Ann, Amy and the elder woman who I assume is Ann’s mother, Michael breaks down even further when Ann says that the people are ‘their family’, Michael corrects her with ‘my family!’. It almost seems like he was the other man whose child the woman was carrying. Also the three women represent 3 generations of women, all of whom Michael affectionately caresses and speaks to intimately, while the wall in his office features a wall of women who are all Ann’s ancestors, with no sign of any of the men in the family. Unless the man has never died to be commemorated on the wall, and has been Michael, fathering generations after generations all by himself in this cult society.
It’s way out there, but this would obviously mean that there is a whole lot of incestual things happening in ‘Helix‘, and I don’t know if the show will go that deep into scandalous territory. After all, this is SyFy and not HBO. So let me know what you think below and Subscribe for more ‘Helix’ coverage!
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