- SPOILERS AHEAD … OUTLIERS AND SKULDUGGERY APLENTY …
We all know that the Morkocalypse, which is what the alien apocalypse of Colony shall henceforth be named after the inspiring renaming of the RAPs by one of the proto-members of Broussard (Tory Kittles) and Will’s (Josh Holloway) new resistance cell, Dave O’Neill played by Will Brittain – he hasn’t signed on the dotted line but goddamit if he’s not interested – is a down and dirty place.
But lordy if “Sea Spray”, a hauntingly low key episode that saw chess pieces moving across the board of Seattle Colony like there’s no tomorrow – and if the RAP’s powerful enemies arrive before they’re ready to use as defensive fodder, it may well be – didn’t underline, underscore and light with gaudy neon just how passively aggressively nasty things are getting in the colony to beat all colonies.
Despite Kyne’s (Wayne Brady) PR, which is formidably good, it’s becoming ever more clear that there is rot at the heart of his supposedly idyllic social experiment, and a great deal of rot at that.
Take Kyne’s own security head honcho, Agent Harris (E J Bonilla) who has been presented along with Adam Ford (David Paetkau) as a simple lowly bodyguard for the likes of our deal rat fink/not rat fink/who really knows Alan Snyder (Peter Jacobson), a man who appears to be nothing more than a guarder of visiting dignitaries.
He is, of course, nothing of the king.
The opening scene of “Sea Spray” sees him at a boxing ring where Dave, the king of humourously seditious alien nomenclature, suggests they go and take a whole lot of guns from one of the armouries in the colony.
What a sterling idea you think! They’re resistance and they’re arming themselves for a coming great uprising which will see Kynes swept aside and god knows what replace it. (Certainly Snyder seems keen for a change but really is the Global Authority any better? I think not.)
But wait! Yes, wait! Turns out Harris is very friendly with Kynes, inner sanctum friendly in fact, and looks to be playing some sort of long game at his boss’s behest.
But what kind of game is it?
Is he really resistance? (Looks doubtful.) Or prepping Kynes’ own private army to defend his narcissistic alien-accommodating idyll? (Much more likely.)
It turns out, and sneaky, sneaky Mr Kynes who seems to have all kinds of alien tech denied to the GA – yes, Snyder is a teeny-weensy bit guilty – may be building his own little slice of military heaven, diverting ex-military personnel known as “Outliers” from the official facility where they are sent off to be used as the GA so desires, to be used for his own murky purposes.
Given the little we know about Kynes, who has resolutely refused to pull back his own Wizard of Oz-ian, it’s highly doubtful he’s doing it for the good of humanity.
Well, not all of humanity; one person in particular – him.
Kynes is the ultimate survivor, a man arrogant enough to believe he can best the RAPs, and who knows maybe he can? Occupation of Earth aside, the Morks have not exactly covered themselves in glory thus far, and if you’re a betting person, you might be willing to put money on Kynes’ sneakiness wining out over sheer brute off.
Hahahaha – of course not; but then in many stories where aliens come skipping merrily onto Earth, expecting to have it all their own way, they find out that people are a mite more unpredictable and spontaneous than they expected, and everything goes royally to hell.
It may not necessarily go that way but if it does, guarantee you that Kynes, the cockroach of humanity will find a way to skitter out from the big stomping intergalactic feet of the RAPs and their human collaborators.
Of course, if Will, Katie (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Broussard have their way, and Amy Leonard (Peyton List) doesn’t seem to think they know what they’re doing, semi heart-to-hearts with Will aside, he won’t get away whatever game he’s playing.
Understandably they see anyone collaborating with the RAPs as an enemy of humanity, which they are, and it’s highly doubtful that anyone, including messiah-in-his-own-mind Kynes, will best a bunch of technologically-advanced, eternally-at-war aliens.
Still a resistance can dream can’t they?
As, it appears, can Snyder and his security pal Scott Garland (John Hoogenakker), ex-FBI agent, now Greyhats Captain, last seen killing Will’s son (or contributing to it anywhere) who are determined to get to the bottom of Kynes’ Jenga-block of subversive carrying on.
They can smell the rat, they just can’t find it but as they, pretty much as the same time as Katie, discover Kynes is keeping lots of Outliers for himself, it becomes obvious they are determined to take the cocky Colony leader down.
Whether it’s for their own ends, or that of the GA – with Snyder, you honestly never know, his mercurial alliances pivoting on self interest more than anything – it’s hard to say but it’s rapidly coming down to a three way fight with Kynes, the resistance and the GA all squaring off in the most picturesque colony of them all. (Like Disneyland but with way more duplicity.)
Even domestically for the Bowmans things are getting both better – Will and Katie are talking again and saying what they really feel with Will speaking eloquently about grief as something that is a part of them but which he doesn’t want to define them – and worse with Bram (Alex Neustaedter) and Grace (Isabella Crovetti-Cramp) getting drawn more and more into the orbit of Bram’s love interest Meadow (Elise Gatien) and her dad who seem warm and welcoming but hey, of course there’s something else going on.
This is the Morkocalypse after all!
In another exemplary, exquisitely well-layered episode, Colony has made the waters ever more realistically-murkier, proving once again that when it comes to Machiavellian politics that there is no such thing as good and evil and that even something which at first looks black-and-white slam dunk simple – kicking the aliens off Earth – huzzah! – is anything but.
It reflects the stupendously complexities of today’s political and societal shifts where there are good and worthy positions, and utterly heinous ones, but which are expressed in a thousand different shades of flawed humanity.
It would be nice if getting rid of the RAPs and dealing with their collaborators like Snyder and Kynes was a simple open-and-shut case but it’s not and you can guarantee that as the final three episodes of season 3 play out that we will see just how confoundingly messy and anything-but-simple things can get on good old alien-plagued planet Earth.
- Next up on Colony in “Disposable Heroes” …