Review: Continuum, “The Desperate Hours”

One of the most interesting and underutilized types of plot, in my opinion, is having a protagonist’s plans fail.

I don’t mean just a setback. I mean an utter, spectacular, catastrophic failure. To have all of their carefully laid schemes come crashing down around them.

As Continuum’s second to last episode begins, Kiera has developed a risky but complete plan to end the threat presented by Kellogg’s future soldiers and get home to her own time. Alec has done the math, and it should work. She just has to rely on Brad and Kellogg holding up their ends of the bargain.

Maybe it’s not surprising that placing her faith in such people doesn’t end well.

Failure is definitely the theme of this episode. Failure of plans, of efforts, of aspiration. But also personal failure, as well. Failure of the characters to be their better selves.

I was so disappointed by the actions of several characters in this episode. Just craven, selfish, irresponsible behaviour all around.

The really ironic thing is that the people who came out of this mess looking the most heroic are Travis and Dillon, which almost makes you wonder if this is Opposite Day. But really it just shows how far the others have fallen.

To be fair, Alec and Carlos still managed to stay true to their principles, for the most part.

I’m not complaining. All of these actions made sense in the context of the characters’ various arcs, it made for good drama, and one of the things I like about Continuum is that it’s a very morally gray show. Often, the “good guys” are no better than the people they oppose.

At this point, though, at least one character has definitely crossed the Rubicon, and I can only look forward to their inevitable (hopefully grizzly) demise.

Another major theme of “The Desperate Hours” is once again throwing doubt on whether Kiera can get home, or if the timeline she came from even still exists in any form.

I’m quite glad of this. It never made much sense to me that Kiera could take her home’s preservation for granted when much of last season was devoted to making clear that her timeline was gone, and her letting go of it. Admittedly, Continuum’s rules regarding time travel are not terribly well explained, but Brad’s very existence seems to show that Kiera’s home is long gone.

I will also say again that I hope Kiera does not ultimately make it home. It would waste a lot of the character development she’s gone through to do date, it wouldn’t make much logical sense, and honestly I don’t think Kiera deserves a perfect shiny happy ending.

Kiera isn’t a very good person. She’s not a monster, but she’s no hero, either — and “The Desperate Hours” proves that quite conclusively. I don’t necessarily want to see Kiera suffer, but I don’t want her to get everything she wants, either.

She just doesn’t deserve it.

My one significant complaint with this episode would be that we see nothing of Curtis or the Traveler, and considering how important they theoretically are and how close we are to the end, I was expecting them to have a role to play.

Overall rating: 8.1/10