[JER] Rogue River

TV Programme: Jericho
Season: 2
Episode: 8
Date I watched this episode: 01/08/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: 7 days.

The feeling of emptiness gave this episode a bit of an eerie feel to it (I am reminded to some extent of [ALS] "Before The Flood"). We still don't really know what is going on here, although clearly there are still some people alive, albeit government mercenaries and deranged doctors! I guess about the first half of the episode was empty though and was dominated by this eerie feeling. It stuck Jake and Eric into a very small space (reminiscient of [TWW] "No Exit", [OTH] "Every Night Is Another Story", and to a lesser extent [PRB] "Subdivision") where they were forced to confront the issues which are so fundamental at the moment. It also had them disagreeing right from the start - in fact the opening line of the episode was Jake and Eric disagreeing about whether to stop and help a truck which had crashed. Jake seemed to be the one making the final decisions, with the rationale of "this is the world we live in now", and Eric did not really fight his stubbornness. Admittedly, he was mostly right.

The second half of the episode was mostly action-packed, dealing with the fight against Ravenwood. It was pretty bad odds; Jake was pretty much the only skilled guy on his side, apart from Payton who was badly injured. On the other side were 6 trained mercenaries. Still, I can overlook this as many of my programmes (24, Farscape, Prison Break) have these kinds of crazy odds. I'll also overlook the fact that Ravenwood came back at the exact time that Jake and Eric were there. Payton himself was a really good character, someone who decided to take a lone stand against the seemingly psychopathic murderous tendencies of the Ravenwood group.

Back at the town, we had a couple of nice scenes in the Green household. Heather was all of a state because she was so worried about Jake - she really does like him. Still, as April confirmed, she may very well have saved Jake's dad's life, something which will surely bring the two even closer together before she gets hit with the revelations about Jake's past.

The rest of the scenes were devoted to Rob Hawkins' family, and were not really that interesting. I knew right from the start that we wouldn't find out anything significant here; it's too early in the season for that. Still, the outcome puts Gray in a strong position yet again, which can't be good for Johnston Green. Most other Jericho characters were absent from this ep, notably Gracie, Skylar, Dale, Mimi, Stanley and Bonnie.

We did supposedly discover though that Rob works for the FBI. This is unlikely. It looks like Rob got Allison to plant the badge (which she did more willingly than ever, claiming she knows he is one of the good guys). His story about the monitoring of activity in the area is not consistent with his message "The rally point is no longer secure" sent a few episodes ago - if Jericho truly is a rally point, then they wouldn't have chosen it as such if it were a terrorist haven.

Another thing we "supposedly" found out in the episode was that Jake was a truck driver in Iraq. It's a story which I'm glad doesn't seem to want to die, because I'm intrigued myself as to what Jake was doing for those 5 years (Eric won't stop asking). Again, it's unlikely he was just a truck driver. That's the thing about this show though - sometimes it gives you answers but you don't know yourself if they are real or not.

Anyway now Ravenwood know about Jericho it's only a matter of time before they invade. I don't think they'll relay this back to the government but it might be difficult for the Jericho residents. There's certainly a lot they could do with this and all the other storylines; I'm excited as always for the next episode to come.