Emergence Review: Mile Marker 14 (Season 1 Episode 6)

Emergence Season 1 Episode 6, “Mile Marker 14,” potentially closes the chapter on one threat and refocuses on another. 

The big conflict with Kindred over the last few episodes is one that ultimately had an expiration date on it or, at the very least, a limit to how much it could be employed throughout the series. Kindred is a character that’s big and looming, a presence a mile wide, and there’s only so much you can do with that. 

“Mile Marker 14” makes the smartest choice it can at this point in taking Kindred off the board, if only for an episode or two. He’s undoubtedly still the big bad of this season, or even the series, but allowing that antagonism some time to cool off as he’s shipped off to prison is a good move. 

Emergence, so far, has been really stellar at making these little moves that push the plot in new, interesting directions while still staying true to the emotional core of its characters and this has been no different. Something this show does that another might not is give characters time to catch up with where the plot currently is. 

Something that genre shows get wrong too often is forgetting or assuming that certain people on the series do or don’t know specific things, but here the chain of knowledge is so important in the realm of the familial relationships. That’s so crucial since the smaller, more intimate dynamics are a part of what makes the show so enjoyable to watch. 

Normally the trope of characters holding back information from others is a dreadfully rote one, but it has worked here in the past few episodes with Jo not telling the rest of the family about Piper’s powers and her true nature as an AI. When the former of those finally comes to light, it shouldn’t work but it does.

The wonderful thing about that reveal to Alex and Ed is that everyone involved is behaving in ways that are both specific to who they are and also entirely human and understandable.

It’s natural for Jo to want to protect someone that might be vulnerable. It makes sense for Alex to be wary of Piper’s powers and be upset that he didn’t know. It tracks that Ed wouldn’t like not being trusted with the information. It’s all rooted in this deep understanding of the characters and how they’d react in any given situation. 

We need to talk about Emily. There’s a number of things to talk about here with that character but let’s focus on one thing here: her dress. 

The Emily that we see at the end of this episode is almost certainly a construct buried deep in Piper’s coding but how she appears to Piper is so profoundly different to the way that we know her.  Emergence seems like a show that is almost bred to be analyzed and theorized over, which makes the red dress she wears a very purposeful choice. 

Similar types to how Emily is shown here have worn red dresses in an iconic fashion. The two big ones are Number Six from Battlestar Galactica and ALIE from The 100. To copy a style that is so distinctive for those characters seems to suggest a bigger meaning for what Emily wants from Piper. 

Number Six, at the most simplistic, wanted to wipe out humanity. ALIE, likewise, wanted to both destroy and save humanity. In that case, this might imply a more apocalyptic intention for Emily. On the other hand, this is likely exactly what the writers want us to be doing: speculating wildly with little-to-no chance of accuracy. 

What did you think of this episode of Emergence? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Emergence airs Tuesdays  at 10/9c on ABC.

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