Emergence Review: Where You Belong (Season 1 Episode 9)
Emergence Season 1 Episode 9, “Where You Belong,” reveals a new threat, who may not be all that threatening.
A big part of this freshman season on Emergence has been the efficiency at which it not only burns through plot but also antagonists. At first, it seemed like the villain of this season — if not the series — would be Richard Kindred. When that character is being played by none other than Terry O’Quinn, it feels like a pretty good match.
OWAIN YEOMAN, ROBERT BAILEY JR.
Then it was revealed that, no, it was really Emily that was pulling the strings and was the ultimate big bad of the piece. While she didn’t have the gravitas that Kindred brought to the table, she was still a formidable opponent for the little found family on this series.
Now, the series has brought out — with where we are in the season at this point — the actual villains of the piece, at least, to some extent.
The difference between antagonist and protagonist can sometimes only be in degrees and is mostly determined through motivations and desires. Kindred wanted Piper because he believed her to be his company’s intellectual property an idea he’s not wrong about, but enough so that he’s despicable.
Emily just wanted to be loved by Piper, which in itself isn’t terrible, but the ways that she ultimately goes about it are. This path of derangement takes her all the way to essentially trying to kill Piper.
DONALD FAISON, CLANCY BROWN, ALLISON TOLMAN
Helen — and Benny, apparently — have proven themselves by the end to being against Jo and the rest of the family, but we don’t know how far they’re fully willing to go or what their true motivations are. Taken at face value, perhaps it’s a good thing that they have Piper and want her to stay with them now.
The rub is that we don’t at this point understand much of what their goals are. How far are they willing to go to accomplish whatever it is they’re seeking to do? Benny, at least, is someone that has existed and flourished in the world without drawing much attention to himself outside of his journalistic pursuits.
What is it that he wants with Piper and how many others like Piper and himself actually exist? If Helen is indeed like Piper, then it stands to reason that the rest of her group are also Artificial intelligence. How far down does the rabbit hole go and how has this many of them existed without anyone noticing?
OWAIN YEOMAN
More importantly, how could Piper be treated like the first of her kind when she is clearly so far from it? Alan Wilkis seemed to know Helen but did he know that she is artificial? It does help to explain why Wilkis was so paranoid and skittish about the very existence of Piper, but if that was the case then he’d also know that it was too late to put the genie back into the bottle.
Ultimately, that’s what’s so exciting about this episode. It blows things open to such a degree that it calls into question much of what we’ve already seen on the show, giving a new contextualization. It remains to be seen if this will really amount to anything beyond window dressing but we are hopeful for something substantial here.
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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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.
One thought on “Emergence Review: Where You Belong (Season 1 Episode 9)”
With each episode this show redeems itself more and more. It’s a shame that it really does seem as though ABC will be cancelling it.
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