Dispatches From Elsewhere Review: Everyone (Season 1 Episode 6)
On Dispatches From Elsewhere Season 1 Episode 6, “Everyone,” the show departs from its character-of-the-week formula to deliver its most balanced, smoothly paced episode yet.
With the game drawing to a close and the Blue Team running out of time together, they decide to split up and follow two different trails of breadcrumbs: Janice and Simone choose to focus on finding Clara, while Peter accompanies Fredwynn on his quest to expose the corporation responsible her disappearance.
What follows is a perfect blend of adventure and character development, with some of the show’s most impressive acting performances to date.
Janice and Simone is a pairing I’ve been hoping to see more of all season, and the duo definitely lives up to my expectations.
Up until this point, Simone — like everyone else — seemed to view Janice as the team member with the least to contribute. She’s just the grandmotherly figure of the group, a kindly old women with little to offer in the way of expertise, and who is mostly just along for the ride.
But this episode makes it clear that Janice’s kindness is her contribution, and her approachability is the team’s most underrated asset.
She’s good at sweet-talking people, which means she can get information or gain entrance to places that are off-limits — private residences, for example — more easily than the other team members.
For breaking-and-entering, you need a guy like Fredwynn — but for missions that require finesse and persuasion, Janice is the game’s most valuable player.
Janice is also a great role model for Simone in the sense that she has survived numerous periods of personal distress and emotional turmoil, and yet she continues to approach the world with curiosity and openness.
For someone like Simone, whose experiences have made her shy and mistrustful, Janice’s ability to talk to and connect with absolutely anyone could be seen as a cause for optimism.
Their heart-to-heart in the library is one of the sweetest scenes in the episode, surpassed only by Peter wrapping Fredwynn up in a hug to calm him down during a moment of panic.
In addition to being full of emotional wisdom, this episode also features a bunch of hilarious running gags.
My personal favorite is Chocolate Milk Guy, the Jejune Institute agent who seems to be tailing the Blue Team and can frequently be spotted in the background drinking either a glass or a carton of chocolate milk.
Then there are the cover stories the team members invent to try and gain entrance to areas that are off-limits in the game, which absolutely no one is fooled by — but they tend to let Janice, Simone, and Peter go wherever they want anyway, simply because they seem so pathetic and unthreatening.
“Everyone” is everything I’ve come to expect from a show overflowing with empathy, curiosity, and humor. However, the newfound confidence of its storytelling is a pleasant surprise.
Dispatches From Elsewhere has managed to discard the narrative shakiness and pacing issues that plagued it earlier in the season, delivering an episode that’s tight, purposeful, and engrossing from start to finish.
What did you think of this episode of Dispatches From Elsewhere? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Dispatches From Elsewhere airs Monday at 10/9c on AMC.
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Ariel Udel
Ariel fell in love with storytelling on the night Flight 815 crashed on a mysterious island, and has been blogging about television ever since. She has an affinity for messy female anti-heroes and an enduring love of Battlestar Galactica, Xena: Warrior Princess, Lost, and Halt and Catch Fire.