Debris Review: A Message from Ground Control (Season 1 Episode 12)
Debris Season 1 Episode 12, “A Message from Ground Control,” is an odd penultimate episode. It’s hard to see exactly how it is setting up the end of the season, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, either.
“A Message from Ground Control” sees Finola and Bryan returning to the Orbital headquarters when the pieces of debris that are stored there start moving on their own. They are sent in to investigate exactly what’s going on and what effect they’re having on the technicians that are still inside.
It’s difficult to say how successful this episode is as a precursor to the finale but, as a continuation of the previous one, it works really well. It’s taking some of the concepts that were introduced during “Asalah” and making an interesting meal out of them here.
The first of these is the idea that some — if not all — of the pieces are working in tandem together and might even go so far as to communicate with each other. It’s one of those little details that feels extremely obvious in hindsight but it’s also not to imagine how it could have been overlooked up to that point.
There’s also this wonderful throughline during the episode of the struggle of control versus faith. It’s presented to us early on the episode by George in a very concise monologue that would probably be more welcome in a week that didn’t have a major country committing war crimes on the news.
It’s not a bad point to bring up, though. The government is out to help its people and only them. To do that, they need to have a stable hand on a situation, one where they can’t have the rug pulled out from them by another country — even an ally.
It’s a point that gets echoed later on during the episode when Finola confronts Maddox. America has to weaponize the debris because the other superpowers in the world are doing the same thing. It’s yet another example of people in positions of authority needing to control the outcome for the people they’re supposed to be serving.
This is where the next carryover from the previous episode happens. First with continuing his interrupted conversation with Mariel Caldwell — acting as an envoy of the debris — and being able to take to heart the lesson that he was originally meant to derive.
From there, he arrives at a place of faith. It feels very reminiscent of John Locke from Lost and his trust in a higher power that will see him through. Whereas Lost never comes to a firm victor between science versus faith, it is Bryan’s belief in the debris and the ineffability of the situation that ends up saving the day.
This is the show bringing up something that it has rarely touched on in any significant manner. The things that they are dealing with are clearly very advanced and came from a society that is obviously (literally) lightyears beyond them and there’s a certain kind of inherent arrogance that they could possibly be able to navigate it.
With “A Message from Ground Control,” there’s a very clear “let go and let go” philosophy that ends up feeling right. Sometimes there’s nothing else that you can do as a human other than pray that it’s just going to work out somehow.
What did you think of this episode of Debris? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Debris airs Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.
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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.