A two-episode season finale!

A lot of folks started to look like they were turning things around a bit, then went off in some interesting directions.

Ben finally got Aaron back, but only because of Theo.

It freaked Ben out when he discovered that he and another man were the ones dragging Caplan’s body to his car. It led him to run facial recognition and find Theo.

Theo quite quickly figured out Ben had forgotten Aaron and begun to remind him, when Ben spotted Hendrick in one of the pictures Theo showed him. That’s when they found the hidden hackshop of Ben’s, and still Hendrick looked like he was going to screw him over.

The insurance blackmail Ben had set up to keep Hendrick from refusing to restore his memory required Ben’s DNA to dismantle, and for a minute there it looked like Hendrick had tricked Ben into supplying it. An attack of conscience led him to simply tell Ben how destructive Aaron was, and let Ben decide if he wanted the Aaron memories back. More on that later.

Laura started having problems, and the direction she took them in…while she may have done the only thing she could, I’m not sure she got quite the right lesson from it.

Someone was stealing medicines from the supply. A patient bled to death because there weren’t enough nano sutures (WAY cool concept, BTW, kudos to the writer’s room) and it pissed her off enough to find out who had done it.

She also learned the reality of the Red Zone when what looked like a 10 year old boy came in with a ruptured hormonal implant. She learned the boy was actually 19 and worked in a brothel where he was payed extra because he’d stunted his growth and development to look like a kid. Naturally, Laura wanted to save him, but he rather bluntly told her he didn’t need saving–what he did kept his family from having to live with the same or worse. This was his reality.

That kind of tempered her reaction to the theft for a minute, realizing that the thief was likely desperate. However, once the thief was caught (and it appeared to be someone working there for her), Goran asked her what she was going to do about it. She felt sorry for the thief, but she was also still angry about the death of her patient. She figured out that something harsh and extreme had to be done–an example made–so others wouldn’t think her weak enough to keep stealing from. She didn’t want anyone else dying, so she *cut off the kid’s hand*. Yikes. I’d have almost thought a finger would have done? She tells the kid that it’s over, and he was saving lives by being an example, that everyone would know they couldn’t steal from the clinic.

Later, she goes over to talk to her mother, saying she understood why she made the choice not to save Laura’s dad. This is where she finds out that indeed, Laura’s dad wasn’t kidnapped (we figured that story wasn’t true), but he was actually trying to defect.

Here’s where Laura doesn’t quite seem to get the take-away from all this. It’s almost like she’s thinking it was a greater-good perspective, that sometimes to lead one must be ruthless. Looking at her mother, I really don’t think that was her motivation at all.

With some of what her mother said, it was more a matter of self preservation, and saving her daughter from the fallout of what her father was trying to do. It had very little to do with leadership, power, or any greater good.

She tells her mother that if she tries to close down the clinic or sends any of her men, she’ll have them shot. So, that steel spine she’s been growing is now firmly in place. Get ’em, Laura.

Theo went in some interesting directions. Looks like his little experience with drugs is over. (GOOD! It didn’t become him, poor duckling.)

He goes to a ceremony where the ashes of the fighter he killed (pulped the head in) were spread in the river. He’s obviously pretty disgusted and horrified at what he’s done, and it’s hard to tell whether he’s becoming fatalistic, or wants atonement. The girlfriend of the fighter is some sort of cleric/nun, and she says she ‘forgives’ Theo. For a minute there, it looks like she’s offering kindness to someone who needed it very much. As they’re discussing her views on society, though, there comes a moment on a rooftop where it sounds like she’s trying to convince him to jump off.

This seems to kick his butt in the right direction, though, as he rustles up the guts to tell Terrence he doesn’t want to fight anymore.

Terrence tells him he got him a Green Zone fight, and that he’s definitely going.

Theo does the fight, but without the drugs. He gets his ass kicked. It’s not clear if the other guy was more skilled, though, or if Theo is just so very done he threw the fight. He puts on a show, but nearly lets the other guy down him, so there is a bit of fatalism there.

Terrence picks him up and brings him back to the Red Zone, and when it looks like Terrence is ready to kill him it’s obvious that Theo really doesn’t care…until he brings in Theo’s boyfriend. That’s when Theo desperately tries to come up with something of worth to trade for his lover’s life–and he comes up with Ben. Ouch.

Speaking of Ben, he decides to restore the Aaron memories, but now he has the added benefit of knowing what a dick he’s been.

He finds out he got the 40th floor promotion, and finds out just how ruthless the SPIGA loyalty tests are–they put him through a simulation. In the simulation, Inazagi comes for Everclear, and threatens to kill Laura. Ben cottons to it being a simulation–Laura isn’t wearing her ring–but plays along, letting the agents kill simulated Laura. He passes, and gets all the benefits that come with the promotion.

He goes to Arcadia, finds Elena, and explains how he wants to rescue her.

Elena is having none of it. Not only does she have a heavy helping of cynicism and reality, we find out that she’s been working with a woman on the inside the whole time to bring the company down. I’m guessing burning down her father’s restaurant and forcing her to become a prostitute pissed her off enough to really go the far, long route to revenge. She wants blood, and to see it all burn.

Whether it’s Elena’s refusal to leave or his newfound sense of how awful he’s been, Ben decides to use his escape plan (the one set up with the memory-scrambled Inazagi guy) for Hendrick and his daughter. Hendrick came to Ben and said he needed out, because he’d kept the water key and a few other things from his Red Zone life, and his daughter found it and brought it to show and tell at school. It was only a matter of time before it all came apart.

And honestly, if they’d found that Hendrick was a fake, wouldn’t it only be a matter of time before they started looking more critically at people and found Ben too? It’s kinder to think he helps Hendrick out of generosity, but that’s probably not the whole motivation. The payment for this extraction? Ben gives Inazagi Everclear. Uh oh.

So now he has to come up with something else to give them once he needs to get out (and it gives him time to try and convince Elena to come with him).

Krauss spends these two episodes making Krauss type decisions. The whole extraction plan for the scientist making saltwater tolerant plants goes completely sideways, and she has to decide what to d9o about it. She goes with the if-we-can’t-have-him-they-can’t-either plan. SPIGA could be ruined if their competitor can undercut them by 98% on grain. She has the whole place blown up, obliterating the scientist, his research, and the evidence that it was SPIGA that did it.

Her enemy on the board tries to use it against her, but the board gives her a pat on the back instead.

Killing their extraction team appears to be a bridge too far with Julian, and he agrees to help her enemy, if he can just get his damn transfer to Sioux Falls.

I figured screwing Julian over would come back to bite Krauss in the ass. He also find out that she never put his transfer in to begin with. Ouch. At least that came to light.

I almost forgot #SadChad!

So, Ben re-did the wind model, obscuring Theo’s face, and replacing himself with someone he ran into while he was in the Red Zone looking for Theo…Chad. Chad was already under suspicion (having been NDA’d and kicked out) and his weird, spotty memory drug Ben back up. He got a bit excited when he saw Ben, because he remembered Ben had screwed him over.

Chad started seeing Ben’s face everywhere, and he got a bit stabby.

Julian was very doubtful that Chad would have the memory or presence of mind to kill Rodger, hack the car, and send him off. He didn’t get a chance to prove it, though, because when they went to capture Chad, he got stabby again and went after one of the security men. They shot him.

Julian knows Ben’s crooked, he just can’t prove it. Now that he’s out for Krauss, Ben might become an even better target.

Ben and Laura move into their new house, and we learn Laura is pregnant. Having her new clinic, this will be an interesting complication. It might also make things a little harder for Ben when it comes time to leave.

Now we’re stuck til Season Two.

Previous Episode: Operational Realignment