Second Chance 1.03 “From Darkness, the Sun”

This is the fastest moving of the episodes thus far, and also the best. It features a welcome guest star who doesn’t get enough work, and some truly freaky evil bad guy work from Adam DiMarco. We’re not talking Daredevil level of super-heroics and super-villainy here (no D’Onofrio in sight yet, but I bet he’s coming), but I stand by my Six Million Dollar Man comparisons thus far. This is a solid B-level sci-fi entertainment, and the runners are getting better at balancing the disparate elements involved.

The show isn’t prolonging last week’s prevarication about Jimmy really being James Pritchard, his own heretofore unknown son. Dogged FBI agent Duvall Pritchard won’t let that unlikely fiction go, and this week goes after Otto (exploiting all of his autistic tics to do so, ruthlessly) since Mary stonewalled him so thoroughly last week. Both siblings are very bright, but they’re the first to admit they live in an isolated world tended to by subservient programs and sycophantic assistants (whose loyalty is well paid by their successful tech startup, Lookinglass, I’m sure). They’re not used to having the authorities dogging their every step, and that makes them vulnerable despite their near magical capabilities.

What we’re really seeing is Duvall learning how to become Jimmy’s Lois Lane. He’s got a crack secret (sure, illegal or at least vigilante) crime-fighting resource at his fingertips now; if he gets over being freaked out that his dead father has a new lease on life in a super-strong, almost bullet-proof young body. Which may be a lot to ask, but it’s kind of refreshing that “James” isn’t worried about it all. He’s almost foolish in his bravery, immediately willing to use the new body to accomplish what he never could before.

It makes you wonder, if the twins had come to him while he lived (before the nightmare scenario of being thrown, helpless, from a bridge) would he have taken them up on their interest in his unique DNA anyway? He didn’t have a choice, but he was clearly miserable in his dotage, frustrated with his powerless and acting out with drink and bad habits in order to cope. Of all the characters in the show, James has most fully embraced his Frankenstein transformation.

And this episode, while trading in patriarchal proving grounds (Duval learns that James is his “dead” father reborn; Martin Donovan, as Duke, plays protective father to the insane, entertainingly over the top Asher), keeps things fairly fresh. James has a fun weapon-free knife fight that ends in gunfire from a third party, but Donovan gets a potent death scene, and Tim Dekay really rocks both his confusion and his determination to get the answers he needs. Can Kazinsky convincingly play father to a man his same age? Despite some accent oddities this week, I’d say yes. There’s something compelling about those scenes where he floats, completely vulnerable and nude, in the healing transgenic chemicals. He’s so fully on display, so very not actually a person anymore. Which is the kind of thing the show is going to need to keep in mind as it goes forward.