Say Hello to My Little Friend

Finally, just as networks are starting to announce their pick-ups and cancellations for next season (and Awake is almost certain to get the axe), Awake suddenly jumps back into the game it was slacking off on these last few episodes. In a surprise to me, the episode that really caught my attention again was built entirely around the ongoing conspiracy storyline, an element that I'd been rather dismissive of in the past.

What pulled me in tonight was that this episode was also more personal to Michael than any has been possibly since the pilot. Michael was snapped out of his split realities, stuck in "Red World" with his wife and forced to deal with the loss of his son. It was a full arc for the character, watching him struggle to try and get back to "normal," and then ultimately forced to accept that he'd found his true reality and would have to accept the death of Rex. Of course... shortly after he'd resigned himself to this, he discovered the true nature of his hallucinations, and just like that, reawakened in the "Green World" to return to his double life.

If you're deeply invested in pronouncing one reality as the "real" one and the other as the delusion, I think this episode actually kept both scenarios equally alive. On the one hand, you could say that the fact Michael locked into Red World rather than Green says that's the real home, the place where he almost got stuck. On the other hand, it was encountering the man behind his accident in Green World that actually started the whole thing, knocking him out... into a dream? ... where he could work through the truth before returning to reality.

All I know is, it was a hell of a performance by Jason Isaacs. He gave his all tonight, and I believed it. Now maybe Awake will punch out strong with its last few remaining episodes.