Awake 1x02 Review

The Little Guy

After watching the second episode of this show I've decided two things. First, it's that this show certainly has legs and has grabbed me. This isn't only due to the fine acting, and impressive characterizations we're getting but also because even after only two episodes I care about these people much more than I do about characters I've seen in shows for years. The other thing I've decided is that this is a brilliant move by NBC. They look at TV and see that shows like CSI and Law and Order do amazing. What did they do? They put on a show that is two episodes of CSI in one, and also has a mysterious quality to it for the geeks. It's CSI + Lost!!  Brilliant NBC, brilliant. 

Last week, I failed to mention one thing about the show that needs to be talked about. In Britten's Red Reality his partner is played by Wilmer Valderrama. I'm very impressed with him. If I didn't know he was from comedy I would have no idea he had that in him. This show obviously is not a comedy, and he really shines as the young partner whose job it is to watch Britten. In this episode he has some great moments. 

These reviews will be pretty short for Awake since I'm not a huge fan of procedural Dramas. I don't care to spend time analyzing the crimes, or methods used to track them down. What I will be talking about are the connections he makes between the two realities, and how that appears to connect to the overall conspiracy/mystery that appears to be taking shape. 

This week, the connection that he finds is that two guys with the same name are killed in either reality. In one it's a fertility doctor, and the other it's a homeless man. I don't think we ever got to see both faces to see if it was actually the same person, or if the names were just the same. I think that's important for our understanding of what's happening here so if I missed it, please let me know.  He finds out in the Red Reality that the homeless version was killed by "a little guy", and that info propels him to figure out that a teenager killed the doctor version. They don't actually solve the case of the homeless man in the episode, but there's more to that.

At the end of the episode, we find out that Britten's boss, played by Laura Innes(ER, The Event), is secretly meeting with a sinister looking man. I'm going to call him Sinister Looking Man or SLM until we find out who he is. SLM and her discuss Britten, and it turns out that they and others conspired to have him killed. I assume the car accident was meant to do that. Turns out though, that the guy who actually did the hit was a little guy. 

This was a very interesting revelation, and makes things even more complex. This makes me think it's not ALL a dream, or afterlife. If it is, then how could he know all this, and would it really be presented this way in his mind? This also suggests that this reality, the Red one is the real one. But if THAT's true then why was the "little guy" information given to him in the same reality. This meeting was taking place in the same reality as was the homeless man's murder. 

VERY confusing, and that's just how I like my TV.