Earthshine
Episode 5 of Debris begins with a bus ride gone wrong. Sound suddenly cuts out completely as this bus teleports and crash lands in a parking lot. A single man crawls out the back of the upturned bus as a strange, bald man stands over him. Meanwhile, things are tense between Finola and Bryan on the plane. They’ve got another case file, which happens to be this smashed up bus. After discussing their feelings on their previous case, they touch down in Boston and examine the devastation first-hand. Thanks to Frank, CCTV footage shows the bus traveling down Beatty street. There, they see it completely vanish. According to eyewitness accounts, a high-pitched whine sounded around this time too. Interestingly, that bald man leaves the bank and watches the bus disappear. He also doesn’t seem too concerned about it. With a possible culprit, Finola finds the bus crash survivor. Blood-stained and lying on a table, he’s been shot in the head and a sample of his hair is missing. From the looks of it, it seems like Influx have been experimenting. With Bryan ready to speak to Maddox about this, a sample from the coffee cup left outside the bank comes in. The bald man in question is an ex-paramilitary guy called Peter Joseph Eickmann. He arrived in the country on an EU passport and happens to be on several different high-profile lists. This sends Finola and Bryan off to look for Peter. However, they’re suddenly stopped in their tracks when another high-pitched whine sounds. Authorities arrive and confirm this wormhole is much bigger than the others. In fact, it seems to be several blocks long. Just like that, Finola and Bryan find Peter who tells them both there’s no way they’ll be able to stop this. In fact, he ends up shooting himself in the head, promising that someone else will take his place. After this, Finola is stopped by a man driving a van, claiming that Ferris isn’t telling her everything. He hands over a USB stick and tells her that her Father isn’t a clone. Finola checks the footage on this USB stick with Bryan, where they notice two excavators facing one another in the distance. This seems to be the key to everything, as Finola deduces that these worm holes are being opened through two metallic structures used as a conductor. Unfortunately, it seems like Influx are going to open a huge wormhole in the middle of Manhattan. The pair eventually do find Influx, and work together to chase them down and stop the terrorists before it’s too late. Bryan’s group is blindsided, with Mallory taking a bullet to the gut. Thankfully, Bryan’s quick thinking stops her – and himself – from meeting a nasty demise. Bryan drags Mallory out the hallway, right by the piece of debris up on the wall. Meanwhile, Finola chases after her guy; a bearded man who stops her on the street. He smiles, “You have his eyes.” He mutters, just as sound suddenly cuts out. The wormhole is about to open. Thankfully this is only a temporary blip as Bryan manages to sync the machine and interfere with the signal. With Manhattan safe for now, Bryan and Finola catch up over the day’s events. Finola doesn’t trust Langley though and lies, claiming the bearded man didn’t say anything to her before arresting him. With the case wrapped up, Finola plays an old home video of her and her sister.
The Episode Review
Debris bows out this week’s episode with a pretty tense pressure-cooker situation. With both departments forced to work together and tensions high on both sides, the introduction of Influx and their strange plan is a welcome inclusion. This week we’ve got this teleporting story and it appears as if Influx are working with/for Finola’s Father. Given the fact she wasn’t killed when that man approached, this seems to be what’s going on here. Alongside this sci-fi mystery is a lot of emotionally-charged character drama. While it does work quite well at times, the editing leaves a lot to be desired. For example, midway through this episode we suddenly cut across to Craig Maddox and his wife discussing their son. It’s such a random scene and completely takes you away from the investigation. Small moments like this feel sloppy and disrupt the interesting case, 5 episodes in and Debris is a bit of a mixed bag. The show hasn’t quite managed to sort out this imbalance between emotion and sci-fi. Having said that, this episode is definitely one of the best thus far and there’s lots of intriguing plot points carrying this forward.
