First Wave: Gulag

Cade passes through a quantum pocket in order to save Joshua from a prison that forces him to relive his worst nightmare over and over again.

I have to admit, I was left very puzzled by this episode. Not because it's particularly complicated, but because it doesn't match what I though about Joshua from his last appearance. I thought his consciousness had been removed from his husk and Cain's implanted instead. Now we seem to have two husk bodies kicking around, one Joshua and one Cain. Why? And more to the point, when Cain arrives, where did he come from? Why has he arrived? And how come he can tell that time is repeating itself when the others, including the newly-arrived Cade, can't spot it for a while?

While the Groundhog Day-esque idea is sound, the direction doesn't pay much attention to making things look a little different, using the same bits of footage several times, only occasionally thinking of shooting it from a new angle. Watching Cade and Joshua run through the same lines in the same way several times also annoys after a while when it could have been made slightly different each occasion.

While I wholeheartedly approve of bringing Joshua back into the series, it needed to be by removing Cain permanently somehow, and this solution seems temporary and rather pointless. Although Eddie provides a long-winded explanation for what's happened at the end, it's garbled, fast and doesn't hold much water, being a desperate attempt to explain poorly-conceived ideas. Now, if Joshua's mind had been imprisoned and Cade was his subconscious trying to set him free, it would have worked. This approach doesn't do anyone any favours and wastes what could have been a much better story that it turns out to be.

***

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