First Wave - Episode guide
From a post by "The Executive" on the Sci-Fi
Channel's First Wave message board:
This is the kind of important story that should have been told
two seasons ago: The childhood trauma and history of a 12-year-old
Cade Foster. Taking the approach, it stands out very well among
the equally strong action tales of the third season.
Cade had been having a few nightmares lately, so based on a quatrain
that Eddie suddenly remembers, Jordan recommends he visit a Raven
Nation doctor named Greer [Jim Byrnes]. The old guy has the most
advanced psychological testing equipment and computers that Radcliffe
inheritance money can buy. (Only Gua technology is superior to it.)
He uses it all on a very reluctant Cade — who is haunted by
the demons of his childhood memories. Regression therapy is the
key in this First Wave episode, just as it was for Dana Scully
to remember her alien abduction in the classic X-Files two-parter
"The Red and the Black" and "Patient X." The major difference being
that Dana was given psychotropic drugs (which is what were used
on Foster by Cain and Gia in "Tomorrow"). In this episode, Greer
uses electrodes attached to Cade's head. Foster rarely discusses
how his usually drunken father Ned (who eventually died in a war)
beat both his son and wife Rose. Cade loved her mother dearly, but
he was also unduly influenced by his father at times. We see Ned
teach his boy how to pick a lock, steal, and encourages him to use
a gun. In one scene Cade finds his father's wallet stuffed with
some large demoninations of bills that he normally wouldn't be carrying
around, and dear old dad caught him in the act.
The great signifigance of what happens here is the revelation that
the Gua have been in Foster's life 16 years longer than he thought.
When he was 12, a memory was chemically repressed by a Gua scientist
named Dr. Rook (played by Highlander's Peter Wingfield).
The underage Cade knew that Rook wasn't human because after his
mother scratched the doc's face when abducting her son it healed
instantly. Rook informs the boy that if he ever even tries to remember
what happened after he is released from the lab (an all-white room
similar to the experimentation rooms in the series pilot), he would
suffer major heart trauma. That's what happens when Greer "fails"
to bring Cade out of his trance. I say fails because after Cade
successfully awakens in the end, Greer has conveniently disappeared.
Jordan believes that he was a human infiltrator being paid by the
Gua. Although I like the Greer character, my personal favorite Raven
Nation member was Max the scientist seen only once in "Raven Nation."
This episode made me again wonder just what he is up to these days!
Wingfield was also on target as Rook, who successfully jumped the
Queen — checkmating the King (a.k.a. Cade Foster). Don't let
my little chess pun throw you here, because "Checkmate" is an upcoming
First Wave episode that as of this writing I haven't seen
yet...
And finally there is the "Mystery Man," who appeared in Cade's
recollections in the physical form of Cade himself, but with a different
voice (which sounded like Spence's voice electronically lowered).
Seeing Cade speak and influence his younger self could have driven
him over the edge if he had not been in the hands of someone as
qualified and experienced as Dr. Greer. Instead it was inspiring
and gave Foster some renewed hope of success on both a conscious
and subconscious level. After all, he remembered everything that
happened when he woke up!
This is another new hook to the storyline: At some point in the
future this unidentified stranger will appear as his true self to
Cade. We still don't know who is and exactly when during the Second
Wave that he will return.
|
