Alphas season 2 episode 9 review: The Devil Will Drag You Under

This review contains spoilers.

2.9 The Devil Will Drag You Under

I’ll say from the outset, Alphas has been consistently better than The Devil Will Drag You Under would suggest. Because nothing that happened in it surprised me at all.

Coming off the back of the hand-wringing of Falling, this takes up immediately after those events where Danni cuts a deal to avoid a standing reservation in Building 7.

The trouble with the whole idea of Cameron going rogue in an attempt to save Danni is that it seemed utterly false from the outset, and they provided so many clues as to what was really going on, and how it was achieved, that even the least analytical viewer would have realised the deception long before the reveal.

Stanton’s plan to kill people using electricity seems remarkably convoluted for no good reason, and as with most such ill-conceived strategies it eventually comes unstuck. But not before we’ve had lots of running, shouting, chasing and scowling.

The end that Danni eventually comes to was defined some time back when she was revealed as a traitor, because having being revealed as such, neither side was every going to really trust her. The writers had driven her character down a well-planned dead-end, and the only way out was feet first.

I can’t say I’ll miss her, because I didn’t see any chemistry with the Cameron character, even if we were repeatedly told there was plenty. She was Rosen’s weakness, and without it he’s released to be more aggressive in his response to Stanton Parish.

I’m also going to predict that she’ll magically reappear through a transference she did to Nina just before death, but perhaps more in personality than physically, in some future story.

Sentimentality aside, another annoyance was how, in true Alphas tradition, they managed to muck up the pivotal action sequence. Cameron rides his motorcycle at the van, leaps to the top of it and keeps running to jump off the back. Given he was doing at least thirty miles an hour, and the van the same, unless he could run at 60 miles an hour this just wouldn’t be possible unless he’s Steve Austin now.

What I did like was the lovely Kandyse McClure turning up as Agnes the Alpha equivalent of truth-or-dare. Her character seemed immediately interesting, even if we seem to get exposed to a new whacky Alphas that Stanton has recruited every week. I hope she comes back, because she might have an interesting back-story. One can only hope.

In the end the whole purpose of The Devil Will Drag You Under was to add some edge to the conflict between Rosen and Parish, and motivation for a little revenge on the good doctor’s part. I guess he’s got that now, though I can’t say it was delivered with much imagination or elegance.

The next Alphas is called Life After Death and it will probably involve Cameron being grumpy before coming to terms with the loss of Danni through some heart-warming encounter. Given that I’ve assumed all that without seeing a synopsis or even a picture from that episode, I just hope it isn’t as predictable as this one was.

Read Billy’s review of last week’s episode, Falling, here.

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