Awake - Episode 1.3 - Guilty - Review

Sometimes when shows are new, they seem really rough around the edges are they’re trying to fit everything together, but Awake is not one of those shows. I was so blown away by the pilot that I was a bit worried that the episodes to follow wouldn’t be able to keep the game up. But I’ve been happily surprised with the episodes thus far. A kidnapping is usually something some shows do when they’ve run out of ideas, and it’s often a “jump the shark” moment, but for some reason it fit Awake quite well for so many reasons.

So, in the GREEN life, Rex was kidnapped by an escaped convict. It seems like all the man wants is revenge, but really there was so much more to it. He actually wanted Michael to clear his name and felt the only way Michael would agree would be to kidnap his son as a sort of ransom. This didn’t go as planned and the man dies leaving Rex stranded, and Michael has no idea where he is. We’ve seen Michael make use of his ‘other’ world with something simple like the fabric softener, but to see him use it for something as serious as this is great. Michael takes some pills and to quickly return to his RED life where he finds the convict still in prison. He tells the convict he’ll clear his name if he tells him about ‘the place in the desert.’ When he figures out an old cop framed the convict, he frees the convict--in the RED life--and is able to free his son.

It seemed to be wrapped up in a nice little package, but Michael is still left feeling way too guilty. He saved on version of the convict, but in the other life the man dies. He feels it’s his fault, even though it’s truly the man’s fault for kidnapping Rex in the first place. This is the first time we start seeing that the same person can have two different lives/paths in Michael’s world. His partners obviously have different lives, but not to the degree of death. Michael also made sure that the dirty cop was punished in the GREEN world where the convict had died.

Meanwhile, Hannah has begun to deal more head-on with Rex’s passing. There were having a memorial at a place Rex volunteered at before he died. In the episode we really learn a lot about Rex. He volunteered at a call center that helped young teens seek help instead of hurting themselves, and even though it was mandatory at first he really ended up enjoying helping. Also, Rex opened up to his tennis coach telling her that he wishes his father would have died instead of his mother, even though his father tries so hard to be good with him. It was a really nice change to hear about Rex’s character. I understand Michael’s the main character, but I am really interested in learning about all the other characters as well.

The only true disappointment to the episode is that they never talked about the crazy cliffhanger from last week. I really do want to know if the car crash was fixed or not, but I am sure we will learn more about this element to the show in time. Don’t forget to catch ‘Kate is Enough’ next Thursday on NBC at 10/9c!