Helix - Trust No One.

Good grief, is there anyone on this show that isn't playing a double game.

Helix opened up its "Oubliette" episode with Dr. Kyle Sommers sitting with someone from the State Department and going over their plans to arrest Alan Farragut.  Kyle is to gather intel towards that end.

It was just the first but not the last case of the duplicitous nature of our Helix characters.

Let's start with the rescue of Sarah by Kyle.

In my last Helix post I figured the safe bet would be Kyle coming to the rescue of Sarah.

Oh, okay, I also thought the safe money would be Caleb saving Julia too.

This turned out to be true in both cases but, darn it, I really wanted it to be Alan in both timelines.  That really would have been warped.  Too bad these shows don't consult me.

Sarah has lost an extreme amount of blood.  As Kyle carried her out of building it looks as though they spent a months worth of the effects budget on that fake blood. 

Fortunately for Sarah, Agnes has had enough experience in the stitching up of people to staunch the bleeding and save her life.  In this act, Agnes grows suspicious of Sarah's amazing recuperative powers.  This leads her down a rabbits hole wherein she learns of the duplicity of another major character and it serves as a major revelation for the show.

More on that soon.

Speaking of amazing recuperative powers, Caleb has brought Julia to the Triage Cave that that is reminiscent of "The Cave" that was on the the TV show, "Lost."

Here's a picture of the Triage Cave.

Not exactly on a sheer cliff side like the one on Lost but pretty close and another interesting parallel to that show.

Caleb repairs Julia's wounds and they have laugh out loud interlude where Julia makes her Wolverine comment.  Not only does this reveal that Julia cannot regrow a limb but it also shows Caleb's complete ignorance of popular culture.

As I said, I thought this exchange was very funny and I said to myself about Caleb, "Dude, what do you do, live on an island?"

Oh, right, he does.

I was in the camp that thought Julia would regrow her finger but I guess that is not possible.  Perhaps with Brother Michael's genetic splicing he can fix that for her.  (And splice a body for Candace Sutton too!)

Julia is grateful to Caleb for his efforts but that gratitude will only extend as far as the point where she realizes he also possess a certain amount of duplicity.

The showpiece example of duplicity may go to the ongoing fraternal war between Alan and Peter.

Michael has tossed them into an "Oubliette" where they are meant to deal with each other.  Oubliette is French and is rooted in the Old French word, Oublier, "to forget."

I don't think Michael left them there to rot and as Alan guessed he probably wanted to observe on how they managed to deal with each other.

"Forget" is not a word that is part of the lexicon between Alan and Peter.

Alan and Peter had their own humorous interlude that was quite sharp.  As soon as Julia was inserted into the discussion all Hell broke loose and the brothers tore into each other.

As we've seen before, once they have exhausted each other they acually get along quite well and manage to laugh at their short comings.  Alan wants to trust Peter and for his part Peter appeals to Alan's sense of family.

Alan puts Peter's sense of brotherly trust to the test and Peter agrees to switch places with Alan in their efforts to get out of the dungeon.

It was more than a test though as Alan reveals his perfidy while making it clear he knows all about Peter's.

This would be a good time to return to the drama that is playing out between Agnes and Sarah.

Agnes has grown extremely suspicious of Sarah's recuperative powers.  Its like she has seen them before.

Agnes sedates Sarah and discovers the silver eyes of an immortal.

So, not only has she seen the stunning recuperative powers before but she has come face to face with immortality also.

This is the episode's weekly bombshell.  Brother Michael is an immortal and this opens a dungeon's worth of questions.  Poor Agnes is saddened to learn there are other immortals and she despairs that Michael has left her behind to age while he remains forever young.

So now we know why all the pictures of the ladies are hanging up on the wall.  As Michael reveals he has been around for 500 years and these are all the ladies he's gone through.

Here are some the questions/points that Michael's bombshell exposes.

• Is he a cultist?  Not one that honors the importance of womanhood as I first thought, but instead is formed around his personage and his need for eternal companionship?
• Does Ilaria know about his island retreat and chosen just to observe him?
• Did Ilaria deliberately seclude him there and the Island is a long term isolation chamber and a hedge against disease?
• Has Michael secluded himself from Ilaria and the rest of the Immortals for a selfish reason?  (His culthood?)
• What is his genetic research for?  Just to supply him with a never ending supply of companionship?
• Does this explain why Hatake has come to the Island?  To take advantage of Michael's work?  How many more Immortals have fled there?
• Is Sarah still there?

Michael attempts to reconcile with Agnes.  He tells her she was always his favorite daughter. (Crack!)

Daughter?

Maybe that is just  a cultist reference.  It seemed to me that Michael has "relations" with all the women and keeps and inner circle of his favorites.

Speaking of favorites, Anne got a stinging rebuke from Michael about her obvious aging.  She apparently knows about Michael's immortality.  I wonder how long the ladies will put up with his self deification now they know there are other Immortals and they could have joined him in the everlasting life?

We return to the Julia storyline and much like Sarah she has gone to sleep only to find Caleb gone.  More deceit. 

They had a nice fire side chat where trust was built between them.  But that trust lasted only as long as the discovery of the writing on the Densho blade.  The writing on the blade seemed Korean to me.  Not that I'm an expert but I looked up the Korean alphabet on the internet and the writing looked quite similar.

It would be odd to have Korean on a Japanese blade.  Another secret?

Either way, it meant something to Caleb and he absconded with the blade.

Agnes of God

Poor Agnes.  She laments her fate to Sarah but tried to impart the importance of children and how you live on in them. 

That might change now that she knows about Michael's deviousness.

There was a play, "Agnes of God" and a movie of the same name.  It featured three very strong female leads much like we see in Agnes, Amy and Anne.  They were also "Sisters" in that they were nuns in a Convent.  Significantly, it dealt with virgin birth and sacrifice.  Sacrifice that translates into murder that is.

It also featured a bell tower which was a favorite place of Agnes and scenes of which have been prominently featured in the last two episodes of Helix.

Here is the one I openly wondered about in my last blog post.

And here is the scene that also prominently featured the steeple or bell tower in this past episode.

I think it will be worthy to note the parallels between what is going on in Brother Michael's compound and the plot of "Agnes of God."  Anne Bancroft was a star of the movie and Sister Anne may be a homage to that character.  Helix seems to have flipped the ages of Agnes and Amy for their purposes.  But here is something worthy of note, under hypnosis in the movie, Agnes relates how she visited by a "Michael" in the barn.

Hmm, lots to go on.

In "Agnes of God" the baby dies but as our Agnes reveals Sarah is still pregnant.  So the baby survives the wounds.  Interesting!  I wonder where that will lead us.

Say your prayers everyone.