Awake: "Game Day" Review

In Britten's worlds, a college bowl game has two different outcomes, creating two different murders.

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

While I was kind of looking forward to watching Britten move to Oregon, to see what that might do to the series, I doubted it would. I think all of us knew that he'd wind up staying in L.A., but it was going to have to take a damn good reason, right? A reason that would be able to justify undoing all the episodes that came before this one, especially "Nightswimming," that focused on his acceptance of the move. Because one of my biggest TV pet peeves is a revelation that negates previous scenes or episodes, making them meaningless upon repeat viewing.

But damn if Awake wasn't able to give us a fine, surprising reason for the Brittens to (maybe, perhaps) stay. And the ending, with Britten using the slight twist of fate idea, from the missed field goal kick, to realize that Emma might not have lost Rex's baby in the Red World, was fantastic. And so the ending of "Game Day" managed to rescue the episode from being more of a standard procedural.

And while I'm talking about my hate of scenes that "take back" previous emotional experiences on TV shows, I started off the episode being a little bit mad that Emma had even broken up with Rex. Because we had just spent all that quality time with her back in "That's Not My Penguin." And so I was afraid that the show was just dropping her. When it became clear that Rex was going to keep harassing her, it was pretty easy to guess that she was pregnant. But what I didn't anticipate was that she lost the baby, and that she had gotten pregnant before the car accident. So my compliments to the writers for being able to play off an average TV viewer's expectations and provide some solid payoff.

Again though, if Britten doesn't wind up going to Portland, then all that time we spent with the "hurt feelings" CI last week retroactively becomes a bit of a waste, but I'm able to forgive that since I didn't feel particularly invested in that story. The rest of this episode, like I mentioned, was mostly case work; making me nervous the whole time that I wouldn't get that grand "Awake" moment of realization or catharsis. Britten, at the top of the episode, set up the fact that he could no longer enjoy sports because, when split between the two worlds, "it all feels so arbitrary." And while that theme carried through the episode, it felt a little too much like Kate's story in "Kate is Enough." It just felt like territory we'd been over before. So, again, I'm very happy Britten was able to use it as a signal to check on Emma in the Red World.

Now, before I close this out, I have to say that it was easy to pick out the dry cleaner's wife as the culprit in the arson because...that's what I look for on this show. Close family members. I'm not boasting here, it's just what I usually do. Last week, in "Nightswimming," I was wrong about it when I thought Elena was behind Marcus' car bomb. Because I thought that story was going to play out like a case with an arrest at the end. That being said, it was funny to see Britten actually start doing the same thing; using the fact that the wife did it in the Red World (and the hat keychain) to lead him to the brother in the Green World. So really, Britten's beginning to look at his own cases like an audience member watching his show.

So while most of "Game Day" wasn't the best this show can offer, it still gave us a startlingly great reveal at the end. One that felt earned and didn't nullify other past moments on the show.


IGN Ratings
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