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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 261247" data-attributes="member: 23">The Vega Influence (continued) There’s an unusual - almost unwelcome - demureness to Jaime early on in the episode. From saying she’s glad she’s “a girl” because it means she can admit she’s scared; to warning her male allies she’ll scream if she sees something; to running about tremulously shrieking out the names of those who disappear. It seems most out of character. Part of me wondered if some of this was an act to cover up her capabilities to her colleagues. But why would she? They all know she’s an O.S.I. agent, so she’s doing herself a huge disservice. This means she’s genuinely scared. And with good reason. She’s alone, up against something big that nobody can understand or explain. It’s the unknown, which is genuinely frightening, bionic abilities or not. I suspect it was written this way partially to make Jaime’s “final girl” moment more effective. If she seems too confident and capable at first, there’s little question of the outcome. While I have huge reservations about the way in which it’s done, the rest of the story is so well written that I’m willing to overlook - and even partially accept - Jaime’s meekness early in the episode. With my love for the writing in this episode, it’s worth noting that despite doing the teleplay for such early greats as Jaime’s Mother and Fly Jaime, this is only the second episode completely written by Arthur Rowe. His previous credit as writer was on Black Magic, an episode for which I didn’t rate the writing at all. And so he’s redeemed himself. Well, mostly. Because there’s the question of Michael Marchetti.I was very surprised to find that I was glad to see Michael back. The circumstances are very different here to last time we saw him. Jaime isn’t a confused amnesiac, dependent upon him. He’s not a doctor with questionable ethics, seducing the patient he knows to be engaged to another man. In fact, he’s not really much of anything when it comes to romantic imbroglios. He’s simply an affable colleague. Their history isn’t really touched upon, which seems bizarre considering how important he was in his initial episodes.  I find it interesting that the audience is expected to recall him with very little reminder about who he is - or was - to Jaime.With no explicit mention of their history, no Steve in the picture or engagement to break, far less vulnerability to Jaime and no real question of romance, Michael feels more generic here.  The closest we get to tapping into the history is Jaime reminding him she’s his “friend” when trying to get through to zombie Michael. On most levels, he could be any old one-off guest character. It didn’t really need to be Michael. All the same, the history added a little something. Really, he’s here to raise the emotional stakes. Jaime knowing him well presents an intriguing dilemma when it comes to fighting him off when he’s under alien influence (just as Laurie’s zombified father does for her). While writing, I’ve also found myself questioning if Michael’s presence somewhat explains Jaime’s slight personality change. Last time we saw Michael, Jaime was extremely needy and self-doubtful and reliant on Michael and the shift here is in that direction. Could Michael's presence have caused Jaime to regress back towards those qualities? After Michael disappears, for example, Jaime briefly seems to crumble. That said, she comes back from it and her facing him when he’s not himself is actually a complete role reversal to their dynamic in their previous arc. In other words, her growth pays off. On this basis, while there’s no real closure to their story here (it feels very much like Michael would be expected to recur occasionally), it did implicitly put their relationship on a different plane. One that’s platonic at that. As he had no apparent agenda here, I experienced Michael to be far more likeable than before. Which perhaps retrospectively colours his motives in his earlier story. While he didn’t need to be here, it arguably enriched the psychological element to an already gripping story. </blockquote>

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