This week’s show was a bit of a step down from the last couple weeks. Given how it’s now looking like the rest of the season will be dedicated to dealing with the threat of New Bern, it’s understandable that there would be a bit of a lull at some point, and that’s pretty much what we got this week. In the end, we still got a pretty good episode, it just that “One if By Land” wasn’t as good as last week’s episode.
The stuff with Hawkins was pretty cool this week. In past episodes (notably in last week’s episode “Casus Belli” with the faux torture scene) we’ve gotten to see glimpses of Hawkins in action, but this was the first time he’s really had a full fledged mission to carry out and he did not disappoint. Whether he was single handedly ‘taking care of’ Constantino’s deputies at the cabin or driving a truck full of explosives into a factory, there was no stopping Hawkins.
I really liked the scene with the deputies. We didn’t actually need to see what Hawkins did (nor were we even told what happened exactly). It was enough for Hawkins to say they’ve been taken care of. Between the look on his face as he said that, and the look on Ted’s that told us more than enough.
I was a bit surprised to see Maggie turn up again this week. Well, I would have been if they hadn’t featured several of her scenes from “Semper Fidelis” in the ‘previously’ on segment. I’m still not completely sure she’s trustworthy. She seems to have followed Hawkins plan as instructed (it’s possible that Hawkins just predicted that she would sell them out and used that to his advantage, but then her warning to Jake just before she was shot wouldn’t make much sense) but given how worthless Constantino’s word is, Hawkins was really her best chance of making it out of New Bern alive. So for now we don’t really have any way of knowing if she really wants to help or if she’s only doing whatever she can to survive. If it’s the latter, she could just as readily sell out Jericho to New Bern if she felt it would better her own chances of surviving.
While we still have no clear indication of whether or not Heather’s alive (Jake suggested that the New Bern officials could have been lied about Heather’s death, but he also said some stuff about April’s at the same time making Eric’s response of “I’ve seen them” really not very helpful in clearing things up), but the reintroduction of Maggie does slightly lessen the chances of Heather being alive. I’m not going to accept Heather is dead until either we see her body or Eric explicitly says that he saw (and confirmed) that Heather was killed, but it’s quite possible that Maggie could used to as a replacement for Heather if Sprague Grayden has left the show for some reason. Maggie not only comes with lots of ready-made storylines (she’s sure to face a lot of resentment and distrust in light of her first visit to Jericho), but she could also easily be inserted into Heather’s spot in the Heather/Jake/Emily love triangle.
I thought it was a little odd that everyone decided to stick together when they ran out of fuel on the way back to Jericho. I can fully understand why they wouldn’t want to just leave Maggie to die, especially since she played a crucial part in Jake and Eric’s escape but given that New Bern is almost certainly going to be even further motivated to attack Jericho now, you would think someone would go on ahead (most likely Jake as he was the only one to be both uninjured and not a senior) to warn the people of Jericho in case New Bern decides to retaliate sooner rather than later. As a side note, did it seem odd to anyone else that Johnston was the one carrying Maggie? I can understand why Eric (with his being excessively beaten and tortured) and Hawkins (with his having been shot in the shoulder) wouldn’t be helping out, but you would think that Jake would trade off with his father every now and then; Maggie’s not a particularly large person but I can’t imagine that carrying a person over your shoulder for a distance of many miles is all that easy, no matter what their weight.
But getting back to the subject of New Bern’s likely retaliation, I assume that will be coming in the very near future. Given the fact that Hawkins blew up the factory by stealing a truck full of munitions, it’s obvious that the people of New Bern were shipping/storing their mortar shells somewhere else in or around New Bern. So even though the factory should be completely destroyed (probably along with a few neighbouring buildings), New Bern’s should still possess more than enough weaponry to pose a threat to the people of Jericho.
A quick check of an online TV listings confirms that we are indeed going to see a response from New Bern next week. Presumably the New Bern arc will carry on into the season finale two weeks from now as well.
