2.19 “Aversion” Review

“Aversion” begins with a fantastic premise – Tom has to confront his deep-dark feelings about the Enoly when one is brought on base, making her the only possible test subject for a recently discovered virus developed by an alien race that could be potential allies in the future. Callen contends with the Command Council in making the decision to have the Enoly removed from Horizon and transferred to be with the Tev’heresh, and they want him replaced.

Unfortunately, the plot threads, while having so much potential, were not used quite as well as could have been. The writing of the episode was handed to a relatively new writer on Horizon, who was clearly still dealing with getting the characterizations down-pat. Many of the characters frequently seem to say things that they wouldn’t normally say, or for the very least wouldn’t say quite that way. Grant was very much off the mark. Usually, he has an extremely distinct aura of leadership, and he’s generally a bit stiff, to be blunt about it. Here, he doesn’t seem to have that. He lacks presence in this episode. Most noticeably, though, is Tom – with little to no provocation, he suddenly becomes cold, withdrawn, harsh, and downright alienates everyone. But it’s the way in which he does so, and the things he say, that are so downright un-Tom-like. I think the biggest question here is: why didn’t he confront these feelings and go all gung-ho way back in “Path of Revelation,” when there was a whole Enoly fleet? While it can be argued that this is the first time he’s confronted one in the flesh, it would still stand to reason that he’d have been a bit more eager back then. Christine and Sivea are somewhat shelved, and used as fountains of information. Lenori was strange – half of the time he was treated the same way as Christine and Sivea, the other half of the time he was just acting differently than usual. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but he didn’t seem like the calm, relaxed, and stiff Lenori we all know and love. Callen, though, Vincent Dedoyard has not only nailed, but has perfected. We certainly got a brilliant dose of Callen in what he did, leaving me wishing there was more of it. I think the episode would probably have been a lot better if as opposed to capitalizing on dealing with the moral issues entirely, it also dealt more with the political battle Callen would fight. A scene or two in the Command Council would have been nice.

The story didn’t really feel too coherent. Half the time it wanted to be a Lenori story, and then tried to make up with it actually being a Tom story by sticking in long descriptions about how Tom felt on the inside (none of which could actually translate to the screen, the way it was written), and the other half it ignored Lenori and tried to be a Tom story. Ultimately, though, it felt severely lacking in having developed either character, and felt as though it lacked an overarching goal or purpose. In the brief but precious time Callen got to flex his character, he shined brilliantly, and that’s what I’ll remember most about the episode.

There were things about the writing style itself, though, that made the episode very… different. The writing felt far too much like first person prose, and a lot of the time, like second person prose! While it doesn’t mean that the writing is bad, it certainly means that it doesn’t feel like a screenplay. Also, there comes a point where there’s much too much ‘we’ stuff – it should only be used to describe camera motions, not tell us what we’re thinking as we watch. A lot of the writing was to tell about a character’s emotions, or how they feel or think, but a lot of that was just wasted because those sorts of things cannot be shown on the screen. The best example of this is the following line: “he can’t help but wonder, could she even be reading his mind right now?” We can’t see that. We might consider that, but we can’t see that. Another thing – the episode didn’t hold my interest entirely, especially the second time around.

The way that Act V moved was in some ways good, some ways bad. Overall, what happened was good, although I think it could have been written better, especially in the things that Tom and Lenori said – they were just a little out of character. It was a good finish for the episode, but it wasn’t as fantastic as the premise.

So, final breakdown. As for what was good about the episode: Callen, Rileen, the premise, and the political conflicts. Bad: out of characterness, the writing was too much like prose, wasn't quite as coherent as it could have been.

A good episode, but one that could have been better.

Overall: **1/2