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Jericho: Reconstruction

By fred | February 13, 2008

As far as I’m concerned, it’s all fine, it’s more than just fine : it’s great ! I was never a fan of all the family drama and all that “crap”, so to let it behind us to move on to the big picture and mainly focus on that, I sure welcome the change, I see it as leaving the weaker elements of the show behind us, like they died on the war zone, and now we can only deal with the strongest ones, those who made it through the fight and survived the hardest time the show had to go through.

With that said, I do wonder how the fans will react to them, those who really loved season one the way it was. Because as I said, the tone is much different : it’s not about the Green family so much, and the mystery of Jake’s past isn’t really of concern no more, and more importantly : it is not about the town and its survival anymore. The army is here, they have and provide food, energy, and have weapons and are willing to use force if necessary to ensure the safety of the town, and that people respect and comply to the restored laws. It’s not about Jericho’s survival anymore, but the survival of the entire World, or, you know, at least of what used to be the USA before the attacks, and what it’ll become after wards.

So it’s quite obvious that if you loved Jericho the way it was back during the first season, and wanted to find that back for another season, you might be disappointed. But I don’t think so, and if you were (way) more into the whole nuclear conspiracy than the survival of Jericho, if you didn’t care so much about how the town would find energy or food, but wondered who were behind the bombing and who was trying to grab the power and become the new President of the “new” USA, you’ll love it!

As for what happened, some things did not really changed. Starting with Jake, and the way he behaves overall. He had a moment a weakness and was about to go out to kill and get killed, but it didn’t take long for him to get back to his usual self, and accept to become the new sherif of Jericho. Apart from that, what was the most important of all was what we learned about the new government in place, how they were lying about where the bombs came from, and how Hawkins and his wife, joined with a new friend in town, are going to go after them.

Not so much happened per-se during this episode, which mostly set things in motion for the next episodes. Now we can forget about the war that was about to begin last season, now Jake is the new sherif in town, now Hawkins is going after the new government, willing to expose everyone and reveal the bomb he’s sitting on, now we’re about to enter what should be a very different season, a better one, I would tend to say.

They haven’t completely forgotten about all the characters and what the show used to be like, though. There was still bits that were nothing about the main post-apocalyptic plot, or anything like that. For example, Stanley and Mimi, remember them ? Well they’re not dead (damnit!), and all they had to do this time was about the evolution of their relationship, it had nothing to do with a conspiracy or anything, it was about their own “survival”, or their future lives in this new town.

That subplot was the most like the first season used to be, it was like an old something from the past, which didn’t die like everything else and is still hanging on, and because it used to be there before, because it comes with memories from the past, you don’t really want to get ride of it, but you’ll have to, because you need to move on, and it’s not helping you, but bringing you down. That’s how I felt towards this whole plot at least, it was like an old memory of what the first season used to be like, which may have been nice for a moment, but then only proved how much things had changed, evolved, and, well, gotten better.

Probably because the needed a main plot to keep things interesting, and with only seven episodes to go over everything they couldn’t keep the same pace as for the first season, but the show seems to really come from a re-birth : it’s gotten stronger, it goes faster, and in the end it is better. At least I think it does look like it’s heading that way, and I can’t wait to find out. It looks really promising, makes you regret even more that there’s already only six episodes left !

I can’t wait for next Tuesday !

Posted in Reviews
Shows: Jericho