Below The Beltway

We’re three episodes in to Jericho’s short, but still welcome, second season and, already I can say this — if the writing for the show had been as tight, and the plot moved as well, as it has in these three episodes, there’s no way the show would’ve been canceled back in May. In the beginning, the first season was like this, but then the quality of the writing petered out and the plot moved so slowly for many weeks and didn’t pick back up until it was far too late.

But that’s not true this year, at least not so far. In both the first episode and the second, we’ve seen some really good writing, decent acting, and a plot that actually goes somewhere, although where that will be remains to be seen.

The episode’s title comes from the name of the Halliburton-like private contractor that seems to be closely tied to the Cheyenne Government, and it’s Blackwater-like military wing Ravenwood. Ravenwood has taken over administrative control of Jericho, and the man in charge is the same guy who we last saw committing atrocities in Rogue River, attacking Jericho, and murdering the citizens of New Bern.

Needless to say, Jake Green isn’t to happy to see him back, but backs down when Goetz, the Ravenwood administrator, confronts him about his own past and his own experience with J&R in Iraq. But the conflict comes into the open when Ravenwood confiscates black market vaccines against the Hudson River Virus, which has crossed the Mississippi River and has an alarmingly high mortality rate.

While Jake and the town plot to get the vaccine back, our old friend Robert Hawkins reveals part of his story to Major Beck, the town’s military commander. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Beck is not an unquestioning military man and seems to have his own doubts about the Cheyenne government, doubts that Hawkins helps to enhance. Whether Beck will be an ally or not remains to be seen but he definitely isn’t an enemy.

The same can be said for Trish, our young blonde Jennings & Rall advisor, who, without their knowledge, helps the townspeople of Jericho by concealing the fact that they had stolen the confiscated the Hudson River Vaccine before it was destroyed. The town of Jericho, it seems, will be safe from the coming epidemic.

As the episode ends, Hawkins gets a mysterious contact from someone who knows him, but who he doesn’t know. They want to help, but why ?

There wasn’t much advancement of the underlying backstory in the episode, and thus no real answers to the week one questions, but the clues are there to help answer two questions from last week:

1. How was the ASA Government, including it’s civilian contractors at Jennings & Rall, able to assemble such an organized force of civilian and military infrastructure so quickly after a devastating nuclear attack ?

We learn this week that Cheyenne, once a small city of under 60,000 is now a major city with a population approaching 800,000. While a lot of this can be accounted for by the fact that refugees, military, and, of course, Jennings & Rall, have all congregated around the seat of the new government, there’s something suspicious about it as well. It’s almost as if someone knew what was going to happen and had the resources in place beforehand.

What is the Hudson River Virus ? Pandemic or biological weapon ?

Again, not clear, but it’s clear that this is something that spread quickly and kills quickly. While it’s possible that a virus could have arisen out of the death and destruction of the attacks, it seems pretty coincidental that the virus started in the East in the area controlled by the Columbus government.

And here’s a few to ponder this week:

1. How/Why did the former U.S. military in the area controlled by Cheyenne so quickly transfer its loyalty to a new government led by the junior Senator from Wyoming ?

Tune in, apparently, next week.

Previous Posts:

Reconstruction: Jericho 2.1
Condor: Jericho 2.2