

The Passage 105 Brad & Chair





Amy is scared there’ll be spiders in the tunnel. Brad tries to reassure her there won’t be, but she takes pleasure in describing the gruesome scenario she says he’s imagining right now, with brown widows and webs in their faces and mouths. He grows impatient and makes her choose if she’s in or out on the plan. She’s in.

Guilder gripes about the billion dollars that’s been spent on the program so far, with no usable results. He needs something they can weaponize to come out of these experiments, in order to justify everything that’s gone into them.

Next Guilder wants to know why Wolgast isn’t locked up. Richards explains that he makes Amy more comfortable, so they let him stay with her as the equivalent of a therapy dog. Guilder orders Richards to bring Amy to meet with him, without Wolgast.

Lear isn’t showing any signs of infection yet, but he’s still decided to have himself quarantined on Level 4B with the vampires virals. After watching Carter flip and sate his blood lust on a living human, Lear is ready to admit to himself that they’re vampires, but Nichole reminds him that they don’t use that word. She also thinks he’s crazy to confine himself to a cell.

The woman is sweet, but she has no survival instincts whatsoever. Lear figures being locked up on 4B keeps him away from Guilder, as well. He asks Nichole what she’s going to tell Guilder. She responds with a synopsis for the entire series:

Sykes: “We used science we didn’t understand, to create a lethal species with superpowers that we can’t control, who seem h*llbent on destroying us. Oops.”

Lear makes Nichole promise to kill him if he turns into a vampire, and to do it right away. She promises that she’ll shoot him in the heart, one shot, as soon as he turns.

This undoubtedly won’t be the last time we hear that promise made.

Lear has Elizabeth moved to the Project NOAH compound so that he can say goodbye to her without taking the chance of leaving the property. As Lear meets with her, a synergy is formed between the three of them, bringing up memories of a night in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2012, when Jonas was giving a speech to his students in a restaurant, while Tim and Elizabeth were in the audience.

In the real world, Elizabeth no longer recognizes Jonas. He has her brought into one of the bedrooms so they can talk privately, then tells her that the project is a failure. It can’t bring her back to him.

The Passage 105 Lacey and Lila

Lila and Lacey are on the road, but have stopped. Lacey stands looking up at storm clouds, gently crying. She tells Lila, “I feel like something terrible is going to happen. Book of Revelation bad. What do you do, when you’re feeling lost?” Lila responds, “I go back to fundamentals. Start from the beginning. Find what I missed. I rely on my training.”

With Jonas in quarantine, Sykes and Pet meet with Guilder alone. Sykes explains to Guilder that the virals have developed telepathic abilities, between themselves and with humans, and they’re using these abilities strategically. They’ve already aggressively targeted specific people. She recommends shutting down the experiment and terminating the subjects, other than Amy, who is different.

Pet quickly takes credit for the idea to inject a child. Then he and Sykes continue with their update, explaining that it hasn’t been long enough since Amy had the vaccine to be certain if she’ll avoid side effects.

Guilder tells them that it’s the side effects he wants, now that he’s with the Department of Special Weapons. There are 9 other facilities working on a cure for the avian flu. He’s interested in Project NOAH for the possibility of weaponized telepathy, and wants to know if Amy’s developed it yet.

Project NOAH isn’t shutting down. It’s going in a whole new direction. Guilder is not only loathsome, he’s one of those overconfident and stupid types who thinks he can control everything.

Sykes is outraged that the project, which was supposed to save lives, has now been turned into a weapons program, and she wants nothing to do with it. Pet obviously has no problem with this new development and can’t wait to be named lead scientist.

He explains to Guilder that it’s the biting that bothers people (since the biting leads to the dying or becoming a vampire; geez, people are so squeamish). But he has a deep brain stimulation procedure in mind that he believes will allow him to control the virals.

Because of course he does. He still doesn’t believe they’re much more than vegetables. He figures this is an easy win for him, while everyone else is panicking.

Guilder gives Pet 24 hours to show that the virals can be controlled.

Brad and Amy discuss their escape plan as they finish lunch. Amy finishes Brad’s sentences, telling him he’s repeating himself. Except he isn’t. Oops. There’s that pesky telepathy. Brad has her read his mind on purpose. She confesses that it’s been happening for a while.

Just when the conversation is about to go somewhere, Richards marches in like a stormtrooper, and has two goons drag Brad away to lock him in a basement room, while Amy meets with Guilder.

Lacey has taken Lila’s words to heart, and gone back to her fundamentals. They are at the church and convent where she lived when she was a nun. The mother superior, Sister Arnette, isn’t happy to see Lacey, who must not have left on the best of terms.

Lacey tries to make peace with Sister Arnette and ask for help, but the sister just isn’t open to her. She tells Lacey that she can’t allow Lacey to drag whatever trouble she’s brought with her into this place. Lila sweetly offers their services to help out with the good work the church community does in exchange for a place to stay, and Sister Arnette quickly changes her mind. She’ll allow them to stay for one night.

I suspect she hadn’t taken a good look at Lila before. Then she could hear the education in her voice, and her classism won out over her racism. She couldn’t turn the more refined doctor away, no matter how much she wanted to turn the black soldier away.

That would also fit with the character of Sister Arnette in the book.

Sykes pulls Richards aside for a private conversation, and brings up all of the lies he’s told recently. She talks about the subterfuge that Project NOAH has been run under, with the pretense that they were going to help people, but in fact they were creating weapons. Her ultimate purpose for the conversation is to find out if Babcock has been getting into his head, and if he needs her help to get Babcock out.

Richards denies everything, except that the military has always planned on weaponizing the virals. He implies that she was naive to think otherwise, then walks away. He knows that she’s no longer in power at the compound, no matter what her job title may still be.

Grey locks Lear into a cell near Fanning, and wishes him well. He tells Lear not to look at Fanning. Grey starts to say why, then stops himself and says, “Just don’t.”

We go back to the memory of Jonas’ long winded speech in Cambridge, 2012. It sounds like it’s a graduating class of doctoral students. The students are enthralled and entertained, but Tim and Elizabeth are bored out of their minds. Tim pours Elizabeth a drink, but says that he’s been sober for 3 months. Elizabeth says that Jonas leaves in the morning for Europe for several months.

Tim and Elizabeth soon leave Jonas to his speech and students, with his blessing. They walk to his car, instead of having the valet bring it to the restaurant door. Elizabeth’s feet hurt, but it gives Tim a few extra minutes with her. It also allows him to properly present his bright red, fully restored, 1969 midlife crisis car. He’s looking for her approval, but she’s not in the mood to give it.

She says that sometimes, she has a hard time believing he’s a scientist (he replies that technically, he’s a genius), with his stupid car, and his 30 year old girlfriends. She finds him hilarious. He’s chosen tonight to reveal the truth, “You do understand I’m truly in love with you? I’ve never been in love with anyone else in my entire life.”

Elizabeth is frustrated with him. That had been unspoken between them for years. Now it can’t be put away again. He doesn’t care. They kiss. And keep kissing.

Guilder tells Amy she’s strong and healthy, in a patronizing voice. Sykes joins them after a minute. Guilder’s whole line of questioning is meant to draw out mind reading abilities, or trip her up so she’ll reveal them. He tells her that being able to read minds would make her very special, and isn’t that what every kid wants? To be special?

Sykes cuts the meeting short when Amy tells Guilder that he’s a bad guy. She and Guilder have a brief power struggle, which may come back to haunt her later, but she wins for the moment. In the hall, she takes Amy’s tracking chip offline, then suggests that Amy and Brad have a prison break. Amy admits that they’ve already got one planned. Sykes tells Amy she’ll help them.

While Brad is shackled to a chair, Carter pays him a telepathic visit. Carter is still a good guy, so he brings Brad to his grandmother’s porch for an iced tea. Gramma wants Brad to know that her grandson is innocent, which we know is true.

Brad tells Carter that he didn’t know how bad Project NOAH was. He didn’t know about Fanning. It’s almost an apology. Of course, if Brad didn’t bring the inmates to Colorado, another agent would have. It’s not really his fault. But he did help.

Carter brushes aside Brad’s guilt. He says that Fanning isn’t the only problem. “Guilder wants to turn Amy into a weapon. They think they can control what we are. We’ll see how that goes.”

Brad immediately thinks that he needs to be the hero, and save Amy, but Carter tells him it’s too late for that. The time to save her was before he ever met her. “Nothing’s going down the way you think it will. It’s Amy that’s the savior.”

Brad wonders why he should even trust Carter, since it’s clear Carter resents him. Carter makes it clear that the only side that matters to him is Amy’s. He’s there for her.

Brad: “I’m gonna get her out. We’re gonna run as far as we can.”

Carter: “How you gonna outrun the end of the world? Keeping her away from Guilder, that’s the easy part. The hard part is getting her ready for what’s coming. That’s your job now, Agent.”

Brad wakes up, now that Carter’s delivered his message.

Dr Pet and a tech named Emily arrive on 4B, still trying to decide which viral to use for their mind control experiment. Emily suggests that a female might be easier to control. Dr Pet says that hasn’t been his experience.


He wants to work with Winston, since Winston has already bonded with Paulson. They know that he’s willing to form a connection with a human. WInston does, indeed, look very interested in the two humans standing in front of him.

Fanning appears in Lear’s cell and notes that Jonas doesn’t play the Fleetwood Mac Rumours album for him anymore. Lear tells him that he should have said something. Fanning says that he asked Jonas to kill him, and instead Jonas put him in a prison cell, so he hasn’t been speaking to Jonas out of spite. Jonas wonders if Fanning has just learned how to communicate telepathically.

Jonas says that he didn’t kill Tim because he thought he could save him. Tim is more worried about Elizabeth than himself, and he can’t belief that Jonas has let her get so sick. Tim thinks Jonas should give Elizabeth the virus so that her brain will be healed and she can communicate again.

Jonas doesn’t see the virus as a cure and won’t consider giving it to her. Tim says they should ask her what she wants. Except Jonas can’t. But Tim can get inside her mind and talk to her, even with how far gone she is now.

Tim brings up the night that he drove Elizabeth home, which we’ve been seeing in flashbacks. Jonas refuses to talk about that night. He asks what Carter’s message meant, that they’d already changed the world. Fanning just smiles enigmatically and says, “You’ll see.”

Sykes springs Brad lose from the basement, and brings him to the room sized blood cooler, where Amy’s already waiting for him. On the way there, she tells him that there’s a shift change in an hour and she’s given him a key card to the loading dock. She couldn’t do anything about the cameras. She suggests they find Dr Stuart Ross, the head of Infectious Diseases at Stanford, who is trustworthy.

Sykes gives Amy her backpack and belongings, and says goodbye. She tells Amy there’s a light inside her, and that she’s really brave. They hug. It’s a nice moment for Amy.

Winston is brought into a procedure room, where he’s confined in a chair and has holes drilled into each of his temples. He doesn’t react to the drilling. We aren’t shown him being given any medication prior to the procedure, but Emily does say that he’s “out”, whatever that means. They push sensors with probes attached deep into Winston’s brain through the new holes. Pet attaches similar sensors on the outside of his brain. No drilling for him.

Pet goes into a meditative state, where everyone in the room disappears but Winston, who appears in his human form. Out in the real world, Emily releases Winston’s restraints, as they’d planned. The heavily armed guards in the room are suddenly at attention.

Winston does most of the talking on the telepathic plane. He thinks Pet is young to be a doctor and is pleased to have the restraints removed. He tells Pet all about how he kept his “vessel”, meaning his body, clean during his human life, through clean living and prayer. He flirtily asks Pet if his “vessel” is clean.

Pet is speechless, and like Lila, falls back on the basics of being a doctor, rather than engaging in conversation. He orders Winston to stand up. Winston complies, with a sassy reply and a smirk. He keeps the same attitude, as Pet continues with his test, asking Winston to raise each hand, read his mind, then sit back down. Emily watches in amazement. By the time Pet is done, his usual overconfidence is back. He declares himself a genius.

The blood cooler is kept the temperature of a refrigerator. Brad is freezing, but Amy is fine. He’s worried that she has a fever, but she insists that being cold-tolerant is just one of her new powers.

Brad accepts her explanation, but goes on to remind her that she can tell him anything. He tells her, “Secrets can make you lonely.” Amy confesses that Shauna Babcock appeared inside her head and tried to convince her that the virals were her family, while Brad would reject her as she changed. Brad assures her that he’s her family, and he’s not going anywhere. She’s not going to lose him.

Amy asks why he’s so nice to her. He explains, “I lost someone very precious once. And I got rid of everyone who cared about me because I thought it would make it easier, you know? Then I realized that I didn’t have anyone, and I started doing things that I shouldn’t have… [Then] I met you, and I believe in you. And I started to believe in myself.”

Amy confides that she’s hearing the thoughts of the Twelve other virals, and they’re saying bad stuff. Brad suggests that she tell a story of her own, to block out the other virals.

Pet and Emily bring Guilder down to the lab to demonstrate their big success with Winston, but this time, Winston doesn’t respond, at all.

Tim makes contact with Elizabeth on the psychic plane. She’s sitting outside in the fog, and doesn’t know who she is or recognize him. She feels lost and has the feeling she’s forgetten something. When she says she’s cold, he instantly burns off the fog. Then he tells Elizabeth her name, and who she is. He finishes by telling her his name and that he’s going to get her out of this place.

Tim stares deeply into the camera that Grey watches him through during his shift. Grey looks like he’s in a trance as he gets up and leaves the observation room.

Richards is supervising the search for Brad and Amy. Shauna appears and tells him she knows where they are. When he wonders why he should listen to her, she tells him that they’re getting out of the Project NOAH facility soon, and when she leaves, she’s taking him with her. Shauna whispers that Brad and Amy are in the blood cooler, then disappears.

The Passage 105 Shauna Whispers to Richards

Soon after, Brad and Amy are discovered, but Brad fights their way out. By the time Richards gets to the blood cooler, Sykes is there, examining the evidence. Richards sends her upstairs until Brad and Amy are caught. Sykes makes it clear which side she’s on, “I hope you never find them.”

Lacey describes what she’s feeling to Lila as a “stirring” or a calling to a higher purpose. She’s never particularly believed in callings before. In fact, that was why she left the sisters. But now she feels it for herself and knows it’s real. She’s being called to protect Amy and the promise she brings to the world. She’s not sure yet what the calling will entail.

Later, Lila kneels at the altar in the church sanctuary and prays for God to protect Brad and Amy. She forgets to include herself in her prayers. A man in black, wearing black gloves, sneaks up behind her, quickly covers her mouth and pulls her back against himself. Lila struggles against him.

She does have a fiance who she left behind in Boston. Maybe he’s caught up with them, and didn’t want to startle her into making much noise in the church. Or maybe it’s somene from another rogue agency looking for help or a hostage.

Pet decides that he needs a rematch with Winston, best of 3 takes it all. Since they’re alone together, Winston wakes up before Pet even reaches for the sensors. He’s very ready for another go round. He wants Pet to try playing the guessing game with him.

Pet says Winston didn’t act this way before. Winston replies, “You can tell a lot about a person when you let them think they’re more powerful than you are.

Winston’s restraints are released, and Pet, viewing himself as if he’s outside his own body, realizes that he was the one who did it. Then he turns off the lights and opens the door to the hall. Because he’s slow on the uptake, he has to ask Winston after every event, who made it happen. The Big Bad Wolf Winston tells Pet that he was the one who did it. Then he tells Pet, whose mind is still with Winston but whose body is standing next to the door and corridor, that he should run now.

Pet runs, past the cells of the other virals, with Winston following. The hunt is on. Pet makes as much sense as a prey animal as he has at anything else. He stops in front of Jonas’ cell and pounds on the glass, begging for help. Jonas can’t actually do anything from inside the cell. That’s the entire point of the cell.

Winston catches up to Pet, stands behind him, grasps his neck, then bites and feeds. Pet must still have good blood flow when Winston finishes, because it spurts all over the glass of Jonas’ cell. Winston drops Pet like so many chicken bones, growls at Jonas and runs off done the corridor. Jonas yells for help.

Brad and Amy run through the corridors on their way to the kitchens. Amy realizes she’s lost her copy of A Wrinkle in Time, but Brad has to tell her they don’t have time to go back and get it. An alarm is sounding, and they’re afraid it’s signaling to the guards to search for them.

Jonas stares in horror at Pet’s blood on the glass. Tim appears, bemusedly noting that this turn of events isn’t good for either side. Guess Winston has gone rogue.

Jonas turns to Tim and finally shows just how much he loathes the man. He says that Elizabeth told him that she’d spent the night with Tim, and they’d worked through it long ago. He forgave her, because they love each other and their marriage is more important than some stupid mistake. They’d moved on, but he doesn’t think Tim ever did. Jonas can see now that this whole thing is about the fact that Tim lost Elizabeth to Jonas, and he’ll never get over it.

Jonas: “She never loved you. She never will.”

Tim: “You sure about that?”

Tim stood there silently while Jonas ripped his heart out. Now he disappears back to his own cell. Jonas screams for the guards to get him out of the cell. He runs to Elizabeth’s room. Grey leaves the room as Jonas gets to the door. When Jonas goes inside, she’s miraculously herself again, fully aware and conscious. He sees the syringe that Grey left behind after injecting her with the virus.

Brad and Amy are close to the kitchens and the drainage tunnel, but Amy makes Brad stop. She can hear Winston coming. He enters the corridor they’re in. Brad tells Amy to run. Winston is making a clicking, growling noise that’s straight out of the books. He takes a flying leap at Brad and tackles him. As Winston prepares to bite his neck, Brad tells Amy, again, to get out of there.

Instead, she lets out a piercing scream that practically sets off an earthquake. It gets Winston’s attention and, after a minute, throws him down the hall. He’s stunned for a minute, then he runs away.

Brad and Amy acknowledge what just happened, then Amy collapses into Brad’s arms.

The Passage 105 Tim and Jonas in Cell


Pet isn’t dead. No way. That’s about the same way that Fanning was bit. The virus can basically bring people back from the edge of death. Winston lost Paulson as his familiar. He thought Pet was adorable, in the way an adult thinks a toddler is adorable. Pet is ruthless and has no scruples. Perfect for a familiar. So Winston went for the bite this time, which would seal Pet’s loyalty more deeply than turning him through psychological infection.

Can’t Mama Sykes go with Brad and Amy on their great escape? She has great chemistry with both and is just going to get killed at Project NOAH. At this point, almost everyone there wants her dead. The virals all know she was in charge of the program that turned them. Richards is nuts and feels that she doesn’t trust him. Plus Babcock thinks she’s a threat, both personally and to the virals. Shauna controls Richards, who controls the rest of the soldiers. And Guilder will want revenge for her interference with his plans. You can see that he’s a petty, vindictive little man.

Amy can hear Brad’s heartbeat. Can a craving for blood be far behind?

Lacey the Mystic Former Nun, Soldier and Homesteader

Lacey the mystic nun shows herself! I figured we’d get that side of things somehow, even if it wasn’t through the character named Lacey. But Book Lacey is a pretty tough character, so I’m not unhappy with what we’ve seen so far. She survives her ordeal in Africa with her family and the soldiers, she crosses the country from Boston to Colorado alone, largely on foot, she’s able to outmaneuver the Project NOAH soldiers, and more. She doesn’t just sit under a tree and pray when she’s not taking Amy to the zoo.

This Lacey was living alone in the woods, growing her own food and raising her own animals, when we met her. She was living a quiet, meditative life. She may or may not have enemies that she knew would find her eventually, and that was why she was hiding and heavily armed. Or it could be that, just like Book Lacey, she’d already had visions of the future, and knows what’s coming. She might just have had a sense of mission about her homestead. Either way, she’s already learned everything she’ll need to know for the world of the future.

Themes, and Amy vs Elizabeth

There are some important themes this week:

1)When in doubt, go back to the basics, but don’t let your ego get the better of you. Going over fundamental ideas and training can reveal where you went wrong. Self-importance tends to lead to mistakes, but make them hard to see, even when they’re obvious.

2)Secrets make you lonely. They can be used as weapons to separate people, and can make you do stupid things all on your own. Openness with trusted people allows sharing the burden and emotional support. The more information you’re trying to keep to yourself, and the longer you have to avoid talking about it, the more isolated you become.

3)Forgiveness and making alliances to work toward a common goal are important. Letting slights fester and holding grudges might cause the end of the world. You don’t have to forget what came before, but letting bitterness control your decisions leads to destructive actions. Revenge is a dish that probably shouldn’t be served at all, cold or hot.

4) Love and attachment are what save us, but you also have to be able to let go when the time comes. This is the most important theme of all. Jonas and Brad have both learned that you need someone to hold onto, to keep you human, but if you hold on too hard, good turns to evil.

We see this in Fanning’s obsession with Elizabeth, Lear’s former need to save her at all costs, and Brad’s inability to cope with the loss of his daughter. Elizabeth is the Helen of Troy of this story. Love, possessiveness and guilt over her are the driving forces behind the whole thing.

Amy inspires people to care about her and take care of her, but so far no one has become obsessive. Brad is parental toward her, but he’s willing to die for her or let whatever is best for her happen, without his own needs getting in the way, so I don’t count that as an obsession. Carter, Sykes, Lila and Lacey have also taken care of Amy and tried to do what was best for her.

It’s going to be interesting to watch the juxtaposition of Amy vs Elizabeth, now that Elizabeth’s had whatever Grey gave her. Was it Fanning’s blood? The same version of the serum Amy had? How will the virus interact with a brain that’s so fragmented? We’ve been told that the most human results are from a combination of an altered genome of the virus, and a young, flexible body. Elizabeth’s brain and nervous system are the opposite of young and flexible.

The Passage 105 Brad

Book Readers:

*This sections contains majors spoilers for the books, and possibly for the TV series.*

After I theorized last week that Richards might replace Horace or Jude as a familiar, here’s Horace to prove me wrong on that prediction. 🤓 Richards could still be Jude, Babcock’s familiar, though. Shauna said that she intends to take him with her. The majority of the original familiars and servants of the Twelve plus Fanning came from the Project NOAH compound in the books, so that tracks.

Winston seems as though he’s going to replace Martinez, or possibly take over some of the more violent aspects of Babcock, the way Pet has taken over Lear’s darker side. He could serve as the early sacrifice among the Twelve, the way Babcock does in the books, to show that they can be killed, and how. That allows them to keep the more manipulative, devious Shauna alive.

I’m very much enjoying the way Winston toys with Pet, though. I don’t want him to disappear too soon. It’ll be a different story when he gets loose in the wild and goes back to murdering humans as gruesomely as possible.

He did almost look sympathetic to Amy for a moment, when she let out her big scream, so maybe the recognition of her as their sister by the Twelve is there.

As far as I can tell, there are only 11 convicts, plus Fanning. Is the TV show counting Fanning as one of the Twelve? Or did I miss one?

I think that as a viral, Elizabeth is going to essentially be given Lila’s role from the books. She won’t have the fetish about babies and children, but that’s probably too much for Fox to show. She’ll be the viral queen mother who’s insane yet untouchable and must be catered to, and who has some special gift. She’ll be able to call and control the virals, much to Jonas’ dismay, which will keep him near the virals or convince him to drink the kool-aid and become one.

So far they’ve only hinted at the more human virals and the Twelve each having unique gifts. The books brought the concept up, but didn’t explore it in depth. Guilder was an expert bureaucrat, Lila was a mother, Alicia was a warrior, Fanning was in control and a strategist, Lacey was a mystic who could sense the future, Carter was compassionate and good, Peter was loyal and devoted, Amy was strong and determined.

We’re starting to see gifts emerge amongst the current virals, with Shauna using her powers of persuasion on Clark. Fanning is running circles around Lear, showing he’s still a master strategist and control freak, and still holds a grudge. Lacey’s character is blossoming. Winston showed a fascinating new side to his character, as he deferred gratification, figured out Pet’s plan and used it against him, and showed that the virals can not only control minds, they can use telekinesis to control objects.

I’m so glad that the show has gotten the love triangle between Tim, Jonas and Elizabeth out in the open already. I thought that the most boring part of the books was when Fanning droned on and on and on about his past in book 3. I don’t know why Alicia didn’t just kill him then. But the story of the entire trilogy is people not killing Fanning when they had the chance.

Images courtesy of Fox.

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