Awake: "Say Hello to My Little Friend" Review


Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

"Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality..."

Wow! In the best episode since the pilot (and there have been several strong ones since then), Awake bounces back after a run of middle-ground procedural-heavy episodes with "Say Hello to My Little Friend." This chapter hit us with a supremely powerful story and an expert, Emmy-worthy performance from lead Jason Isaacs. It also functioned on many intriguing levels which provided us with great drama and suspense while also tackling hard issues regarding Britten's condition. There were enough juicy layers here to send avid fans of the series, who love to look for clues or postulate about which world is real, into a frenzy.

But first up? Sorrow and anguish. With Britten having to finally come to terms with loss. But a different, more significant, loss than if he had just lost Rex in a car crash. By not being able to travel back to the Green World, Britten lost the son who lived. He lost the Rex he knew in a world without Hannah. A Rex that he'd probably even grown closer to because of the tragedy they both shared. A loss that happened just as quick and unexpectedly as, well, a car crash. And the whole time I was wondering what was awaiting Britten on the other side. An obvious out would have been that Britten was in a coma, unable to awake; causing him to spend multiple days in a row in the Red World. But the answer was more complicated than that. Britten actually awoke right back where he passed out, making us question, exactly, what triggered what?

Did Britten see Detective Hawkins (aka "The Little Guy") at the carnival first and not remember him; causing his mind to shut down completely until he could dream up exactly where he knew him from? Or did his mind give him a flash of Hawkins in the dream carnival; causing him to carry him over into the Red World as a hallucination? Leading him to the surprise reveal at the end of Hawkins being the one who ran Britten's family off the road. Not that it was a huge revelation, mind you, since it was told to us back in "The Little Guy" that Carl had used a little guy as a driver when he tried to have Britten killed.

But keep in mind that Britten's realization - that Hawkins was the one who tried to kill him family - comes right after he had become not just overwhelmed with grief over Rex, but overcome with guilt. Severe guilt. Crippling guilt that his carelessness led to his son's death. So the show takes us, in expert form, from an Angel Eyes scenario (with Britten subconsciously fixated on the first officer on the scene) to a Total Recall scenario. And by a Total Recall scenario I mean that any shrink worth his or her salt would tell Britten that he immediately invented a conspiracy to help him deal with/deny his true feelings. That he manufactured a villain so that he didn't have to be one.

But then again, Hawkins could have been the one to run the car off the road. Just like Douglas Quaid could have been really been a spy and not, you know, having a schizoid embolism back at Recall. While the past three episodes of this show were good, I kind of lump them together as part of a "Britten reconnects with Hannah" arc; with each episode offering something good, but also weighed down a bit with extraneous cases for Britten to solve. This episode not only took us back into the hectic world of Britten's condition, but it also brought back consequences. It brought back Britten's partner (Vega, in this case) not being okay with his flights of fancy and off-the-books intuition. Also, does Britten being suspended at the end get him off the hook, danger-wise? Like how he was previously safe because he was moving away? I suppose it doesn't matter since Britten himself now knows he's in danger and that a fellow officer is to blame.

And all the while Britten is looking for a schizo killer, suffering a total break from reality, who's knows that he's a danger to everyone. Isaacs rformance in this episode was stunning. And not just in the scene where he breaks down in front of Hannah, but also in the part where he has to plead with Emma's father to let her back into his heart. Again, I actually took exception the fact that the her dad had shunned her in the last episode, but here they were addressing that very issue. It's rare that anything (that might feel like an easy cliche) isn't actually addressed on this show.

Meanwhile, Dr. Lee made some damn fine points about Britten's life "feeling full" enough to be able to let go of the Green World, while Britten himself got close to that acceptance, only to wind up digging his claws in even deeper in the Green World; by involving Dr. Evans in the conspiracy. While it was never explained how "imaginary Hawkins" was able to do things like spot unseen clues, or even see himself through a window Britten wasn't looking through, "Say Hello to My Little Friend" was a fascinating and captivating ride filled with tremendous poignancy.


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