I always wanted to review a series week-by-week as it airs. It just so happens that as I want to review so many older series, that doing so would be difficult to fit in, and moreso, I didn't really get a chance beforehand. However, there are three series that will begin within the next three weeks, and I'll try and finish up both Freaks and Geeks, along with the first season of Survivor, in order to make room for these additions, BrainDead being one of them.
I randomly ran into a preview of BrainDead on IMDb via an advertisement, and while it didn't look like something I would generally watch, as far as my reviews go, I thought it'd be something to give a shot. I do enjoy politics, and while the comedic elements may fall flat, there might be enough to balance out these episodes. Adding in an alien menace definitely wouldn't hurt anything. So I don't know how this series will go, but I'll be reviewing each episode as they come out. Without further adieu, let's get started.
Episode Name: The Insanity Principle: How Extremism in Politics is Threatening Democracy in the 21st Century
Original Airdate: June 13, 2016
The pilot starts out making a statement on the political situation of the USA: "In the year 2016 there was a growing sense that people were losing their minds and no one knew why until now."
A meteor lands in Russian waters, but with the political landscape of 2016, little to no coverage of this appears on American television, who focus far more on the election and the impending shutdown of the government.
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| Meteor crash-landing in Russia |
We then meet our protagonist, Laurel Healy, younger sister to Democratic Senator of Maryland's Luke Healy, and daughter of a man consulting with armed services. She has little to no interest in politics, though - instead, she's a documentary filmmaker, tackling subjects such as yodeling and religious music from the Solomon Islands. But money's dried up, and when she's offered a job by her father in her brother's staff, she takes it, stipulating both that her father pay half the cost of finishing her documentary ($100,000), and that it's a six-month deal, then she's done.
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| Laurel Healy |
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| Senator Luke Healy and his sister, Laurel |
Doctor Daudier of the Smithsonian Institution, working with a Russian institute to retrieve the meteor, attempts to get an additional $40 million by talking with Senator Healy, but the best he can do is $5 million, as Republicans would be unlikely to give anymore out to scientific endeavors. Still, the meteor is retrieved without incident, despite odd behavior from fish.
Healy's position is one of constituent cases - she meets with constituents of the Senator, and helps them with their concerns or problems. Most of the time, this is moderately mundane, such as trying to fix Medicare issues or Social Security concerns. Her last meeting of the day, though, is with Breanna Burke, who is concerned with her husband's recent behavior. He's distant, and has quit drinking cold turkey. This happened after he returned from working on a container ship named the Alba - carrying, of course, the meteor fished out of Russian waters earlier - she shows Laurel video of her husband, Randall, and a shipmate checking the container, and something indescript happens to them. Breanna came to Senator Healy's office, as opposed to the police, because the Senator signed off the on shipment of the crate. Healy tells Breanna that she'll find out what she can, but not before being interrupted by Gareth Ritter, Legislative Director for Republican Senator Wheatus of Maryland.
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| Breanna Burke meeting with Laurel |
In a meeting with Ritter, he offers a deal to prevent the government shutdown that's to occur in 90 minutes (beginning, it seems, due to a dispute over a Supreme Court nominee). Wheatus is willing to cross the aisle and vote with the Democrats, Ritter informs her; all he needs is a $48 million earmark in autism research. If word gets out that Republicans tried to deal with Senator Healy, he'll deny ever being there and rescind the deal. If Laurel is unable to convince her brother to take the deal, Ritter tells her, than the 100,000 people that'll be laid off due to the shutdown will be on her and the Democratic Party.
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| Gareth Ritter |
She scrambles to find him, and does so, locating him in his Chief of Staff's apartment, having an affair (Senator Healy's wife is eight months pregnant at the time). On a conference call Democratic leaders, Healy discusses whether or not to take the deal. One Democrat believes they should, but others, including Healy himself, want the Republicans to shut down the government, and offer the deal afterwards, harming the people's opinion of the Republican Party and embarrassing them. Laurel is disgusted by this tactic, as it'd put 100,000 people out of work, but she's dismissed from the room, and instead awkwardly talks with Scarlett, the Chief in Staff that Luke's having the affair with. After the call, her brother let's Laurel know that they're not going to take the deal, taking the long view, that it's more important to keep the Republicans out of the White House then it is to prevent the shutdown for a short period. Laurel chastises Luke for cheating on his wife, and Luke tells her that it won't happen again.
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| Senator Healy and Chief of Staff Scarlett |
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| Senator Healy and Laurel in argument over shutdown |
With the government now shut down, funding has stopped completely for Doctor Daudier, and he, along with his fellow scientists, are forced to leave the meteor. As soon as the lights are turned off, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ant-like insects exit the meteor and escape via a broken window into Washington, D.C.
Senator Healy lets go of most of his staff, keeping his Chief of Staff, Scarlett, and, to other's chargin, his Constituent Caseworker, his sister. Laurel knows that given the shutdown, she'll have next to nothing to do in her job, and so instead investigates the Alba and the crate that Breanna Burke believes made her husband begin to act so strangely.
Captain Young of the Alba seems unconcerned about his crew member's behavior, and in fact, doesn't even ask which crew member she's talking about. She notices other odd behavior from the crew - they constantly stare at her, and the crew member she saw on video with Breanna's husband denies even knowing Randall. More annoying still, "You Might Think" by The Cars is being played over the ship's intercom system, apparently the music of choice for the captain. Insistent, she asks for the ship's manifesto, but discovers that Gareth Ritter has them already.
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| Crew members staring at Laurel on the Alba |
Laurel goes to speak to Gareth, running into a drunken Senator Wheatus, slurring incomprehensibly at her, while Gareth seems to be making the important calls of the day. Gareth has no interest in answering Laurel's questions, and when she pushes it by following him, lets her know that he doesn't want others to believe he's collaborating with the Democratic Party. Laurel smartly asks what he'll be wearing at a pro-choice rally in front of Republican staffers, and forces him into a meeting.
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| Republican Senator Wheatus of Maryland |
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| Laurel forcing Gareth into a meeting |
Gareth too looked into Breanna's concern about her husband, and surprises Laurel by providing her the same answer that Captain Young gave her from the first crewmate. Another surprise comes when Ritter lets her know that Senator Wheatus may still be interested in a deal, and that if she can convince her brother, Washington, D.C. could be done with the gridlock by the next day. Meeting with Luke, he brushes off the concern she has about groups of people staring at them (to him, politics is like Hollywood, but with "uglier people"), and she calls Breanna, letting her know of her progress so far into the case. Her husband asks who she's talking to, though, and Breanna, scared, ends the call prematurely. Afterwards, Breanna is held down by her husband as the alien insects enter her skull via her ears.
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| Breanna being infected by alien lifeforms |
Luke is interested in the deal that Wheatus is offering, but asks that Laurel confirm that it's from the Senator himself and not from Ritter, who has a sister with autism, and thus, something invested in researching the disorder. Upon meeting Laurel again, Luke admits that it's his idea, and that the Senator had nothing to do with it, but truly wants to end the shutdown and insists he can get Wheatus to agree to the deal, assuming that Luke Healy meet with him. She's unable to convince her brother, but Laurel calls their father, and convinces her father that it'd be good for his career (helping end the shutdown, in her eyes, would make him one of the most powerful players in the Democratic Party).
Meanwhile, Breanna and Randall meet with Luke and Laurel, and Breanna thanks Laurel for her assistance - she was simply worried, but it's all okay now. Randall then repeats the exact same line said by Captain Young and the first crewmate, Laurel able to say it word-for-word along with Randall. Confused, but given the fact they want to donate $2,600 for his re-election campaign, Luke thanks his sister for helping out. Laurel views this as money to pay them off to stop investigating, but happy with the donation, Luke tells her to take "yes" for an answer.
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| Senator Healy and Laurel meeting with Breanna and Randall Burke |
Their father gets Luke to agree to the meeting, and as Senators Healy and Wheatus have a cheerful meeting, Laurel and Gareth bond. During a playful dispute over the desires of liberals and conservatives, along with discussing the Solomon Island's dissipating culture due to global warming, Laurel again hears "You Might Think" by The Cars, playing softly on the intercom system. She's made more uneasy by seeing others stare at her, but Gareth doesn't understand the concern, and when the senators tell them that they agree to hold a press conference the following day, the uneasiness of mostly wiped from her mind.
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| Senators Healy and Wheatus agree to hold press conference |
That night, however, the insects crawl into Senator Wheatus's room, and into his skull. A portion of his brain slides out of his ear. Unconcerned, Wheatus falls asleep, and wakes up the next day a new man. Playing "You Might Think" on his iTunes, he prepares for a new day, throwing away his considerable amount of alcoholic drinks from his office and canceling the conference with Senator Healy, directing him to call another number instead.
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| Portion of Senator Wheatus' brain |
Laurel goes to the Smithsonian and talks her way in, with the goal of looking at the meteor herself. This doesn't last long, as she finds Doctor Daudier unconscious on the floor. During the ambulance ride, Daudier mutters incoherently about something being "in his ears," and shouts that his mind's going. Despite trying to keep him calm, his head explodes.
Senator Wheatus meets with Democratic Senator Spitz, and by offering him Chair of Armed Services, ranking member on economic policy, and a $14 million war chest from the Republican superpac, life-long Democrat Senator Spitz decides to switch parties and become a Republican. Democrats lose the majority in the Senate because of this switch and Senator Healy, in his new office, commits to kicking the Republican's asses with the help of Scarlett and Laurel. Laurel agrees, and seconds later, notices that Scarlett is listening to - of course - The Cars' classic hit, "You Might Think."
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| Laurel notices that Scarlett's listening to The Cars |
We end with the proclamation from a political news host, a rip-off of Rachel Maddow, that because of Spitz's betrayal to the Democratic Party, bipartisanship is dead.
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| Rachel Maddow rip-off Claudia Monarch |
Truth be told, this episode rather surprised me. I wasn't anticipating enjoying it all that much based off the preview I saw. I thought it would be too drenched in comedic elements to break out into more serious territory.
Without question, I was wrong.
In fact, I got it mixed around. The comedic elements were, in my view, far more minor than were the elements of political intrigue and drama. The death of Doctor Daudier was pretty traumatic, and there were plenty of biting words said of both Democrats and Republicans, sometimes by the same people. The comedy came in a few scenes, but to my delight, it didn't overshadow the ominous tone of the episode (the ending was particularly well-done). Insofar as the tone was concerned, it was pretty damn good.
Only a few actors and actresses really stand out, though luckily Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Laurel Healy) is one of them. She has a Chloe Bennet-feel to her (Bennet plays Skye on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), though not as snarky. Still, she is a perfectly enjoyable actress to watch, and casting did a fine job there. I wasn't overly wowed by either Danny Pino (Luke Healy) or Tony Shalhoub (Senator Wheatus), but Aaron Tveit (Gareth Ritter) seems a pretty fine choice. There could very well be a chemistry between him and Winstead, which I hope to see develop (or worsen, considering the fact that Laurel may very well feel betrayed by Ritter) over the course of the series.
The story of a meteor containing alien lifeforms that slowly take over humanity isn't overly creative, but throwing in a political arena such as Washington, D.C. was a great idea, especially in such a turbulent election year as the one we're in. Keeping it based in reality, by seeing clips of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders, was a good idea also, as we have connections to this story and see that this is fictionally happening at the same time as this presidential race.
On a sidenote, I don't believe I've ever heard "You Might Think" before, but it's a catchy tune, and you can dance to it, so hey, if it becomes the unofficial theme of this show, more power to it. Oh, and it's has a pretty trippy (and very 80's) music video that you might want to check out. Definitely worth it.
I have absolutely no idea where this story will go. I have no idea if this series will have a second season. If it did, well, I'd be surprised. But this series surprised my already, so I'm prepared for it to happen again. A very solid first out, and while not perfect, this pilot did well to drag in the viewer, and unless the next episode is a blunder, I don't know when it'll let go.
Rating: Above Average
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