My apologies for the misspelling of "pyrates" in earlier entries; as I've noted I haven't really been following along with discussion of the show online, and that includes other recaps. I am correcting this retroactively.
Previously on: COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON, APPARENTLY.
Hank is his own grandfather, do I really need to say more? I do? Well okay, all your clocks are belong to Hank, everybody's got FEELINGS! and it's going to get rather messy because reasons. So let's see if any of those reasons are made any clearer than mud in this episode...
White Vincent intones that six is the number of harmony, and yeah, that's what numerology teaches us (one of its characteristics, that is). It's also the number of idealism, which I think is a better theme for this episode.
"Sync" opens with a shot of the thawed subsicle, and we see WV in Cousteau mode, having gone scrounging for something. Since two episodes prior we knew the True Cross had been transferred to the sub I assume we are meant to think he's looking for the thing itself, but what WV retrieves is a strong box which contains the logbook of das boot and he looks, uh, reassured, I suppose.
Next is Agent Blonde reporting to Riley; Hank's phone is tapped and they hear him agreeing to rendezvous with his estranged clandestine wife. Scully looks a bit miffed that Mulder did not let her in on this development; but like I keep tellin' y'all, the Feds will find you out!
And then The Escape Artist Formerly Known As Laila is at the rendezvous point, nervously scanning the crowd, giving a nod to her Shepherd security detail. Arron rolls up and cooly tells her to get on the next bus (can I just say the boy looks damn fine in that hoodie?) and she sprints for it, to find Rachel all tight-faced scorn but carrying out her part, which is to get the electronic watchdog off the trail by switching coats and ditching the umbrella so that Anna's watchers are foiled (and they phone Reggie who doesn't really look stressed). Anna apologizes to Rachel, says she's sorry for everything, and we know Rachel wants to yell YES YOU ARE SORRY and I NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAY EVEN WHEN I THOUGHT YOU COULD BE MY MOM! but she is dignified in her response. poor girl. I have to say that for such a stereotypical role as the Girl Genius who is yet also the Ingenue, Addison Timlin has a wonderfully expressive face which conveys more than they give her time to accomplish in her dialogue.
Anna does the thing and they end up meeting in Central Park right on the spot where Hank proposed so he could be all LYING LIAR WHO LIES WHY ME?! and so we are right back to what I believe he considers the central mystery of his life, even more than his being-his-own-grandpa origins. Anna blathers exposition and then says the Pyrates are "radical believers," uh...like the Shepherds aren't? Yeah, that's convincing. Even less convincing is her "I loved you, I still do" spiel, and the Skeptical Schlub is all "Wrong!" and states He Wants Answers or the next clock will be bartered away to the baddies.
Do I believe him? No, not really. I believe Hank does want answers but I don't see him going to WV to get them. He may be starting to buy into their lab-rat origins but he's not feeling kinship with his freaky-ass eyeball brother just yet. Hank would just gather his Scoobies and figure it out for himself.
And...cue title sequence!
That was eight minutes into the ep, which, again, is better timing.
Back at the media empire, a wee bit of exposition about Hank being his own grandfather (and Arron's goofiness, I get that he's comic relief but it - like many things in this show - is too contrived) and a rhyme in Latin engraved on the bottom of the twelfth clock. In the North Sea WV discovers that the log book is coded in Demonic (?) - the same language Messenger Boy knows - and he calls Mommy Locust for help. This exchange reveals she's in yet another clinic (but she's not playing God, just God's administrative assistant) somewhere with her Messenger Boy, to whom she gently explains that their cabal will survive the apocalypse because that's how all End Times scenarios play out: the righteous never have to suffer for long, or not at all.
Riley barges into the offices of Modern Skeptic (and a large blowup of one of the covers is on display, just to remind us that there is a magazine alledgedly being published), Arron is goofy, Rachel is, "WTF dude?" and Riley is "Don't make me have to bust a cap, Mr. Tall, Shaggy and Dumbass." and is in Hank's face, "You cut me out, man!" and what is incredibly annoying is - as she admits to her overwhelming agenda to find out why her husband had to die - she chides Hank for wanting to know if Laila's love was, in any sense, real. Damn woman, don't you see you both want the same thing? Closure. They bicker and when Hank says WV and Laila are not on the same side Riley retorts, "Is that what THE LIAR told you?"
"What about me and my obsessive quest, Hank? It can't all be about you because we're costars, damnit!"
Meanwhile at Shepherd HQ Laila is praying (but really pining), and Reggie tells her she must shun attachment (which, if you think about it, is more a Buddhist tenant than a Christian one) and he's shutting her out of the negotiations because he knows she's conflicted but of course this has to happen because Dramatic Tension and then another priest busts in and says, "All our clocks are belong to Hank!" and "The Pyrates will find our Holy Relic before we do!" and so we know that it was transported via the sub, but was hidden elsewhere because of course it was. I'd still like to know why subsicle with Kommandant Doppelganger in its belly but anyway...Reggie immediately leaps to the dramatic solution of, "Well we gotta snuff Hank and nab the clocks, obvs."
Post-commercial we are hanging with the Sad Schlub in the wee small hours of the morning as he tells Riley, "Yeah let's sell the Lying Liar Who Lies down the proverbial river." They share their FEELINGS! and talk about life post-grand conspiracy ruining their lives and she remarks, "I want to be happy again." and his look says good luck with that. Because really, is that not the most naive thing you've ever heard an edgy tortured tattooed woman say? Somewhere in...Norway? Greenland?...WV meets up with the translator and answers the guy's academic curiosity with, "Chop-chop, time's a wastin,' scholar man!"
And then in the stupidest sequence of the ep, Hank gets a call from Laila's phone only it's Reggie, he is then ready to enact his Clever Plan (which, yes, meant that ALL THE CLOCKS were hidden at the office) which, as you can imagine, was a Complete and Utter Failure. Seriously though, the guys just obvs hanging around the building who then begin chasing Hank and Arron, who are supposed to be the decoys? That's not tension, Show, that's comedy.
After what must have been a long drive (because it's now night) they arrive at the Shepherd stronghold (I guess when you talk about the 1%ers it really means the clandestine true believers of the world and then all those other cabals) and duuuude, hallway of scarlet-robed monks! We are led to believe Hank is going to meet his end at their hands, but no, not before he does the clock-fu thang; Reggie tells Hank it is his Destiny and Hank's all "Wha? No, I was created in a lab because reasons!" We learn there is a pesky Rosicrucian mole on the ship, who - in the second stupidest sequence of the ep - strolls into the Room of Exposition pretending he thought it was the storage closet. Laaaaame, Show. So then he's all, "Hey guy, explain your whole deal there," and Scholar Man obliges but moments later WV appears and is sorry to crash their convo but he has some killin' to do and the knifefight is on, because the mole pulls a knife out of his boot like he was expecting this, but dude despite your green hoodie you are totally a redshirt, as in: your blood on your shirt after being stabbed by WV. He sees the guy's cross and has a look of "Meddling pesky Rosicrucians!" while Scholar Man is all, "Please don't kill me!" and WV has a look of "Do you think I'm an idiot?" and Scholar Man collapses to the floor, in full possession of the knowledge that upon the North Sea, no one can hear you scream. The Escape Artist Formerly Known As Laila reveals to her supervisor that she didn't make Flight 71 because her taxi hit a bus but as she crawled from the wreckage she saw "352" on the bus' display and it's totes A Sign From God! Back at the Shepherd stronghold, Hank is muttering the rhyme like it's some unfathomable mystery - and sadly the pesky Rosicrucians don't know that it's really the Scoobies who do all the puzzle-fu, Hank is just the guy who tells them to figure it out. Anna and Father Mark show up and she tells Reggie, "I'm assigning myself to this mission, because I am righteous and I has the clock-fu! I won't flinch when the time comes to get rid of the fly in our holy ointment."
A murder of Shepherds.
Arron is freaking out at Riley in regards to the nabbing of Hank and Rachel, and I've noticed she has said "Calm down!" or some variation thereof quite a few times over the course of the series. Plus her accent keeps slipping. Agent Blonde comes in and says they've got a plate hit, the Shepherds were spotted exiting the highway somewhere in upstate NY and because the Feds will find you, that's what they're gonna do.
This week's puzzle-fu is pretty lame as well: Hank just suddenly wonders why all the clocks have a similar piece of glass and reminds Anna that she told him every part of a clock serves a purpose. In conjunction with the rhyme they figure out there's a pattern (because of course there is) etched on each piece of glass which when placed all together reveal a map It's always a map, y'all. Reggie begins to exposition to Hank about his lab-rat origins as part of Project Zero Hour, revealing that he is the detonator of the True Cross to bring about the End of Days and...I'm sorry but, I don't get how that can be even symbolically appropriate. Anyway...they get wind of the Feds approach and it's been fun but they must dash, and Anna's supervisor is ready to shoot Hank rather than let him fall into the hands of the Pyrates. but of course Anna stops him. Literally. Having now really broken her vows and fucked up her shot at salvation (one assumes) for the sake of that dangerous ideology called love, she then points the gun at Hank and they also flee the oncoming Feds.
(Because we totes knew she's been lying to everyone, especially herself, right? And I guess Hank totally forgot about Rachel being a hostage too.)
It wouldn't be an episode of Zero Hour unless there's globetrotting because reasons and so Hank drives Anna to Grand Central and she tells him she's going to destroy the True Cross because otherwise they won't stop hunting for him and he reminds her that she is a Lying Liar Who Lies and she says, "Jesus wants me for his cross-killer!" and he has put the Feds on their tail again and she says, "The plot demands that I insist you come with me!" and he wants to know if - when Skeptical Schub won the heart of Hot Girl with Clock-Fu - did she run off to her pesky Rosicrucian overlords and confirm she bagged him, and she's all, "Well obviously," and he agrees to her crazy plan with extreme reservation because she told him One True Thing and he's a masochist, obviously.
And she may be a Lying Liar Who Lies, but she's hot. Especially now that he's heard her real accent, because we all know Yanks can't resist an Aussie accent, c'mon now!
But in the midst of all this WV phones Mommy Locust again (apparently she's somewhere in the Middle East where she looks out upon the Fourth Plague of Revelations manifested as severe drought) and tells her he'll have the cross within the week, and she continues with her apocalypse educational plan, quoting scripture to her Messenger Boy. And even though she tells WV, "No loose ends," he then gives Scholar Man a choice: jump into the cold North Sea where no one can hear you die from hypothermia, or quickly dead via bullets. The guy appears to agree to swim for it and ya gotta feel bad for what was the worst decision of his life but...whaddya think? He's gonna get rescued? He might be an actual plot point!
Rachel was stashed in some room at the stronghold and badasses her way out with her boots made for kicking in doors only to Meet The Feds, who are then allowed to track Hank. Riley and Agent Blonde show up at Grand Central where Riley finds Hank's phone duct-taped to a pole with an apology and Hank is driving his lying bride to Montreal, because she totes knows how to travel without attracting the attention of INTERPOL even in the post-9/11 world, apparently? Well maybe it's Quebec's insistence upon sovereignty meaning they don't trifle with such silly things as international law? Who knows...but this episode was structured okay even for all its actual lame content.
The good (scoring) stuff:
Again there is a sequence of cues and themes in the beginning which really set the tone nicely, in the sub sequence I'm actually reminded a bit of Trevor's score for 5 Days of War. There's a nice wistful cue as Laila meets Hank on the bridge. The sequence during Hank and Riley's conversation about their future plans is lovely as well, there's a lightness to it suggesting hope, but then a pulse of tension intrudes, undermining their words. A percussive-heavy chase sequence reminds me that's always one of Trevor's strong points in a score (though usually he gets to use guitars). A wonderful piano cue during the puzzle-solving sequence, also quite a sprightly fight sequence, a bit of what I refer to as "the stabbing violins of significance."
