If you are not already watching JERICHO, you really should be (here's a link to the streaming videos for the series, beginning with the PILOT). Seriously, give it a chance... and even as you might have a blah episode here and there, keep on watching... it's worth it.
Although it's a bit formulaic, it is also a fascinating exploration of one of the biggest "WHAT IF's" we can imagine as Americans. What if we were under Nuclear Attack? What if we lost everything in a single moment that we take for granted? What if all communication halted across the country and we didn't know what was happening anymore in the world? What if our government were knocked completely out of commission? What if we found our country then divided into separate, newly-divided countries that found each other establishing their own idea of new governments? What if each of those governments then found each other at war?
What if we found out we were never attacked at all... but that our own government "attacked" us so that a complete rebuild of our country could be done without the Constitution being considered?
After "9/11," none of this seems implausible. In fact, unless you are completely without your wits about you, or unless you simply refuse to fathom this possibility, the inconsistencies, physics, and blatant lies that have sprung up since "9/11" makes this series all the more terrifying to consider.
JERICHO not only asks all of these questions, but eloquently plays out the possible scenarios in such a beautifully-insidious way that you don't even realize how terrified you are under your skin until the reality of the situation hits you in certain episodes. There are strings of episodes that leave you feeling excited about the drama, the action, and then WHAM! the reality hits you and you start to think about what the fuck you would do if you were in those same situations. What then started out looking like a formulaic series coils around you as you realize just how formulaic our own lives are, and how even in the midst of a horrifying shift in everything we ever found familiar, we do our best to retain that formula... until we can't.
Last night's episode really upset me. If you haven't watched SEASON ONE, please don't spoil it for yourself, but if you are a fan, you know how upsetting that episode was... for a lot of reasons that leave you itching, angry, and devastated.
Season 2 episode 4: JAKE and friends discover something devastatingI was crying after the episode and feeling really angry about what happened. The episode played on some very deep wounds and fears in myself that probably stretch from across lifetimes: wounds from knowing the right thing to do, but being punished for doing so; fears of being attacked and cornered for just being who you are; dying senselessly because of someone else's selfishness and fears... I could go on.
Although COMPLETELY unrelated, I am certain that Jericho prompted my dreams last night, which were epic and disturbing.
I dreamt that I was on a flight across the country and we were going to crash. The crash tore the plane apart and was really scary, but somehow most of us survived. We were all over the news. All of us were taken to a hospital, but it wasn't a public hospital; it seemed to be in one of the hangars of the airport. About 20 of us were actually just fine and we were released fairly easily from this hospital, escorted to a kind of cargo plane for our flight to our intended destination. After a while I began to question the length of the flight because it seemed to have been a long time. That's when we began to be treated differently. We were told to shut up and remain seated. When we finally landed there was an oppressive humidity and heat in the air and we found out we had been flown to Thailand.
To make a long story short, the rest of my dream was about my finding out that there had been a program implemented by our government to take passengers and survivors from catastrophic events who could easily be written off as missing or not found in the wreckage and disasters, and then shipped to various parts of the world and used as slaves.
In my dream I was able to escape and thus began my epic journey in trying to find a way back to the U.S. to tell what was really happening in the world, but finding out that the highest officials in many governments around the world were already aware and utilizing this program!
Everything about my world had changed in an instant.
I'm still a bit emotional over the damn episode and the dream. It's so weird when things like this really get into you.
It's also very cool.
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