The Assassin

Pretender Episode Review

I Predict

Someone's being forced to play assassin because of a kidnapped family member. My guess is that Jarod will do his usual routine: approach, gain trust, uncover who has the kids, tell sad story about his childhood, come up with scheme to with rescue plan and/or way to fake the assassination. He will give bad guy lecture about threatening kids and leave him for authorities. Mother and kids will hug and beam at Jarod.

Miss Parker's romance, on the other hand...? Well, I know how it will end, but I've never seen it start. She'll probably say something rude and he will call her on it, "surprising" her and getting her to "open up" to him.

Was I Right?

Point for point, except for the beaming. There was no beaming.

They had a point in their favor by casting Jessica Steen, who was on Earth 2. She did a good job of being on the edge but not whiney. Her decisions, of course, were made entirely in accordance with the dictates of the script, but there is no way around that.

The parallel between her and Jarod might have been more effective if we hadn't seen this one before. Every single person Jarod meets has a sob story that somehow mirrors his history. To add to that, of all hundreds of DSAs she could have been watching when Jarod walks in, it was the one where one of his sims was stolen and used. Isn't that convenient?

Then, there were one or more clunker dialogue bits: "You've saved his life and I've murdered my children." "Now there's more innocent blood on your hands." There's a difference between drama and melodrama. Learn it. Love it.

As for Miss Parker's little romance? They'd laid it on fairly thick with both Broots and Sydney having dates, before trotting out Brigette as the icing on the "My life sucks" cake. I would have rather seen a long first scene between her and Miss Parker, with some snark from Lyle. It would have upped the stakes when Brigette interfered later on.

Additionally, it bugged more than a little, the implication that all Miss Parker needs is the love of a good man, but that's another TV convention. It was nice to see her take some of the initiative and seek him out, rather than continue to accidentally bump into him. I also got the distinct impression that she was motivated to see him again partly to show up Brigette.

The ending was nice, with her tossing the Centre file and asking Thomas in person to tell her about himself, not as a background check, but rather because she really wants to know. We'll have to see if they go the route of turning her all fluffy bunny just because she falls in love.

What Did I Think?

Good character moments, even if it is quite predictable.