By:Dan
I’ve just had the pleasure of watching the latest episode of Nikita, ‘Broken Home’.
Picking right up where the previous episode left off, Birkhoff is taken to the server room to disable ShadowNet, and when the guards attack him he takes them both out. Sean is locked in holding with Michael, where the 2 figure out what’s going on with Alex, Owen, Nikita – and Amanda. With help from a want-away Owen/Sam, Birkhoff opens the doors and elevators. Sean and Michael retrieve Alex, and then Birkhoff, capturing Owen (though Alex gets away). Birkhoff hacks a terminal so Owen and Michael can get out and find Nikita.
Meanwhile, Amanda has drugged Nikita, and is forcing her to relive Amanda’s childhood – with a twin sister named Helen who is being psychologically tortured by her father. Amanda gives Nikita the freedom of choice in the dream, but it still turns out the exact same way as it did in reality, with Helen killing her father, and then stabbing Amanda. It’s then that it’s revealed that Amanda died, and Helen took her name – and is therefore the Amanda that we all know today. To quote Amanda “I told you I was worse than all of you bitches put together!” Owen interrupts the session as Amanda was doing something to Nikita, and they’re then attacked by Michael. The 2 escape, with Owen taking Amanda at gunpoint so he can sell the black box.
Back at Division, everyone is captured, and when it looks like Rachael is going to kill Sean, Alex intervenes. This starts a massive shootout, where Birkhoff attacks someone to stop him from hurting Sonya, and then Sonya shoots the man as he’s trying to hurt Birkhoff. Rachael and Alex’s standoff ends the only way it would – Alex victorious and Rachael dead. Birkhoff stops the fighting by shouting that if they want to go, just go. Later, Sean collapses, as he’d been hit by one of Rachael’s stray bullets, and Alex just has enough time to say she loves him before he dies. Nikita and Michael return to find Sonya zipping up body bags and head to Ops, where they find Birkhoff over Sean, who explains what happened, and that Alex had vanished after he died.
It was a very strong episode, really ramping up the action and the psychological games factors of the show. It left a lot of unanswered questions, and hopefully we’ll get some of those in the next episode.
Thanks for reading.