John Doe: The Rising

John starts to get psychic flashes from the remote viewers Phoenix has captured, but can he decipher their images and find where the Group is based?

A lot going on here, and it makes for a pacy and exciting episode as John races against time to find Theresa and the captured Michael before they are killed. Meanwhile, he learns new things about himself, such as his mental abilities extending far further than he first though. It appears that he has some kind of remote viewing ability himself, and is able to pick up images and relate them to images and places. Okay, so somehow he finds the Phoenix base purely by drawing a tunnel entrance, but we'll let him off.

We get a little more insight into Phoenix this time, with their discovery that the staff they seek is at the Vatican, and some tantalizing glimpses of how the group works, with sign language and various dead languages being used to communicate. However, there's a feeling that we're being fed snippets of information we'd pretty much worked out, and the capture of Trenchcoat does little more than bring us the news that he isn't deaf and that he has some pretty nifty mental powers of his own.

Avery and Hayes are poorly used here, with their inclusion in the storming of Phoenix's base apparently more out of a necessity for them to do something rather than because they have any actual need to be there. Overall, it's well written and put together, but it throws up a whole load more questions and doesn't really answer any other than the true identity of Stocking Cap, the Phoenix Group's leader, which I have to admit is a pretty nifty little ending to the season. That said, it works well enough for the lack of resolution to work rather well.

It's not known if the show will be coming back next season yet, but given Fox's penchant for cancelling anything with an ounce of originality and intrigue recently, plus its lack of major ratings success, I suspect we'll not get a chance to see John and the others in action again. I would love to be proved wrong, as this episode moves things onto a new level, giving snippets of information that seem closer to paying off, not to mention the fact that the main ruling part of Phoenix has been taken out, and Theresa rescued, which should help to clear a few things up, particularly Theresa's connection to John.

If it ends here, I won't be as disappointed as I have been about other shows this season, but I still believe it has a lot of potential left to unlock.

****

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