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4.22 Four Light Years Farther Nikita: "You can live without me a lot better than I can live without you." Michael: "No." This episode made me want to run screaming out of the room. This was how they were going to end the series? Are you kidding me? It actually started out very well. I was totally taken in by Operations and Madeline deciding that the only solution to the Michael/Nikita problem was to kill one of them. In fact, it was so well done -- Michael and Nikita making their choice of which of them would die, Michael in The Chair, Nikita in The Chair -- that I was getting terribly upset about it, even though I was fairly certain they were both going to live anyway. And I sort of liked the basic concept that Nikita was working for Mick, that the Red Cell thing was a ruse. I had some serious issues with Nikita allying with Red Cell, anyway. Although, frankly, this secretly-working-for-a-higher-up twist has been used way too many times. But come on! The core of this series has always been the intense, forbidden love affair between Michael and Nikita, and this episode made the whole thing meaningless. Meaningless! I knew before I watched it that the fans were infuriated by this episode, but I had no clue it would be this bad. I was absolutely livid. I actually cried and threw things. Despite the fact that this episode was an utter fucking catastrophe, I did like a few things about it. Like Walter getting a teaching assignment. Like Jason showing Naomi the door. I liked Operations getting a lecture on his serious flaws as an administrator as well as a human being. And of course, there was Michael. Roy Dupuis was just wonderful. Michael broke my heart over and over again. In The Chair, ready to die for Nikita. Realizing that instead, she would die and he would live. His utter stillness when Nikita ordered his cancellation. The way he cut a tear of blood under his eye was one of the most amazing, romantic gestures I've ever seen. The cold, controlled, expressionless Michael was weeping blood because the pain was too extreme for tears. In a sense, Michael expressed what I was feeling as a fan of this show. Not that I'm ready to cut myself or anything. But while the writers were faithful to Michael as a character, I felt totally betrayed by what they did to Nikita. Nikita has been a mole for three years? The Nikita I once cared about hasn't even existed? She was working for Mick while Operations and Madeline had her brainwashed by the Gelman process? She was working for Mick while she was secretly trysting with Michael? This conflicted holistically with the entire series. It was like the writers and producers said, just kidding, the past three years of the series didn't really mean anything. I never watched "Dallas", but it was like Bobby waking up and discovering that the entire series had been a dream. I feel so intensely cheated that I almost can't express how angry I am. Two things might have made this episode a lot easier to take, and truer to the spirit of the show: (1) if Mick had recruited Nikita months ago, instead of years, and (2) if that last shot of Nikita had shown that she did indeed love Michael, and was being cruel in order to let him go. At least, in the end, Nikita got Michael out of Section and gave him his freedom. I absolutely cannot believe that she never loved him. Season five had better fix this travesty. So there. Bits and pieces: -- Madeline's suicide was like a pointless afterthought. It wasn't as bad as what they did to Birkoff, but I wish they had devoted some serious time to the death of a major character. Couldn't it have been part of "Sleeping with the Enemy," perhaps? And it bothered me that it didn't seem to throw Operations at all. -- On the boat, Michael toasted Nikita with "A la vie." That was a nice little acknowledgement by Roy Dupuis to his fans. (He always signs autographs with "A la vie.") -- What did the title mean? Four light years farther than what? Than what we thought this series actually was? -- Walter has tattoos. Of course he does. -- Walter: "How can you do this? You have no right!" Yeah, that's me to the producers. This show has always been so good with the twists. This was one twist too many. I usually watch an episode twice before releasing a review, but I don't think I can watch this one again. I'm not giving it a rating. I'm giving it the finger. Billie |
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