It's Halloween-time in Jericho, Kansas, the first Halloween after the nuclear attack, and things are getting rough for the town. Power is still out town-wide (save for a few simple items like flashlights...), the old world economy has collapsed so that barter and trade have replaced cash as currency, the mayor is still deathly ill (three weeks on...) from the flu, and a local warlord, Jonah (played by Dexter's James Remar...) is making incursions into the town to steal food...and to break out his incarcerated goons like Mitch Cafferty.
Then squirrely Gary Anderson, the mayor's rival in an election that will probably never take place, returns from his scouting expedition outside Jericho with mixed news. New York City has survived the war intact (yes!), but Washington D.C. is nuked...gone. Worse, the roads between here and there are - for all intents and purposes - war zones. Raiders and roadblocks stop any cars, and will kill travelers for the merest scraps of food or water.
Finally, things really get bad when the mayor goes "septic," and needs the drug Cipro to survive. This need necessitates negotiations with Jonah, who also happens to be Emily's (Ashley Scott's) estranged father. I particularly liked the aspects of the episode involving Jake's attempts to rationally negotiate with Jonah. His brother Eric and Gary Anderson refuse to trade Cafferty for the food Jericho's people desperately need because they don't want to negotiate with a crimina (i.e. a terrorist)l. By their way of thinking, engagement and appeasement are apparently identical. Sound like any American president you know? Yes, Jericho is still about us, despite it's apocalyptic scenario...
Otherwise, this story involves many of Jericho's dramatis personae attempting to deal with the fact that one life has ended; another begun. The IRS auditor from D.C. must cope with the fact that everyone in her life has been "incinerated;" petty storekeeper Gracie learns that she's not such a good Samaritan after all, and that the old ways of accumulating wealth don't really fit in with the new economy of Jericho. Emily must put aside her personal battle with her estranged father, and Robert Hawkins learns that his wife was dating a man named Doug before the nuclear attacks. Yep, it's transition time in this small Kansas time, and it makes for some fine character moments in a series that I believe improves each and every installment. If not a great show, Jericho is - at least - a very good one, and on the road to greatness.
I also liked another small joke this week (last week it was a Vanilla Ice CD). this time, Jake is warned by his school teacher girlfriend, as he's about to head into the hot zone of Rouge River: "watch out for giant irradiated ants out there...," a reference, of course, to the great 1950s horror movie, Them.
Then squirrely Gary Anderson, the mayor's rival in an election that will probably never take place, returns from his scouting expedition outside Jericho with mixed news. New York City has survived the war intact (yes!), but Washington D.C. is nuked...gone. Worse, the roads between here and there are - for all intents and purposes - war zones. Raiders and roadblocks stop any cars, and will kill travelers for the merest scraps of food or water.
Finally, things really get bad when the mayor goes "septic," and needs the drug Cipro to survive. This need necessitates negotiations with Jonah, who also happens to be Emily's (Ashley Scott's) estranged father. I particularly liked the aspects of the episode involving Jake's attempts to rationally negotiate with Jonah. His brother Eric and Gary Anderson refuse to trade Cafferty for the food Jericho's people desperately need because they don't want to negotiate with a crimina (i.e. a terrorist)l. By their way of thinking, engagement and appeasement are apparently identical. Sound like any American president you know? Yes, Jericho is still about us, despite it's apocalyptic scenario...
Otherwise, this story involves many of Jericho's dramatis personae attempting to deal with the fact that one life has ended; another begun. The IRS auditor from D.C. must cope with the fact that everyone in her life has been "incinerated;" petty storekeeper Gracie learns that she's not such a good Samaritan after all, and that the old ways of accumulating wealth don't really fit in with the new economy of Jericho. Emily must put aside her personal battle with her estranged father, and Robert Hawkins learns that his wife was dating a man named Doug before the nuclear attacks. Yep, it's transition time in this small Kansas time, and it makes for some fine character moments in a series that I believe improves each and every installment. If not a great show, Jericho is - at least - a very good one, and on the road to greatness.
I also liked another small joke this week (last week it was a Vanilla Ice CD). this time, Jake is warned by his school teacher girlfriend, as he's about to head into the hot zone of Rouge River: "watch out for giant irradiated ants out there...," a reference, of course, to the great 1950s horror movie, Them.
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