Review: Defiance Episode 303 "The Broken Bough"
SyFy’s series Defiance continued on Friday night with Episode 3 “A Broken Bough” continuing to bring the action after the massive shake-up of last week’s premiere two episodes with quite a big BOOM!
If you missed my recap last week of the premiere, here’s a quick rundown. Nolan and Irisa were rescued from their confinement in the Votan life pods after seven months by T’evgin and Kindzi, the last of the Omec, an ancient and mysterious race predating even the Castithans. Meanwhile, Defiance has fallen on hard times as the gulanite mines had collapsed the night of the pair’s disappearance, leaving the town running only on what it had left in stores. After shutting down most of the town’s power as well as the stasis nets protecting the city, Amanda (now mayor again) was forced to try to find some other way to restore the power when two spies for the Votan Collective were found lurking outside of town. Returning to the mines, Nolan, Irisa, and Amanda come across Kindzi who is injured in their encounter and the group is forced to seek medical attention from Dr. Yewell. Searching for his missing daughter, T’evgin comes to town in order to retrieve her. This is when Amanda negotiates with the Omec for a 50-50 shared trade deal. The Omec get half the gulanite and his daughter gets patched up if they allow Defiance to use their equipment and give the town the other half of the gulanite.
In the meantime, Rafe, Datak, and Stahma have finally tracked down Pilar and their missing kids who’ve been holed up in a cabin in Oklahoma. When General Rahm Tak of the Votan Collective shows up, he murders the McCawley family in cold blood and offers Datak and Stahma a deal – work for him as a spy for the VC or he’ll have Alak killed as well. What choice do they have at this point?
On this week’s episode, the episode begins with Nolan teasing Irisa about the novel that was written about her. As they joke around, Berlin rushes in and tells them that there’s a VC roller headed their way after it ran the net. Arming up and rushing out to meet this threat head-on, they discover Stahma and an injured Datak. Taking Datak to Doc Yewell to heal up, the two weave a story of escape and intrigue in order to win everyone over, but when they’re asked about the McCawley family, they’ve no choice but to tell the truth, recounting the story of how Rahm Tak massacred them. Amanda, emotional over the loss of the McCawleys, orders Nolan to scout out the VC army in order to gather intel. Agreeing to do so, he chooses to take Irisa with him as long as his daughter promised to have his back should he need it. Shrugging off his comments, the two head out of Defiance towards Tak’s camp.
While in the camp, Alak is brought before Rahm who tells the boy that his parents are successfully doing as they were asked and has provided intel regarding Nolan heading towards the camp. As he interrogates Alak to see if the boy knows anything about Nolan, Alak says he does. Nolan is the butcher of Yosemite, a bloody battle during the Pale Wars wherein Nolan killed most of Rahm Tak’s fellow soldiers saying that there was a “waterfall that ran red with Votan blood.”
After a brief encounter with Pilar where Nolan and Irisa take the baby back, they leave the old woman tied up in her cabin and take the baby with them in order to keep it safe. While they finish gathering intel on the VC camp, Nolan notices a net cutter that’s meant to destroy stasis nets like the one Defiance uses to stay safe. Deciding that they need to blow up the machine, Nolan sends Irisa in with the explosives, but after a brief tussle with an escaped Pilar gives away their position, Irisa is captured and threatened. Choosing to instead shoot Tak’s men gives Irisa enough time to overpower the general and hold a blade to his throat. With her newfound inability to kill, however, she refuses to do so and simply knocks him out, allowing him to live to march onto Defiance, but destroying the net-cutter anyways. Tak learns soon enough that another plan of his he had Datak carry out has also been accomplished, which is the sabotage of all the weapons in the army by infecting them with shrill. He gives the pair one final set of orders – destroy the Arch in order to shake up Defiance and Nolan.
During the final minutes of the video, Irisa and Nolan return baby Luke to his grandparents where Stahma and Datak take him into loving arms.
So what’d you think of episode 3? Was it better or worse than the premiere?
Leave your comments, concerns, and general thoughts below.