Salvation
The Wormwood Prophecy
Original Air Date: Sep 13, 2017
Vincent Chia – Staff Writer
vincent@thetwocentscorp.com
This week’s episode of Salvation featured a few interesting twists and a cliffhanger for the next episode, which will be the season finale. The episode starts with something slamming into the asteroid Samson. Alarms at the Pentagon’s Project Samson situation room start sounding. It isn’t completely clear what that object was. Seems like just random space debris.
With Samson roughly 129 days away from Earth, Liam runs to Darius’ office and shows Darius some new information. Something has collided with Samson, however, there was no change in the asteroid’s path. Darius thinks through the possibilities for the reason.
Darius visits Grace’s house. As a coincidence, Harris had already been visiting Grace. Darius had wanted Grace to contact Harris for him, but now he can fast forward one step. Darius tells them both that he theorizes that the asteroid is made up of more iron ore as opposed to the silicates he originally presumed. Therefore, the asteroid is much heavier and denser. The gravity tractor won’t be enough to alter the asteroid’s course.
Harris reports this information to Rayburn and President Bennett. Harris recommends turning control of the gravity tractor back to Darius so he can brainstorm a solution. However, the president and Rayburn disagree. They intend to maintain control over the gravity tractor so that they can possibly use the asteroid as a weapon against Russia.
We learn a little bit of background on Project Atlas. Russia’s space program was developing weapons of their own and the Atlas strike in Siberia was actually a strike against Russia’s weapons program. If Atlas didn’t happen, the Russians could have eventually created a space weapon that would destroy America’s infrastructure.
Darius has chosen his final candidates for his Salvation Ark. He gives the file folders of his final selectees to Liam and asks Liam to run genetic testing and psych profiles. Liam goes to Jillian with the file folders. The final selectees include Harris, Grace, and Darius. Well, well, what a surprise.
Harris Edwards visits Dr. Rasmussen, former President MacKenzie’s personal physician. She seems to know some secret information but is reluctant to tell Harris.
Darius recommends that they dig up the body of former President MacKenzie to verify her cause of death. Harris says they need a secret team and cannot involve the Pentagon. Grace says she knows “a guy,” who is, predictably, her ex-CIA agent father.
On another front, Darius implants a tiny chip in Grace’s hand that will be able to hack the Project Samson computers so that Darius can regain control of the EM engine gravity tractor. Grace successfully pulls off the mission. However, just as she is about to leave, warning alarms start to ring. Multiple Russian and Chinese submarines are moving towards the continental United States.
Harris goes to Arlington National Cemetery and reassigns the current guard detail over President MacKenzie’s tomb. Grace’s dad’s team is able to excavate the casket, however, it is empty.
President Bennett holds a press conference regarding the Russian and Chinese subs. He emphasizes that although it is only the second week of his presidency, America’s enemies should not think the country is unprepared or in disarray. During the press conference, Amanda the reporter texts Grace. Amanda had gotten a hold of a draft of MacKenzie’s planned speech. Although the speech itself was somewhat cryptic, Amanda figured out that the reference to “Wormwood” in the speech was actually a reference to a biblical asteroid-like “star” that would supposedly wipe out all life on Earth.
Although Amanda had threatened to ask President Bennett about the asteroid at the press conference, she did not. She meets with Grace in private later. Amanda appears to have a near emotional meltdown while talking to Grace and wants to make the information public. I don’t want to pick on poor Amanda, but I do think I would’ve had her assassinated. It’s for the greater good. Or perhaps I am just too merciless. Anyway, Grace takes the more diplomatic route and tries to convince Amanda not to go public since it could possibly cause mass chaos and people rioting in the streets.
As Grace leaves, we see that an assassin has been trailing either Grace or Amanda. The assassin calls Rayburn, who is in the Oval Office with Bennett. Rayburn seems to give an order to kill Amanda.
Back at Tanz Industries, Liam and Jillian find out that they have both passed the genetic screens. So have Harris and Grace. However, Darius has a big red “disqualified” stamp on his file. Hmmm… I wonder whether it’s more of a psych eval than genetics, since Darius is an eccentric billionaire and they all have their quirks.
Thanks to Grace’s help, artificial intelligence Tess is able to trace that the gravity tractor is being controlled by the U.S.S. Pike, an aircraft carrier sailing off the coast of Florida. However, as Tess is reporting this information, the computer program appears to have a meltdown. It is being hacked. Probably by Resyst.
Harris sneaks up on his friend from the Naval Academy (from last episode) who was the head secret service agent for former President MacKenzie. Harris holds him at gunpoint and demands to know more information about MacKenzie’s death. The friend promises to take Harris to the body if Harris puts away his gun.
Harris’ friend brings him to a nuclear bunker where MacKenzie is alive but in serious condition on life support. The stroke was induced by mercury poisoning. Dr. Rasmussen thinks MacKenzie can make a reasonable recovery in time. Harris tries to convince his Naval Academy friend to help “reinstall” MacKenzie as president. His friend says that Bennett’s people are too strong. Before they reinstall MacKenzie, they need to be able to prove who tried to kill her.
Darius is forced to shut down Tess.
The assassin arrives at Capitol Eyes newsroom and shoots Amanda and her boss. Capitol Eyes is torched. However, Amanda survived and presses the “send” button on her keyboard to a story which will seemingly make Project Samson public. I have to say, this is very sloppy work by the assassin. Furthermore, where does Rayburn find these assassins? One is killed by Grace, and the other utterly fails? Sad!
And now we head into the season finale. I will be tied up next week and the recap for the finale will likely be delayed. Apologies in advance. Let’s see how they wrap up the season and how much of a cliffhanger they leave for a potential season 2.
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