Afterlife 1x03 'Twin'

by Jon Nyqvist

As Jonathan is relentlessly hunted by Raven thugs, memories of his past life resurface. Memories of a sister who taught him a valuable lesson.

It's a fantastically-written series that displays a real flair for snappy dialogue and balletically-choreographed fight sequences, and is doing a good job of juggling the two very different sides of its premise with flashbacks to the ultra-moden 'real' world alongside a more traditional fantasy setting. With two excellent lead characters who can both carry a show single-handed if needed, let's hope Afterlife keeps up the momentum of its two great opening episodes as we settle into the season.

A touching opening moment, focusing on Jonathan's funeral, is rudely broken by a more slapstick Breakfast Club homage, as Jonathan falls through a straw roof and finds himself in someone's house - and an armed mob closing in outside. Jonathan cracks a customary joke as a dozen goons burst in and surround him, and things do not look good for our kung fu hero...

Act I takes us back in time four years to Jonathan's apartment as he wakes for a new day. His spartan living quarters tell us a lot about him - namely that he doesn't give much of a toss about life's little luxuries. Slurping apple juice from the barren fridge, he takes a phone call from his girlfriend Joan, who already seems far too good for the likes of him. A nice shot of Jonathan spacing out whilst taking a shower leads into Jonathan meeting his twin sister Jenny, who remarks on his unemployed status ('Aah,' we say, as the dingy apartment starts to make sense), and that Jonathan appears to still be keeping up with his Jeet Kun Do lessons despite not having a job. His sister appears to be involved in some kind of unsavoury business that has Jonathan worried about her, but she's confident she can stay ahead of the cops. Can you say Dramatic Irony, kids? Back in the Afterlife, and the setting of Silver City no less, Jon is on the run from the goons he was last seen throwing down with. There's a cracking moment as he dodges a hail of crossbow bolts on their way up and down, before he flips a thug over a rooftop, grabbing his sword as he does, and facing down another goon who chooses to jump rather than take on our hero's Neo-like fighting talents. Jon takes a hit at last, and as he falls we cut back to the past, with Jon out on his date with Joan. He's obviously having to swallow his pride a lot to keep her sweet, not something he's comfortable doing, and we end the Act on another of his forced smiles. It's not a great point at which to end the Act, though, given the teriffic fight still raging in the Afterlife.

Act II opens with a man stranded on a rooftop in a flooded city, water rising all around. A mysterious woman wreathed in shadow approaches him - and then falls into the water, and try as he might Jon can't get to her before she's sucked away. As a wall of water hits our helpless hero, he wakes up - back in the past. Jon's in bed with Joan, waking her up with his freaky dreams, but his sister Jenny is having an equally interesting evening - she's doing her cat burglar thing over on the wealthy side of town. Jenny proves she's an experienced hand at this thievery business when a security guard's stray cigarette burns her but she still stays silent, before she sneaks into a bedroom and discovers a safe behind a hidden painting. Even she appreciates the cliche here. She's about to leave when she hears a piercing scream ring out, and against her better judgement she goes back to investigate despite having a clear exit. Jenny peeks in on a woman being tortured in one of the mansion's rooms, with none other than Aurora's mentor Lynn looking in on her. The unfortunate captive is being interrogated, but a bullet from Lynn ends the conversation. Jenny gasps and is spotted, taking a bullet as she vaults over a pair of guards to escape. Lynn promises a swift end for the unlucky burglar, and that's where we end Act II.

Back in Silver City for Act III, Jonathan takes down another of the thugs on his trail but finds a wanted poster with his name on it in the goon's pocket. Uh oh. Back in the flashback past, a gloomy Jonathan clearly feels like Joan isn't the one for him, as she shoots down his daydreams of doing something interesting with his life (like, say, jumping out of a plane). The couple head out for a party, just missing Jenny, who breaks into Jon's apartment nursing a bullet wound from her attempted robbery earlier in the evening. Jon and Joan arrive at the party, a bash held at a huge mansion by millionaire Daniel Marking, which Jonathan doesn't appear to be looking forward to all that much. Joan sashays off with Daniel leaving Jon to find his way to the bathroom, before we get a nice cross-cut from Daniel's pristine white bathroom to Jenny, busy digging the bullet out of her side. At the mansion, Jonathan barges back into Daniel's private party, tells the smug rich boy exactly what he thinks of him and then gets himself thrown out - now that's the Jonathan we're more used to. As one chase begins in the past, we're back with the Silver City Free For All, as Jon reaches the edge of the forest and then remembers that there are things lurking in there with a taste for human flesh... Diana pops up again, the Number Six to his Baltar, and warns Jonathan not to jump into the darkness - again. Hmm! A bit of a cryptic bit, that one. It's followed by a vision of something nasty which convinces Jon to head back to the city - and it's lights out as the thugs catch him at last.

In a neat bit of match cutting (which has happened several times this episode, and to good effect), Act IV opens with a punch as well, but now we're back in the past as Daniel and his boys teach Jonathan a lesson. Meanwhile, Lynn appears to be on Jenny's trail, but now she has Jonathan's name, and the net appears to be closing in! Seems that the lives of Jonathan and Aurora are more interwoven than either of them realise, which should make for some good stuff later on in the season. Lynn listens to the message Jenny left for Jon (with a neat moment as he leaves Daniel and his goons out cold at the mansion), and it makes for quite a touching montage as Jenny tells Jon she has to leave him, 'just like everyone does.' I'm assured we haven't seen the last of Jenny, which is A Good Thing as far as I'm concerned. We end the episode with Jonathan in the dungeons of Raven Hill - a prisoner of Trias!

So that's episode III. Not bad, but uneven in terms of structure and pacing. Nyqvist still demonstrates an excellently visual flair to his writing, with the match cut scenes and the choreography of the action sequences as entertaining as ever, but the split nature of the story is a little unsatisfying. Jonathan's time in the Afterlife consists solely of running, fighting and then getting caught, and after three episodes it's only Aurora who's done anything to push the Afterlife half of this show's story forward. Jonathan's an excellent character but he hasn't really been given anything to do. That said, the flashback story is an engaging one, bringing in an appealing character in Jenny and giving us some much-needed backstory on Jon himself. So while this episode is a little wonky in terms of what it's trying to do, there's enough here to make it still worth the read. Afterlife needs to balance the two sides of itself more evenly, though - perhaps less focus on flashbacks for now, because the environment of the Afterlife itself is still very underdeveloped. We should have a clearer idea of what's going on by this stage.

ZPM RATING: