by Brian L. Lamkin
Tensions rise between Gabe and Dominic as questions linger about their relationship and where it's headed. Jacob becomes insistent that Gabe make a decision about what's going on between them, and Sam becomes concerned that Gabe might be making the wrong choice.
Back with Pathways, the popular drama series that boasts an array of well-rounded characters but some frustratingly slow-moving plots this far in. There's lots of good stuff in the offing here, so the show just needs to start kicking some of this development into gear now.
We open in the Bronze - sorry, the Blaze - with Gabe and Dom enjoying a quiet night out. Together, for a change, instead of being all sneaky and stuff. But what's this? Gabe was somewhere else last night (as we know, out with new boy Jacob), and had a worried Dom calling round all his friends trying to find him. As someone who's been in a similar situation myself, I know that the fallout from this is that all of your friends now know you were missing, and you have to become much more careful about your story because there's an exponential number of people who need to be told it! Anyway. After the awkwardness of that encounter, Gabe heads home and has another butting of heads with Parker, but even though he gets away with it this time it seems like Gabe's luck is going to run out very soon indeed.
Act I opens with a family breakfast - Anna knows Gabe's been stopping out late but seems to be treading that fine line between caution and freedom with Gabe. By letting him get away with a bit of youthful rebellion, she knows it'll stop him going too far off the deep end again - like, say, running away to Miami. At school, Gabe sits with Sam, Mark and Julie, only for Alanna to swing by and drag Mark off for drama stuff. Julie seems to think Alanna's got it in for her, but her paranoid rambling about it doesn't do her any favours, much less her barbed comment to Gabe about Dominic which gives him cause to get up and walk off, doing the 'you hurt my feelings but you're my friend so I won't say anything... yet' dance. Alanna and Mark are doing some acting exercises, and we get another hint to the enigma that is Alanna Cooper - her family has enough money to 'pretend they don't exist.' Witness Protection? The plot thickens indeed! Kaia gets sent to see a new teacher because she's clearly not giving two craps about her schoolwork, and Gabe and Jacob have another little chat in the newspaper office. Jacob surprised me by coming right out and basically telling Gabe that they're an item - they met, what, last week? - and that he needs to make a decision on what he wants to do. Okay, woah. Stop a second. They've been on one date! Jacob doesn't have any right to start making demands on Gabe this early, and Gabe backing down and letting Jacob push him around was particularly infuriating. However - this feels like purposeful character direction here. I think we're supposed to feel Jacob's being unfair, because this rapid turn of plot feels way too jarring otherwise and I know Lamkin's a better writer than that! A point proven as he throws in a final surprise to close the act - Sam heard the whole thing.
Act II has Sam stressing to Charlie about what he should do next. Go public? Stay quiet? Have a quiet word with Gabe? He's got no idea, and as Gabe and Dom have an awkward lunch where Dom says he thinks things are moving too fast, it's clear nobody else has any idea either. There's a sweet moment with Alanna and Mark as she tries to assuage his fears about the shifting dynamics of his friendship group, but over with Parker and Julie it's clear there's another side to Alanna. We already know this from the agressive message she left Parker last week, but now Julie's feeling the heat as well. Gabe slinks back home, but Anna's not there to shout at him, just reassure him that he can always talk to her when he needs to. Gabe slopes off to bed, and we close Act II. As you can tell from the short paragraph, not much happened in this Act, but more on that later.
Act III has Dom asking for Sam's help in figuring out what's bothering Gabe, but Sam does his best to dodge out of it before meeting the others for lunch, bemoaning the potentially explosive situation he now finds himself in. Julie's more concerned with the fact that he talked to Charlie first, but Sam stresses that they need to have some kind of intervention with Gabe to find out what the heck's going on. Mark draws the short fry and has to be the one to go speak to Gabe. D'oh! Alanna and Julie have a confrontation at the bus stop, with Alanna confirming that yes, she's Parker's ex, but lies to Julie and says she's a long way over Parker now. Julie is rightfully suspicious and storms off in typical Julie-ish indignation. Mark shows up at Gabe's place to try and speak to him about what's going on, but Gabe throws down the Righteous Indignation card, not confirming or denying any of Mark's claims and instead herding Mark out of his room.
Act IV opens with Parker and Alanna finally meeting face to face, and Alanna's not at all happy about the face off she had with Julie, telling Parker to sort his woman out. Hints here that Alanna knows Parker's bisexual and that this was what split them up, which is interesting, and also gives Alanna a HUGE amount of power over Parker, given that she could easily destroy his whole life in Crestview with a few carefully-released facts. Seems she's building up a friendship with Mark for some more sinister purpose now too! Nice juxtaposition at the end of the scene, with Parker calling Julie 'harmless' as we cut to the incensed Julie getting angry over Gabe's actions earlier. Thing is, Dominic shows up as the trio try to figure it out - and then so does Gabe. He storms off (again) and Dom chases after him, but as Gabe echoes Dom's own words and asks for some space, Dom twigs that there's another guy and stomps off, leaving Gabe to muse over how he just screwed up a good thing...
A better episode, but still plagued by Pathways' usual problems - too many things going on at once and very uneven story development. Jacob's sudden arrival last week and the breakup this week feels like it's happened far too quickly. I'd like to give Lamkin the benefit of the doubt here, but as the episode went on it didn't feel like this fast pace of this story worked the way he wanted it to. So we'll just have to see how it goes. The short scenes here were another complaint - it was hard to get into the swing of any of the stories because we spent so little time with each one, jumping from location to location. Lamkin works best when he has enough room to bounce his characters off each other, building up a good rapport (and the Sam/Mark/Julie scenes here are best for that), but all too often we cut from one scene just as you're settling in, and the whole episode feels very choppy as a result. Some plots are unravelling nice and slowly (Alanna being the main point of interest), but the show's need to feature every one of its regulars in every episode means you get a lot of unecessary little scenes that interrupt the flow, and also leave less room to spend time on the main plots of each episode. That may be the show's style, I'll have to read Season One to be sure, but so far I'm finding that Pathways needs to start focusing on one or two stories a week instead of trying to advance forward about five.
ZPM RATING:
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