A Quiet Life, finally gets that seeing another weird world is not the interesting part of this show anymore and thats something after season 1 I was asking myself like ok all Jason are unlocked, Multiverse activated now what?, really what matters is what all that jumping already did to Jason, Daniela and Charlie now that they think they found somewhere to stop running. Seven months in and the family has jobs, school, an actual house, enough routine to almost look normal, except they are still using safe words and keeping a gun close, and I like that the show does not treat that as paranoid for nothing. Another Jason finds Daniela and this is where the episode earns something from me, because he is not some random threat she can shoot and move on from, he believes he belongs with her, he remembers marrying her before his path split off from the Jason we know. She gives him the chance to accept she already picked her Jason, he refuses, and she shoots him, and what got me is the show lets that sit with her afterward instead of acting like she is fine killing a man with the face and memories of her own husband. That is a better reason to keep this multiverse story going than just handing Jason another door to walk through, it is about what all this jumping is doing to the people who have to live with it.
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19231492/
- Platform: APPLE TV
Charlie Is Done Paying for Choices He Never Made
Charlie is the part of the the Dessen family plot that pushes A Quiet Life and Im sure its going to be a denominator for the rest of the season on, because he is done paying for choices he never made, I would even bet he will stay in a world even when their parents leave if he has the chance as he seems tired of this entire situation. The quiet life falls apart once the dead Jason gets connected to their address and a cop figures out what happened regarding the murder not the Box, so the family runs again and what matters more than the escape is what happens once Charlie realizes another home is gone. He had started building something there and now he is back in the box because some other version of his father would not take no from Daniela. Charlie finally says out loud they will never be safe and I think he is right based on everything this family has been through. Jason has no way of knowing how many versions of himself are still out there looking for Daniela and Charlie, and that is what makes him change what he is trying to do, he wants one world that can become permanent and then he wants to destroy the box completely but still makes me wonder why he havent yet? I doubt its because he doesnt know how to but might be that deep inside he doesnt want to, the Box is something so unique. On one side you got him as a father trying to get control back, even though the episode gives you reasons to doubt destroying one box fixes anything or even that he will really destroy the box. I didnt like the first short trips through a world hit with violent weather and another crawling with electronic surveillance because it was like crumbs, but still shows how hard finding that permanent home will actually be, the techy world was very creepy too.
Ryan and Amanda Have the Opposite Problem
Then there is the Ryan and Amanda plot, which adds way more because their problem is basically the opposite of the original Jason's: not danger, but comfort, even though at first they find their way into this world, they know they do not belong there and felt betrayed by one of Jason's version. They have become part of a world that looks safer, kinder and more advanced than anywhere else in this show, but neither belongs there. Jason 2 left Ryan there and he found his sister even though the Ryan from that world had already died years earlier, and Amanda stayed there after traveling with Jason 1. I like putting these two together because they can talk about the multiverse without a long explanation, and they both know what it feels like to live inside somebody elses version of a good life, the simplest words to put it as Ryan said "its like nobody really fuck", they are just too passive. Ryan even rebuilds the compound needed for box travel, but then the city move the box after treating it like an art piece, which Amanda thinks broke the connection, leaving Ryan frustrated to accept he could be stuck there. This aspect of the story when you think about it makes things way more interesting as the world is not some hidden disaster, the problem is that being comfortable somewhere does not mean it feels like it is yours, and their conversation about how weirdly polite everyone there creates and shows even more discomfort and becaomes easy to understand without the show inventing some evil secret hidden, basically he world is too perfect for people who have been through a lot more like them. I liked that Jason and his family briefly land in a world Jason thinks he has visited before and decides right away it will not work for them, because I think what the show is already telling us is that eventually Amanda and Jason will see each other again..
Leighton and MacNamara Make the Episode Feel Crowded
The third and fourth team that come into the story are Leighton and Mitchel MacNamara, and I only wonder when they all colide at some point and who is going to be on whose side. The show gives us Leighton and the new investigation back in Chicago, parts I care about least right now, but both are here to make this season feel bigger than just Jason looking for a house. A Jason variant getting questioned by Mitchel MacNamara is a good reminder that you cannot have identical men showing up dead or in custody without somebody official noticing eventually. MacNamara says he is not police or FBI, brings up black sites, and threatens to cut open the Jasons who will not cooperate, which gets the surviving copy to give up information about Jason 2, and thats really interesting because it makes me think MacNamara doesnt know about the Multiverse and might be especulating that they are Aliens. Leighton is no necesarly a stranger to me since season 1 gave us a bit out of his character but maybe he will become more promising during this season, the injured CEO version finds a version of himself who teaches meditation because he wants help controlling his own mind and using the box better, part of the mechanics of the box is that it connects with the one inside and their feelings so every world is an image of their mental state of the moment, and I like that he is not trying to steal somebody elses life, he wants to work with himself and use the box for good across different worlds or at least thats what he says right now. I am not ready to trust that just because he says it, especially with Velocity hanging over him, but it is a different approach to the same power everyone is fighting over. My problem with both sections is they feel like introductions more than developments, and the episode just moves on. I get why both exist but this is where the episode starts to feel crowded, four groups moving in four directions and only the Dessen family getting enough time to feel like something changed.
A Quiet Life Is Mostly Setup, but It Gives Season 2 a Reason to Exist
I really enjoy A Quiet Life because it has all the elements of a first season episode, with the flashbacks and small explanations of how things have evolve but the one thing I didnt like is that it feels too crowded. I like most of what it sets up but I do not think the episode gives everything enough room to feel satisfying on its own yet. The Dessen family gets the strongest chunk because something actually changes, their attempt at settling down fails, Daniela has to live with killing another Jason, Charlie says what everybody has been avoiding, and Jason decides finding a home is not enough unless he can destroy the box after. Ryan and Amanda have a quieter problem I want to see keep going because their good world still does not feel like home to either of them, Leighton found a version of himself who might help him control the box instead of fearing it, and MacNamara now knows these identical Jasons are not a normal criminal case. There is a lot here that could matter later, I just think the episode spends so much time putting these people into position that a few parts stop right when they start getting interesting. That keeps it from feeling like a comeback episode but it does make me want to see what happens next, and the show now has a reason to keep going that is not just about adding stranger worlds and more versions of Jason fighting for the same family. Jason, Daniela and Charlie are trying to stop running, Ryan and Amanda are figuring out what home means when a good world still is not theirs, and Leighton wants to learn to control the box instead of fearing it. Those are decent problems for this season that in my opinion has enough episodes, 10 in total; to properly develop them all, and even though Episode 1: A Quiet Life is mostly setup, it points toward enough trouble ahead that I am still interested in where this goes, Season 1 was explosive after each episode and I got the feeling Season 2 will be the same if not better, I gave this episode a 7.5/10 only because it felt crowded.
Rating: 75/100
Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.