‘Awake’ Recap (Season 1, Episode 10): Should I Stay Or Should I Go

On this week’s Awake, a double murder is not what it seems, and Hannah makes a bid for grandmother rights.

In the red world, Michael and Hannah are still in shock from discovering that Emma’s pregnant with their grandchild, and Hannah thinks they should reconsider the move. Meanwhile an old nemesis of Michael’s, drug and arms dealer Sampson Trujillo, is back in town, but with only three days left in town Michael’s been taken off the case and Chief Harper’s given it to Vega. Speaking of Harper, her mysterious associate Carl makes it clear to her that he can’t move the last Westfield shipment of heroin until Michael’s out of town, and if he’s still in LA three days from now, he’s going to “take care of him.”

Meanwhile in the green world, Michael and Bird investigate the murder of Dion Driggs, a drug dealer living in a rough neighborhood. Dion’s video game session had been interrupted by a robbery, at which time he’d been shot. On the way out of the building, Dion’s octogenarian neighbor Maya King was was shot. The landlord, Curtis Wilson, laments that she’d lived there for decades and should have moved out long ago. Michael and Bird find Dion’s stolen video games in a pawn shop, but this leads them back to a homeless man who found them in a trash. So why would would the intruder kill a guy for his stuff only to chuck it in a dumpster?

In the red world, Michael and Hannah meet with Emma’s parents, to discuss what role they’ll have in their grandchild’s life. Hannah even offers to adopt the kid, but Emma’s parents say she wants a closed adoption. Hannah senses that Emma’s letting her parents control her and prevent her from making the decisions, so the next day she confronts Emma at her job. But it goes badly and Emma accuses Hannah of making this all about her. Hannah calls Michael in tears, distressed that she miscalculated so badly.

Meanwhile Vega’s successfully busted Trujillo, but when his house appears on the news Michael notes how much it resembles the box art from one of Dion’s games. So in the green world, Michael takes Dion’s game for a spin. Soon he gets a message from one of Dion’s gamer friends, and discovers that on the day of the shooting, Dion heard a gunshot then paused the game but never came back. So wait, Maya King was shot first? Was she the real target? Michael and Bird learn that many of Maya’s friends from the old days live in the same nursing home. It turns out that Curtis Wilson, the landlord, was paying for care to get rid of all the rent control tenants so he could sell the block.

So Wilson would have had a motive to get rid of Maya, but he has an alibi, so he must have hired someone. With some phone wizardry, Bird tracks down junkie parolee Milo Owens, who admits his guilt under pressure. In exchange for leniency he agrees to wear a wire and help Michael and Bird peg Wilson with the crime. His erratic behavior almost jeopardizes the whole thing, but in the end he gets a recording of Wilson admitting to hiring Milo. Busted.

In the red world, Emma turns up at the Britten’s door, having realized how right Emma was. Her parents are freaked out and mad at the Brittens, and won’t let her stay under their roof, so the Brittens take her in. Hannah wonders if she made a huge mistake, but Michael says she’s the only one who did the right thing. Ultimately, this makes Hannah call off the move to Portland.

At Michael’s going-away party, he tells Harper that he’s staying, and Harper makes some great faces in response to this. Then they come home and watch an X-files marathon with Emma, not realizing the danger they’re all in from the mysterious Carl.

While the green world case this week was a bit predictable, it did offer some amusing scenes with Michael trying to operate a video game console, and the writers continue to give a lot of great material to the bit players in the procedural drama. This is still one of the best aspects of the show. The pregnancy storyline also ends up visiting some pretty predictable places, but the show’s emotional intelligence makes it work in the end.

The Westfield conspiracy continues to confuse me: contrary to established conspiracy logic which dictates that conspiracies always go deeper than you think, this one might actually be on the shallow side. Apparently Carl’s primary interest is cocaine, not alternate realities. This is fine with me, because as I’ve said multiple times (and I know I’m not the only viewer who feels this way), examining the underlying reality of Michael’s situation doesn’t seem fruitful at this point. I’d rather just keep enjoying the simple stories and little emotional moments that the show does so well.

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