Nikita – Season 2, Episode 1 – by The Hudsonian
**This episode originally aired in September 2011. If you are unfamiliar with the series, turn away to avoid spoilers, or bleeding corneas.**
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, you’re right. This is the 2nd review we’ve published of this episode. Not 1 but 2 of our contributors have fearlessly leapt into this series, and although the right thing would have been to only run 1 of the reviews we’re just so stunned by this kind of lovin’ that we going with them both. What does this say about NIKITA? What does it say about us?
I’ll spare you the catching up section of the Season One finale, and simply refer you to The Thinking Man’s post on the episode.
And now, for another love-fest about this kick ass TV show:
The intro leads Nikita into an underground craps game, where she’s assisted by Michael in looting the place to pay for their next operation. What we may not have seen coming? Alex traces her every move.
Alex now works with Division (not for) in an exchange of assets. Alex offers her skills to help retrieve one of the missing black boxes, and Amanda – the new head of Division – will help Alex in taking down Semak, the man who now leads her father’s company, Zetrov.
The main operation is to free Tony Merrick from federal prison who has information that could expose a dirty operation Division covered up. Michael frees Merrick, only to find out that he didn’t want to be freed, and never said anything because the life of his now adult son was threatened.
Blows are exchanged in the Nikita and Michael crusade against Division, going as far as Nikita breaking Alex’s arm and shooting her in the leg – some would call that tough love – and ultimately leading to Merrick’s exoneration, and a member of the Oversight team taking his own life instead of facing charges of treason.
But where are some of the supporting characters that dazzled us from Season One?
Percy’s greed and need to exert his power over everyone put him in a peculiar position – on the outside looking in. He’s being contained in a Division holding cell, complete with open glass and even visitation. Granted, those visits are from Amanda, who still feels the need to pick his identic memory for hints on how Nikita will proceed, but hey, it’s human contact, right?
Birkhoff makes for the grandest of reentrances, sending attack drones to rescue his trapped friends as Michael and Nikita are surrounded by Division agents, led by new face, Sean (more on him later). Once secured, he lets them know that he’s in this to make sure Division doesn’t get ahold of his riches, since he spent years pilfering accounts to load up.
A couple of new faces emerge here. Sean is sent from Oversight, the governing body responsible for creating Division, to oversee the transition from Percy to Amanda, and to ensure that there won’t be a similar situation. Sonya plays the new Birkhoff, Division’s personal computer hacker. She mainly just takes orders from Amanda, but will soon have a bigger role in this uber-awesome spy saga.
Nikita picks up where it left off, with action out of the gate, coupled with great storytelling and exploring how relationships are affected in this line of work. It pulls it off brilliantly, and if you don’t find it as riveting as I do, Nikita may just kick your ass.
And that’s one chick you do NOT want to mess with.
