As The Tomorrow People mythology continues to expand, it’s increasingly finding a unique path amongst its many influences. Tonight’s episode explores how the characters’ powers began to emerge, and offers some insight into their varied approaches to humanity: while they’re all in opposition to the evil Ultra, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily serving one unified idea of the common good.
A Dark Past
We cold open five years in the past, with a young Cara warding off a sexual assault through the discovery of her telekinesis. Apparently she was born deaf, but developed speech based on her latent ability to read minds.
Stephen, in the present day, is developing his own telepathy, eavesdropping on the inner thoughts of his peers at a high school party. He’s struck by one particularly troubling thought: his acquaintance Emily, who has her own mental issues, is seemingly considering suicide in 48 hours.
Nobody else seems to be particularly sympathetic toward Stephen’s concerns: Cara tells him that they should never interfere in human affairs, while Jedikiah largely agrees — Cara has little sympathy for humans, and Jedikiah is worried that revealing the existence of paranormals would start a war. It seems that the Tomorrow People are bit more Brotherhood of Mutants than they are X-Men.
Saved
Cara has some issues of her own, as the memory of her assault and the ensuing ordeal begins to affect her work performance. It’s later revealed that she accidentally killed her attacker, that her father had sent her away as a result, and that it had happened at roughly this time of year. This leads Cara to nearly botch a mission with Stephen, as she goes silent on him while guiding him through a restricted area.
It’s in that spirit of carelessness that Cara is soon abducted by Ultra. As the man on the inside, Stephen negotiates her release by promising to personally inject her with the power-removing chemical stuff. At the last second, however, he manages another time-stop, enabling him to switch it out with saline injections.
With Cara safe and her powers intact, she agrees to finally help Stephen’s friend Emily. Emily had gone missing and was trying to get hit by a train, but Cara teleports over to talk her off the tracks. Stephen stands nearby watching for some reason, and is subsequently spotted teleporting by Astrid. I guess that’s the price you pay for altruism — or rather, that’s the price you pay for taking a bunch of sloppy risks all the time.
Though I confess myself a bit frustrated by the constant bucking of procedure — why do all the most emotionally compromised people have all the responsibility? — this was a great bit of world-building tonight. It hadn’t really occurred to me that the Tomorrow People were actively opposed to serving humanity, but I like the idea that Stephen is the catalyst for that changing. Nobody’s really using their powers for crime-fighting at this point, and it seems like Stephen will be this world’s first Superhero.
The Tomorrow People airs Wednesdays at 9pm on the CW.
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(Image courtesy of the CW)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
