Watching Taken the Miniseries (part 3)

Unlike the first two episodes, there isn’t a huge time gap between the end of Jacob and Jesse and the start of High Hopes. We continue to watch Jacob and Jesse grow up with their unique experiences in relation to the alien visitors. Jacob is looked after by them, protected, and even given a warning to stop using his powers or he could die. Jesse, however, is still mercilessly pursued by them just as his father once was to the point that it’s interfering with his life.

While the effect the aliens had on Russell destroyed his marriage and damaged his life for many years, it also brought him and Jesse closer together than they probably would have been before. Their relationship is nontraditional. Their bond is based on their shared experiences that they can only discuss with one another. The rest of the world sees them as delusional, but they know the truth. They go to great lengths to protect each other. Jesse proves to be incredibly brave, if not a bit too trusting of people he really shouldn’t be trusting.  Really, this episode is Jesse’s episode and we learn the true depths of his character, including both his positive and negative traits.

We also see that even though being taken by the aliens on a regular basis has its downs (it’s invasive, causes people to think you’re crazy, and generally destroys your life), it’s not entirely without it’s benefit. As long as you are of interest to them, they will protect you. They don’t want anything happening to their experiments. So say you get trapped in a bunker at a government base with no way out. Well, they’ll swing by and pick you up, no worries. They might prod you a bit afterwards, though.

Meanwhile, Jacob is on the run not from the aliens, but from Crawford’s men. Last episode we saw the Clarke siblings smuggle him off to a special school, but his cover didn’t last long there. By the end of the episode he’s been swept away again and placed in hiding in Vancouver. Only now his batteries are dead, so to speak.  For all intents and purposes he’s human now, with just some unusual DNA.

And, of course, we have the Crawford family. Ah, the Crawford’s. Even though Owen Crawford has been featured heavily in all three episodes so far and knows far more about what’s going on than either the Keys family or the Clarke family, I haven’t yet featured a picture of him yet. I really really hate that guy so looking at his face long enough to get a screen grab is just painful. But he is an important character and drives much of the plot so I bit the bullet and took a shot.

Damn I hate Owen Crawford. So so much. But really if you like Owen Crawford something is probably deeply wrong with you.

So anyway, now the Crawford family is down one member. Anne knew too much and paid the price for it. I mean I guess Owen apologized before he brutally murdered her in cold blood, so that’s something. I guess. But not really.

Damn, I hate that guy. The only positive thing I have to say about him is that he’s really really good at being an evil jerk. Like, top notch work, dude. Grade A evil.

TAKEN REVIEWS

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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