Colony recap: Geronimo

I’ve said it multiple times before: Colony works best when it focuses on the human relationships of the show, rather than the alien mythology premise. (Are there even aliens? Maybe the aliens are the ones hoarding all the coffee. Who knows?!) And we got that focus in spades tonight from Will and his family, to power-hungry Snyder, to Will’s kids. But as tonight’s episode was titled “Geronimo,” there was also a large focus on, obviously, the “man behind the curtain”: the larger-than-life leader giving the Resistance hope and the Collaborators a headache, the leader that may not be so large after all.

Will gets a rude awakening way too early thanks to Katie deciding to work on the house because Katie’s suffering from anxiety and PTSD and probably everything else that comes with watching someone get shot and reevaluating all your life choices. They’re interrupted by Beau, who comes with coffee and also bad news: Phyllis and her husband were shot in their home in the Green Zone. Although he assumes he’s speaking to Will in private, Katie listens in on the conversation and starts to put her own pieces together — after all, she was the one who pointed out Will’s boss to her friends. Will meets up with Jennifer at the scene of the crime, where they find the word GEROMINO painted on the wall. “This is very bad,” says Snyder when he shows up. Yes, Snyder. It is.

Will’s theory is that Geronimo lives in the Green Zone because how else could someone have easily gotten access to Phyllis? Snyder wants them to find him; no sooner does he give his order than does Jennifer receive a call that they’ve caught one of Geronimo’s guys: a kid who was caught by Red Hats at the beginning of the episode after putting up posters and trying to hide the evidence. Will, being the good dad that he is, takes the opportunity to give the kid another chance by asking him for information, namely who gave him the posters he was putting up. Will and the Red Hats ambush a Green Zone house off this information, assuming it’s where Geronimo is living. They don’t find anyone, not until Will notices a movie poster that hides a secret door that leads to a hideout filled with Geronimo propaganda. I mean, a TON of propaganda: There are radios, posters, a typewriter…the works. They also find two kids, who seem terrified, but they claim they’re Geronimo.

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Meanwhile, Katie calls Broussard and tells him about Phyllis. (I kind of think he already knows, Katie.) She expresses her anxiety that she didn’t know she was helping with something like this, but Broussard’s response is tactical: “Her job was to erase us. Our job was to not let that happen.” The way all the threads are tangled in this world are interesting: It’s technically the Resistance who killed Phyllis, but it’s a clever ruse to paint Geronimo as the enemy who is responsible in order to get the attention off them. Katie listens later to an announcement from the Occupational Authority (a.k.a. Snyder) saying Geronimo’s headquarters were breached. Snyder, predictably, is making a big, showy deal of the victory, including using phrases like, “the selfish forces of terror have been defeated!” In reality, Snyder’s not happy when he finds out “Geronimo” are two kids who aren’t even connected to any kind of terrorist group. Because the thing is, Geronimo (if we’re not being duped) isn’t the huge deal people think. He’s kind of like the Wizard of Oz; he’s kind of like Jacob from Lost; he’s kind of like the magical spring with the cork in it. So why did the kids do it? “We had something more powerful than guns. We had the power to get inside people’s heads.” Your move, Snyder.

NEXT: Two players, two sides. One is light, one is dark.

Will approaches Snyder about his deal, but being that Geronimo is just a bunch of hipster kids, Snyder refuses to follow through. So, yeah, no deal. But Will needs to help him because now that Phyllis is dead, he’s in charge of the units. Will needs help finding the real terrorists, so brings Jennifer into the office because he knows they have a leak and he thinks she’s the reason Phyllis is dead. That sets Jennifer off, and she tells Will that Phyllis had suspicions about Katie being Resistance, which of course Will is quick to refute. But when Will goes home later that day and talks to the tutor, asking her about the house fire, he becomes slightly more worried. Katie finds him snooping around the bar by himself later, and like Broussard, she has to pretend to be shocked by hearing (again) that Phyllis is dead. Will wants to know more about the conversation between Katie and Phyllis, and Katie tells him she wanted to know about their marriage and life together.

This seems to satiate Will for a bit, but he eventually returns back to the bar and finds the metal box hidden in the back room — the one that Katie keeps everything in, including the three-run walk-off ball from Charlie that she lied to Will about having found at the house after the fire. He calls Jennifer back into the office later for a drink and apologizes for accusing her of being disloyal; Jennifer, meanwhile, isn’t too happy about the fact that Phyllis was more secretive than she realized about her personal life. The quiet moment allows them both to bond, and for the first time, we find out more about Jennifer, including the fact that she was engaged to an ER doctor. As it turns out, their wedding was cut short after the Arrival, when he was killed in the first big terrorist bomb. When Jennifer was introduced at the beginning of the series with little fanfare, I figured she would be a one-note character that would blend into the background as Phyllis’ right-hand woman. But tonight, we learned that her tough exterior is just that: a tough exterior. And being able to see her make that connection with Will and show that small amount of humanity makes her a little more likable. Well done, Colony. You played your cards close with this one, and I think it worked. (And I’d never want to break up Will and Katie, but I could totally be on board for a Will and Jennifer friendship. And whiskey nights.)

But back to Snyder — he’s currently trying to cover his butt with the knowledge that Geronimo wasn’t so much a terrorist as he was a propagandist. To fix that, he turns to Not!Geronimo, a.k.a. Luis Ortega (Felix Solis) who was captured last week. Snyder offers him a deal: He needs to prove that his bloc is under control, so if Luis helps him out and pretends he’s Geronimo for show purposes, he’ll help him get to another colony instead of going to the Factory. So begins pulling back the curtain on what is a complete smoke-and-mirrors game: Snyder holds a trial with Luis as the face of everyone’s problems, calling up all kinds of witnesses, from old women to little kids. When the verdict is finally revealed (he’s guilty, obviously), Luis realizes he’s been had because we all know Snyder doesn’t care in the least about human life when it comes to protecting his own. I never liked Snyder to begin with, but as I watched this poor man get hanged, I realized just how much I disliked him.

The episode ends with Snyder asking Will to come with him so he can meet someone while Katie and the Resistance head out on their own — with Broussard posing as a Red Hat. It’s an ending that’s ominous, that doesn’t quite tie up all its loose ends, but an ending that also teases something big is on the horizon. And I’m not talking about aliens.

Bacon Bits:

• So Bram’s girlfriend has been outside the wall 11 times, which is kind of crazy. (Also, I would absolutely steal that Hazelnut Specialty Blend.) Now that Bram has a way to get “luxury” items, he can do things like bring his sister markers and help Mr. Carson with his telescope. Something tells me this isn’t going to end well for Bram, but I don’t know who’s going to have it worse at this point: the kids or their parents.
• Being a dedicated Lost fan, my eyes immediately picked up on the fact that Will very deliberately paused to look at the book Katie had in her box: Nostromo by Joseph Conrad. I’m not going to Wiki-dive into this like my esteemed colleague Doc Jensen, but I will note that Nostromo is a politically based novel and story about a society (and individuals) who are affected by a harmful government. Sounds a little bit like what we’re experiencing in Colony, huh?
• Bets on how long it is before Will breaks? Between his conflict over Katie, Snyder’s backpedaling on his deal, his son’s secrets, and the Geronimo girl telling him he’s “one of us, not them,” I can almost see him falling apart.