TV Review: RESURRECTION: Season 1, Episode 2: Unearth [ABC]

ABC’s Resurrection Unearth TV Show Review. Resurrection: Season 1, Episode 2: Unearth continued the story-lines from the pilot episode but added some new layers as well.

The town people’s reaction to Jacob Langston (Landon Gimenez) being alive was predictable and amusing to witness. Over and over again on American airwaves, we hear about promoting tolerance and acceptance of people different from us. How is their reaction an example of that? What did they think would happen? That they would be infected with the undead virus from The Walking Dead?

If the viewer has seen TV shows where people return after a long absence, they will undoubtedly think of The 4400 while watching Resurrection. That comparison is burdensome for Resurrection in many ways.

This is only the second episode of Resurrection but there is already a lack of science, police, and procedural protocol on the show. Because the returned dead only number two, this can be understood at the moment since the phenomenon is not wide spread (like on The 4400) but this realism leniency can only be stretched so far. The bow string is already getting taunt.

Also absent are any intrepid, watchful, and hungry columnists and reporters in Arcadia, Missouri. A boy and then a man returning from the dead should be the talk of the town, especially after the church moment in the last episode, yet there is silence in the town newspapers. This silence has even carried over to the Internet where news can be instantly transmitted across the globe. There is no online chatter about two confirmed and buried dead people suddenly showing up alive? Very strange and narratively convenient (à la Dexter).

What was baffling during Unearth was that two people that Sheriff Fred Langston (Matt Craven) knew were reportedly back from the dead and he never went to see either of them with his own eyes (even after his daughter confirmed both identities). He is a police officer and has no curiosity about Caleb (Sam Hazeldine), a man he knew around town for years (probably all their lives). His indifference was almost as strange as Caleb’s reappearance. Perhaps Sheriff Langston believed that if he ignored the problem, it would go away.

Checking the bodies in their respective coffins was the obvious next step, a move, along with genetic testing, that would have answered many questions (while raising others) yet it was obstructed until the very end of the episode.

One question unconnected to those coffins revolved around the identity of the person actor Ned Bellamy was talking to after his character was confronted by Dr. Maggie Langston (Devin Kelley). I have a guess, a wild guess at who it was that would make the show even better. I have a sneaking suspicion the writers of Resurrection thought of it as well: Maggie Langston’s mother. I bet she was the first returned dead but stayed out of sight with her former love interest because she couldn’t explain why she was alive and what happened to her. It’s just a guess but it would be a wild turn of events. I hope the writers thought of it.

What Resurrection did right during Unearth is what it did right during its pilot episode: it raised more questions than it answered e.g. the hammer scene. These are answers that the viewer wishes to obtain and it is a formula similar to the one employed on Under the Dome.

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