Debris Episode 10 I Am Icarus Review- Bilateral Deviation And The Multiuniverse

Sometimes to escape, you have to run the razor’s edge between controlled chaos and absolute disaster. Debris Episode 10 skirted that line in a standout episode.

Last week it was “Do you know Icarus?” This week it is “I am Icarus.” By the end of Debris Episode 10, Finola and Bryan were both caught up in the alternate reality generating ship wreckage and trying desperately to get back to one another. Debris is unlike most other shows of its ilk. It isn’t trying to spoon-feed a romance to the viewers as if the characters have no value beyond their romantic attachment to each other. Yes, we loved Liv and Peter and Moulder and Scully, but there is also room for Benson and Stabler. Some could make an argument that without couple entanglements, that bond can be even stronger, at least cinematically.

It certainly is the case for Bryan and Finola, who have forged a tight bond in a short period of time. These two trust each other when there aren’t many others they can trust. They are also fiercely loyal to one another, making them more interesting than a trite, will they or won’t they. J.H. Wyman has written some incredible partnerships in the past, and he seems to be on target for giving us one more to fall in love with. This was a turning point for them, even if they don’t know it yet.

In large part, this is due to Riann Steele(Finola) and Jonathan Tucker(Bryan), who brings an intense solemnness to their respective agents. They bring a gravity to their roles that doesn’t require a mustache-twirling villain or even huge expository dumps to convey tension and understanding. Quality writing and emotive acting combine to create a world that feels fantastical but yet lived in. That’s a tough ask in a hard science show based on an endless supply of alien ship wreckage that does things our science can barely understand. Their furoughed brows and tight lips do all the talking. They are easily the pair to watch on network television.

After last week’s episode, Bryan is trapped with Shelby in an alternate reality that is slowly bleeding into the one Finola finds herself. Debris Episode 10 was Finola’s story to tell. In the last episode, we stayed with Bryan through many increasingly more stressful timelines, while tonight’s episode was Finolas’s time to shine. She doesn’t know everything Bryan knows yet. Still, she is quickly getting up to speed, courtesy of Shelby’s sister Kathleen who is finally found and a thin spot in the universes that allows them to communicate via written messages.

The debris up until now fed off of the emotions of the people that came close to it. Bryan still thinks that is the case, but it turns out to be simpler than that. Finola and Bryan, Shelby, and Kathleen all slip in and out of realities like new socks mixing and matching a parade of kooky partners for each. After countless trips, Finola gets enough information from her father, who lives and frequently dies in these parallel worlds, to explain to Bryan what they need to do to return to their correct timeline. They must all dive into the debris at the same time.

The physics jargon of the day was Bilateral Deviation which is not a real thing, at least when it comes to parallel universes, string theory, black holes, wormholes, or any other scientifically recognized theory of the multiverse. There is a believable logic to the answer to Finola and Bryans’s problem, though. For every reaction, there should be an equal, and opposite reaction science tells us. In this case, Bryan and Shelby and Kathleen and Finola are the mirror images of each other lost in time to a wrong world. To get back where they belong, they need to jump simultaneously. The synched-up debris usage does put them all back where they belong, we think. They don’t have any memory of what happened to them, and Maddox finds the divorce papers on the table in his foyer. What other changes happened that the two won’t even notice?

Debris Episode 10 may not have been the worst multiverse, but it certainly had its flaws. One glaring issue was in one timeline, Bryan is a war criminal, and Maddox and George are still working together. What could have happened to make Bryan anything other than the hero we see in our reality? The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, however. Maddox and his wife are getting a divorce in at least two realities. The singularly focused man would be hard to love. I wonder in how many realties did the terrible accident affect his son? If Maddox finds out that there could be realities where his son was never injured, what will he do to use the debris and get to one of them?

Last but not least, Anson Ash is a problem that isn’t going away. He is a confident prisoner who is biding his time. He is in custody now, but he is making plans to escape and armed with the keypad code, that time is rapidly approaching. Does he have enhanced hearing now, or is he a super genius with perfect pitch who can decipher numbers based solely on the tone they make when pushed? Scroobius Pip may be the villain we know, but with as much ambiguity as Debris has woven into the mythos already, he is undoubtedly not the only one. So many of our main players have blood on their hands, literally and figuratively. Now that we know this debris can transport people to different worlds, it sets up some exciting storylines and possibilities for the future.

This two-episode arc was a brilliant example of acting and writing coming together. Emotional without being trite and tense without being contrived, this was subtly at its best. With anchoring episodes like Debris Episode 10, this show is quietly on track for an early renewal. The numbers have steadily risen, and stellar episodes like this one should solidify its Monday night spot. Follow all our Debris coverage here and brace for another exciting episode.