Grade: B+
As Michael Britten’s journey down his rabbit hole goes deeper & deeper he seems to begin to show signs that he is having trouble differentiating between both his realities. In
”That’s Not My Penguin” this becomes a somewhat serious problem as Britten is brought into a hostage situation in the Red Reality where a patient, with schizophrenia, is holding everyone in his hospital hostage until his ‘missing’ sister is found. In an episode that begins to blur the lines of Michaels realities & sanity the pairing of a case involving a schizophrenic patient having trouble determining realities as well works as perfect & nail-biting match, that is, all but the actual penguin.
At the beginning of the episode signs begin to show in the Green Reality that Michael is starting to become forgetful of which reality he is in, even with his green wristband, as he addresses Vega, who is only a police officer & not his partner, as if he was his partner & not Bird. Meanwhile in the Red Reality, a hospital patient has taken his whole hospital hostage in hopes of getting his sister back from what he believes are mysterious captors. As Michael is sent in to diffuse the situation & set him up for the SWAT’s snipers things take a turn as Gabe, the patient, has a deadman’s switch which result in Michael moving Gabe out of the way of the sniper & being hit over the head & injected full of ketamine by Gabe. Immediately Michael wakes up in the Green reality & as he starts going through the motions he begins to see a penguin.
In what is a very tense episode it seems that
Awake is still not without its quirks as it decides to introduce a ridiculous & unneeded CGI penguin when in the end it creates a much more troubling hallucination for Michael. Like the dancing baby in Ally McBeal, this penguin seems to come off in an even schlockier fashion. In an episode that continues a great turn for
Awake to only introduce more questions & troubling situations for Michaels reality problems it brings down a bit of what is an spectacular story. In the end it is a good thing that this CGI penguin doesn’t begin to start talking & only slightly hinders another great episode.
(Side Note: While this episode presents another great story, it seems that Awake may be up to its old tricks of ‘set up mystery’ from its preview for next weeks episode.)
