Alphas: "Gaslight" Review

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

I had never heard of the term "gaslighting" before, so when Bill said "Don't try to gaslight me, Hicks!" I had to use the ol' Google machine to figure it out. It turns out "gaslighting" is an abusive brainwashing technique wherein the abuser makes the victim think there's something wring with them. As in, they're mentally deficient and imagining their problems. As an episode, "Gaslight" was a fun ride - evoking some of the haunted spacecraft elements of Event Horizon - that gave us a peek further inside Stanton Parish's agenda.

At first, it seemed like this episode wasn't going to be as singularly focused as last week's great "When Push Comes to Shove," but in the end Rosen and Nina's questioning of Senator Burton (Lauren Holly) wound up connecting to the Alpha team's hospital case and leading Rosen to a diabolical piece of Stanton Parish tech possibly at the heart of the hallucinations.

Watching the team's visions and delusions play out was interesting, as most everyone saw something that touched on a vulnerable point in their life, with the intent of leading them to their doom. Gary, however, saw Anna. But was she actually a part of the coma patient's Alpha power? She came through on the same infrasound that was causing all the dementia. But Gary's vision of Anna ("I don't see hallucinations. Are you haunting me?") didn't lead him down a deadly path. She acted like his friend, which she was in real life. And in the end it caused him to send out an "Anna Lives!" message like the hidden ones you all have been seeing over the course of Season 2. It was a great way to give Gary the catharsis, or whatever the equivalent would be for him, that he simply wasn't able to obtain on his own due to his bluntness and literalness.

Meanwhile, filling in the background here, Bill is still going to the Alpha Fight Club, Rachel resents the fact that Nina is back on the team and Nina herself is working with Rosen to try and help pull memories from those who've regressed and buried them. Again, some of the horror-movie style hospital stuff might have come off as low-rent and a bit predictable given all the horror movies we've seen that have explored similar scenarios, but the character work on Alphas continues to be great. Rosen has not only accepted Nina back into the fold, but he's working with her to try and evolve her abilities. I love these kinds of X-Men baby steps. For all we know, Nina could be a Charles Xavier but just doesn't know how to read minds yet.

And there's always two sides to Rosen's requests, and I love that. Sure, he always comes off as being nothing but compassionate, but you know that there's a side of him that's using his team. Like he used his daughter. In the end, they will always fascinate him and he'll forever want to explore their abilities. No matter how much he says "Stop me if you think this is too much."

Throwing Kat into the mix as Nina's first test subject was a great idea, and it gave us a peek into her past life as well. Right now, she's a plucky addition, but I'm still waiting for them to get a bit deeper with her. And it looks like Nina's "failed" attempt to pull her memories still shook something loose in her brain, causing her to draw her mother. Or someone who acted like a mother to her. And in so proving that the character's individual "baggage" on this show is the best part of the meal.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and IGN. WARNING: No Nudity!

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