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Giant destructive creatures + dancing = Friday night science fiction that might give you nightmares. Big Bertha is back, for the first time.

The second season finale takes us to Mumbai. Two of the natives are running from someone and decide to split up. One stops to drop off a spider which resided in his body. Once the spider is out, it releases what looks like a pulse wave, which aggravates a ton of abnormals. He is cornered and killed afterwards by the token British villain, Forsythe, played by Callum Blue.

Apparently the Sanctuary Network is now more of a counsel than a system run directly by Magnus, which the entire rest of the series lead us to believe. The organization of the network seems to change every couple of episodes, so this may not matter in season 3.

Will and Kate head out to Mumbai to check out a strange murder which leads Will to finding the statue that the guy stashed the spider in. They take the statue back to the Sanctuary in Mumbai and no one seems to notice when the spider just walks off of it. This is one of those times when the team, for plot purposes, does not notice something obvious. 

Will decides to take a nap and the spider crawls into his mouth. As it turns out, the guy who carried the spider in the first place was part of the cult of Kali, a group of folks who safeguard an ancient powerful abnormal - who turns out to be Big Bertha. The spider has a psychic connection with Bertha and the people in the cult commnunicate with her so all is well in the world. Forsythe wants the power to himself, since he was one of the few people who knew that Bertha was not dead.

Will keeps having visions of Kali, and in his delirium, never picks up his cell phone to let anyone know where he is. Forsythe finds Will and takes the spider from him by force, causing another pulse from Bertha. The team finds Will, who is still having visions and is not even speaking English half the time, despite having lost the spider. Forsythe begins to meditate, in training to control Bertha for some silly comic book scheme.

Throughout the show we get a cameo from one of another Stargate alum, Paul McGillion, whose character Wexford was recently promoted to a head of house. He is part of a group of folks who are bothered by the fact that Magnus didn’t kill Bertha when she said she did. He seems to be drunk on his new power and hinders the team at every turn.

It all culminates in a dance number that Will does to call Kali back to him that somehow feels offensive. At the same time, Magnus heads out to where Forsythe has sent Bertha to try and stop her from wreaking havoc. When Will finally talks with Kali, Wexford takes the opportunity to throw explosives at Bertha, making her very angry. She creates a big energy surge which makes a massive wave and “To Be Continued” flashes up on the screen.

Wexford usurped control of the Sanctuary Network while Magnus was attempting to stop the giant abnormal, but he obviously made the big mistake of endangering every life on the planet. It makes me wonder if the Network is up for yet another “restructuring” when the third season kicks off. As far as I remember, the Sanctuary was just one single complex during season one, so I am already worried about the continuity of the series.

Though it felt rather long in the teeth, this episode was pretty good, comic book villain and all. The acting was done well, even Kate. Maybe they were saving it up for the finale. I feel like they did the same thing in the first season. It is still not a good thing. I look forward to the conclusion of the Big Bertha events, partially because she has only been discussed in 3 episodes and the drama feels somewhat forced, but also because the actors are dealing with that very well.

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