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The suffering finally began last night. Bonnie went out in a blaze of glory, finally displaying what every Midwest girl growing up on a county road learns from the age of twelve: if anyone, including the government, tries to come in without a warrant, you put your skeet training into action.

Yes, I once received a gun for my birthday so that qualifies me as a Midwestern girl who grew up shooting skeet.  I used to be a pretty good shot, too, so I truly appreciated her character’s reaction to the invasion. I could just picture my dad in his recliner, looking up briefly from his western novel to watch the scene.  He nods that grim nod and says, “Good, girl.”

Bonnie’s scene, shot in silence and powerfully acted by Shoshannah Stern, certainly floored me, though she was the last one I thought we’d lose.  I’m hoping her death will help propel action from the blonde chick filing papers at Jennings and Rall.  For sure, we’ll see flames coming from the heels of Stanley.  But please, someone get out of Jericho. Let’s progress the story.

Unfortunately, the overall tone of the episode was so ominous that I found the CBS News Break a relief.  It’s pretty bad when you want to keep listening to the political correspondents counting delegates and not get back to the show.

I believe I feel this way because there are no defined goals in the narrative at present and no mystery.  There’s just an overall feeling of despondency and decay without any glimmering strands of hope to lead us out of the darkness.

We know now who Robert Hawkins is, where the bomb is, who the main bad guy is and that Ravenwood is part of something much more sinister than a demented group of pillaging opportunists.  But the plotting never gives us a chance to wonder about these points ahead of time.

The only questions are vague.  We know that somehow the bomb has to get to Texas or over the Blue Line in order for the other fragments of the country to know the truth.  But what steps will get them there?  Each episode twists and turns unpredictably, but the twists don’t make sense or build on each other in a way that offers viewers time to formulate theories like LOST does.

I did enjoy the allusion to Einstein, when the Caller revealed that he created the plan Jennings and Rall used to set the targets.  It was a smart play on our past.  But again, it didn’t leave me thinking about the show hours later, trying to figure out what is about to happen. Next week, the Caller may suddenly swoop out of the sky, reveal he’s Major Beck’s long lost father, and take Hawkins to Bermuda where they’ll spend a few months inventing short range missiles with Jake and Heather.  Heather?  We’ll all ask, “How did Jake and Heather end up here?” and the producers will just shrug their shoulders and say, “They just did.”

And that leads to my next point. Right now the show lacks any relationships to pull for.  Emily and Jake are together, but you see her trotting around with Eric more than Jake.  You already know that Jake is a cheater, so are they suggesting that Eric is now pursuing Emily?  Her relationship with Jake seems platonic.  You don’t even know if they’re living together in her house or the room he grew up in.

Emily’s really not much different in personality than Eric’s bartender or Heather or even Skylar.  No one is falling in love at all, except potentially Heather, but there’s nothing in the relationship that suggests they were meant for each other nor that we should be worried that they might not get together.  After all, Major Beck could just as well be a widower instead of a married man and his marriage certainly isn’t a barrier if a live, accounted for, pregnant wife wasn’t a barrier last season.  No tension.

With Bonnie gone and Mimi fighting for her life, they’ve taken away two standout characters and left us with the indefinables.  If they brought April back to life, I doubt we would even notice.  By the way, has anyone seen Jake’s misplaced mother?  Why would she go away after waiting years and years for her prodigal son to return?

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