Saturday, March 21, 2015

Perception - Run


Premiering in the summer of 2012 TNT's Perception was an intriguing premise of casting Eric McCormack as a schizophrenic consultant for the FBI who would work through a case by discussing it with hallucinatory figments of his imagination. McCormack and Rachael Leigh Cook, as the professor's former student turned FBI agent, helped sell the murder-of-the-week which often involved Dr. Daniel Pierce (McCormack) diagnosising an unusual mental condition that would often exonerate one suspect and eventually help lead the FBI to the true culprit of the crime.

Although it leaves a few ongoing threads hanging involving Daniel's own romantic prospects, the final episode of the season (which, since TNT has decided not to renew the show, is also the series finale) wraps up Kate's (Cook) wedding to Donnie (Scott Wolf) following her disappearance at the altar at the end of last week's episode. As a finale "Run" works well even if it doesn't take the necessary amount of time to convince us that Kate would have left the wedding of her own accord. It also takes Daniel far too long to connect Tasha's (Lisa Brenner) appearance at the wedding with Kate's disappearance.

Unlike most of the show's episodes there's no mental diagnosis leading to twist but the episode does play on Daniel's paranoia and how easily he can fall down the rabbit hole of a conspiracy theory when the woman he loves disappears, especially as he and Donnie break countless laws while trying to retrieve Kate. In the end Kate is returned safely, Tasha and Dr. Rosenthal (Robert Curtis Brown) meet some brutally swift justice, Kate is married, and all is right with the world once more (even if Kate's boss has difficulty in buying the official story). It's not a perfect end to the series, but Perception ends on a good note for all the characters involved.

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