Jericho Season 4: Issue #5

Synopsis (SPOILER ALERT): As the final issue of the Season 4 mini-series begins we see an ASA soldier sending a false report back to his superiors as dictated to him by Hawkins assuring them that all is proceeding as planned.  Jake and Emily then approach as Hawkins gives them an update on Valente, but Jake warns that Smith has gone rogue and has his own agenda.  Cut to Palmer in the interrogation room with Major Beck and Heather.  He threatens to kill Heather with a toxin that will make it look like she died of a heart attack.  Palmer leaves the room to let them stew on his threat and Beck tells Heather that he is almost free from his ropes.  She claims she is too, but we see that is a lie.  Back to Jake, Hawkins, and Emily who are trying to figure out where Beck and Smith are.  Emily warns that Smith is trying to get to Valente in order to avenge the death of his wife, and they are interrupted by a soldier that tells them there has been an explosion at Smith's house.  They decide they have to move Valente to a different location, and Emily suggests that she help with the search for Smith because she believes they have developed a trust.  Jake and Hawkins are against it, though.  Cut to Stanley's farm were Dale is negotiating with the Texas troops that have overtaken it.  Stanley and Mimi think that Dale is selling them out, but he is negotiating for supplies and medicine in return for their use of the farm as a base to prepare their attack on the ASA troops.  We then cut to Smith breaking into a store to get the supplies he needs for his attack on Valente.  Emily arrives (having seen the light from outside) and tries to convince him not to do it.  Smith starts seeing his wife in place of Emily, and she appears to realize that and uses it to her advantage to try and defer him from his plans.  Cut back to Stanley's farm where the leader of the Texas troops is trying to convince them that they only want to use the farm temporarily for its strategic value for their upcoming attack.  The leader also seems to know a lot about the people of Jericho and he reveals that he has brought with him Hawkins' daughter Allison.  Cut back to Beck and Heather as Eric sneaks in from the window to help them.  Eric starts helping them to get out of their ropes, but Palmer returns before Heather is loose.  A confrontation ensues and Palmer fires on Heather who is still bound to her chair.  But Beck steps into the line of fire and takes two bullets.  Eric draws on Palmer who gets shot once before fleeing.  Cut to the location that has been set up for Valente to give his speech confessing the involvement of the ASA leadership and Jennings and Rall in the nuclear attacks.  Jake thinks they should wait until Smith's whereabouts are known, but Hawkins tells Valente to proceed and stick to the script that has been given to him.  We then see his speech being broadcast around the town as he confesses and promises that Jennings and Rall will be dissolved and the Cheyenne leadership will step down.  During this, we see Major Beck dying in Heather's arms.  As the speech ends and Valente assures that the ASA will come to an end, Smith arrives with a bomb in hand.  And thus ends Season Four with the promise: "To be continued in Jericho Season Five".

Review/Commentary: I know it has taken way too long to get this synopsis/review posted, but after reading this issue I found myself completely deflated.  This series has been so good up to this point, but the last issue of Season 4 unfortunately took a turn for the worse.  While the writing from the previous ten issues (Season 3 1-6 plus Season 4 1-4) has been strong--if maybe a little rushed--and remained very close to the best episodes of the series, the comic really derailed with this latest issue.  It resorted far to often to copy and paste dialog ("Think about what she would have wanted for you", "I didn't know we were expecting company"), and the death of Major Beck was pointless and forced.  It's bad enough that they reprised the age-old shot of someone jumping from the side to take the bullets intended for another.  But they made it worse by killing off an essential character for supposed "dramatic effect" even though it just falls flat.  It reminds me of what NBC's Revolution does on a regular basis as they kill off major characters to allegedly create drama when they really just don't know where to go with the story.  If Netflix does eventually produce new episodes of Jericho, I'm hoping they will go a different direction with the Major Beck character.  On top of all that, the issue just crammed too much in.  That has been common complaint with this series because they don't have a lot of space to unfold the story, but it really felt forced this time around.

Still, one clunker out of eleven issues of what has otherwise been an excellent series is not a reason to give up on it.  A fifth season is promised at the end of the issue (any chance they can get it on a regular bi-monthly basis?), and I will stick with it in hopes that they turn things around (and maybe reveal that Beck isn't really dead).  It would also be nice if they could get a stable artist on the series.  The writing team has remained mostly constant, but they keep changing up the artists.  For this issue, Andrew Currie returns to the penciling chores and does a decent enough job.  There's plenty more story to tell in the Jericho world, and hopefully they will keep it going and return to the quality of the previous issues.  Stay tuned . . .