The Bride
Episode 2 of In From The Cold stars at the prison with Jenny adopting her new identity. Specifically that of a prison warden. Why didn’t she just transform into Tiago before entering? Why go through the hassle of getting his retina scanned when Jenny could just morph into him? Wouldn’t that have solved a lot of issues? Anyway, Jenny, now able to move around the prison freely, sets to work doing rounds and finding Yannick. She doesn’t stay for long though, given his food has been poisoned. Checking his cell, Jenny finds a burner phone tucked away in the ceiling, Running out the prison, Jenny bundles into Chauncey’s van and the gang high-tail it away. Jenny soon transforms back into her current form as Chauncey kindly exudes some exposition for the audience to explain what’s happening. Now, it turns out Anya was part of the Yaroslav Program which started as a bio-weapons project under the leadership of the KGB. Morphing like this takes a lot out of Jenny but she’s more interested in how Chauncey found her. He’s pretty vague in truth, mentioning how he got a tip-off from someone on the black market. Either way, Jenny is free to go back to Becca after Chris and Chauncey have covered for her. When Jenny does meet up with her daughter again, apologizing for her erratic behaviour, they catch up on the past. Specifically involving Becca’s father. He and Jenny are divorced and worse, he’s not exactly there for Becca when she needs him. He’s not even showing up at the figure skating contest either. During this episode’s flashbacks, we cut back to Russia again where we find Anya at the party and managing to bag Fania’s number form her friend, Lao-Tzu. Waiting outside her apartment, Anya rings and admits she just wants to get to know her. Is this all a long-con game or does she really care about her? We soon get our answer after they talk all night. Part of this conversation confirms that Anya’s mother actually died in a fire when she was 5 years old. When Anya learns about the significance of Faina’s missing pendant (which Anya picked up from the subway station the previous night) she plants a tracking device in it and hands it over the following day. Back in the present, Jenny chaperones the figure skating training where Jenny receives another call from Chauncey but this time she’s not budging. So instead Chris and Chauncey team up together and head to a rather rough neighbourhood in Madrid called Pan Bendito. Once inside this club, they find themselves surrounded by a whole bunch of kids working tirelessly on their computers to spread fake news across the globe. After confirming to them that Yannick is dead, they strike a deal – the router and Chris’ watch for keeping their operation running. When Chris and Chauncey head back, they team up with Jenny again to serve up her next target – Lidia. She’s due to be married so definitely won’t be hard to find, but it includes Chauncey nd Jenny showing up as wedding guests to the church. Honestly though, wouldn’t all these men and women realize they’re not family? Anyway, the pair exude exposition to one another in a pretty stiff bit of a dialogue as they sit and wait for the wedding to begin. When the doors to the church do open, a blood-soaked Lidia arrives holding a knife. All the bridesmaids are dead and after, Chauncey kills the groom who happens to brandish a gun. The whole operation is compromised and the pair hurry away. That night, Jenny talks to herself (she’s really talking to the audience though, let’s be honest) as she researches into Lidia’s history. It turns out Lidia is an orphan and tracing her history, she manages to find the woman at a crematorium. When Jenny arrives, she pleads with her to let her help. Lidia instead brandishes a gun and fires.
The Episode Review
The music in this show is really poor. Why is rap music playing during an espionage sequence? These little stylistic choices really water down the spy thriller parts of this show which are a bit all over the place if I’m honest. The whole church incident feels really odd, given these are supposed to be spies, and I can’t help but feel a more subtle approach would have been more fitting. Couldn’t Jenny have posed as a bridesmaid and used her abilities? I know she said it hurts her to use it but they could have done this instead. The story itself has been pretty standard clue-collecting so far but lacking the pizzazz other spy thrillers have in abundance. Despite that, this has been a marginally improved episode, with a little more consistency and less sporadically jumping about. The flashbacks are actually starting to settle down now too and I’d imagine this will help to piece together a timeframe for why Anya is now Jenny.
