Review of Somewhere Between 1.9

And in this next-to-last episode of the season (series? who knows) of Somewhere Between -- 1.9, to be precise -- we get lots of important developments, including [spoilers abound below]

• Tom is dead. Shot dead, that is, by the team of bad guys, whom we learn are working for ...
• The Governor, or maybe the Governor's wife, it's not entirely clear. What is clear is that this is one dysfunctional family, with a son who kidnaps Serena (though he seems to have a good heart), and another who likely is the killer.

This puts everything in much sharper perspective. The reason that the Governor is not willing to relent on the death penalty for Danny -- or, again, maybe it's the Governor's wife who is not willing to relent on this, so she's encouraging the Governor to be "strong" -- but, in either case, the goal is to close the case on the murder, by killing the convicted murderer, Danny, so the real murderer, the Governor's son (the really bad one) will get off scot free.

Serena's kidnapping is a bit more complicated. She was certainly taken as a way of putting pressure on her father, Tom, and that was working, for a while. But Tom got wise, then got killed, so now that's no longer a reason to use Serena as a negotiating hostage. Given that the good -- or at least, better than the murdering -- brother kidnapped her, it would seem that he might be inclined to release her now.

Except -- his mother, the Governor's wife, certainly doesn't want that, since Serena has seen the face of her kidnapper, many times, which of course would endanger the Governor and his family. At this point, then, Somewhere Between has become a pretty good, if convoluted, cop or murder mystery show. And, hey, the killing of Tom totally frees Laura to be with Nico, in case there was even a sliver of doubt before.

As for the time travel -- well, that's scarcely been in evidence, and I do hope it returns in whatever kind of finale we see next week.