Star-Crossed Review: Season One, Episode Ten – “What Storm Is This That Blows So Contrary”

First aired April 21st, 2014.

Teri, who’s been in the background lately, has taken center stage this episode. She breaks into the Atrian spaceship and uses its technology to start a hurricane stranding everyone at the school.

While at the school, Teri drugs Roman with an Atrian plant that makes him uninhibited and kind of a jerk. He lashes out at people, blames his relationship with Emery for making his life difficult and almost hooks up with Teri before coming to his senses. Hooking up with Roman was only part of Teri’s plan, the hurricane was a cover to let her and unmarked undercover Atrian students steal supplies for the Suvek device that will wipe out humans. However, Teri finds herself caught by Ms. Benton and her associate, both of whom want her blood to learn about Cyper’s healing properties.

It’s about time we saw Teri acting like the terrorist she said she was near the beginning of the season. Keeping the characters in the school skillfully narrows the focus of the episode, letting all these plots play out. Speaking of plots, Ms. Benton’s plan of kidnapping an Atrian student while the school was on lockdown was not the smartest idea.

Emery and Julia free Teri and are saved by Roman when Ms. Benton’s associate attacks them. Julia confronts Ms. Benton and tells her she won’t help her try and destroy the Atrians anymore despite her threats against Julia’s family. Before Ms. Benton can do anything, Emery shows up with Gloria  and armed guards to arrest her for her crimes.

It’s kind of funny that what takes down Ms. Benton is Emery and Julia telling an adult what was going on. That’s always the one thing people never seem to do in those situations and I was shocked someone did the smart thing. It’s kind of disappointing that we never learn who Ms. Benton was working for or what their endgame was for Cyper. Considering that Teri is plotting to kill them, Julia and Emery will probably regret saving her.

Grayson uses his knowledge of Zoe’s “murder” to blackmail Drake for inside information on Atrians, and to break up with Taylor. Drake gives up the existence of the Trags to keep him quiet but that just makes Grayson go on the warpath. He decides to follow his parents’ footsteps and create a Red Hawk group with students, although he envisions them using nonviolence to stop the Trags.

Ever since Grayson stopped liking Emery, he’s grown on me as a character. He’s gone from the dopey secondary love interest to a secondary antagonist and that definitely suits him much better. I hope his new Red Hawk group has a significant role going into the end of the season and isn’t some secondary plot that gets forgotten.

There’s a record amount of relationship drama in this episode, with people breaking up or new people getting together. The most notable is, of course, Emery breaking up with Roman. Because of all the Atrian/Human issues, everyone finds out they were a couple no less. Teen fans of the show are probably frantic after watching that happen, but they’ll eventually get back together.

Quotes/Thoughts

“Humans, Atrians, I guess you’ll get down with just about anyone or anything, won’t you?”

I don’t see Grayson’s Red Hawk group staying anti-violence for very long.

“Some of these Atrians can’t be trusted. For all we know they’ve already started their plan against the humans.”

Seems like every Atrian plant is deadly in some way.

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