Season 1 Reviews
Rapture

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Pilot
Shatterer
Astronaut Dreams
Time Out of Mind
Symbiosis
The Choices We Make
Rapture
L.D.U. - 7
Skin
Kitten
Begotten
Trouble with Harry
Vanishing Point

The thing I liked most about this episode had to be that Neil was right at the center of it. What was nice was we saw development in three of the relationships he has Holly, his father, and even Kurt. One of my favorite scenes came when Neil decked his dad and spouted off about his brother being the golden boy and the favorite of the family, etc... I thought it was very powerful and dramatic, and something I think all of us can relate to in some way. Not so much hitting a family member but the feelings of being overlooked and left out of the special moments you should have had with a family member. Then Neil and Kurt's relationship developed into something of an older brother young brother relationship. Seeing that Kurt is there for Neil when he was angry and trying to calm him down, is a nice development. It came across as if he sees a lot of himself in Neil and wants to help guide him to the greatness he knows he has within him. It has been slowly developing for a couple episodes, but Kurt seems to be older brother that Neil should have.

Even Neil and Holly went through another strain on the relationship with his maturity conflicting with his teen years. He is more responsible and thinking about not letting the one girl who got away, get away. In doing so, he seems like an outsider to Holly but really he's trying to make their relationship that much stronger and closer, which would lead to something very beautiful between the two. Holly even seems to be, slowly, but surely, coming around to his thinking. Christopher Gorham turned in one of his best performances thus far, placing second to the previous episode in "the choices we make." Not to say he has not done a good job thus far, it is the ones where he is the focal point of the story that he really steps up to plate.

As far as the writing went, saying wow would be an understatement. The main arc of the show developed, characters developed, and some questions had answers. We finally learned about what is going on at NASA with the Cadre. We have had some hints and teases since the pilot when Project: Bright Sky came from the special projects division of NASA. To borrow a phrase "all roads lead to Rome." I have a feeling that all these roads and conspiracies lead to something bigger than "we" could possibly think of. The Cadre injection to the arc leaves open questions about how synthetics and sentients fit in, but at least we are getting some answers and a direction. Rapture is a tight story with nice twists and good drama and is definitely a keeper for those taping the show. If I had one problem, it would be that Angela and Kurt were not in the story much, but they were in it enough to help move the story forward. 

Some of the other notable aspects of this episode I liked had to be the make-up f/x and a haunting score. You know a good score when you can't hear it, and that certainly held true. I watched this episode a couple times and I tried listening for the score but I kept getting caught up in the scenes and the mood of them. The scoring had lots of organic sounds and a soft dark harmony that brought out emotion very well, so kudos to Laura Karpman. The make-up f/x guys, whom I believe are Maribeth Knezev and the ACME f/x Co., deserve a ton of credit though for some outstanding work. The veins bulging were a warm up to Deckard's facial job at the end of the episode. It looked like his head was going to explode, which is what I thought, was going to happen. The writers may have written the ending but I will tell you that when one of the other departments pulls off a remarkable job it can mislead you from another obvious ending. It wasn't an obvious ending; I'm just saying it was a nice detour that most likely was not intended. Being the horror and sci-fi nut I am, I expected one thing and got another. So I was very happy and appreciative of the hard work the f/x guys did in this episode.