Jericho Season 2 Episode 2 Review - Condor

Jericho's second episode of the second season aired on February 19, 2008. The episode is titled Condor. The episode revolves around the President of the new U.S. government arriving in Jericho for his goodwill tour, which is really just a publicity tour. Condor is the president's secret service code name. The subplot involves Robert Hawkins breaking into the President's temporary headquarters in a quest to find out more information on who the terrorists and the new government.

I was very impressed with the episode. Last week's episode Reconstruction was a bit of a letdown but this episode is taking the series into an interesting direction. I found it very interesting that the writer's of Jericho decided to have the nuclear attacks instigated by U.S. citizens. Usually war series are about warring with other nations. Jericho is an intriguing change of pace, a civil war.

Lennie James, who plays Robert Hawkins, is a great actor. First season he was great at playing a possible villain. Now that he is revealed to be a good guy, he is even more impressive. My favorite scenes are any scenes with Lennie and Skeet together. I am glad that the series is not entirely focusing on Jake Green. He is a great character but the series is full of great characters. The writer's are doing a great job of giving everyone equal screen time.

A small part of the episode but a rather important one is that the new government gives Jericho's school new history books. Emily Sullivan and Eric Green are very disturbed by the history books. The new government has basically rewritten history and changed facts to suit their needs. The history books are now just basically propaganda. They take their concerns to the major but he doesn't seem to be very interested. The major is just happy that the government saved their town from New Bern. Finally the major starts to become suspicious of the government during a rousing presidential speech.

The presidential speech was another great scene. The president is basically going on about how he saved the U.S., blah, blah, blah and most of the crowd is starting to look uneasy. Yes they applaud in the appropriate places but you get the feeling that the crowd realizes something isn't quite right either. It was an impressive scene.

The episode left me feeling quite happy with the direction the series is going. The preview for next week leaves me yearning for me. I really do hope the network intends to keep Jericho after the seven episode arc. The whole series is a nice change of pace from other network offerings at the moment. I give the episode five out of five stars.