Episode Description:

Johnny masquerades as a thief in order to track a museum robbery. Meanwhile, Purdy's faith in religious artifacts is tested.

Episode Review:

Johnny: "Finger bone of a dead prophet: millions of dollars. Restored faith in God: priceless."

I've fantasized more than once about Johnny solving some of the great mysteries of the world. Did Lizzie Borden really kill her parents? Was there really a gunman on the grassy knoll?

So I was definitely on board with the fascinating idea of Johnny touching what might be a finger bone belonging to John the Baptist. In fact, when the possibility was mentioned in the teaser, I was sort of disappointed when the episode became all about a museum heist. And then I was pleased when it turned out that the whole thing really was all about Johnny touching the finger bone. Sure, they didn't follow through, and I wish they had; no matter how they interpreted it, it would have been intriguing. But how could they have created a Johnny vision about Jesus without offending somebody?

Anthony Michael Hall did his usual good job with all of Johnny's conflicting, cascading visions, and Johnny had a good reason for every choice he made. (Although one could argue that joining in the heist was improbable, could have been avoided, and might have gotten him arrested. And how likely was it that the robbers wouldn't know each other's faces?) There were even some lighter moments that were well done, like Walt and Purdy tied up together.

I like the character of Gene Purdy a lot, and the final denouement was all his. "I thought if you touched this, you could tell me what John the Baptist saw when he looked on the face of Christ, and my faith might be restored." David Ogden Stiers was so good that he got to me again; this scene brought me to tears. I wonder if Purdy's loss of faith will have something to do with the Apocalypse?

Bits and pieces:

-- J.J. again showed a cool head in a scary situation, and didn't do the cliched kid in danger thing. He also saved Johnny's life again.

-- Last week's episode was entitled, "Article of Faith." I kept thinking that it would have suited this episode better.

-- The woman getting her arm caught in the display box was effective.

-- Still no Sarah.

Outstanding ending, although I got mildly impatient with the middle of the story. Three stars,

Billie

Bille Doux reviews episodes of 'The Dead Zone' for her website.
She reviews individual episodes of science fiction & cult TV shows
for her website, located at http://www.billiedoux.com/

Behind The Scenes:

 - ...written by our executive consultant Karl Schaefer. Karl was our showrunner for Season 3, as well as for the extra "Sexy Summer Six" episodes of Season 2. He also wrote both of the episodes last season with Alex Sinclair -- our "visiting female psychic" -- and we were fortunate to be able to recruit him to write this episode ... which represents a nice departure from his proclivity for writing romance. - Lloyd Segan's Blog (07/09)

 - The script for our episode "Inside Man" was originally titled "Objects of Faith" after the name of the museum exhibition. I'm not sure why we changed the title, but then Spike Lee's "Inside Man" movie came out which I thought was awesome. I don't think that had anything to do with our changing the name, other than we liked Johnny having to use his powers in a way we hadn't seen before where he literally has to become part of a team of thieves and, on faith of his powers, jump in to risk his life to save Purdy and keep him from getting hurt. - Shawn Piller's Blog (07/16)

 - As to planning the heist itself, first I tried to start with: what was the big set piece? What was going to be the main thrust of the caper? The big visual moment that you would see? The technical part of the heist? And could we do something different with how they break in? Because you've seen a million heist movies, it's kind of hard to do something original that we could also do on a television schedule and budget. I came up with the idea of the bulletproof glass case around the relic that they would freeze with liquid nitrogen and then suddenly heat and shatter it. It was glass that you couldn't drill through or blast through any other way, but you could freeze it and heat it and shatter it. - Episode Writer Karl Schaefer (07/16)

Cast & Crew:

Written by: Karl Schaefer
Directed by: Michael Robison
Guest Starring: David Ogden Stiers (Reverend Purdy), Ken Kramer (Gregarin), Bill Mondy (Deputy Roscoe), Timothy Paul Perez (Ivan), Apollonia Vanova (Svetlana)