"Absentia" A & B (TV Episode 2017) Poster

(TV Series)

(2017)

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8/10
It's Dr. Shen not Dr. Chen
sage46768 July 2019
The other, longer review is fairly accurate but very out of chronological order. When people write reviews, at least get the names correct. Dr. Jack Byrne's AA meeting isn't until near the end of the episode. It ends with Emily leaving original hubby Nick Durand a creepy message
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9/10
"Second-Chance" Jack
lavatch16 June 2019
Warning: Spoilers
There are not always second chances in life. But Dr. Jack informs his AA group that he was given his special opportunity when he was allowed to perform surgery to remove a bullet from his sister. He was tempted to reach for the bottle. But the steady hands of the sober Dr. Jack likely saved Em's life.

After recounting his moving story to his support group, Jack brought in for questioning by the police. With his lawyer beside him, Jack is unwilling to say anything incriminating about Em. Perhaps Jack should have revealed to the police what he and Em had discovered from the identification of the pacemaker from the body exhumed in Nottingham Forest. That device belonged to Dr. Lu-Fang Shen, a behavioral psychologist with a Ph.D. from Cal Tech. Dr. Shen was dismissed from his post at MIT due to his controversial research. He then took a position at the Barrett House.

Em pieces together her connection to Dr. Shen when he worked with the children at the Barrett House orphanage where she was warehoused as a child. Dr. Chen went missing sixteen years ago and after the passing of ten years, he was declared deceased. Of course, that was the exact moment of Em's abduction.

The brother of Dr. Chen owns a restaurant in Chinatown called Royal Vine House. Em pays Erik Shen a visit and learns that Dr. Chen's research that was willed to the Boston Athenaeum is in storage. Apparently, the library was not interested in Dr. Chen's experiments that took a page out of the playbook of Dr. Mengele. Erik Shen gives Em the key to the storage room.

Em discovers cassette tapes recording Dr. Chen's ghastly experiments on the children of Barrett House. But before she can complete her listening of the tape, she is abducted by a couple of bounty hunters. Em makes a daring escape from their van, hijacks a car, and flees the scene.

When she finally listens to the tape, we finally get to the core issue of the title of the episode: "A & B." The initials stand for children who are the little guinea pigs of the diabolical Dr. Chen, who experiments with suffocating them under water in order "to see how you adapt to your surroundings over time." The sick psychopath is assisted by one of the children named "Charles." When Em hears the name of Charles, the memories return about how she once beat the little kid to a pulp for abusing other children. Em now may be closer to the mastermind behind the murders and her own horrific experiences.

Perhaps the police would have given Em a fair shake if only "Second-Chance" Jack would have provided them with the lead on Dr. Chen. But he is silent, and the cops still believe that Em is the mass murderer.
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6/10
It's getting better.
Sleepin_Dragon9 September 2020
Jack helps Emily out, she begins remembering things from here childhood, painful, harrowing memories.

After a few drawn out episodes, I must admit there has been something of an improvement here, there's more story, and certainly more interest, what's haunting her? Are those memories hers, or someone else's? I'm still not connecting with Emily, but Jack, yes, he's become way more interesting, I'm intrigued to know what his involvement is.

We know we have some stupid cops, we now have some stupid criminals, it's no wonder she's running rings around everyone, they're all idiots, how they reacted when she drove off was hilarious.

It's still silly, but watchable, 6/10.
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Some stupidities can ruin the whole thing.
DivaLaNoche3 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
On one hand she is a superspy... On the other hand she is about to listen to tapes - limiting her hearing - not before placing the chair away from the only point of entry...

No one in the right mind would do that - especially no one that should know better.

It's like she knew she was being followed and wanted to get taken.
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3/10
Gets dumber and dumber...
nfire-2974117 September 2019
Dumber and dumber...It makes the acting look worse too
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