07.23
“Blackout”
In a spin-off series of any kind, you usually have a rich bit of source material from the original series, movie, book, or whatever the show is based from to work with. With something like Tron, though, there are only 2 films to go on. In some cases that could be enough to already have a well-established Universe and set of characters to work with. Without actually meaning to insult either of the Tron films, though (especially considering that I haven’t even seen one of them), the amount you learn about The Grid and its inhabitants in these features is rather… shallow, for lack of a better term. What I basically mean to say is that Uprising has its work cut out for it as a show, as it can’t just rely on established material, and must put the effort in like any original show would to enrich its world and its characters.
For this reason, you need “set-up” episodes like this one. This is an episode which can stand alone just fine on its own, but ultimately has more meaning in its bearing on the series and its characters as a whole, and contains a lot of hints to downright blunt developments pertaining to what will unfold in the future episodes of this show. On the outset of this episode, we have a very straightforward plot regarding a series of blackouts that are occurring throughout The Grid. Flynn and Beck are of course up to the task of investigating this anomaly, only to find out that its not an anomaly at all, but a calculated effort by General Tessler. He is using a drill of some kind outside of the city, which is really screwing around with the wiring (or whatever they use in The Grid), and causing the apparent blackouts. What Tessler is trying to achieve with this device other than being a general ass-hole to the city is not really revealed, but perhaps that is meant to come back later. Either way, its a moot point to Flynn and Beck, as this is just another mission for Tron, or as others call him, The Renegade. Beck is given a machine by Tron which will cause the drill to have a melt-down, but is warned that it’ll have a dangerous blast-radius and that he must make sure to be clear of the area before the time on the detonator runs out.
So… wouldn’t you know that it JUST so happens that our favorite annoying friend Zed is going to be participating in a light-cycle race in the tunnels located right within the parameters of this blast-zone? Beck is not immediately aware of this, so of course this leads to a nasty confrontation between him (as Tron) and Zed. To be fair, this is actually a good character moment for Zed, in a way. It is shown that this is one of the few things that Zed is actually really good at. He is shown to be winning the light-cycle race with a light-cycle that he himself constructed, only to be stopped by Tron and told that he needs to evacuate the area… oh, and Tron steals his prized cycle as well just as he was about to win the race, forcing him to not only lose any potential recognition he could have earned, but also taking away something that he had worked his ass off on to prove that he was more than just a useless oaf. On that end, it makes sense that this can really put Zed in a bad way towards being in danger of falling to the temptations of going through a darker path in his life, being that he already hated Tron before this point, but now the guy has physically interfered with his life.
This episode, however, turns out to be a much better character episode for Paige. Early on in the episode, she is thrown out of the assignment of eliminating Tron due to her past two failures. Her position is instead granted to Tessler’s right-hand man, Pavel. This could have gone the predictable route of having Paige get incredibly bitter and go through some annoying scheme to meddle in the fairs of her rival officer, but instead she keeps calm and cool-headed. She is clearly still devoted to Clu’s cause, so she won’t go against anyone in his army. She also realizes that Pavel is an incompetent idiot, and just patiently waits for him to screw up so that she can get her next chance to prove herself. The next major character moment she has in the episode comes at its climax, when she realizes that Tron has set a detonator that will cause the drill to melt down, and races him to retrieve it and shut it off in order to thwart his scheme, even at the cost of her own life. Unfortunately for her, she is too late and both her and Tron have to turn back and speed their way through the tunnels in order to escape the oncoming blast.
This leads to some exciting action and visuals, which ends up forcing Paige to ride along with Tron on his light-cycle which is much faster than hers and just fast enough to escape the blast; and of course Beck is smart enough to immediately throw her off when they are safe so as to not get immediately assassinated from behind. This sequence actually accomplishes two things. One is that it further complicates the relationship between Paige and Tron, setting up that she may have future instances where she may end up working with him, and may even come to trust him as an ally if she ever turns from her side, which seems fairly likely. The other thing it accomplishes is to link Paige to Zed. Escaping with Tron on Zed’s light-cycle helps set-up that Zed really did have some useful ingenuity in creating that machine, and Paige is not blind to this at all. On that note, the episode ends with Paige tracking down a very pissed-off Zed and makes him the offer to join her efforts in putting an end to The Renegade who is already blamed for causing all of the problems that Clu’s forces have been behind, so far. It sets up an even more complex relationship between Beck and one of his close friends, and in general foreshadows that there are going to be much tougher struggles for Beck to overcome as this series progresses.