Still working with General Rahm Tak due to him holding their son captive, Stahma and Datak are forced into destroying the Defiance arch. Following the destruction of the arch, “Dead Air” begins with Rahm Tak (via hologram) trying to drive Defiance’s Votan races against the humans. As the tension rises and the threat of the Votanis Collective becomes more apparent, Nolan and Amanda need to figure out what their next move is. Unfortunately, all of their weapons were destroyed in last week’s episode, “Broken Bough”, but there may be some hope as Nolan discovers a former E-Rep bunker known as Arrowhead.

The poorly animated explosion of the Defiance Arch

A surprise is in store for Nolan and Amanda as they discover former mayor of Defiance, Niles Pottinger, is alive and well in Arrowhead, living alone with a handful of Biomen. After explaining how he made it out of New York’s destruction alive and agreeing to supply them with weaponry, Pottinger asks Amanda for a private moment together. It’s here that Amanda is bombarded with a few harsh surprises as she finds out not only was he recording her private moments in Defiance (see last season), but may have been the man who raped her years ago.

Although Pottinger never fully admits to her assumptions, stating that the mask he owns was a replica of the one owned by the man who raped her, Amanda tries to get a true confession out of him by shooting him multiple times. Unfortunately, if Amanda were to kill him the entire Arrowhead bunker would be destroyed and sucked into a black hole, as his heart rate is connected to a singularity bomb.

This part of “Dead Air” wasn’t the most compelling in comparison to the other subplots. On the one hand, it was nice to see some payoff from the time Pottinger used to record Amanda in season two. His creep factor gets raised to 11 successfully and any sympathy we may have had for him is thrown away completely. While the plot supplied some closure for Amanda and Pottinger’s story, it didn’t progress the show’s main story much. It’s a small complaint, but I wouldn’t be mentioning it if I found the story more entertaining or interesting.

While it was great to see Pottinger kick the bucket and the idea of the singularity bomb destroying Arrowhead was a nice touch, what’s going on with Nolan and Irisa now is much more interesting. Since Irisa was left behind in Defiance because of her unwillingness to kill, only Nolan and Amanda took the trip to Arrowhead. Irisa and Berlin remained in Defiance, kicking off their investigation of the destruction of the Defiance arch.

While apart from each other, Nolan and Irisa begin to get severe headaches resulting from their forehead wounds given to them when they were linked together in the stasis pod. It’s unclear if they felt this pain because they were too far apart from each other or if this was just something that was bound to happen eventually, but the headaches culminated in the two of them having severe seizures, concluding the episode. While Nolan was last seen getting assistance from Amanda and a captured scientist he met in Arrowhead named Samir, Irisa is abandoned and left to die by Berlin, who still holds a grudge against Irisa for killing Tommy last season.

Amanda and Pottinger meet again

While it was definitely not the main focus of the episode, I enjoyed Stahma’s exchange with T’evgin. Stahma successfully seduces T’evgin and has sex with him in order to get close enough to stab him with a poisoned needle. This is a request from Rahm Tak, who of course isn’t the only one who wants to see an Omec die.

Unfortunately Stahma’s plan does not work. What I found most interesting about this story was the fact that instead of flipping out on Stahma for trying to kill him, T’evgin brushes it off, confident that she never stood a chance and still doesn’t. With Stahma opening up to T’evgin about the reason she tried to kill him (her son being held captive), I’m left wondering if T’evgin will do something to intervene in this whole Rahm Tak situation. Only 4 episodes in and I’m beginning to like T’evgin as a character, despite him probably being this season’s real big bad. I hope to see him have more exchanges with Stahma as she continues to learn more about Omec culture.

While I enjoyed the subplots in “Dead Air”, much of this week’s episode I didn’t find all that compelling. That being said, this season is already shaping up to be better than the last, as the first three episodes were all very well done. While the main plot didn’t interest me overall, it was still nice to see Amanda get some payback on Pottinger for the horrible acts he’s committed. I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of Nolan and Irisa’s current condition and want to see what becomes of Stahma and T’evgin’s relationship. As for Berlin, she has every reason to be upset and hurt over what Irisa did to Tommy, but I hope she soon realizes that Irisa is not at fault for murdering Tommy and eventually forgives her. That being said, it will probably be hard for Irisa to forgive Berlin after Berlin seemingly left her to die from an unexplained seizure.

Next week Nolan and Irisa’s condition worsens, leading to Doc Yewl attempting to figure out a solution to their dilemma. Check out the promo for “History Rhymes” below and feel free to let us know what you thought about “Dead Air” in the comments.