Sentinel, Too - Part Two

This episode is the conclusion to the third season cliffhanger episode Sentinel, Too - Part One.

 As Simon and Henry pull Jim away from Blair's lifeless body, Jim continues to scream "no, he's alive". As he gazes disbelievingly at Blair, Jim suddenly has a vision of the wolf turning and leaving, followed by an image of Incacha (his Peruvian shaman) telling him to use the power of his animal spirit. Jim breaks free and returns to Blair's side, laying his hands on his face and concentrating.

In the vision that follows, Jim's black jaguar animal spirit and Blair's wolf leap towards each other and merge in a flash of light. Jim hears a heartbeat, begins to apply CPR and Blair coughs up water and is rushed to hospital.

 At the hospital, Blair thanks Jim for saving his life and describes a near death experience which the doctors have told him is part of an endorphin rush. He describes the wolf and black jaguar merging and Jim confides that they've shared the same vision but is reluctant to discuss the significance any further.

Jim returns to Alex's burnout apartment, looking for clues and starts to have strange premonitions about Alex, her partner an their whereabouts. He obtains an artist's rendering of the man from his vision and identifies him as Carl Hettinger a known international weapons trafficker with South American contacts and has traveled to Sierra Verde twice in recent weeks. One of his known associates, drug lord Carlos Aguillo operates out of the same area. Jim believes that's where they'll find Alex and the nerve gas.

 Though, Simon finds it hard to understand that Jim identified this man from a vision, Jim tries to explain that he and Alex are connected somehow and he has "seen" her on a beach talking with Carl. The disturbing part of the image that he doesn't share with Simon is that in these visions he sees himself making love with Alex.

In Sierra Verde, Carl meets with Aguillo and raises the price for the nerve gas from $4 million to $5 million, foolishly unaware that Alex is using her Sentinel senses to listen in on the conversation. Later when toasting the deal, Carl offers her an equal share of the original $4 million and when Jim and Simon arrive at the Sierra Verde police station looking for him, they are directed to the morgue.

 The official report on Carl's death is that he fell down a flight of stairs at his hotel. Jim and Simon ask for a moment alone with the body and using his senses and with the aid of another vision, Jim determines that Alex kissed him and then broke his neck.

Simon wonders if she's till in Sierra Verde. Jim can feel her presence and they realize that Carl was only the middle and was expendable once the deal was set up. They question the local police captain Ortega as to whether Hettinger had been seen meeting with Aguillo, but he says he knows nothing but will look into it and meet them later.

 However, Ortega reports to Aguillo that some American detectives were asking questions about Hettinger and a woman called Alex Barnes. Their discussions are interrupted when Alex calls Aguillo to make her own deal on the nerve gas, demanding $10 million and stating she will call the next day with the time and place for the deal.

 While Simon attends to some business at the American Consulate, Jim returns to their hotel and hears someone in his room. Breaking in, gun drawn he finds Blair and Megan unpacking. When they ask if he's located Alex, he has another vision of her in some kind of grotto. They all go to meet Simon and Ortega at the cafe. While waiting for Ortega Blair and Megan have to defend their presence in Sierra Verde. Megan states she's there with the permission of her superiors in Australia and that four heads are better than two and Blair insists he's a civilian and they can consider him just a concerned tourist.

Ortega arrives with a list of other possible suspects but before he can share the information a tank rolls up the beach and opens fire on the cafe. Fleeing from the barrage, the four of them finally take refuge in a church for the night, not daring to return to their hotel.

 When Blair is too hyped to sleep, he wakes Jim to discuss their current situation and who might have set them up at the cafe. As they tick off the suspects, Jim admits that he's not getting any feeling from Alex in the visions that she wants to kill him. Blair, excitedly realizes that Jim's visions are their edge and insists he get back to sleep.

Jim does have another vision, of him and Alex meeting on a beach and asleep in her hotel room Alex is having the same dream. They both awake to follow their instincts, Blair wakes and follows as Jim slips out of the church.

Blair arrives on the beach to find Jim and Alex in an embrace and Alex pulls Jim's gun and aims it at him. Jim barely rouses from his daze to stop her shooting Blair by taking gun from her. When she runs off, Blair urges Jim to not let her get away, but Jim is unable to act.

 On the beach, Jim explains the contents of his vision to Blair who realizes that Jim and Alex's shared visions are part of Sentinel mythology. There are legends of a temple of light where Sentinel go to receive spiritual guidance and a watery grotto where Sentinels could bathe and be "transformed" and see the Eye of God.

Jim feels as if there's something controlling him and Blair hypothesizes that as Sentinels were part of a warrior culture they had codes of behavior and mating rituals. Jim demands that Blair help him get control of these primitive sexual desires but Blair admits they've moved past his experience and research but he thinks Jim is being drawn "back home".

 Staking out Aguillo's house, Megan creates a distraction at the gate while Jim sneaks into the compound and overhears Aguillo setting up the meet with Alex for the following day. Clearing out of the church the next morning, Megan is helping Blair with his bags when his book on "The Sentinels of Paraguay" falls out and she starts putting two and two together.

 Hiking through the jungle to the rendezvous, Megan becomes increasingly suspicious of Jim's uncanny tracking abilities. Reaching the designated clearing, they conceal themselves and watch as Alex arrives by helicopter to make the exchange with Aguillo. However, Jim realizes it's an ambush and to the horror of his companions, leaps out to warn Alex and cover her as she escapes,, although Aguillo manages to damage the helicopter as it flees.

Jim has another vision of Alex's helicopter crashing in the jungle and heads off with confidence. Simon decides to head back for help and leaves Blair and Megan with a GPS transponder to enable him to locate them later and sends them off to keep an eye on Jim who has already run on ahead.

 At the crash site, Alex retrieves the nerve gas and guided by a vision of her jaguar spirit animal, locates the temple and ventures inside.

Jim is heading relentlessly in the same direction, while Blair tries to fend off Megan's increasing questions by explaining Jim was the best tracker in his Ranger unit.

 That night, by the campfire, and believing Megan is asleep, Jim confides in Blair that Alex has found the temple and that he's torn between his instincts to bring her to justice and to protect her. When Blair asks which is stronger Jim confesses that he doesn't know. Blair suggests that he will need something to focus on next time he confronts Alex. Megan overhears the whole conversation.

 Later that night, Jim has another visitation from Incacha who tells him that he is about to face his most difficult trial. Jim confesses that he feels that he has no power to control his feelings. Incacha says that power can lead to truth or corruption and Jim must choose his own path, he must go alone and the danger he faces must not be shared by his friends. Jim asks how will he know the right path and Incacha says he already does.

Jim wakes from the vision and heads off into the jungle leaving Blair and Megan behind. Breaking camp the next morning, Blair tries to defend Jim's absence and Megan asks him point blank "Is Jim a Sentinel? .. and Alex Barnes, is she one too?"

 Arriving at the temple, Jim cautiously makes his way inside, but Alex ambushes him with a blow dart and he comes too floating in the Sentinel equivalent of a isolation tank. The drug Alex used has left him unable to move as she explains how an ancient potion she concocted from writings on the walls of the temple has allowed her to experience extraordinarily heightened senses. She forces the potion on him and leaves him to experience his own revelations of "the Eye of God." But unlike Alex's uplifting revelation, Jim only sees past and future images of his Sentinel responsibilities.

Meanwhile, Blair and Megan locate Alex's crashed helicopter and themselves in turn, taken prisoner by Aguillo and his henchmen. All of them head off in the direction of the temple, in search of Alex, Jim and the nerve gas.

 In the tank, Jim calls out to Incacha that he's losing his mind all he sees in his visions are past and future images of death and destruction. Incacha tells him not to be afraid to walk through his dreams, he must let his spirit speak. Jim says all he sees is death but Incacha tells him the darkness will flee from the light but the light must come from within. More pointedly he asks Jim what does he fear as Jim sees a further sequence of images in which Blair's life was threatened.

 Emerging from the vision and the tank, Jim becomes aware that his senses are heightened. He also finds Alex in the other tank in a catatonic state. Outside he can hear the arrival of Aguillo with Blair and Megan. Aguillo sends a couple of his goons into the temple after the nerve gas, but Jim disposes of them easily.

Aguillo sends in another man who Jim also takes out of action, forcing the drug lord to enter himself, using Blair and Megan as a shield. Again Jim has little difficulty disposing of him leaving Blair and Megan to witness Alex's re-emergence from the tank.

Alex says she hear the clouds moving and see the molecules in a drop of water, and she wants to share it with Jim, who refuses her offer saying it's time to leave. Alex believes his rejection is because he doesn't understand their potential and she wants to use the nerve gas to dispose of their bodies and let them move to a higher plane of existence.

 Jim tries to explain to her that the way of the Sentinel is to protect and watch over people and he believes she has that same voice deep inside her, telling her the truth he knows. He offers to unite their visions and in a moment of passion, Alex loses control of senses (must have been some kiss), disappearing into a catatonic coma caused by sensory overload. Or as Megan later reports to Simon when he arrives with reinforcements, "she fried her circuits."

In a quiet moment, Jim describes to Blair the intoxicating feeling of ultimate knowledge offered by the Eye of God and how he wanted to go back in when it dissipated. Blair tells Jim that the difference between he and Alex was that she lost her way and he didn't.