Okay, that was a FUN hour.
As usual, Naomi was off looking for answers, but she was looking in the wrong place. But someone unexpected came to her rescue on Naomi Season 1 Episode 6.
And now we can open this story up further, as we may be getting ready to peel back the layers of one Mr. Zumbado.
Naomi is doing the best she can.
Since she found out she had powers and wasn’t from Earth, she’s tried her best to take advice (when she feels it beneficial), and she’s tried to get answers for herself.
Sure, she puts herself into dangerous situations daily, but she’s also flying by the seat of her pants most of the time.
Dee helps as much as he can, and her parents are as helpful as they can be, but there has always been one person who could give her all the information she’s ever wanted on a silver platter if he felt so inclined. But Zumbado has repeatedly reiterated that Naomi wasn’t ready.
And maybe he was right.
Naomi acts impulsively and recklessly at times, but she’s also sixteen with very little guidance. She doesn’t have an alien tour guide to tell her all the dos and don’ts. Nor does she have anyone who can tell her anything about her planet.
We all come from somewhere. We arrive one day, and we start forging our path, and if you’re lucky enough, you have people in your life to shade in the early years our brains won’t allow us to remember.
Naomi: Annabelle, I think I can see through here.
Annabelle: Yes, I knew it! I knew you would have x-ray vision. OMG. Can you see inside of me? How’s my heart? Am I getting enough iron?
Naomi doesn’t have that, and it pains her not to know anything about her history. And can you blame her? It’s only natural to want to look into your history, but Naomi can’t exactly get a 23andme kit.
So, she thinks outside the box, which she’s very good at, and she finds her way to a lab and a doctor she believes can help her. And things quickly go off the rails.
The first tip-off to Dr. Bell’s duplicity should have come with how willing she was to help Naomi. There was always going to be something in it for her. And it wasn’t just helping get a young girl some answers.
Was it a bit naive on Naomi’s part to take everything that Dr. Bell said at face value? Sure, but again she’s a teenager doing her best. And Dr. Bell was genial enough not to raise any serious bells.
Zumbado: STAR labs is dangerous. Dr. Bell is dangerous. The device is dangerous. That’s why I took it. It’ll ruin our planet.
Naomi: I don’t believe you.
Zumbado: That’s irrelevant.
Naomi: If you’re not going to give me the device. I’m going to take it from you.
Zumbado: Finally, some nerve.
So, on the one hand, you have Dr. Bell, who’s intelligent, friendly, and spends her days waltzing around a fancy lab that may have the capabilities to see into different universes. And on the other, you’ve got Zumbado, who everyone and their mother tells you is dangerous and has never indeed shown himself to be an ally.
Who would you choose to believe?
For as villainous as they’ve tried to make Zumbado throughout Naomi Season 1, there was something about his warnings this hour that felt different.
Going to Greg and Jennifer and warning them was self-serving but felt like a subtle change. He knew the bounty hunter was after Naomi, yet he didn’t lift a finger then to warn anyone. But in warning them, it seemed as if he was looking out for Naomi in a way.
Now it would be naive to believe that these warnings ONLY came from a place of protecting Naomi because if there is one thing we have seen to be factual thus far, it’s that Zumbado cares about himself first.
The confrontation between Naomi and Zumbado was just another “fight” that ended in Naomi realizing that she was no match for the older man. She’s steadily improving, and that’s clear, but her powers are still not honed. When they are, I know she will be able to leave someone like Zumbado in the dust.
But she’s not there yet.
Saving Naomi from the evil Dr. Bell, who was ready to use Naomi as her own personal energy source, will be very interesting as it will probably force Zumbado to show more of his hand now. Creeping in the shadows and giving speeches about people being disappointments isn’t going to hold as much weight.
Not when he’s leaping out to save the girl he spends so much time chastising.
It’s high time we learned more about Zumbado because he’ was set up to be the antagonist, yet we’re not wholly sure why. I’ve always thought there was more to Zumbado than meets the eye, and while I may be wrong, hopefully, we can continue to form our opinions based on what we see and not what the other characters say.
This week’s lesser plots involved teaming Nathan and Anthony up and having Dee look into his former love, Qyeala.
Two guys fighting over is nothing new, especially regarding high teenagers. We’ve seen the love triangle a million times. Unfortunately, this triangle has fallen into the trap of having the two rivals hate one another for no real discernible reason other than liking the same girl. Or so we thought.
Here we got some more information about the disconnect between Nathan and Anthony. It was refreshing to get a peek into their thoughts about one another.
They started on the wrong foot when they met, and they both have a lot of preconceived notions about the other. But the simple truth is they know nothing about each other. If they did, they’d probably see they have more in common than they think, but they’ve never allowed themselves to see past what they wanted to see.
And that’s not uncommon. We often put people in boxes and refuse to move them, mainly because we never give them a chance to prove they deserve to be somewhere else.
There will always be the Naomi factor that could keep them from being the best friends I believe they should be, but this was a step in the right direction. If nothing else, they realized that the other wasn’t the antichrist, which is a win.
Can someone hug Dee?
Dee is just like this stoic teddy bear you want to hug and reassure because he often looks like he’s lived a million lives, and they’ve all made him tired.
The quest to find out information on Qyeala was probably a hail mary, and he knew that, but there was also no way he couldn’t try. He had to make some calls at least and see if there was any way the love of his life could be out there and possibly still be trying to find her way back to him.
We don’t get many action pieces on the series, and they often aren’t very long when we do. But the bar fight was good for what it was. And it was nice to see Dee dominate and barely break a sweat.
Getting the ring back was necessary for Dee to close that chapter, though, can losing the love of your life ever be a chapter that is completely shut?
Something tells me this story is far from over.
Extra, Extra
- That stranded alien bar was sad but also kind of cool. At least there is a place on this Earth for those people to congregate and feel a little less alone when they’re within those walls.
- Nathan and Anthony did the right thing by not exposing Esme. Man, I just want these two guys to become besties! Is that too much to ask?
- What happened to Lourdes and Jacob? It feels like we haven’t seen them in forever. And we need more scooby gang adventures.
- I love hearing the little tidbits about the characters, like learning more about the Thangarians through that conversation with Adam.
This was a solid installment, and while it can feel like the story is dragging, this was an excellent episode to push things forward. If nothing else, it now sets us up for more Zumbado!
And we desperately need to learn more about the man we’re supposed to fear.
Let me know in the comments how you felt about the hour and watch Naomi online right now via TV Fanatic, so you don’t miss a second of the action!
Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.