Panopticon

Jennifer watches the Bowmans via video surveillance

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> *"Los Angeles will be a test case for a new way forward.
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> -Helena Goldwin, speaking at the Global Transitional Authority*
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## Synopsis

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> *"Jennifer watches the Bowman house; when Charlie returns home, the family faces unexpected challenges.
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> -Official Synopsis*
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Will and Katie are adjusting to being together again and Charlie is adjusting to life off the streets; he doesn't like Gracie's tutor, Lindsey or what she teaches. At Homeland, Jennifer McMahon watches every scene inside the Bowman house and wrestles with having the family's fate in her hands.

## Plot

### Global Assembly Votes on "Total Rendition" for L.A. bloc

Helena Goldwin, the new Governor General of the L.A. bloc, is in Switzerland to addresses the Global Transitional Authority to discuss her territory's issues, including the abduction of a RAP. We see her getting ready for the meeting, splashing cold water on her face and swapping her usual LA Transitional Authority lapel badge for a Greatest Day badge. Through the windows of the washroom we can see a snow covered landscape and a large alien building.

Goldwin assures the Authority that she's using "advanced security measures", and implementing the same surveillance system used in Seattle. Her goal is "total information awareness", a test case for a new better way forward, she says. The Authority is unimpressed and calls for a vote on whether the bloc should face "Total Rendition". Helena's iron control holds during the votes, but she is obviously terrified - fiddling and playing with the LA TA badge she put in her pocket - actually dropping it, and relieved when the vote comes in "no".

### Jennifer Binges "The Bowmans at Home"

Homeland Security has video and audio surveillance in every room of the Bowman house, and outside the house, too. Jennifer McMahon can't stop watching the feed. She sees and hears Charlie and Will arrive home and sees Gracie take Charlie up to see his room. Every room in the house appears to have a hidden camera and microphone.

As Katie runs a shower for Charlie, Will asks where Bram is, he's devastated by the news that he's been arrested.

Her boss, Dan Bennett, demands to know who her source on Broussard is, then says he thinks there was something "illicit" going on in her unit. He assigns someone to investigate her. Jennifer tells Detective Burke that she never had a source, and lied about it to keep her job. She says she’s been watching the Bowman house because Will, her former colleague, just returned. Burke doesn’t believe her and promises if he finds out she’s been lying, he’ll send her to the Factory. Despite the threat, Jennifer seems to be obsessed with the Bowmans, and doesn't stop watching them.

### Katie and Will Catch Up After Being Apart

The Bowman family reunion stumbles when Will asks where Bram is, and Katie has to tell him their oldest son was arrested. When Will learns the details, he realizes it was his own trap that ensnared his son. Jennifer watches as Will angrily confronts Katie about her work with the Resistance, accusing her of being selfish and tearing their marriage and family apart while he was fighting to keep them safe. He tells Katie that her former Resistance cell leader Quayle was ready to turn her in, until Will killed him (Season 1, "In From The Cold"). Jennifer is stunned, but moved by the depth of Will's feelings for Katie.

### Charlie is Not a "The Greatest Day" Person

After a year spent separated from his family and fighting for his life, Charlie has to get used to being at home again: When the doorbell rings, he hides under a bed with a knife; he collects the oranges from the trees in the garden, hordeing them all in his bag. When he eats a meal with his family, he eats as fast as possible, in case someone takes it from him. His suspicions are raised when he talks to Gracie's Greatest Day tutor Lindsey, who attributes Charlie's return to their "benevolent hosts." Charlie tells her that his dad saved him. (Later, when Gracie is being taught by Lindsey, Charlie starts a fire in the kitchen - burning Lindsay's religious book.) Charlie's unwillingness to talk about his year away frustrates his parents, who struggle to get through to him. When he tells his mom that she should "get rid of" Lindsey, Katie has a brief moment where she questions her son's meaning.

### The Bowmans Plan How to Handle Jennifer, She Watches Them on Surveillance

Jennifer continues to watch as Will and Katie open up to each other. Katie confesses that Jennifer knows that she has been involved with the Resistance, but then tells Will exactly what she told Jennifer: that she has no way to contact Broussard, and he wouldn’t trust her anyway after she turned on him to save Will. She promises Will she is "done" with the Resistance, but agreed to turn herself in to Jennifer. Will tells his wife that while Jennifer is a good person, she is "weak", and he can handle her by making Jennifer think they are friends - as he did before. Jennifer is hurt and angry as she listens.

### Jennifer Makes Her Choice

After hearing what Will thinks of her, Jennifer storms into her Dan Bennett's office, apparently ready to turn over the Bowmans. But as he commends her for learning to make Homeland Security her life, she seems to decide it's not the life she wants. Instead, Jennifer lies again and says her source was Simon Eckhart, a member of Broussard's resistance cell. She deliberately makes herself seem incompetent in Bennett's eyes by saying that Eckhart called the tip line and just happened to be transferred to her, ruining any possibility she had of seeming like an agent who could cultivate an asset. Bennett tells her she lacks the skill set and the constitution to be an officer and transfers her to the general surveillance pool.

### Charlie Acts Out and Will Makes a Discovery

When Lindsey’s Greatest Day book goes up in flames on the stove, Katie realizes that the kitchen accident was a deliberately set by Charlie. She and Will put out the flames and Will looks up at the nearby smoke alarm, wondering why it didn't go off - he doesn't take it down to check though. When Will invites Katie into the shower to help him clean up, it seems as if just wants to be close to her, but, masked by the noise of the shower, he whispers in her ear that they are being watched and that they can't talk anymore in the house.

### Jennifer Makes Another Choice

Jennifer continues to watch the Bowmans and is touched when she sees Gracie joins Charlie to sleep on the floor next to him. Jennifer helps the Bowmans again by deleting footage from inside their house. She goes home and takes out a bottle of wine she's been saving, and a hidden cell phone with a video of her together with her fiancee and their dog, Ringo. She cries watching the scene from her old life. Jennifer pours some wine and opens the pills. She cries again as she starts to take the pills; the person who is supposed to be watching her in the surveillance pool has disappeared.

## Cast

### **Main Cast**

* Josh Holloway as Will Bowman
* Sarah Wayne Callies as Katie Bowman
* Peter Jacobson as Alan Snyder
* Amanda Righetti as Maddie Bowman
* Tory Kittles as Broussard
* Alex Neustaedter as Bram Bowman
* Isabella Crovetti-Cramp as Gracie Bowman

### Recurring And Guest Cast

* Ally Walker as Helena Goldwin
* Christian Clemenson as Dan Bennett
* Erin Way as Lindsey
* Jacob Buster as Charlie Bowman
* Kathleen Rose Perkins as Jennifer McMahon
* Toby Huss as Bob Burke
* Brenda Bakke as Swiss Chancellor
* Keiko Agena as Jennifer's workmate

### Co-Starring

* Bahia Haifi Gold as French Delegate
* Burt Grinstead as Jason
* Jay Harik as Emirates Delegate
* Jan Munroe as American Delegate
* Folake Olowofoyeku as Redhat
* Danny Pardoe as Argentinian Delegate
* Alexi Stavrou as Grey Hat
* Ben Wang as Chinese Delegate

## Trivia

* The title of the episode is an allusion to a concept introduced by the Utilitarian Philosopher Jeremy Bentham. He suggested it as a means of total surveillance of all prisoners from a central location by prison staff for the purpose of rehabilitation. The name is also a reference to Panoptes from Greek mythology; he was a giant with a hundred eyes and thus was known to be a very effective watchman.

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(https://www.utilitarianism.com/panopticon.html)

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* Total Information Awareness (TIA) - variation of the term "situational awareness", which is thrown around in some form or another in all the service branches, which esentially means awareness of your surroundings, especially that of your enemy. TIA takes this term a step further by using remote means of tracking, or monitoring, persons and objects in real-time using sensors, surveillance cameras, and overhead systems like drones. high-altitude reconnaissance planes, as well as satellites. Moreover, once the person or object is detected and identified, you can drill down further into any aspect of the identified, by using any and all databases on demand.

## References

1. ↑ "**Panopticon**"
2. ↑ USA Network and IMDB