By: Brandon Wolfe
After a few episodes attempting, and failing, to craft riveting television out of political intrigue, ‘Tyrant’ moves to that most tried-and-true method of grabbing viewers: murder. Truth be told, it mostly helps. “Preventative Medicine” holds our interest more than episodes of this series generally have. The introduction of juicier stakes for the characters, actions and decisions of more immediate interest to the viewing audience than the legacy-building and political chess games the show usually feeds us, gives ‘Tyrant’ a bit of kick in the seat. We are far from out of the woods here, but a watchable ‘Tyrant’ is certainly progress.
Jamal’s impromptu assault on Sheik Rashid in the men’s room has mostly gone in his favor. The doctors find no evidence of foul play and conclude that the sheik’s physical ailment is the culprit behind his nasty head trauma, while the security footage is doctored to remove Jamal’s presence from the restroom. The only problem for Jamal is that the sheik is not dead, not quite. He’s hanging on by a thread, placed into an induced coma, but the doctors have every reason to believe that he can make a full recovery shortly, possibly in a matter of days. This troubles Jamal, for obvious reasons. If the sheik comes to and starts talking, Jamal’s life will be ruined. When dealing with the stress of the situation, Jamal arrives at the conclusion that he no longer wants to be the president of Abuddin. Even in his very brief reign, it has been nothing but a series of headaches. He wants to retreat before the world learns of his crime and live a life of leisure. He implores Leila to leave with him to the Maldives to get away from all of this while that is still possible, but though she is actually proud of his attempt on the sheik’s life, she tells him he must stay and stand his ground.
This leads Jamal to the only plan he can devise. He asks Bassam to make sure the sheik never awakes from that coma, a burden that Bassam accepts with no small amount of trepidation. He is aghast at what his brother has done after all the progress he had steered him toward, yet still feels the familial obligation to help him out of this jam. Bassam goes to the sheik’s hospital bed (which he, conveniently, is allowed to do without an escort), expresses his profound apologies to the unconscious man and injects him with the contents of a syringe to begin a process that will take hours to officially kill him, lessening the suspicion of funny business. The experience takes Bassam back to his childhood, when he took it upon himself to execute a man in the streets to spare his brother the trauma of being forced to do it himself. So troubled is Bassam by this task that it sends him back to the prayer rug for the first time in ages. What it doesn’t do, regrettably, is lift Adam Rayner’s performance up from its default state of low-hum mediocrity.
It’s a bad week for Bassam all around, for he also learns from his mother that the gas attack infamously waged by his father twenty years ago was actually the handiwork of his bloodthirsty uncle, General Tariq. It turns out that the former President Al-Fayeed was actually a peaceful man who merely lacked the fortitude to stand up to his wrathful brother. It’s a revelation that doesn’t quite wash. While we’ve certainly seen Tariq raising his iron fist all throughout the series, we have also seen flashbacks of Bassam and Jamal’s father ordering his boys to execute men in the streets and behaving the way a ruthless dictator generally behaves. This attempt at a retroactive whitewash doesn’t sync up with the very little we already know about that character.
It was revealed last week that Jamal has taken a mistress, a blonde American (these brothers certainly have a type) named Katerina, who adores Jamal and gives him the affection and ego-stoking that the ice-blooded Leila refuses to provide. Jamal runs his Maldives idea by her, still plotting an escape from this life, and Katerina happily accepts. But Jamal’s escape plan goes out the window when he receives the instant relief of Bassam’s telephone call informing his brother of the sheik’s death. Jamal, concerned with tying off anything that could remotely be considered a loose end, opts to smother an unsuspecting Katerina to death with a pillow. This development comes out of nowhere and doesn’t seem particularly well-reasoned, but ‘Tyrant’ shifting its penchant toward overwrought melodrama into a mounting body count at least livens up the proceedings.
The other development this week is the arrival in Abuddin of Molly’s flighty sister, Jenna, who storms into the palace and announces that she’s fallen on hard times and wants to stay in the lap of luxury indefinitely, something we gather from Molly’s reaction is a not-infrequent component of their relationship. ‘Tyrant’ had given us a break for a short while from Bassam’s obnoxious American family, yet now tosses one more irksome log on the fire. ‘Tyrant’ is produced by Howard Gordon of ‘24’ and Jenna seems like a pristine example of one of that series’ more troubling tendencies, randomly tossing a character’s screw-up relative into the mix and letting them cause problems that the writers feel make matters more interesting, but actually register as time-wasting distractions. It’s clear that Jenna exists to stir up some form of chaos in the coming weeks and I don’t see that helping matters along.
“Preventative Medicine” ends on a provocative note, with Bassam contacting the American ambassador John Tucker and requesting a list of all those who feel Jamal isn’t fit to rule. The idea of Bassam orchestrating a power play against Jamal, brother turned against brother, could be another step in the direction of ‘Tyrant’ becoming less of a joyless slog. Then again, it could turn out to be colorless and dull. That is, after all, ‘Tyrant’s’ wont.
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