Brother's Keeper
Mutant X Episode Synopses
Brother's Keeper: Episode #310.
Tag: The Mutant X team learns about Lexa's estranged twin brother when he becomes the main target of an underground operation harvesting mutant organs. [ Transcript]
Cast & Crew: Written by Michelle Lovretta; Directed by Timothy Bond
Pedro Miguel Arce....Troy
Tom Barnett.... Charles Carter
Steve Byers.... Leo Pierce
Alex Karzis.... William Bain
Kerry Laifatt....Carter's Acupuncturist
Mica Le John....Mary Kate
Heinar Piller....Businessman
Christian Potenza....Hotel clerk
Nobby Suzuki....Asian Man
Paul Tedeschini....Man
Jennifer Vey.... Candace Rockwell
Official Synopsis: On a city street, Shalimar (Victoria Pratt) watches from the shadows as Lexa (Karen Cliche) approaches strangers with a photo in hand. Moments later, Shalimar confronts Lexa, but she insists that what she's doing is none of the team's concern. Suddenly, the sound of a woman screaming startles them and Shalimar's feral senses detect blood. Meanwhile in a nearby hotel room, mutant Candace Rockwell (Jennifer Vey) throws an energy ripple at her attacker in an attempt to fight him off. Arriving at the hotel, Shalimar leads the way to Candace's room, where they find her dead and mangled body. As Shalimar examines the body, Lexa scans the room and picks up a mysterious medallion from the floor. Shalimar suddenly recognizes Candace from Lexa's photo, but Lexa coldly tells her not to get involved. The next morning, Shalimar, Brennan (Victor Webster) and Jesse (Forbes March) agree to find out what Lexa is hiding. Brennan goes to her room and watches as she gathers a hi-tech gun and tracking device. Convincing her to let him tag along, he secretly snatches the medallion from her pocket and hands it to Shalimar as they head out. Later, Jesse comlinks Brennan and tells him the victim is mutant Candace Rockwell and that her liver had been cut out and taken. Meanwhile across town, Charles Carter (Tom Barnett), a telekinetic mutant, sells Candace's organ to a terminally ill businessman. He then orders his assistant Bain (Alex Karzis) to find Leo Pierce (Steve Byers), insisting he's worth a lot of money. At the hotel, Lexa and Brennan review the security video from the day before and see Leo coming out of Candace's room with bloody hands. Taking a closer look, they discover that another man, whose face is concealed, left the room with a briefcase seconds before Leo showed up. When Lexa then sees Leo morph into an Asian man she immediately takes off with Brennan close behind. Meanwhile, Jesse extracts Leo's DNA from the medallion and learns that he is a ?multiple? who can change his physiology to become different people. His known aliases are an Asian man, a muscular man named Troy, and a young girl named Mary Kate. Jesse then discovers that Leo is actually Lexa's twin brother and immediately comlinks Brennan. Just as Brennan reveals to Lexa that he knows about Leo, they are interrupted by the sound of squealing tires and race over to find Carter's men forcing Leo into a van. After taking the men out, Lexa begs Leo to let her help, but when he refuses, she shoots him with the tracking gun as he runs off. Back at Sanctuary, Lexa reveals that Leo lost control of his powers five years ago and was put in an institution run by Eckhart. While there, his condition worsened, he escaped the facility and she's been searching for him ever since. Shalimar enters and tells the team Candace was killed for her liver, and that she is the fifth mutant to be found missing at least one organ. Lexa then realizes Leo's adaptive powers make him a prime target for an underground organ market. On the street, Leo spots Carter's men following him and morphs into the Asian man, but they continue to pursue him. He runs off and when Jesse tells Brennan and Lexa that he lost Leo's signal, Lexa assumes he's hiding in the sewers. Entering the sewer tunnel, Lexa tells Brennan that her parents were part of a Genomex fertility project. Just as Leo started to lose control of his powers, she met Eckhart, who swore he could help. Suddenly Leo calls Lexa's cell phone and accuses her of working with the men who are after him. She tries to convince him otherwise, but when she reveals that she shot him with a tracking device, he hangs up. Jesse then comlinks Brennan and Lexa and lets them know it was Bain who left the hotel room before Leo got there and that he's linked to Carter. Lexa admits she's worked with Carter in the past, but has no idea where he is. Back at Sanctuary, Shalimar researches Leo's alter persona, Troy (Pedro Miguel Arce), and learns that Leo created him after undergoing torturous therapy while in Eckhart's care. Meanwhile, a frightened Mary Kate/Leo (Mica Le John) climbs out of the sewer and runs into a nearby building where she morphs into Troy. Troy/Leo then digs the imbedded tracker out of his arm with a shard of glass just as one of Carter's men bursts in. Brennan and Lexa arrive and use their mutant powers to stop Bain and his men. They find one of Carter's men tied to a chair dead with the tracking chip between his teeth and "HI LEXA" carved into his forehead. Troy then calls Lexa and threatens that since she hasn't stopped Carter from coming after Leo, he'll do it himself. She hangs up and immediately forces Bain to divulge Carter's location. She then knocks Brennan out to prevent him from interfering. A short time later, Lexa barges into Carter's office. Terrified, Carter insists that his body is rejecting a heart transplant and he needs Leo's heart. Troy enters and heads for Carter, but when Lexa gets in the way, Carter runs out of the room. Limping around the corner, he runs into the rest of the Mutant X team, who take his anti-rejection pills to ensure his death. Brennan enters and, seeing Lexa struggling with Troy, throws a series of tesla coils at him, but they have no affect. Troy knocks Brennan against the wall, but just as he's about to finish him off Lexa hits him with a laser and he falls to the ground morphing back to Leo. Lexa rushes to her brother's side and they make their peace just before he dies in her arms.
Quotes:
Lexa: Hey, I'm looking for the guy. His name is Leo.
Man: Well, I don't know him, but if you're looking for a guy...
Lexa: Trust me. I'm more than you could handle.
Lexa: You're persistent, I'll give you that. Annoying, but persistent.
Shalimar: Trust me, I've got better things to do with my Friday night.
Lexa: Oh, good. Go do them.
Lexa: Is a closed door too hard a concept for you?
Brennan: You're handling this all wrong.
Lexa: Really? Enlighten me.
Brennan: Well, normally you just would've lied to Shalimar. But now she and Jess are all over this. You're off your game, Lex, and that's dangerous for all of us.
Lexa: Look, I've got bigger problems right now than your control issues.
Brennan: Yeah, Shal told me you're looking for this guy that killed some girl.
Lexa: Woah, I never said Leo killed her.
Brennan: Leo, that's his name? You know, Lexa? Keep your secrets. I've got enough of my own.
Motel owner: Cop just came in and watched last night's tape. You just missed him.
Lexa: Well, we need to see it.
Motel owner: And I need a night with Angelina Jolie. Yeah, you know I don't have to show you shit.
Lexa: And you don't need to keep breathing either. But if you start helping us, I just might let you.
Motel owner: Come on in.
Jesse: Hey Shal, for the record, it doesn't feel right doing this behind Lexa's back.
Shalimar: Look, Jesse, she's the one that shut us out, okay? Besides, I think it's time we remind her that this is Mutant X, not Mutant Lex.
Brennan: Look, we know Leo's your brother.
Lexa: How do you know?
Brennan: I took the medallion. Jesse ran the DNA.
Lexa: You played me?
Brennan: Look, if you're gonna act like an outsider, you're gonna get treated like one.
Lexa: That's the closest I've been to Leo in four years. You screwed it up, end of story.
Brennan: How was I supposed to know you were shooting him with a tracker?
Lexa: You'd better hope like hell Jess can expand the search field on this thing.
Brennan: Hey, I don't even know why you're chasing your brother in the first place.
Lexa: His mutation's too powerful. He can't handle it. When we were kids, he started switching personalities just to get through the day. Then he lost control and he eneded up in an institution run by Eckhart. Yeah. What they did to him there made him worse. He escaped and I've been searching ever since.
Bain: We got close to Pierce, but the sister intervened.
Charles Carter: Lexa?
Masseuse: Shhh. Down, boy.
Charles: Yeah, I've intervened with Lexa a few times myself. Highly recommend it.
Jesse: You know, this tracker's freaking genius, by the way.
Lexa: Yeah, it's an old GSA prototype built for moleculars. I figured Eckhart owed me a retirement gift when I left.
Jesse: How did you know how to find Leo the other night anyway?
Lexa: The Dominion. It's part of the arrangement.
Jesse: The arrangement. What--you come back to Mutant X and clean up after Adam and The Dominion helps you find your brother?
Lexa: Yeah. You think it's wrong what I'm doing? Chasing him like this?
Jesse: I think that you love him. I think that nothing wrong can come of that.
Lexa: Are you avoiding me?
Leo: If I say yes, will you go away?
Lexa: Smartass. Here, the hospital wants you to sign these.
Leo: I don't know.
Lexa: Hey, I checked this Eckhart guy out. He runs the company that created us. He swears his doctors can help.
Leo: There's nothing wrong with me.
Lexa: Last month you disappeared for three weeks. You still can't remember where. We can't live like this.
Leo: We can barely afford to eat. How're we supposed to afford doctors?
Lexa: Eckhart says he'll do it for free if I agree to work for him.
Leo: I don't know, Lex. You know how freaked out I get when I'm alone too long.
Lexa: I know. So then just remember what Mom used to say when you used to have nightmares: Focus on one good thing. You know, a favorite memory or place.
Leo: What if all I want to focus on is getting out?
Lexa: Do this for me. I would never let anybody hurt you. You know that.
Leo: Promise?
Lexa: Promise.
Jesse: I can almost hear the wheels in your head turning. What's up?
Shalimar: I just can't shake the feeling that Lexa's hiding something from us.
Jesse: Too hard on her.
Shalimar: Good. 'Cause you're too soft.
Brennan: What about your parents? You never mentioned them.
Lexa: They don't deserve to be mentioned. That sounded bitter didn't it?
Brennan: Just a little.
Lexa: They were army intelligence, volunteered for a military fertility project.
Brennan: Let me guess, run by Genomex.
Lexa: You got it. We were a normal little family as far as I knew, then Leo and I showed our mutations, and wham! The brass ordered my parents to hand us over.
Brennan: And they did?
Lexa: Sweet, huh? Until we were 14 we were raised in a military facility. Then Leo started to lose control and I had to leave to find help.
Brennan: So the why doesn't Leo trust you?
Lexa: I told you he was trapped in Eckhart's hospital, right?
Brennan: Yeah.
Lexa: Well, I'm the one who put him in there. He swore he'd help Leo. That was back when I used to trust people.
Shalimar: I checked out some of Leo's other personalities. Meet Troy, Leo's nastiest alter. It was Troy that broke out of Eckhart's institution, not Leo. Put three guys in a coma and nearly leveled the building.
Jesse: Oh, man. Lexa said her brother was dangerous. She wasn't kidding, huh? Imagine being related to that guy.
Shalimar: Yeah, well if you went through what Leo did after his own sister locked him in that hell hole, you might have come out wrong too.
Jesse: What do you mean?
Shalimar: Well, the only reason Leo created Troy was to deal with the stuff that Eckhart's doctors were doing to him. Sensory deprivation, electroshock, slow stage drowning.
Jesse: Oh, man. So they figured if they subjected Leo to enough torture--
Shalimar: He'd shift into something extra dangerous out of sheer self-defense.
Jesse: Looks like it worked.
Shalimar: Unfortunately, once Troy's out of the box, he doesn't want to go back in.
Troy: I wish Leo could see you as I do. You've got him convinced you're so strong, but who have you protected him from? Not mom or dad. Not the doctors.
Lexa: I protect him from you.
Troy: If you hadn't let him down, I wouldn't even exist.
Brennan: You're losing it.
Lexa: No, I'm losing Leo.
Brennan: What are you talking about?
Lexa: The longer I let Troy control him, the more dominant he becomes. Now I only have a small window to try and reach my brother.
Brennan: Ok. Tell me what you need.
Lexa: No, I need you to back off. If you come after Troy, he'll consider you a threat. I can't handle that complication.
Brennan: I'm not letting you go in there alone.
Lexa: You know you can't stop me.
Brennan: Not gonna happen.
Lexa: Yeah? How 'bout this? [kicks him in the groin]
Shalimar: Jess, you know how protective Lex is over Leo.
Jesse: Yeah, I got that.
Shalimar: Well, Troy is Leo. At least part of him, anyway. If he attacks her, how hard do you think she's gonna fight back?
Charles Carter: Well, this brings back good memories. But I preferred it the other way around. C'mon! Since when are you so vanilla?
Lexa: Organ dealing is low, Carter. Even for you.
Charles: What can I say? People pay big money for baboon parts. You'd be amazed at what they'd pay for something more evolved.
Lexa: I guess you're safe, then.
Charles: Relax. It's not like I have no loyalty to our people. I pick from the dregs. Cull the herd. The weak, the freaks. You know, like your brother. Oh, you still blame me for him?
Lexa: You were Eckhart's head of security. You knew what he was doing to him the whole time we were together. You lied to me.
Charles: Well, I had to, baby. It's the only way you could keep lying to yourself. How hard did you really look into what Eckhart was doing to your brother? And how much of you was glad he was finally somebody else's problem?
Charles: I need your brother's heart. It's almost poetic. The one donor that's a guaranteed match is your twin brother. So after the operation, I'll always have a piece of you right here.
Troy: You honestly think I won't kill you?
Lexa: Those doctors lied to me, Leo. They were supposed to help.
Troy: By torturing him? By teaching him new levels of pain?
Lexa: What was I supposed to do? You were falling apart, Leo!
Troy: Stop calling me that!
Lexa: You're the only thing that's ever mattered to me. Somewhere inside you still know that.
Troy: Touching. But he can't hear you.
Troy: Would you like to play a game, Lexa? They used to play games with Leo inside that hospital. They gave him kittens, two of them. Then they'd kill them in front of him and make him watch.
Lexa: I don't know what more you want from me.
Troy: Right now? I want it to be your turn to watch.
Lexa: Oh my god. Leo, don't move, don't move.
Leo: You look like hell. Did I hurt you?
Lexa: No, I'm fine, I'm fine. It doesn't matter.
Leo: Lex, listen. I never blamed you, okay? I was running to protect you.
Lexa: From what?
Leo: This.
Lexa: When you were in the hospital, I visited you every week. Why didn't you say anything?
Leo: Because they told me if I did, they'd do the same things to you. Stay with me, okay? I don't want to die alone.
Lexa: No, don't you talk like that! I'm not going anywhere, okay? Just...just do like we did as kids, okay? Just think of one good--one good thing.
Leo: Lex. My one good thing is you.
Lexa: Castor and Pollux.
Brennan: What?
Lexa: On the necklace. It's a Greek myth. Castor gave up immortality to save his twin. He spent the rest of eternity between heaven and hell as part of the bargain. I gave this to him when he started losing control. Said if he wore it, I'd always be able to find him.
Brennan: Kinda what happened.
Lexa: There's two things you need to be clear on, Brennan. One, I appreciate everything you did to try to help me with my brother.
Brennan: And two?
Lexa: I told you not to come after me. And part of me knows it would have ended the same even if you would've done what I asked.
Brennan: And the rest of you?
Lexa: The rest of me knows it's because of you I had to make a choice and now my brother's dead. And I don't really want to be in the same room with you right now, okay?
Trivia & Nitpicks: The episode's title, "Brother's Keeper," comes from the biblical story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4:9: "And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?"
Lexa grabs 5 collars in this episode. Clearly, the director has decided that's the best way to show that she means business.
Bain is unbelievably fast with a scalpel. Shalimar and Lexa run to the motel because of Candace's screams. By the time they reach the top of the first flight of stairs, he's already cut her (Shal smells blood), and by the time they reach the third floor, he's had time to take out her liver and leave the room before Leo's come in and out--to pass Lexa and Shalimar on their way in the door. That's speedy, all right.
It's nighttime when Shalimar and Lexa find Candace's body (around 8 pm by the hotel's surveillance tape), but by the time Brennan and Lexa leave Sanctuary, it's somehow become the next day, though the events in between seem to occur within the space of maybe a couple of hours.
Leo returns to the motel in his cop persona to watch the tape before Lexa and Brennan get there. But then he leaves the tape there, so what was the point of his coming back, other than to alert his sister to the fact that he was there? Surely the real police would still be coming if they had been called?
Lexa knows what Leo's alters look like and is on the alert for Leo as she enters the motel. Yet she passed by the Asian man without even recognizing him. No wonder she's been searching for five years. It's surprising that she was able to find him at all, even with the help of The Dominion, given the fact that she's only showing a photograph of his main persona.
When Jesse pulls up Candace's autopsy results, the medical examiner's name is listed as Jae H. Pak M.D. (the assistant art director), with permission by John Blackie (the set designer.) Very cute.
When "Leo Pierce" pops up on the new mutant database, Shalimar somehow automatically guesses that he is Lexa's twin brother, though it isn't mentioned anywhere in the profile.
Leo's alters include Troy, Saka, Nancy, John, Ben, Joon, and Mary Kate. The mutant database information that Jesse pulls up on molecular multiple mutants is actually about multiple personality disorder.
Just as Jesse's clothes phase and mass when he does even before he's supposed to be able to phase and mass by touch, Leo's clothes change with his bodily appearance. It must be a molecular trait.
Despite Brennan's theory of "more efficient hearts, stronger lungs," mutant organ transplants would lead to instant organ rejection in normal humans because they are, by definition, genetically dissimilar. Therefore, even though Leo is indeed able to change his molecular structure to become alternate people, he would not be the universal donor because each of his personas still carries the same DNA--and so, being from a new mutant, his organs would still be incompatible with those of a normal human.
In the flashback, Lexa says that she's checked Eckhart out, and believes he can help Leo. This probably means that Lexa joined The GSA before she joined Mutant X 1.0, because it's difficult to believe that anyone who'd been with Adam for two years could have missed hearing about Mason Eckhart before.
It's funny that the admission form Lexa has Leo sign for the Genomex facility has a section for insurance information. Apparently, medical insurance in the Mutant Xverse covers secret government genetic testing.
Brennan assumes that since Lexa is ex-GSA, she must have known Carter. Why? Jesse gave him no time frame for his appointment with the GSA, and he doesn't know how long Lexa was with the GSA.
How does Leo know Lexa's cell phone number? He hasn't seen her in five years.
When Lexa and Brennan enter the sewers to search for Leo, Brennan suddenly has a flashlight. Where did he get that from? The backseat of the van he just stole?
When Leo enters the sewer, Jesse says that he can't track his signal because he's underground and surrounded by steel. Yet Lexa's cellphone works perfectly well...as do Brennan and Lexa's comlinks, despite the fact that Adam informed us in "Within These Walls" that comlinks don't work when surrounded by steel walls. Jesse must have upgraded them after that episode.
After Leo runs away, leaving the phone hanging in the sewer (why is there a phone in the sewer anyway?), Lexa hears the busy signal that one only hears when the other user has hung up.
Jesse identifies William Bain by magnifying the image of his tattoo from the video surveillance tape. How did Jesse get the tape in the first place? Did Brennan and Lexa steal that too?
Troy is the second man in the series who is able to withstand Brennan's usual voltage.
If only Lexa had just disabled Troy instead of murdering Leo! Or even just severed the blade from the sword with a laser to prevent his killing Brennan. So much missed potential.
Return to The Mutant X Warehouse
Brother's Keeper: Episode #310.
Tag: The Mutant X team learns about Lexa's estranged twin brother when he becomes the main target of an underground operation harvesting mutant organs. [ Transcript]
Cast & Crew: Written by Michelle Lovretta; Directed by Timothy Bond
Pedro Miguel Arce....Troy
Tom Barnett.... Charles Carter
Steve Byers.... Leo Pierce
Alex Karzis.... William Bain
Kerry Laifatt....Carter's Acupuncturist
Mica Le John....Mary Kate
Heinar Piller....Businessman
Christian Potenza....Hotel clerk
Nobby Suzuki....Asian Man
Paul Tedeschini....Man
Jennifer Vey.... Candace Rockwell
Official Synopsis: On a city street, Shalimar (Victoria Pratt) watches from the shadows as Lexa (Karen Cliche) approaches strangers with a photo in hand. Moments later, Shalimar confronts Lexa, but she insists that what she's doing is none of the team's concern. Suddenly, the sound of a woman screaming startles them and Shalimar's feral senses detect blood. Meanwhile in a nearby hotel room, mutant Candace Rockwell (Jennifer Vey) throws an energy ripple at her attacker in an attempt to fight him off. Arriving at the hotel, Shalimar leads the way to Candace's room, where they find her dead and mangled body. As Shalimar examines the body, Lexa scans the room and picks up a mysterious medallion from the floor. Shalimar suddenly recognizes Candace from Lexa's photo, but Lexa coldly tells her not to get involved. The next morning, Shalimar, Brennan (Victor Webster) and Jesse (Forbes March) agree to find out what Lexa is hiding. Brennan goes to her room and watches as she gathers a hi-tech gun and tracking device. Convincing her to let him tag along, he secretly snatches the medallion from her pocket and hands it to Shalimar as they head out. Later, Jesse comlinks Brennan and tells him the victim is mutant Candace Rockwell and that her liver had been cut out and taken. Meanwhile across town, Charles Carter (Tom Barnett), a telekinetic mutant, sells Candace's organ to a terminally ill businessman. He then orders his assistant Bain (Alex Karzis) to find Leo Pierce (Steve Byers), insisting he's worth a lot of money. At the hotel, Lexa and Brennan review the security video from the day before and see Leo coming out of Candace's room with bloody hands. Taking a closer look, they discover that another man, whose face is concealed, left the room with a briefcase seconds before Leo showed up. When Lexa then sees Leo morph into an Asian man she immediately takes off with Brennan close behind. Meanwhile, Jesse extracts Leo's DNA from the medallion and learns that he is a ?multiple? who can change his physiology to become different people. His known aliases are an Asian man, a muscular man named Troy, and a young girl named Mary Kate. Jesse then discovers that Leo is actually Lexa's twin brother and immediately comlinks Brennan. Just as Brennan reveals to Lexa that he knows about Leo, they are interrupted by the sound of squealing tires and race over to find Carter's men forcing Leo into a van. After taking the men out, Lexa begs Leo to let her help, but when he refuses, she shoots him with the tracking gun as he runs off. Back at Sanctuary, Lexa reveals that Leo lost control of his powers five years ago and was put in an institution run by Eckhart. While there, his condition worsened, he escaped the facility and she's been searching for him ever since. Shalimar enters and tells the team Candace was killed for her liver, and that she is the fifth mutant to be found missing at least one organ. Lexa then realizes Leo's adaptive powers make him a prime target for an underground organ market. On the street, Leo spots Carter's men following him and morphs into the Asian man, but they continue to pursue him. He runs off and when Jesse tells Brennan and Lexa that he lost Leo's signal, Lexa assumes he's hiding in the sewers. Entering the sewer tunnel, Lexa tells Brennan that her parents were part of a Genomex fertility project. Just as Leo started to lose control of his powers, she met Eckhart, who swore he could help. Suddenly Leo calls Lexa's cell phone and accuses her of working with the men who are after him. She tries to convince him otherwise, but when she reveals that she shot him with a tracking device, he hangs up. Jesse then comlinks Brennan and Lexa and lets them know it was Bain who left the hotel room before Leo got there and that he's linked to Carter. Lexa admits she's worked with Carter in the past, but has no idea where he is. Back at Sanctuary, Shalimar researches Leo's alter persona, Troy (Pedro Miguel Arce), and learns that Leo created him after undergoing torturous therapy while in Eckhart's care. Meanwhile, a frightened Mary Kate/Leo (Mica Le John) climbs out of the sewer and runs into a nearby building where she morphs into Troy. Troy/Leo then digs the imbedded tracker out of his arm with a shard of glass just as one of Carter's men bursts in. Brennan and Lexa arrive and use their mutant powers to stop Bain and his men. They find one of Carter's men tied to a chair dead with the tracking chip between his teeth and "HI LEXA" carved into his forehead. Troy then calls Lexa and threatens that since she hasn't stopped Carter from coming after Leo, he'll do it himself. She hangs up and immediately forces Bain to divulge Carter's location. She then knocks Brennan out to prevent him from interfering. A short time later, Lexa barges into Carter's office. Terrified, Carter insists that his body is rejecting a heart transplant and he needs Leo's heart. Troy enters and heads for Carter, but when Lexa gets in the way, Carter runs out of the room. Limping around the corner, he runs into the rest of the Mutant X team, who take his anti-rejection pills to ensure his death. Brennan enters and, seeing Lexa struggling with Troy, throws a series of tesla coils at him, but they have no affect. Troy knocks Brennan against the wall, but just as he's about to finish him off Lexa hits him with a laser and he falls to the ground morphing back to Leo. Lexa rushes to her brother's side and they make their peace just before he dies in her arms.
Quotes:
Lexa: Hey, I'm looking for the guy. His name is Leo.
Man: Well, I don't know him, but if you're looking for a guy...
Lexa: Trust me. I'm more than you could handle.
Lexa: You're persistent, I'll give you that. Annoying, but persistent.
Shalimar: Trust me, I've got better things to do with my Friday night.
Lexa: Oh, good. Go do them.
Lexa: Is a closed door too hard a concept for you?
Brennan: You're handling this all wrong.
Lexa: Really? Enlighten me.
Brennan: Well, normally you just would've lied to Shalimar. But now she and Jess are all over this. You're off your game, Lex, and that's dangerous for all of us.
Lexa: Look, I've got bigger problems right now than your control issues.
Brennan: Yeah, Shal told me you're looking for this guy that killed some girl.
Lexa: Woah, I never said Leo killed her.
Brennan: Leo, that's his name? You know, Lexa? Keep your secrets. I've got enough of my own.
Motel owner: Cop just came in and watched last night's tape. You just missed him.
Lexa: Well, we need to see it.
Motel owner: And I need a night with Angelina Jolie. Yeah, you know I don't have to show you shit.
Lexa: And you don't need to keep breathing either. But if you start helping us, I just might let you.
Motel owner: Come on in.
Jesse: Hey Shal, for the record, it doesn't feel right doing this behind Lexa's back.
Shalimar: Look, Jesse, she's the one that shut us out, okay? Besides, I think it's time we remind her that this is Mutant X, not Mutant Lex.
Brennan: Look, we know Leo's your brother.
Lexa: How do you know?
Brennan: I took the medallion. Jesse ran the DNA.
Lexa: You played me?
Brennan: Look, if you're gonna act like an outsider, you're gonna get treated like one.
Lexa: That's the closest I've been to Leo in four years. You screwed it up, end of story.
Brennan: How was I supposed to know you were shooting him with a tracker?
Lexa: You'd better hope like hell Jess can expand the search field on this thing.
Brennan: Hey, I don't even know why you're chasing your brother in the first place.
Lexa: His mutation's too powerful. He can't handle it. When we were kids, he started switching personalities just to get through the day. Then he lost control and he eneded up in an institution run by Eckhart. Yeah. What they did to him there made him worse. He escaped and I've been searching ever since.
Bain: We got close to Pierce, but the sister intervened.
Charles Carter: Lexa?
Masseuse: Shhh. Down, boy.
Charles: Yeah, I've intervened with Lexa a few times myself. Highly recommend it.
Jesse: You know, this tracker's freaking genius, by the way.
Lexa: Yeah, it's an old GSA prototype built for moleculars. I figured Eckhart owed me a retirement gift when I left.
Jesse: How did you know how to find Leo the other night anyway?
Lexa: The Dominion. It's part of the arrangement.
Jesse: The arrangement. What--you come back to Mutant X and clean up after Adam and The Dominion helps you find your brother?
Lexa: Yeah. You think it's wrong what I'm doing? Chasing him like this?
Jesse: I think that you love him. I think that nothing wrong can come of that.
Lexa: Are you avoiding me?
Leo: If I say yes, will you go away?
Lexa: Smartass. Here, the hospital wants you to sign these.
Leo: I don't know.
Lexa: Hey, I checked this Eckhart guy out. He runs the company that created us. He swears his doctors can help.
Leo: There's nothing wrong with me.
Lexa: Last month you disappeared for three weeks. You still can't remember where. We can't live like this.
Leo: We can barely afford to eat. How're we supposed to afford doctors?
Lexa: Eckhart says he'll do it for free if I agree to work for him.
Leo: I don't know, Lex. You know how freaked out I get when I'm alone too long.
Lexa: I know. So then just remember what Mom used to say when you used to have nightmares: Focus on one good thing. You know, a favorite memory or place.
Leo: What if all I want to focus on is getting out?
Lexa: Do this for me. I would never let anybody hurt you. You know that.
Leo: Promise?
Lexa: Promise.
Jesse: I can almost hear the wheels in your head turning. What's up?
Shalimar: I just can't shake the feeling that Lexa's hiding something from us.
Jesse: Too hard on her.
Shalimar: Good. 'Cause you're too soft.
Brennan: What about your parents? You never mentioned them.
Lexa: They don't deserve to be mentioned. That sounded bitter didn't it?
Brennan: Just a little.
Lexa: They were army intelligence, volunteered for a military fertility project.
Brennan: Let me guess, run by Genomex.
Lexa: You got it. We were a normal little family as far as I knew, then Leo and I showed our mutations, and wham! The brass ordered my parents to hand us over.
Brennan: And they did?
Lexa: Sweet, huh? Until we were 14 we were raised in a military facility. Then Leo started to lose control and I had to leave to find help.
Brennan: So the why doesn't Leo trust you?
Lexa: I told you he was trapped in Eckhart's hospital, right?
Brennan: Yeah.
Lexa: Well, I'm the one who put him in there. He swore he'd help Leo. That was back when I used to trust people.
Shalimar: I checked out some of Leo's other personalities. Meet Troy, Leo's nastiest alter. It was Troy that broke out of Eckhart's institution, not Leo. Put three guys in a coma and nearly leveled the building.
Jesse: Oh, man. Lexa said her brother was dangerous. She wasn't kidding, huh? Imagine being related to that guy.
Shalimar: Yeah, well if you went through what Leo did after his own sister locked him in that hell hole, you might have come out wrong too.
Jesse: What do you mean?
Shalimar: Well, the only reason Leo created Troy was to deal with the stuff that Eckhart's doctors were doing to him. Sensory deprivation, electroshock, slow stage drowning.
Jesse: Oh, man. So they figured if they subjected Leo to enough torture--
Shalimar: He'd shift into something extra dangerous out of sheer self-defense.
Jesse: Looks like it worked.
Shalimar: Unfortunately, once Troy's out of the box, he doesn't want to go back in.
Troy: I wish Leo could see you as I do. You've got him convinced you're so strong, but who have you protected him from? Not mom or dad. Not the doctors.
Lexa: I protect him from you.
Troy: If you hadn't let him down, I wouldn't even exist.
Brennan: You're losing it.
Lexa: No, I'm losing Leo.
Brennan: What are you talking about?
Lexa: The longer I let Troy control him, the more dominant he becomes. Now I only have a small window to try and reach my brother.
Brennan: Ok. Tell me what you need.
Lexa: No, I need you to back off. If you come after Troy, he'll consider you a threat. I can't handle that complication.
Brennan: I'm not letting you go in there alone.
Lexa: You know you can't stop me.
Brennan: Not gonna happen.
Lexa: Yeah? How 'bout this? [kicks him in the groin]
Shalimar: Jess, you know how protective Lex is over Leo.
Jesse: Yeah, I got that.
Shalimar: Well, Troy is Leo. At least part of him, anyway. If he attacks her, how hard do you think she's gonna fight back?
Charles Carter: Well, this brings back good memories. But I preferred it the other way around. C'mon! Since when are you so vanilla?
Lexa: Organ dealing is low, Carter. Even for you.
Charles: What can I say? People pay big money for baboon parts. You'd be amazed at what they'd pay for something more evolved.
Lexa: I guess you're safe, then.
Charles: Relax. It's not like I have no loyalty to our people. I pick from the dregs. Cull the herd. The weak, the freaks. You know, like your brother. Oh, you still blame me for him?
Lexa: You were Eckhart's head of security. You knew what he was doing to him the whole time we were together. You lied to me.
Charles: Well, I had to, baby. It's the only way you could keep lying to yourself. How hard did you really look into what Eckhart was doing to your brother? And how much of you was glad he was finally somebody else's problem?
Charles: I need your brother's heart. It's almost poetic. The one donor that's a guaranteed match is your twin brother. So after the operation, I'll always have a piece of you right here.
Troy: You honestly think I won't kill you?
Lexa: Those doctors lied to me, Leo. They were supposed to help.
Troy: By torturing him? By teaching him new levels of pain?
Lexa: What was I supposed to do? You were falling apart, Leo!
Troy: Stop calling me that!
Lexa: You're the only thing that's ever mattered to me. Somewhere inside you still know that.
Troy: Touching. But he can't hear you.
Troy: Would you like to play a game, Lexa? They used to play games with Leo inside that hospital. They gave him kittens, two of them. Then they'd kill them in front of him and make him watch.
Lexa: I don't know what more you want from me.
Troy: Right now? I want it to be your turn to watch.
Lexa: Oh my god. Leo, don't move, don't move.
Leo: You look like hell. Did I hurt you?
Lexa: No, I'm fine, I'm fine. It doesn't matter.
Leo: Lex, listen. I never blamed you, okay? I was running to protect you.
Lexa: From what?
Leo: This.
Lexa: When you were in the hospital, I visited you every week. Why didn't you say anything?
Leo: Because they told me if I did, they'd do the same things to you. Stay with me, okay? I don't want to die alone.
Lexa: No, don't you talk like that! I'm not going anywhere, okay? Just...just do like we did as kids, okay? Just think of one good--one good thing.
Leo: Lex. My one good thing is you.
Lexa: Castor and Pollux.
Brennan: What?
Lexa: On the necklace. It's a Greek myth. Castor gave up immortality to save his twin. He spent the rest of eternity between heaven and hell as part of the bargain. I gave this to him when he started losing control. Said if he wore it, I'd always be able to find him.
Brennan: Kinda what happened.
Lexa: There's two things you need to be clear on, Brennan. One, I appreciate everything you did to try to help me with my brother.
Brennan: And two?
Lexa: I told you not to come after me. And part of me knows it would have ended the same even if you would've done what I asked.
Brennan: And the rest of you?
Lexa: The rest of me knows it's because of you I had to make a choice and now my brother's dead. And I don't really want to be in the same room with you right now, okay?
Trivia & Nitpicks: The episode's title, "Brother's Keeper," comes from the biblical story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4:9: "And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?"
Lexa grabs 5 collars in this episode. Clearly, the director has decided that's the best way to show that she means business.
Bain is unbelievably fast with a scalpel. Shalimar and Lexa run to the motel because of Candace's screams. By the time they reach the top of the first flight of stairs, he's already cut her (Shal smells blood), and by the time they reach the third floor, he's had time to take out her liver and leave the room before Leo's come in and out--to pass Lexa and Shalimar on their way in the door. That's speedy, all right.
It's nighttime when Shalimar and Lexa find Candace's body (around 8 pm by the hotel's surveillance tape), but by the time Brennan and Lexa leave Sanctuary, it's somehow become the next day, though the events in between seem to occur within the space of maybe a couple of hours.
Leo returns to the motel in his cop persona to watch the tape before Lexa and Brennan get there. But then he leaves the tape there, so what was the point of his coming back, other than to alert his sister to the fact that he was there? Surely the real police would still be coming if they had been called?
Lexa knows what Leo's alters look like and is on the alert for Leo as she enters the motel. Yet she passed by the Asian man without even recognizing him. No wonder she's been searching for five years. It's surprising that she was able to find him at all, even with the help of The Dominion, given the fact that she's only showing a photograph of his main persona.
When Jesse pulls up Candace's autopsy results, the medical examiner's name is listed as Jae H. Pak M.D. (the assistant art director), with permission by John Blackie (the set designer.) Very cute.
When "Leo Pierce" pops up on the new mutant database, Shalimar somehow automatically guesses that he is Lexa's twin brother, though it isn't mentioned anywhere in the profile.
Leo's alters include Troy, Saka, Nancy, John, Ben, Joon, and Mary Kate. The mutant database information that Jesse pulls up on molecular multiple mutants is actually about multiple personality disorder.
Just as Jesse's clothes phase and mass when he does even before he's supposed to be able to phase and mass by touch, Leo's clothes change with his bodily appearance. It must be a molecular trait.
Despite Brennan's theory of "more efficient hearts, stronger lungs," mutant organ transplants would lead to instant organ rejection in normal humans because they are, by definition, genetically dissimilar. Therefore, even though Leo is indeed able to change his molecular structure to become alternate people, he would not be the universal donor because each of his personas still carries the same DNA--and so, being from a new mutant, his organs would still be incompatible with those of a normal human.
In the flashback, Lexa says that she's checked Eckhart out, and believes he can help Leo. This probably means that Lexa joined The GSA before she joined Mutant X 1.0, because it's difficult to believe that anyone who'd been with Adam for two years could have missed hearing about Mason Eckhart before.
It's funny that the admission form Lexa has Leo sign for the Genomex facility has a section for insurance information. Apparently, medical insurance in the Mutant Xverse covers secret government genetic testing.
Brennan assumes that since Lexa is ex-GSA, she must have known Carter. Why? Jesse gave him no time frame for his appointment with the GSA, and he doesn't know how long Lexa was with the GSA.
How does Leo know Lexa's cell phone number? He hasn't seen her in five years.
When Lexa and Brennan enter the sewers to search for Leo, Brennan suddenly has a flashlight. Where did he get that from? The backseat of the van he just stole?
When Leo enters the sewer, Jesse says that he can't track his signal because he's underground and surrounded by steel. Yet Lexa's cellphone works perfectly well...as do Brennan and Lexa's comlinks, despite the fact that Adam informed us in "Within These Walls" that comlinks don't work when surrounded by steel walls. Jesse must have upgraded them after that episode.
After Leo runs away, leaving the phone hanging in the sewer (why is there a phone in the sewer anyway?), Lexa hears the busy signal that one only hears when the other user has hung up.
Jesse identifies William Bain by magnifying the image of his tattoo from the video surveillance tape. How did Jesse get the tape in the first place? Did Brennan and Lexa steal that too?
Troy is the second man in the series who is able to withstand Brennan's usual voltage.
If only Lexa had just disabled Troy instead of murdering Leo! Or even just severed the blade from the sword with a laser to prevent his killing Brennan. So much missed potential.
Return to The Mutant X Warehouse