Main cast: Annalise Basso (Foster Lee), Maura Tierney (Irene Lee), Connor Paolo (Ethan), Alice Lee (Milena), Algee Smith (Kaveh), Martin Donovan (Odin), and Emily Rudd (Kim)
Director: Alan Taylor
Safe and Sound is inspired by Philip K Dick’s Foster, You’re Dead, and “inspired” is the operative word here, as aside from the premise that the government is up to no good, nothing about this episode is similar in any way to anything in the story. Well, other than the main character’s name, I suppose.
Set in the future – of course – the American population is divided by an actual, physical rift. To the east of this rift, the people live in technologically advanced cities where everything is regimented and Big Brother-ed for the purported sake of stability and safety for all. To the west are the bubbles – communes of folks who reject the high-tech ways of the eastern folks and opt to live simpler lives. Still, both sides can’t do without one another, and Irene Lee moves to a city in the East for a year in order to negotiate on some diplomatic issues.
This is how Foster, our protagonist, finds herself living out a typical high school nightmare. She can’t fit in, and her mother is no source of comfort, as Irene is all good, good, these people are trash so it’s good that they detest Foster. As you can guess, our poor dear doesn’t see it that way. As this is her first time out of her bubble, she is fascinated by the city, especially for the stability and sense of security that it offers. She wants to fit in – she even wants to be part of this society, much to her mother’s horror.
In an effort to fit in, Foster secretly purchases a Dex, a tracking device that allows the government to follow her every move. Every kid in school has one, after all. Alas, she’s still an outsider. Fortunately, she finds an unlikely ally in Ethan, her personal Dex customer support guy, who soon becomes her best friend, adviser, and confidante. Thanks to him, she begins to navigate high school a little better. Unfortunately, he soon begins making her do increasingly unwise and even dangerous things, and our poor dear is too far gone to realize the mess he is slowly luring her into.
Unlike the story, this one doesn’t have any strong take-home message other than high school sucks. Well, maybe it’s also about how bad parents can get what is coming to them, I suppose, because honestly Irene is a terrible mother. She is so intent on forcing her viewpoints on her daughter that she steamrolls over Foster without listening to what her daughter has to say. I don’t even know why Irene is chosen to be a representative of her bubble, because this woman is a terrible diplomat. She doesn’t hide her disdain for the people around her, so I don’t know how she is supposed to play nice and negotiate good things for her people.
As for Foster, sadly if this movie were Heathers, she’d be the brainwashed victim version of JD rather than Veronica. The poor dear never stands a chance as she is just a goldfish in an aquarium full of sharks, and Annalise Basso manages to make her character a sympathetic one rather than an idiot.
All in all, this episode could have been a powerful tale of high school angst and negligent mothers… until the last few minutes when the episode completely shoots itself in both its kneecaps and then both its feet by over-explaining everything that has happened. If it had left the door just wide open enough to let me form my own interpretations, it would have been a winner. Instead, it throws the door wide open, and I realize that the scenery is nowhere as fantastic as I’d imagined. In fact, the twists and turns are, when explained, kind of silly.
Safe and Sound could have been a solid episode about how overzealous socialists can drive their children to become die-hard Republicans, but alas, it just doesn’t know when to stop.
