This week’s Nikita gave us a little bit of Division’s backstory, and a lot of its rhetoric. Nikita’s old friend Carla (Erica Gimpel) told her that she wanted to restart Division as the project for good she apparently once intended it is, and to that end, she called up Percy (Xander Berkeley) to help her do it, since he’s the only one who understands her. (Ladies, raise your hand if you have heard that line before, or heaven forbid even used it.)
So in short: when Carla agreed to join Percy in creating Division, she intended it as a force for good. Then Percy brought Amanda (Melinda Clarke) in, and Amanda “corrupted” the angelic plan. So now Carla wants to eliminate Amanda (who also wants to eliminate her) and things are supposed to go back to the way they used to be, with Carla and Percy rebooting the organization for its former noble cause.
I give the Nikita writers props for coming up with a backstory that is unique to this show; at least as far as I can recall, this is totally different from the history that was part of USA’s La Femme Nikita. And I can understand why they went this route: saying that the entity we’ve spent the whole show despising once used to be good makes things much more grey, creating more of that moral ambiguity that Nikita loves to play with.
However … I’m just not buying this, past or present. At least, not until we learn a bit more.
From what we’ve seen on the show so far, Percy’s always been a bit unhinged; it’s not like he suddenly went crazy over the course of the show. And from what we’ve learned tonight, it was Percy who approached Carla and brought in Amanda, so it sounds like Division was his idea (or at least he was the first one in the door). I just don’t see him thinking so benevolently. I wouldn’t be surprised if he always had an ulterior motive, and brought Carla in just for her access to prisoners. It sounds to me like he told Carla what she wanted to hear, and she drank the Kool-Aid.
Here’s where things get tricky: I also believe that there’s more history between Carla and Percy than we’ve yet been told. There’s an odd tenderness there I can’t put my finger on. Did they have a personal relationship at some point? It would make it a little easier to understand why she still thinks so highly of him. And if they were involved, when/how did that affect Amanda’s obvious unrequited affection for Percy, and did it have any impact on her taking up with Ari Tasarov (Peter Outerbridge)? There’s a whole mess of personal problems in Division’s past, and I can’t really judge what any of these people are thinking until I know what happened.
Carla wants to “reboot” Division and bring it back to what she thought it could be, even if means going to Percy and stepping over Nikita to do it. Aside from this one-track mind making her character fairly insufferable, we know that it probably won’t go down that way; I would not be shocked if Carla’s beliefs eventually get her killed. But it does pose an interesting thought: in the right hands, could Division be a good thing?
I don’t know if it would be in the cards for the present (that would make for an odd show, wouldn’t it?), but I recall that La Femme Nikita ended with Nikita installed as the new Operations. And asked recently about how the show might end if it isn’t renewed for season three, Shane West threw out the idea of Michael in charge of Division. I could see a Division with Michael at the helm – no offense to Nikita, but as Michael was in charge of agent operations, I think he’s better qualified for the job – doing something constructive.
Of course, there are all sorts of concerns about that (how viable Division would be after the fall of Oversight, Amanda, etc. and what the gig would mean for Michael’s relationship with his son), but I wouldn’t discount it as a possible series ending. I could see it at the very end, but not necessarily now, and not with Carla and Percy in the picture.
What do you think? Do you think Division was ever a good idea? Do you think it could be a good idea again? And how do you think that would pan out for Nikita?
Clacked by Brittany Frederick 
on Feb 18, 2012 @ 01:05 EST5EDT
