Moment of Sadness: Helen Confronts Henry, Covert Affairs “No. 13 Baby” 

[Warning: Spoilers for last night’s Covert Affairs].

So, Helen was a tricky character from the jump because she was Auggie’s secret dead wife. And then she was Auggie’s secret not-dead (vs. undead) wife. When Annie went dark, she was following the same path Helen had taken years earlier, and last week, Helen figured that out, after she went calling on Auggie, in his hour of need, and essentially queried, “How ’bout it?” Awkward!

Auggie, still loyal to Annie, and knowing full well that she’s alive somewhere in the world, had firmly shot Helen down anyway. She was desperately trying to reclaim what she forfeited years earlier and he told her, “Thanks, but NO.” Once she discovers Annie’s alive, she goes to tell Auggie in person and realizes he already knew. He asks her not to tell Joan and Arthur and she says she won’t.

Then Auggie gets a laptop from Calder that he knows is from Annie and he asks Helen to find her, and she does her best but Calder shakes her. Afterward, she invites Auggie over to her apartment to see the new life she’s hoping to create (after she’s told Joan she wants out of the deep ops life and Joan tells her “not yet”).

One thing leads to another, emotions take over, and they sleep together. That this follows a moment where Annie boards a bus and sits knee to knee with Auggie and he misses it (a moment where I called bullsh-t), despite recognizing Helen’s scent all over her apartment, is equally painful.

The next morning, Helen realizes she hasn’t magically recaptured anything with Auggie and she tells him as much. She tails Calder to a meet with Annie and Annie calls her out. Helen tells her Auggie is still in love with her but the clock is ticking on being able to come home.  Annie essentially asks her point-blank if she’s making her own move on him, and she says no.

Annie sets out for New York to meet Henry’s cash man. Thanks to Calder, he’s caught on to “Jessica Matthews” being at his cabin. He captures the license plate on her (stolen) bike and tails her to the airport bus depot. When he almost has her cornered, Helen appears at the other end of a bank of buses. She confronts him and he calls her Jessica and she lies that yes, she’s “Jessica.” Before she can say anything else, he shoots her over and over again. As Annie’s bus pulls away, she sees Henry standing over Helen, finishing her off. She gets off the bus and watches with a gathering crowd as Helen dies on the ground.

Then she does the only things she can–she goes to see Auggie to tell him his wife really is dead. We don’t see him open the door.

I like that Helen was redeemed but I don’t like that it was essentially a suicide after she realized the life she wanted to get back wasn’t going to happen. She got a teeny, tiny bit of closure, and then when the totality of realizing that her life would never be with Auggie hit her, she put herself in front of Arthur and bought Annie some time. I’m not nuts that she and Auggie slept together and now that will be hanging over him to confess or not confess. I’m kind of OK if he never tells Annie.

I’m glad to see Michelle Ryan working in the U.S. again. I liked her reboot of Bionic Woman a few years back and it was no easy task to make the other woman here sympathetic, but she did. I hope the stint on Covert Affairs puts her somewhere high profile again soon.