As Debris begins to really stretch its legs in its overarching narrative, episode 11, ‘Asalah’, gives us a glimpse into Bryan’s history.  *Warning! Spoilers Ahead!*

For much of this series, there has been a significant effort to conceal the details of Bryan’s (Jonathan Tucker) past, and this has made it a little one sided as we got to know more and more about Finola (Riann Steele).  With her father George (Tyrone Benskin) having been such a major cog in the Orbital machine, and with her being placed as the ‘heart’ of the show, this wasn’t surprising, but it’s good that they’re spending some time now looking at Bryan.

DEBRIS — “Asalah” Episode: 111 — Pictured: (l-r) Jonathan Tucker as Bryan Beneventi, Shaquan Lewis as LeBlanc, Max Montesi as Jensen, Kyal Scott as Nelson– (Photo by: James Dittiger/NBC)

The bits of information that have been teased previously include some mysterious injections he gets on an irregular basis, and a picture of a woman he knew from his time in Afghanistan.  We also know that Maddox (Norbert Leo Butz) plucked him out of a Military prison after an incident during his time there.  Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly, we don’t really get any proper answers to all of the questions we have, but some extra details have now been added to the puzzle by ‘Asalah’.

What we get this week is the very welcome arrival on the show of the excellent Erin Karpluk (Being Erica, Rookie Blue) as a woman seemingly possessed by some debris, who doesn’t communicate except to utter Bryan’s name.  When Bryan gets to speak to her, she then opens up more, but appears to be reciting his memories and actual conversations he’s had in his life.

DEBRIS — “Asalah” Episode: 111 — Pictured: (l-r) Erin Karpluck as Mariel Caldwell, Jonathan Tucker as Bryan Beneventi, Riann Steele as Finola Jones — (Photo by: James Dittiger/NBC)

The ensuing situation challenges their concept of the debris and leads Finola to posit that maybe the debris is all interconnected and that maybe it has Bryan’s memories stored from when it cloned him in episode 2.  It’s an interesting idea and one you would have thought they’d have considered before.  Regardless, if that is the case, it will definitely change how they approach certain scenarios in the future and could lead to some intriguing clashes between the different powers that are grabbing pieces of debris.

In this particular instance though it works very well as a device to let us see into the past and Bryan’s relationship with a woman named Asalah (Zarina Sterling – Child Bride).  It has never been explicitly stated before what this relationship was, so we’ve been left to speculate, but this episode tells us that Asalah was a local that just wanted Bryan to protect her grandfather from any attack.  She also represents a rebirth of hope in Bryan, and then after her death, anger, leading to the action that puts him in prison.  It’s all good character development, which works as well as it does partly due to them having laid the breadcrumbs previously, and it doesn’t come out of the blue.

DEBRIS — “Asalah” Episode: 111 — Pictured: (l-r) Jonathan Tucker as Bryan Beneventi, Riann Steele as Finola Jones — (Photo by: James Dittiger/NBC)

If there’s a problem with this episode, it’s that Erin Karpluk is woefully underused, and not enough was made of this particular angle in the episode.  What happens to the character is also frustrating, as I was hoping that adding someone of her calibre would mean more appearances, but it seems that idea is dashed by the end result here.  Having said that, they did manage to bring back George, so there’s hope.  Similarly, Zarina Sterling’s performance here shows she could be an asset to the show if they could find a way to bring her in.

Although we didn’t get as many answers as we would have hoped, there was enough revealed that makes ‘Asalah’ a satisfying episode and continues the run of solid stories that Debris has been on as of late.  It also feels that this is leading to major twist, or reveal that will tell us more about Maddox, and Bryan’s mysterious injections.  This second half of the season has definitely proved itself to be a much more reliable proposition that deserves a second season at this point.  Let’s hope it gets it.