Alpha’s Beta Season Primer

Season 2 Primer

 Alpha’s was somewhat of a breakout hit for Syfy in its first season. The show’s set in a world filled with people who have the unique power to stretch the capabilities of the human mind giving them superhuman physical and mental abilities known as Alphas. The main premise is that a team of Alphas were put together by Dr. Lee Rosen in order to protect the world for Alphas who want to hurt people or to capture and try to help the ones who don’t know how to use their abilities. (The show has drawn comparisons to X-Men or even Heroes but one thing it does differently is that they cannot just use their powers without regard for anything. All the abilities have their own side effect.) The show does a great job at having a procedural feel to it by having the team chase new cases almost every episode, at the same time having a larger antagonistic presence lurking in the shadows for the whole season. That presence was none other than the “terrorist” group of Alphas that call themselves, Red Flag. We don’t know a lot about Red Flag meeting their leader in the last episode of the season and only meeting a couple other members during the season.

The first season ended with Dr. Rosen letting the world know that Alphas existed and lived among them every day, only to be reprimanded to (what looks like from the season 2 previews) an insane asylum. So in order to get you ready for the second season I’m here to shed a little spot light on the main characters from season one.

Good Guys

Dr. Lee Rosen

Ability: None

Bio: He is the leader of a team of Alpha’s that solve crimes that are usually related to their own kind. He is a neurologist and a psychiatrist with a long history of working patients who had neurological disorders. He is not an Alpha but has a daughter who is.

Last Time We Saw Him: He was being reprimanded by guards while he let the world know about the existence of Alpha’s.

Gary Bell

Ability: Tranducer (He can read electromagnetic wavelengths with his mind.)

Side Effect of his Ability: He is diagnosed with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Bio: Gary is a twenty-something who lives at home with his mom. Being autistic he is sensitive to many factors of his environment, and dependent upon rigorous routine. His mother is very loving but is concerned that his job for Dr. Rosen will get him hurt. Gary has grown a lot in the first season being a lot more independent and gaining a great friendship with Bill.

Last Time We Saw Him: He was helping patch Dr. Rosen’s live stream speech over the internet from their office.

Bill Harken

Ability: Hyperadrenal Alpha (He is able to summon amazing strength by consciously activating the “fight-or-flight” response. He experiences super human strength and a resistance to harm that borders on invulnerability.)

Side Effect of his Ability: He will become cripplingly fatigued if in that state for too long.

Bio: Bill is a former FBI agent, who has a tough time with other people’s boundaries. He has a little bit of a temper but also can be a jokester. At the start of the first season he hadn’t told his wife about his abilities and she still thought he was working for the FBI. (He was fired for breaking his superior’s clavicle.)

Last Time We Saw Him: He was at the office watching Dr. Rosen’s speech on the internet.

Nina Theroux

Ability: Influencing (She disrupts the specific neural pathways in the cerebral cortex leaving the brain vulnerable to suggestion.)

Side Effect of her Ability: Influencing people can become very addictive if used to often.

Bio: When Nina was younger she would use her ability to gain all sorts of things that would benefit her, without any regard to how her actions would affect anyone else. Nina has grown to have feelings for Cameron over the course of the first season leading Dr. Rosen to express his concerns about a relationship within the team.

Last Time We Saw Her: She was at the office with the team watching Dr. Rosen’s speech on the internet.

Rachel Pirzad

Ability: Synesthete (She can enhance one of her sense to super human levels)

Side Effect of her Ability: She can only enhance one sense at a time, leaving her other senses useless.

Bio: Rachel lives at home with her parents, who are very protective and traditional. They want Rachel to find a husband and settle down but don’t know if she ever will. Rachel has a hard time standing up to them and is timid with most people. Her abilities make her a vital member of the team leaving her with the task of identifying most clues.

Last Time We Saw Her: She was at the office with the team watching Dr. Rosen’s speech on the internet.

Cameron Hicks

Ability: Hyperkinetic (His mind's imaging systems and muscle control is perfectly in tune with the motor skills center of the brain. As a result he possesses flawless aim, perfect balance, and greatly enhanced motor skills.)

Side Effect of his Ability: When stressed his abilities lower to a below average level of a regular human.

Bio: Hicks became a part of the team after he was arrested for an assassination that he committed under the influence of another Alpha. He joined the team but has always been wary of Dr. Rosen’s motives. He does not trust authority but was a marine before he joined the team of Alphas.  

Last Time We Saw Him: He was at the office with the team watching Dr. Rosen’s speech on the internet.

The Bad Guys

Stanton Parish

Ability: Immortality (doesn’t age, doesn’t’ get sick, doesn’t seep)

Side Effect of his Ability: He has become cold and has a complete lack of empathy.

Bio: We know very little about Stanton because we first meet him in the last episode of the first season. What we do know is that he is the leader of “Red Flag” and he doesn’t seem to age. His life very well could span two centuries, but it is very possible that he has been alive longer. He is a scientist and wrote a manifesto for the terrorist group “Red Flag”. He also has some sort of connection with Dr. Rosen.

Last Time We Saw Him: He was in what appears to be Dr. Rosen’s house with his daughter Danielle discussing her father’s internet speech.

Griffin

Ability: Invisibilty... Kind of (She affects peoples optic nerves, expanding the normal human blind spot to accommodate her.)

Side Effect of her Ability: Unknown

Bio: She is a mercenary for hire that shows up in one episode to kill an Alpha that the team has imprisoned and are interrogating. Griffin doesn’t leave without letting them in on the name of the leader of Red Flag.

Last Time We Saw Her: She snuck out of the offices without anyone knowing.

The Other Guys

Skylar Adams

Ability: Quantative Aptitundinal (She can invent devices ahead of their time, build things fro random pieces lying around and she can escape from situations very easily.)

Side Effect of her Ability: Unknown

Bio: Skylar is a former patient of Dr. Rosen’s who’s now living on the outskirts of regular society. She lived in a warehouse creating and inventing things like a device that when used for 20 minutes gives you the rest of an eight hour sleep. The team tracks her down and then lets her go when they discover the government wanted to capture her and her daughter (who had inherited her mother’s ability)so they could use her ability for their own means.

Last Time We Saw Her: She was escaping from the team with her daughter. (She will be back in season 2)

Anna

Ability: Omnilinguism (She can understand any language in the World, even technical languages.)

Side Effect of her Ability: Severe Appraxia (A neurological disorder that affects the ability to repeat 

muscular movements.)

Bio: When the team raided a Red Flag safe house she was found, left behind. They initially believe that she was being used to encode messages for Red Flag but discover that she is actually in fact a high ranking member of the terrorist organization. After befriending Gary Anna tries to recruit him to Red Flag with little success. They continue their friendship behind the backs of Gary’s team, in the end netting Gary the info that Stanton Parish is alive.

Last Time We Saw Her: With a bullet in her head. She was one of the many Alphas that were a part of Red Flag that wanted to let people know of their existence. Stanton Parish set them up to be found by the police ending up in a gun (power?) fight and leading to most of the Anti Parish Red Flag members dead.

Red Flag is on the loose, Dr. Rosen is locked up and we have no idea what happened to are team of good Alphas. That’s what we are left with. Luckily we only have to wait until Monday to figure out what will happen next.