Nightswimming (Awake)

Background The Brittens are involved in a fatal car crash. As a result, Michael, a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detective, begins to live in two separate realities. In one reality, in which he wears a red wristband, his wife Hannah (Laura Allen) survives the crash, and in the other reality, in which he wears a green wristband, his son Rex (Dylan Minnette) survives. Michael does not know which reality is real, and uses the wristbands to differentiate the two. Michael sees two separate therapists: Dr. Jonathan Lee (BD Wong) in the "red reality", and Dr. Judith Evans (Cherry Jones) in the "green reality". Meanwhile, in the "red reality", Michael and Hannah continue with their plan to move to Oregon. Michael works with Detective Isaiah "Bird" Freeman (Steve Harris) in the "green reality" and with Detective Efrem Vega (Wilmer Valderrama) in the "red reality" after the crash. Events In the "red reality", two police officers are sitting in a car talking when they receive a report of a break-in at a local college swimming pool. They see Michael running naked from the pool and chase him; when they tell him to stop running, Michael identifies himself as a detective. Meanwhile, in the "green reality", Accountant Marcus Ananyev (Elijah Alexander) exits his house and makes a phone call. Marcus then walks over to his car and tries to start it, but notices a bomb in the car's engine and runs away shortly before it explodes. Soon after, at the police station, Michael and Bird tell Marcus that they will protect him. Marcus' wife, Alina (Ayelet Zurer), comes into the station, where Marcus explains what has happened. Shortly after talking with Marcus and Alina, Michael and Bird take the couple to a hotel for temporary shelter. In the "red reality", Michael notices Hannah cleaning up and packing items before they move to Oregon. Soon after, Michael takes Vega to meet his confidential informant (CI), Jake (Steve Lawrence), with whom he will work after Michael leaves. Jake does not want to work with Vega for an unknown reason, but gives the pair a tip about a warehouse. That night, Michael, Vega and the SWAT team watch the warehouse but no one shows up; Vega wonders if Jake had given incorrect information. Back in the "green reality", Michael goes to the hotel, since Alina had left in the middle of the night. Once there, Marcus warns Michael and Bird that if they do not find her, Marcus will give himself up to Maxim Basayev, his mobster boss. Back at the station, after looking at evidence, Michael decides to talk to the hotel staff where Alina and Marcus are staying, with Bird, rather than Alina's friends. Later, Michael and Bird go to the home of Greg Hollander (Ron Melendez), one of Alina's friends, but do not find Greg, the person they would like to question regarding Alina's whereabouts. Hollander, who is tied up, kicks down a table as the detectives leave, notifying the cops that he is in there. As the criminals run away, Bird and Michael break into the house; Bird and Michael enter the house, while Bird shoots the two gang members. After that, they speak to Greg, who tells them that Alina constantly talks about how she and her husband have grown apart. Michael goes to search for Alina at a beach and finds her there. The two talk about Marcus and everything that happened previously. Michael explains that she has a chance to start over and takes her back to the hotel. In the "red reality", at Jake's home, Jake says he and Vega can have dinner alone to get to know each other. That night, Michael and Hannah go nude swimming at the college pool. == Production ==

, California, as were all other Awake episodes.|alt=An aerial view of a widespread built-up area, skyscrapers in the central district, with mountains in the background. "Nightswimming" was the first episode of the series to have been written by Leonard Chang and co-executive producer Davey Holmes; Chang later helmed "Say Hello to My Little Friend" and the series' finale "Turtles All the Way Down", while Holmes went on to write the teleplay of "Two Birds". The entry was directed by executive producer Jeffrey Reiner, Stuart Blatt served as the episode's production designer, while Todd Desrosiers edited the music. Alexander, Zurer, Melendez, Blackman, Holden and Todorov also made their first and only appearances as Marcus, Alina, Hollander, Vasily, Shapiro and Alexander, respectively. The installment was filmed and set in Los Angeles, California, as were all other Awake episodes. During filming of the installment, Isaacs thought it would be funny to moon down the stairs during a scene in which Hannah and Michael go nude swimming, but stated that it would probably break the Standards and Practices law. Filming of the episode commenced at an actual campus swimming pool for one scene. A lady present during filming asked if Isaacs was naked. Isaacs replied that he was not completely naked, but had a "small piece of material taped over [his] genitals"; the lady said "That's naked," adding "I can see your butt crack." In response, Isaacs "taped a piece of material over [his] butt crack". When the last scene was filmed that day, he ran up the stairs, causing the material—which had been secured only by a piece of sealing tape—to fall off. The woman was "furious". Isaacs thought that the team of Awake would have to withdraw the footage, but was happy to see that part was included in the finished episode. == Themes ==

' role in the episode's themes have been critically discussed.|alt=A man with short black hair and a black shirt, who is smiling. Although it did not directly impact the ongoing storyline of Awake, "Nightswimming" introduced and continued key thematic elements of the series. It was described as a "long, roundabout" episode that is "bent on making [Michael] fully commit to moving to Oregon with Hannah" by Matt Fowler from IGN. Writing for HitFix, Alan Sepinwall opined that Michael is "coming to grips with Hannah's desire to move because he loves her that much". Sepinwall noted that he could see "the obvious parallels to Michael's personal situation" in this installment, while The A.V. Club editor Zack Handlen said that Awake "continues to connect routine procedural storylines and find new ways to give them deeper meaning". Screen Rant writer Kevin Yeoman said that this episode was about "bringing two people who have drifted apart back together" and that "Nightswimming" has "balanced the series' larger mystery with grief and a twinge of optimism" on a "smaller scale" compared to other entries of the program. He claimed that the installment was designed to "introduce us to what makes Hannah and Michael so special", adding that "For most of the series, there hasn't been much chemistry between the two". In his real reality check, a prediction on which reality is real by the end of the particular episode, Nick McHatton, a TV Fanatic writer, chose the "red reality", because it was "nice to see why Hannah and Michael love each other", while Handlen claimed that "the show has done a fine job at largely standalone episodes", but each episode "feels like its own separate story". He assumed that "there's little feel of rising intensity or greater danger", "given the hints of conspiracy and the ever intensifying threat of Oregon". Caroline Preece of Den of Geek initially assumed "this random nakedness will tie in to the show's central mythology", though she later found out Michael was just swimming nude with Hannah. Preece thought that Hannah and Michael "reconnected" in the episode, as did McHatton. Due to Rex's absence, she thought that this episode allowed viewers to get to know Hannah. == Broadcast and reception ==

"Nightswimming" originally aired on NBC on April 19, 2012, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sky Atlantic on June 22, 2012. In the United Kingdom, the episode obtained 287,000 viewers, making it the second most-viewed program for that channel behind Hit & Miss. 's character, Rex, did not appear in the episode.|alt=A teenage boy is standing up, with his arms crossed. This episode received generally mixed reviews from critics. Sepinwall was disappointed with the overall storyline of the "green reality"; he claimed that if the episode was only based on the "red reality", the entry would have been "perfectly fine". While Sepinwall called the "green reality" storyline "boring", He compared "Nightswimming" to other Awake episodes, claiming that other entries offer more "plot" and "emotional" problems, She thought that the storylines of the "red reality" were more "interesting" than the "green reality" storylines, Preece thought that the episode made "little mistakes", which Awake could not afford to make. Meanwhile, Yeoman stated that the entry opened to "a certain amount of whimsy" and that, "starting [the episode] off with the series' protagonist in the buff isn't exactly textbook." == References ==