'Project Blue Book' Season 2 Episode 2 Review: Hynek confronts Harding, Roswell residents stage elaborate hoax
This article contains spoilers for season 2, episode 2: 'The Roswell Incident - Part II'
After consistently raising our suspicions against General James Harding, 'Project Blue Book' Season 2 finally shows him with a shred of innocence as his return to Roswell, New Mexico, leads to the entire town conspiring against busting his alleged cover-up of 1947. And while we find out just what Harding and General Hugh Valentine had covered-up in the past, we can't help but wonder how much exactly did Harding know? Sure, Hugh asks him not to let the Soviet's schemes of spreading mass hysteria cloud his judgment - the way he hadn't let them do that to him the first time - but is Harding really in on the whole cover-up? Or were these disfigured children and the proof of alien autopsy both merely conspiracies, with higher authorities firing shots from his shoulder?
The second episode of this season, titled 'The Roswell Incident - Part II' kicks off with the saucer-shaped object crashing right outside the Blue Book headquarters. Dr. J Allen Hynek, undaunted, walks straight towards the crash site which is still ablaze where Duncan Booker - the UFO-crash witness from 1947 - walks out of the fire. When brought in for interrogation, Duncan admits that he did this all for attention, but the threat in the note which claimed Harding's cover will be exposed, came from him and is very much real. Duncan also speaks of how he and his wife Judy were at the crash site and when they reported it to Harding's authorities, the latter came over to their house, physically threatened the couple and forcibly had a non-disclosure type statement signed.
Harding calls all of this an elaborate lie - thus leaving Hynek and Captain Michael Quinn divided once again, with the latter siding with Harding's claims of Duncan fabricating the whole thing like he supposedly did with his claims of a crash from 1947. Things however soon take a darker turn in the interrogation chamber with Harding using harsher methods to get a confession out of Duncan, as the man finally succumbs to the torture and spills he just wanted compensatory money for the previous time. Harding writes him a cheque and Duncan agrees to go on live telecast to admit that he had been lying about all the Roswell incidents of alleged UFO sightings to the entire nation.
Meanwhile, however, both Hynek and Quinn - even though divided over their beliefs regarding the incident - are sent together to take a look at Duncan's house for any kind of incriminating evidence to expose him. They, however, take a detour - on Hynek's eagerness - to check out the site of the crash, expecting some truth in Duncan's claims. What they discover upon digging up the ground are non-human skeletons, which a mortician later confirms, and most likely from the "alien" he had witnessed being secretly autopsied, in the aftermath of the crash in 1947. In his recount of the tale, the mortician also speaks of a nurse who was involved in the autopsy and she turns out to be Judy Booker - Duncan's wife.
When Hynek and Quinn reach her residence, they find her in a rush with a videotape, on her way to the broadcasting studio where Harding is about to announce Duncan's "lies". The video happens to be that of the alien autopsy that allegedly happened in 1947 and turns out, Duncan's confession and the check was a hoax to ambush Harding and bring the video to light. Once again, Hynek and Quinn are caught in an altercation over the need for the video to see the light of the day. Amid Hynek tricking Quinn and almost costing him his job, as the good officer tries to warn Harding in time, the astrophysicist also earns a giant punch in the nose for his indiscretion.
According to Quinn, there is no one truth to the story because it all boils down to whether the world is ready to know about the existence of aliens or not. And as the two of them reach the broadcasting station almost in time to stop the airing, they are a tad bit too late - Duncan is already live on air with Harding next to him, telling the nation about how he was paid to shut up about the UFO, before playing the autopsy tape to the public. Only, not quite.
Turns out, Hynek had cut off live airing after spotting that the studio's ceiling - light patterns, particularly - were the exact same as those on the autopsy video. Once again, the video was an elaborate hoax - a set up to frame Harding, sort of seeking vengeance for him not paying heed to the town's claims of a UFO crash from the last time. Both Duncan and Judy, and even people from the broadcasting studio were in on it and for a faint second, one almost feels bad for the staunch disbeliever General Harding who is really trying to see through the lies, panic, and hysteria orchestrated by the residents, thanks to the Soviet's alleged mission, as we soon learn.
When Harding and Hugh are talking in private right at the end of the episode, Hugh asks him not to let the panic cloud his better judgment - something that Harding had tactfully evaded back in 1947. According to Hugh, these 'aliens' were nothing but disfigured bodies of the children that the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele experimented on as per Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's commands so that they could land them in America and cause major hysteria in the form of "aliens" in a post Second World War scenario. But even then, Harding's expression speaks a different story - the words of Hynek earlier from the episode, where he confronts Harding, ringing loud and clear in our minds.
Before the theatrics of Duncan's elaborate plan goes down, we see Harding invite Quinn and Hynek to celebrate the resident admitting his lies over a few glasses of scotch. This is when a very, very pretend drunk Hynek accuses Harding of being a "coward" and asks him how long will he pretend when he knows none of this is true, and suddenly it raises an alarm over how much Harding actually knows about the entire case. We know the residents of Roswell can't be trusted with their intentions surrounding him; but are they Harding's only enemy?
'Project Blue Book' Season 2 airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. only on History.