'Project Blue Book' Season 2 Episode 3 Review: An Area 51 abduction isn't the only crisis Hynek and Quinn face
Spoiler alert for Season 2 Episode 3 'Area 51'
Being thrown into the middle of an ongoing investigation surrounding alleged extraterrestrial sightings might sound unsafe, but ain't no alien got nothing on Dr J Allen Hynek (Aidan Gillen) and Captain Michael Quinn (Michael Malarkey).
The lead characters of the History alien drama go on this journey of skeptics-turned-believers together, with Hynek looking for scientific explanations behind the claimed sightings in Roswell, New Mexico while Quinn tries to see the logic and do his duty under the US Air Force badge his serves.
But as we step into the third episode of the ongoing second season, not only are Hynek and Quinn caught in the middle of a possible alien abduction but it turns out they have more to worry about back home. Especially the authority they are investigating under.
The episode kicks off with Hynek and his wife finally reunited after the twisted experience he had at Roswell. The two spend time watching alien flicks at drive-in theatres and Mimi impresses him with all the investigation she herself has been doing with the UFO conspiracists back home.
The reunion is soon interrupted as the couple returns to find General Hugh Valentine in their living room with none other than Quinn, as the two are to set off immediately to investigate one of the most sensationalized hotspots of alien sightings — Area 51.
When Hynek and Quinn arrive at the eerily dried out landscape of what they were informed is the Groom Lake, they meet the dynamic CIA agent Daniel Banks who gives them a briefing of what went wrong at the tight security CIA and US Air Force base.
A certain Sargeant Miller has gone missing while accompanied by his colleague Sargeant Willingham who can't seem to remember anything other than Miller getting sucked into a giant saucer projecting a strong beam of light.
Having tried almost every possible way to riddle things out, the CIA relies on Hynek and Quinn's help. Hynek has this brilliant idea of revisiting the location along with Willingham as familiar sights can trigger memories and emotions.
The four of them do just that and as expected, Willingham has a sudden breakthrough and chases all the way up to a clearing, where he begins scraping the dust off a giant saucer-shaped circle, all made of glass.
This allows Hynek to deduce that something shot heat all over the glass-covered surface as sand doesn't melt into glass under subjected under 3000 degrees Celcius.
This spurs Quinn to insist harder on investigating the tight shift secret weapons unit that the CIA wants to keep locked up from the Air Force.
Once they are allowed in, it's clear why: almost every single aircraft inside the restricted section resembles the mysterious objects that have been linked to possible UFOs — including the Lubbock Lights Quinn was attacked by in Season 1.
However, by this time, Banks brings worse news: Miller's body was found impaled by a giant tree branch right where he had disappeared, and Willingham was labeled murderer right away.
The autopsy reveals Miller's mangled body with his eyes, tongue, heart, stomach, and single lung carved out of his body, along with every single artery cut. This forces Hynek and Quinn to hijack a CIA police jeep and head out to the infamous Area 51, unsupervised and unauthorized, in the middle of the night.
When they reach the location, they see government personnel picking up mutilated coyote bodies off the glass surface and transporting them as if no big deal — almost as if they are used to it. But things get worse as Hynek and Quinn follow the military bus' tail and arrive at a giant mountain.
What they discover there are fresh out of every alien genre fanatics dream — a secret mountain enclave opening to reveal a giant energy emitting field that is clearly being controlled by the government.
Hynek tries taking a photo but of course, they get spotted and he loses the camera in the chase that ends up with mysterious lights flocking overhead their jeep until the vehicle stops randomly and a giant lit saucer appears right overhead — the kind that Willingham claims to have seen.
The two investigators lose consciousness, and when they wake up, they are being transported in a military truck back to the CIA base where General Hugh is waiting with his imminent telling off. The menacing persistence in Hugh's final warning is what comes off as way more sinister than any alien abduction ever could be for Hynek.
The fact that the Air Force is both handling the mountain energy experiment and simultaneous pulling the plug on the titular project also rings a few bells in terms of the alleged cover-ups that the US Air Force has been believed to have done in this department.
Through the episode, we see Mimi and her conspiracist friend discussing the Air Force's alleged cover-up and secrecy behind the weapons base at Area 51. Even Banks informs Hynek and Quinn that the area beyond the air base's enclosure — precisely where the two had seen the secret mountain base — are run by the Air Force.
And as Hynek and Quinn keep getting delightfully closer to busting the whole alien and UFO sighting allegations, we can't help but fear if finding the real truth might cost them their silence, and it's not just paying the two men off anymore.
'Project Blue Book' Season 2 airs on Tuesdays at 10 pm on History.