Turtles All the Way Down (Awake)
"Turtles All the Way Down" is the thirteenth and final episode of the American television police procedural fantasy drama Awake.
The show centers on Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs) a police detective living in two separate realities after a car accident.
In the episode, Michael Britten finds out the truth about the car accident that caused his split realities, and seeks out those responsible for it.
In his "green reality" (where his son is alive and his wife is dead), Detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs) sits in a prison cell temporary for killing Detective Ed Hawkins (Kevin Weisman), who caused Michael's car accident.
Meanwhile, his partner in the "green reality", Detective Isaiah "Bird" Freeman (Steve Harris) finds heroin that Hawkins, under orders from Captain Kessel (Mark Harelik), had placed in a self storage unit.
Meanwhile, Captain Tricia Harper (Laura Innes) shoots Carl Kessel in a hotel room, making it look like a suicide to cover up her involvement in Michael's accident.
Michael regains consciousness (after having passed out from a gunshot wound when Ed Hawkins was chasing after him) near a dumpster in the "red reality" (where his wife is alive and son is dead).
Michael finds his therapist in the "red reality", Dr. John Lee (BD Wong), forces him to sew up the bullet wound, and takes him to the self-storage unit to show him the heroin stash.
Seeing no heroin, Michael then locks Lee in the containment center and contacts his partner in the "red reality", detective Efrem Vega (Wilmer Valderrama).
When Michael notices the caller ID of an incoming call matching Kessel's hotel room pseudonym, he realizes Harper is part of the conspiracy and attempts to strangle her.
Next Michael briefly meets his wife, Hannah (Laura Allen) in a restaurant before he finds his "green reality" self sleeping in his bedroom.
Other guest stars included Laura Innes as Tricia Harper and Mark Harelik as Carl Kessel.
[6][7] This caused series creator and executive producer Killen to assure viewers that the episode would have been "exactly the same" if it had been renewed for a second season.
[13] Handlen wrote that "it’s hard to ask for more from an hour of television", despite noting that he was "glad the series got cancelled".
[14] Fowler also opined that the episode was "thrilling", "frustrating", "fascinating", and "terrible" to see Hannah "crying over an arrested Britten".
Noting that Awake was "one of the good ones", Fowler concluded his review by giving the episode a "9.5 out of 10" classifying it as "amazing".
[16] Bonaime claimed that the "ending is quite smart, given that it never truly clarifies if Michael was dreaming the whole time, or if Dr. Lee was right and that he was on the verge of completely snapping, which makes much more sense".
[16] He claimed that "Once Awake arrives on Netflix and DVD, people will rush through in a matter of days and will say they enjoyed their experience with this short yet sweet treasure".
[17] Like Paste magazine and other critics reviews, Yeoman claimed that "there was certainly disappointment in finding out that Awake wouldn't see a second season, and would instead be looked at as a 13-episode miniseries".
