Naomi – Zero to Sixty

By starrymag | January 31, 2022

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

 

 

The episode opens with Jennifer (Mouzam Makkar) and Greg (Barry Watson), Naomi’s parents, taking a trip down memory lane. They’re watching a home movie of an elementary aged Naomi (Melody Davis) on Earth Day. She found a turtle and she’s very excited about saving the earth. Present day Naomi (Kaci Walfall) walks in and asks about the nostalgia and we learn that it’s college week. Apparently Naomi decided on a school called Hartford University when she was little.

 

Naomi tries to reassure them that it’s not the end of the world, it’s only college week. They’ve got a whole year before Naomi has to make any permanent decisions. But they still bring out the scrapbook which includes her old report cards. They’re still very proud of the A’s she got in first grade.

 

Elsewhere things are a lot less wholesome. Zumbado (Crantson Johnson) goes to an underground art gallery to talk with a woman named Akira (Stephanie March). She’s less than thrilled to see him and apparently it’s the first time she’s seen him in sixteen years and she’s still miffed about their last encounter, but we don’t learn the details of what happened. We also learn that Akira really doesn’t like the earth or humans in general. But Zumbado isn’t here for a social call. He tells her that he’s found Naomi and the disk and “they’re” not safe on this planet anymore.  Akira tells Zumado to leave Naomi alone, but Zumbado says he can’t because her powers are starting to manifest.

 

Before school Naomi swings by Dee’s (Alexander Wraith) shop and they go to an underground dojo for a brief training session. Dee tells Naomi that it’s important that she understand that there’s a difference between having powers and being ready to use them. So, they’re gonna start with baby steps by having her practice focusing by bouncing a ball around. Naomi does it but clearly would like her training to speed up and has questions about the markings and the mill and thinks the disk Zumbado has will give her answers. Dee says wanting answers is natural, but he warns her he won’t get them from Zumbado. He asks her to leave it alone for now.

 

At school college week is in full swing and Naomi and her friends are interviewing with college representatives. Naomi tells an unseen person that she’s been set on going to Hartford since she was eight and plans on studying to become an environmental scientist. Annabelle (Mary-Charles Jones) is undecided and admits that she’s still dabbling. Nathan (Daniel Puig) is determined to go to school on a soccer scholarship. Jacob (Aidan Gemme) is all about computers and wants to build one that can go to Mars. Anthony (Will Meyers) wants an architecture degree so that he can rebuild Port Oswego.

 

After talking to the counselors Naomi admits to Annabelle that she’s stuck on what to write for her admissions essay. And still distracted thinking about what could be on the disk. So she and Annabelle came up with a plan. They trick Mrs. Anderson (Susan Gallagher) into thinking that Zumbado ripped her off when he sold her a car and encourage her to confront him face-to-face. Of course they’d be happy to go with her.

 

When they get to the dealership Zumbado tries to reassure her he didn’t cheat her out of any local discount. As he’s reassuring her, Annabelle and Naomi take the opportunity to look around his office. Naomi uses what seems like telekinesis to open Zumbado’s safe and take the disk inside. As they’re leaving they run into Zumbado but he can’t exactly confront them without raising Mrs. Anderson’s suspicions, so he has to let them leave.

 

The school is taking its students on a mini college tour, but the school in question is no one’s first choice. So the gang wants to use being at the university as an opportunity to analyze the disk. Seeing the strange markings on it Annabelle suggests that Naomi show her mother, she is a linguist afterall. But Naomi still isn’t ready to clue her parents in on recent events. So Jacob’s going to analyze the disk in one of the school’s lab instead of going on the sanctioned tour. Nathan, Anthony, and Lourdes opt to join them.

 

When they’re in the lab things go haywire pretty quickly. The disk can’t be analyzed, more than that it causes the machine they’re using to have a meltdown. For obvious reasons the gang wants to go, but the alarm goes off and they get caught. We cut away and find out that the disk in front of the safe in Zumbado’s office was a decoy and he had the real thing in a secret compartment.

 

Back at school the group is in the principal’s office and they’re in a lot of trouble. It’s unclear just how much though. Naomi apologizes and says she’ll take the heat since it was her idea. But, Anthony reminds her that she didn’t make them do anything; they’re all in this together. Just then Naomi’s mom shows up and wants to speak to her privately. Naomi’s unnerved by the silence and wants her mother to say something, anything. But she ends up just saying she’s not angry, just disappointed and wants to know why she’d do something like this. The this in question was wrecking the university’s lab. Naomi doesn’t have much of an explanation. Jennifer says they’ll talk about this more later and tells Naomi to be home by 6PM.

 

After school Naomi goes to talk to Dee. She tells him her parents are mad at her and admits that she didn’t take his advice about steering clear of Zumbado. Additionally she tells him about the disk she tried to take. Dee isn’t angry, but provides an alternative to Zumbado: his friend Adam (Chase Anderson). They fought side-by-side at one point.

 

When Naomi meets Adam he explains that he can read energy signatures. When he reads hers she learns she never actually had the real disk. He explains that her energy would feel different if she’d had it. And he tells her that he can feel how powerful she is and starts to warn her that, that might attract attention. But, the conversation is cut short by banging on the door. He tells Dee that he might not have hidden himself as well as he thought. The banging gets louder and it looks like the door is going to get broken down so Adam tells Dee to take Naomi and run and he does.

 

When Naomi gets home her parents are not happy with her. Due to her adventure with Dee she was not back home by 6 o’clock. Her lateness combined with the destruction of property earlier have her parents wanting to know where she’s been. She tells them she was hanging out with Lourdes (Camila Moreno). That explanation might’ve worked, if Lourdes hadn’t called looking for her. Naomi’s parents say that she doesn’t understand how dangerous it is out there and still want to know where she’s been, but she stays silent so they send her to her room and ask for her phone.

 

Naomi’s a little confused when she realizes she’s experiencing her first ever grounding. We learn that, that’s because she’s never really gotten in trouble before. She points out that all her life, she’s been trusted because she’s been trustworthy and says it’s unfair that she’s being treated like a child now because she made a few mistakes. Jennifer points out that they didn’t keep her on a short leash before because she always told them the truth and wasn’t destroying university property. They tell her again to hand over her phone and send her to her room for the night.

 

Zumbado and Akira have another uncomfortable talk about the disk. He reminds Akira that Naomi is the only person who can activate the disk. But Akira thinks it’s better to keep their distance. Zumbado however says that whether she’s ready or not she’s involved in this, she’s the key to them getting their planet back. Akira says she doesn’t recall him caring that much about their people and restates that she doesn’t trust him.

 

Back in Naomi’s room she’s trying and failing to work on her admissions essay when Lourdes climbs in through her window. She apologizes for accidentally telling on Naomi, but explains she only called because she got worried when she went MIA. Naomi doesn’t blame her. They talk about Naomi’s lockdown and her writer’s block and how random life can be. We learn that Lourdes’ life was pretty normal until her father got hurt, now she’s working towards getting a GED instead of finishing high school with the rest of her friends. She suggests Naomi write about the gray areas in life and then leaves.

 

After Lourdes leaves Naomi decides to leave to further investigate. But she runs into Annabelle who came over to check on her. She tells her that she’s going to the town’s bomb shelter in hopes of finding more marks. Annabelle said she’s here to help and will go with her. They get there and while looking around Naomi does find markings similar to the markings on the disk, but things get intense fast. Good news: she manages to find the translation key. Bad news: when she tries to get to it with her powers she causes the tunnel to collapse. Good news again: she uses her powers to keep them from being buried alive.

 

Once the most recent brush with death is over Naomi visits Dee again and explains about what happened. She says she understands what he was telling her earlier and agrees that she doesn’t know enough about her powers to use them safely yet. But she managed to make out what one of the markings said: twenty-nine. Elsewhere in his office Zumbado writes twenty-nine down in a notebook.

 

The next morning Naomi goes to talk to her parents and tells them she doesn’t want to keep secrets from them anymore. Greg and Jennifer say they’ve been thinking the same thing and want to go for a drive. They end up in the middle of the woods and Naomi’s finding the set-up a little creepy, until they reach a rock that looks a lot like the disk, markings and all. Jennifer and Greg tell Naomi that this is where they found her.

 

It seems that they know more than they previously let on about Naomi’s birth family. Naomi touches the rock and it glows.