By Jae-Ha Kim
Amazon.com
December 30, 2008
The second season of Kyle XY begins with an episode called “The Prophet” and ends with Kyle’s high school prom. Clearly, the sci-fi drama shares as much an affinity with The X-Files as it does Gossip Girl. Last season, Kyle (Matt Dallas) learned how to fit in with human beings. Never mind that he doesn’t have a belly button or, theoretically, a soul.
Thanks to his quick learning skills and his ability to read others, he molded himself into an average 16-year-old high-school student. In the followup year, Kyle experiences love and loss. He finds himself separated from his adoptive parents, reunites with Adam (J. Eddie Peck)–who literally created Kyle from his own genetic material–and the back again with his adoptive family, the Tragers.
Kyle also finds he’s not quite unique, when Jessi XX (Jaimie Alexander) is introduced. Unlike Kyle, whose transition was relatively seamless, Jessi has issues. Whereas Kyle intuitively knew how to act like a human, Jessi–it seems–can only do what she’s programmed. Madacorp–a diabolical entity that wants to know how Kyle is the way he is–sends Emily (Leah Cairns) to convince Jessi that they are sisters, and that Jessi should should help her get intel from Kyle. The company’s goal is for Jessi to become Kyle’s frenemy and ultimately retrieve important data that’s stored in Kyle’s head.
Is it a coincidence that Kyle’s adoptive dad ends up working for Madacorp? That will be revealed by the season’s end.
While the show definitely has a sci-fi lite touch to it, it really is about Kyle and his relationships. Like every other kid his age, he just wants to belong. Some of the sweetest moments are between him and Amanda (Kristen Prout), the girl next door whom he adores. In those vignettes it’s obvious that he is very much an all American teenage boy, regardless of how he came to be.
