I felt much the same way about tonight's episode that I felt about watching Being There with Peter Sellers, many years ago. I was faintly irritated by the movie and didn't really see its point, until the very end. And then I thought it was brilliant. This has been happening lately with some of the shows I have been watching. I am not sure whether I am just getting picky, or whether writers from numerous shows are saving really important tidbits for the end of the show.

It was kind of amusing this time that Rita got to say the same lines to Hopper every morning about the fact that seeing him dressed means she missed the best parts (we didn't though, because we still get to see Hopper running around without his shirt every morning, tending to his healing bullet wound). Today, we got to see more of Hopper's family, though. His sister Jennifer and her husband are involved.

It turns out that Jennifer has received a photograph of a dead woman. The same woman from Baxter's house, the one who sent Hopper the hourglass, has sent a package to Jennifer also. What is significant about this photograph is not that it has been sent to Jennifer, that it is of a dead woman, or that Eddie the drug-using ex-cop knows that the dead woman appeared on an un-solved case involving Hopper's father (let's pause for a moment to ask why on every TV show every doctor's father is also a doctor and every cop's father was also a cop, shall we? Lost did it twice, with both Jack and Ana Lucia, whose mother was her Chief of Police). The most significant fact about that photograph is that it was still in Hopper's car the next day. For the first time, something material has bridged the gap between days.

More than just Hopper's injuries are starting to seep through to new days. During the last ten minutes of the episode, things start to change (see the title of the episode). Not only does Andrea mysteriously wake up all sunny and smiley and decide that she is going to tell the truth! She just felt like it! And she is driving Eddie to rehab! And he doesn't have any say in the matter! And instead of going nuts and holding a gun on her like he did last night, he is just going to be grouchy! And sling himself into Hopper's backseat to reveal stunningly interesting things about the photograph that was sent to Jennifer by Garza!

Ahhh, thank you, because I was getting really bored with the fact that Hopper makes the idiotic choice of going to help Andrea instead of waiting in the park for the Answers to Life, The Universe, and Everything. My husband and I were yelling, "This is a no-brainer! You can go help Andrea tomorrow! What are you doing?"

But lo and behold, it turns out that every day isn't exactly the same, nor determined solely by Hopper's choices. The other people are starting to subconsciously realize that they have been living this day over and over again as well.

There is a wonderful story by Jorges Luis Borges called "The Immortal," in which the immortals, those who have the power to live forever, get so bored with all they have experienced that they finally commit suicide. I would love to see the writers of Day Break capture some of that same ennui, that these people who daily interact with Hopper, who without fail wake the same day, hoping for something different, only to have each day end the same way, finally start breaking free of these hourglass strands and change their fates.

It is so delicious that Hopper receives an hourglass in the mail; that works on so many levels with this show. There is a fingerprint on the glass, and this fingerprint is a clue to who is behind all of this. But ultimately, who is behind the fact that Hopper is trapped in time, trapped in the sameness of every day? Isn't this show in some ways an allegory for us all?

We all wake in our beds, say the same things over and over to our significant others, go to the same jobs, stop for the same coffees. What distinguishes our days one from another? Are the little choices we make about what to wear, what to eat for lunch, or which route to drive to work really going to free us from our routines?

Andrea ruminates that she, in particular, hopes each day that things will be different, and yet the changes she makes ultimately come from within. Perhaps that is what Hopper, too, needs to learn. He decides to talk to Chad in this episode. He is making up with Rita, every day little gestures to make their relationship stronger. He and Andrea have mended fences. He and Jennifer are starting to resolve some family matters.

Hopper has a chance, within the context of every day of his trumped up charges and escaping the goons who flag him, to make some real, albeit small, changes in his most important relationships. Hopper is changing daily, minutely (pun intended) as a result of these interactions, as a result of being stuck in the same set of circumstances over and over.

And perhaps he too will not wake suddenly in a brand new day, but each day will start to be more and more different, until he is living, as we all are, in the context of the sameness of every day, but he, above everyone else, will start to appreciate each tiny nuance, each tiny difference.

I am so hopeful by the little clues and innuendos we have each week from these writers that this show is more about these inter human connections, and time, and life, than ultimately whether or not Hopper is guilty or innocent.