(S02E10) Sorry for the delay in posting my review of this week's episode. Let's resume it to: Life got in the way. Again this week, Kyle XY entertained us with a great episode that helped further the storyline. The writers are definitely setting the stage for the mid-season finale (aka episode 2.13).

Josh tried to get Andy to confide in him. Kyle and Amanda's relationship was put to the test. Emily continued her ploy to have the Tragers think she and Stephen are having an affair (and it worked on Lori). Ballantine got a lot of screen time, and a first name. Foss and Declan had to work together in order to help Kyle. Nicole discovered that Jessi and Kyle may have a lot more in common than just being teenagers... Kyle finds that out too!

Josh tried to get Andy to confide in him.

Last week, we discovered that Andy had cancer. In between both episodes, it's clear that their friendship was mostly small talk. In the meantime, Josh read up on cancer and chemotherapy, again showing how much he cares about Andy and what is going on in her life. After Andy tells Josh to back off, he goes to his mother to talk to the therapist (and not the mother) about what Andy is going through. Josh needed to vent out all that info and talk it over with someone who could understand and help him. Nicole gave him good advice and it led to a very sweet scene where Andy confirms she'll need more Popsicles in the coming weeks and Josh brings one to her. I truly wish Andy will get better, those two are so great together and should live happily ever after!

Kyle and Amanda's relationship was put to the test.

Their relationship was put to the test more than once this week. Amanda admits that she applied for a program in NYC and got in. Even if she doesn't tell Kyle, this news has her ponder her relationship with Kyle. Should she go? Will he be there for her when she comes back? Then, Amanda starts to freak out when Kyle cancels on a date and can't tell her why. But, there is a happy ending! Yay!

Emily continued her ploy to have the Tragers think she and Stephen are having an affair (and it worked on Lori).

Emily put her "affair" plan in motion. Again, she showed us she is skilled at planting tidbits here and there while not blowing her cover: the contact lenses left in Stephen's room, her wearing glasses and saying to Nicole she lost her lenses, calling Stephen and making him laugh, and surely pretending that she went through the same thing Stephen went through with his dad so she could get closer to him! Like her or not, she is good at what she does. And it seems, from the passports Jessi found in Emily's safe that she may have been (or still is) an international undercover agent. Then again, I'm pretty sure Madacorp doesn't do business only in the U.S.

Emily's did so well at planting the seeds of an affair that Lori put two and two together and confronted his father. Even if he claimed he wasn't having an affair, I'm pretty sure the issue is not over: Nicole will surely confront him down the line too.

Let's come back to Emily's life for a second. Jessi learned that Emily had a girl named Paige and even interacted with her. I cannot wait for a Emily/Jessi confrontation. How will Emily be able to explain Paige to Jessi? Will she have Madacorp reboot Jessi or will she tell the truth?

Ballantine got a lot of screen time, and a first name.

Ballantine. Julian Ballantine. Our baddie got a first name and interestingly enough he shares his first name with another TV bad guy: Julian Sark from Alias! On a side note, TV Squad visitors who voted in our last XY poll voted Ballantine as the most evil character so far this season.

Ballantine got a lot of screen time this week. Not only did he have dinner at the Tragers but we also saw him in his element at Madacorp. I doubt any teenager would have been given the grand tour of an extremely secured building like Kyle got. For sure, Ballantine wanted to see him react to what Madacorp was doing and he surely wanted Kyle to sit in the C.I.R. (I doubt it was offline as Ballantine claimed, I'm pretty sure it would have someone got inside Kyle's brain to assess the situation. Could it even be the chair XX sits in when she gets rebooted and fixed?)

Foss and Declan had to work together in order to help Kyle.

The Three Musketeers! Declan, Foss and Kyle team up to get Ballantine's ring. Thanks to Kyle having visited Madacorp, they set up a great plan in motion (if it hadn't been for Lori, their plan would have been perfect). It was really great to see the trio in mission mode! Foss once again proved that he would do anything for Kyle. He'll surely have to undergo some sort of torture from Madacorp; they won't let him leave the building that easily.

We finally saw Foss and Emily cross paths. The writers surely knew most of us thought they were together in the past because they teased us by having Emily be really close to Foss in the first scene they share, yet Emily is always positioned in a way he can't see her. But then, the two bump into one another and the reaction is not the one we (well at least, I) wanted. Emily recognizes him as Kyle's handler and not her (ex-)husband. Even though the husband/wife theory seems to be blown, I still want to think that they are linked... maybe they have an understanding that if they cross paths they shouldn't mention their link but act as people expect them to? (Emily had to tell Ballantine that this was Kyle's handler or she would have been fired of worse if the boss found out she knew who he was and let him slip away). Could Emily and Foss be working together? Emily working within Madacorp to keep tabs on what is going on? Okay, maybe I'm pushing the conspiracy theory a bit much... I guess I watched too many shows like Alias!

Nicole discovered that Jessi and Kyle may have a lot more in common than just being teenagers... Kyle finds that out too!

Nicole had Jessi draw what she feels. The drawing technique Jessi uses intrigues Nicole, since she knows of only one other person who uses it: Kyle. She then compares Jessi's drawings with Kyle's and notices something... they both have the same logo on it. What will Nicole do with this new piece of information? Will she confront Emily again? Or maybe she'll sit Kyle and Jessi together to compare notes?

Kyle found out he had a connection to Jessi thanks to the picture he found in Baylin's box. The picture (see on the right) shows two people who look like Kyle and Jessi. The man is more than likely Baylin (if you recall Matt Dallas was used to portray young Baylin) and the woman is surely his girlfriend at the time. Could it be that both of them worked at Zzyxz and that her DNA was used to create Jessi? Is she still alive? This picture brought a lot of questions and speculation. Sadly, no answers yet. But we know Kyle will not let the matter rest. On another note, was someone able to decipher what is written on the back of the picture?

Other scenes of interest

• Declan channeling his inner MacGyver.
• Taylor showing up in Ballantine's office and noticing the man doesn't have his ring anymore. We see that Taylor does have a ring too... could Taylor have Kyle's real ring?

Best lines of the week

• There is no such thing as coincidence. - Declan
• I have doubts about everything in my life, except how I feel about you. - Kyle to Amanda