"Guilty" was all about difficult choices and their lasting repercussions for everyone involved.

Britten, more than anyone else, is faced with so many choices on Awake, and more often than not those decisions are placed on opposing sides. None was more prevalent than his search for Rex tonight after one of his past arrests came back to haunt him by kidnapping the teenager. Which means we also get to spent a majority of our time in the green reality while Britten worked all of the angles to find Rex.

This expanded allotment of time gave us a bigger picture of Rex and some of the emotions that are driving him since the accident. We’ve all noticed he has openly shunned his dad and now we know why: Rex feels like he lost the wrong parent. It’s understandable, and heart-renching to hear.

Rex knows this, and he sees this as his problem. So until he can begin to cope and move through these emotions he’s going to keep his distance. Rex knows Britten is stepping up to the plate to be there now that he is without Hannah, and being faced with the very real possibility of death means that those emotions and his path towards acceptance and forgiveness are accelerated.

Rex doesn’t have a bridge, or a go-between with Hannah, to his father anymore. It’s either all or nothing, and that’s the choice Rex takes: all in. He’s not about to lose another parent, he’s not about to watch his family get another subtraction, and coincidentally he’s not as different from his father as he might think he is. Because Britten makes the exact some choice with Rex: all in.

Britten is willing to risk further widening the gap he has with Hannah if it means finding even one scrap of information that can further his investigation into finding Rex, someone who he still doesn’t know for sure may or may not be real. He’s even willing to make Hannah go by herself to a memorial in Rex’s honor.

Speaking of the memorial in the red reality, that too further parallels how alike he and Britten really are. They’re both willing to go above and beyond their job descriptions, putting in the extra effort needed to save or help someone in need. Even if that means they put their own relationships at risk.

And with that it’s time for...

Real Reality Check

This week’s winner is green! If only for the dominant amount of time we get to spend in it. While Dr. Lee’s argument that Britten’s guilt over not suspecting, or not putting enough stock in Cooper’s word, is decently compelling on its own, it doesn’t stand up for me upon further examination. Britten doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to glance over evidence that leads to a different conclusion, even if it means going after your partner.

I truly believe he didn’t have enough information to warrant going after anyone other than Cooper, especially with all the evidence stacked against him. Although Hannah's "you were tossing and turning all night" felt like a clue, or maybe it wasn't.

A few other thoughts:

• How awesome is it that Britten can, in essence, force himself to go to the other reality? Let’s hope he doesn’t become an Ambien addict in the process or get knocked out. Although talk about a cool idea – Britten getting captured and knocked out and somehow has to use one reality to get out of his predicament? Let’s get on that Awake writers, there’s nothing even remotely complicated about this idea at all!
• Dr. Lee and Dr. Evans continue to play hard and soft therapists, respectively. But they still come to one common conclusion and that is Britten’s guilt. No matter what his consciousness dreams up he’s still guilty that he put this entire thing in motion. So while he gets to enjoy his family, he also gets to deal with facing the predicament of helping two people grief through losing people that are still there for him.
• No mysterious suit people looking ominous on park benches this week.
• I don’t know if this matters but NBC has changed the airing order of the episodes, switching four and five so that five goes next week. Hopefully that doesn’t have an impact on overall cohesion.

What did you think of tonight’s episode? Were you disappointed they played the kidnapping case so quickly? Excited? Did you like the way the realities were used this week?