Alphas/Characters

The Team

Dr. Lee Rosen

Played by: David Strathairn

A neurologist and psychologist who specialises in the study of "alphas". He leads the DOD-sponsored team of Alphas, but is slowly becoming disillusioned as the team's mandate shifts from finding and helping Alphas in trouble to fighting dangerous Alphas and locking them up. He started investigating the Alpha phenomenon after discovering that his daughter was one.

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• Ambiguously Jewish
• Badass Normal
• Badass Beard: In the Pilot
• Cool Old Guy
• Guile Hero: Comes with the territory.
• Megane
• My Greatest Failure: Feels this way about Marcus
• Reluctant Warrior: He treats violence as a last resort but will not let this stop him from saving lives.
• The Shrink: of the third variety
• Silver Fox
• Team Dad

Nina Theroux

Played by: Laura Mennell

A young woman who used her Alpha ability — "pushing" people into doing what she wants — for petty personal gain, until an accident brought her to Rosen's attention. She's been on the team for longer than anyone else, and serves as Rosen's second. Has oodles of UST with Hicks.

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• The Atoner: She accidentally killed her boyfriend with her ability.
• Charm Person
• Compelling Voice
• Number Two
• Team Mom
  • She also comes across as a Cool Big Sis to Rachel.

Bill Harken

Played by: Malik Yoba

A happily-married FBI agent with Super Strength. Bill was suspended from the Bureau after getting angry with a colleague and accidentally shoving him through a solid wall; he only planned on staying with Rosen's team until his suspension was over. He's since decided to stay on the team, even though the Bureau offered to reinstate him.

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• Badass Beard
• Character Development: He respects Gary more and becomes more protective of him after their episode together. The two refer to each other as partners from then onwards.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Happily Married
• Hour of Power: Can only have his power activated for 5 minutes.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Him and his wife.
• Lightning Bruiser: Has martial arts training, which he does use in concert with his Super Strength. As a result, he can keep up with Hicks in a down-and-out brawl well enough to win. In this case, notably, his Super Speed didn't really come into play.
• Made of Iron: He can stand still and take a beating from three armed men, one of whom is tasing him continuously, without moving. Partially explained by his ability to control his adrenaline rushes, as adrenaline is known to make it easier to ignore pain. The aches, pains, and injuries he must logically have collected don't seem to effect him later, either.
• Pet the Dog: Though he was as ambivalent towards Gary as everyone else on the team, Bill always laughs at Gary's antics where others would fume in early episodes (quite possibly the result of the actor not being able to keep a straight face). This provides some early indications of his later friendship with Gary following "Bill and Gary's Excellent Adventure".
• Scary Black Man
• Superheroes Stay Single: Averted.
• Super Speed: This mostly takes a backseat to his strength, but the same adrenaline boost that makes him strong lets him run like a track star.
• Super Strength
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Has become this with Gary. Type 2.

Rachel Pirzad

Played by: Azita Ghanizada

A very introverted young woman with Super Senses, who was a CIA linguist before joining Rosen's team. She's under constant pressure from overbearing parents that want her to settle down rather, and the downside of her ability — Sensory Overload — makes things difficult in social situations.

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• Arranged Marriage: Her parents tried several times before the beginning of the show. Currently averted; see below.
• Can't Have Sex Ever: At least, until she can find a way to get past the sensory overload problem.
• The Empath: She can smell the chemical signatures of different emotions.
• Parental Abandonment: Thanks to the Hate Plague guy, she yelled at her parents, who later kicked her out because of it.
• Power Incontinence: Though she can dial up her senses at will, they also kick in automatically whenever she focuses on something (like eating or making out with a guy).
• Sensory Overload: Her sense of touch backfires spectacularly during intimate moments.
  • But also averted; when Summer Glau stuns the team with a Sensory Overload device, Rachel is able to take advantage of the downside of her power to avoid the worst of the effects--recognizing the nature of the device, she turned up her sense of taste, shutting down sight and hearing so the sonic whine and strobe light the device employed would have minimal effect.
• Super Senses: She can turn up one sense at the cost of turning down all the others.

Gary Bell

Played by: Ryan Cartwright

A high funtioning autistic man with the ability to see and interact with the electromagnetic spectrum. Gary still lives with his mother and is very dependent on the team's help, but over the course of the first season he becomes more and more self-sufficient. He develops an odd friendship with Anna, one of the leaders of Red Flag, which prompts him to start thinking of the relationship between alphas and humans.

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• Character Development: He respects Bill more (and actually defers to him on occasion), and treats him more like a friend, after "Bill And Gary's Excellent Adventure". Also, throughout the first season he's trying to learn to become more self-sufficient and independant, as well as trying to be able to learn and do more things he normally would not, such as lying.
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Dating Catwoman: His friendship/budding relationship with Anna, a Red Flag leader.
• Disability Immunity: His autism makes him immune to Nina's Compelling Voice, explained as his mind being too inflexible to be affected by the power of suggestion. An Alpha who can determine the truthfulness of other people's statements by reading their microexpressions also finds this impossible with Gary.
• Extreme Graphical Representation
• Hates Being Touched: Like real life autistics, except with people who have earned his trust like Dr. Rosen, his mother and, eventually, the other members of his team. Also, Anna once they become friends. Anyone else will provoke a reaction ranging from, depending on circumstances, annoyance to outright hysteria.
• Jerkass: By his own admission, he has a "bad attitude". Although he's getting better, he seems to have some entitlement issues distinct from his autism.
• Lack of Empathy: Downplayed and justified-as with most people with autistic spectrum disorders, Gary tends to be oblivious to the feelings of others. It's not that he doesn't care though, and he's working on it.
• No Sense of Personal Space: He likes to read other peoples' texts and listen to phone calls.
• No Social Skills
• Technopath
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Type 2 With Bill
• Weaksauce Weakness: Can't detect Nokia traffic.

Cameron Hicks

Played by: Warren Christie

A former Marine Corps sniper and minor-league baseball player with hyperkinesis. Hicks first encountered the team when a Red Flag villain used him as the patsy in an assassination; after freeing him from the villain's Mind Control, Rosen recruited Hicks onto the team to keep him safe from the DOD. He has a young son that he rarely sees, and lots of UST with Nina.

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• Awesomeness By Analysis
• Bullet Dodge: It helps that he knows where the bullets will be.
• Guns Akimbo: In the fourth episode.
• Improbable Aiming Skills
• Le Parkour: As a part of his Super Reflexes.
• Pop-Cultured Badass
• Super Reflexes

Department of Defense

Don Wilson

Played by: Callum Keith Rennie

An FBI agent who liaises between the government and Rosen's team. Killed off in episode 3.

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• Dead Star Walking
• Jerkass
• Mauve Shirt
• The Men in Black
• Noble Bigot with a Badge
• Sacrificial Lamb

Nathan Clay

Played by: Mahershalalhashbaz Ali

The head of a DOD tactical-operations unit that deals with rogue Alphas and runs the Binghamton facility.

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• The Cavalry: Often.
• Character Development: Gained a bit in Unusual Suspects. Prior to that he was just the guy who went around detaining Alphas. The episode revealed that he was told it would be the fast track to promotion and ended up stuck in his position. Also , while he believes dangerous Alpha's should be locked away or worse. He tends to show leniency to those he considers mostly harmless.
• Jerkass
• Pet the Dog: In the Unsual Suspects, he doesn't give an order for a Sniper to use lethal force on Rosens team during the break out when he could have.
  • His interactions with the body reader Eric where pretty friendly , and he even authorized Parole for him because he was not a threat.
• The Sixth Ranger: When the team needs armed backup, it's usually Clay heading the charge.

Kathy Sullivan

Played by: Valerie Cruz

A government agent and official liaison between Rosen's team and the DOD.

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• Reasonable Authority Figure: She's a much friendlier, more level-headed boss than Wilson.
  • Subverted in Season one Finale Original Sin when against Rosen's pleads she sends a heavily armed tactical squad to smoke out a group of Alpha Flag members discussing going against their leader Stanton Parish. Unsurprisingly a slaughter occurs with Alpha men and women are cut down and Bill almost gets killed in the confusion. Sullivan believes fully that it was a good thing. Surprisingly Rosen doesn't agree.
• Necessarily Evil: While she considers herself Rosen's Friend , she views the slaughter of Red Flag members during the season one Finale as a victory that Rosen should be proud of. And offers him what ever he needs , Alphas, men, resources. To contain the Alpha Problem.
• With Us or Against Us: When it boils down to it , she views Alphas as a problem to be contained.

Red Flag

Anna

Played by: Liane Balaban

A woman whose Alpha ability allows her to understand and communicate in any language. In the episode "Rosetta", the team initially find her in a Red Flag safehouse and believe her to be a captive of the group, who use her abilities to encrypt their communications. Turns out, she's one of the leaders of Red Flag. Her and Gary become friends very quickly, and stay in contact even after the events of "Rosetta".

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• Dating Catwoman: Her and Gary's friendship has strong echoes of this.
• Foil: For Gary.
• Killed Off for Real: In the DOD raid during "Original Sin".
• Omniglot: Her Alpha ability takes this up to eleven.

Dr. Kerns

Played by: Brent Spiner

An obstetrician and member of Red Flag. He's completely blind, but has a sonic-based Alpha ability that allows him to "see" using echolocation. He planned on giving deliberately-altered pre-natal vitamins to pregnant women in the hopes of creating more Alphas, but Rosen's team caught him first, and he was later killed by Griffin.

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• Disability Superpower
• Killed Off for Real
• Lethal Harmless Powers: Turns out his sonic powers are way more dangerous than just sonar.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: With some buildup, his Alpha ability eventually lets Kerns do this.

Stanton Parish

Played by: John Pyper-Ferguson

The immortal leader of Red Flag and one of the oldest-known Alphas, his existence wasn't discovered until the season 1 finale, "Original Sin". He's determined to wage war on humanity and to keep the existence of Alphas a secret from the general public.

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• Big Bad
• Immortality
  • Immortality Immorality
• Magnificent Bastard: Despite showing up for only a few minutes in one episode, he firmly plants himself in this category.

Other

Dr. Vanessa Calder

Played by: Lindsay Wagner

A medical doctor working for the CDC, who meets Rosen and the team while investigating a possible disease outbreak in "Never Let Me Go".

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• Crossover: Calder is a recurring character on Warehouse 13, another Syfy show, which means that Alphas and Warehouse 13 (and, by extension, Eureka) exist in the same universe.

Skyler Adams

Played by: Summer Glau

A technopath, and one of the first Alphas that Rosen's team ever helped (well before the start of the series). She goes on the run in "Catch and Release" from her NSA handlers, after reneging on a deal to create advanced technology for the government. At the end of the episode, Rosen helps her disappear.

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• Pet the Dog: The Department of Defense let her live a normal life for many years after her Alpha ability was discovered, whereas they tried to kill or lock up every other Alpha the team had encountered during the series.
• Technopath

Griffin

Played by: Rebecca Mader

A bounty hunter whose Alpha ability allows her to move through people's "blind spot" and remain almost undetectable. She's hired by Red Flag in episode 9 to retrieve Dr. Kerns.

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• Bounty Hunter
• Invisible Woman: Never actually turns invisible (her power doesn't affect recordings), but she might as well be.

Danielle Rosen

Played by: Kathleen Munroe

Dr. Rosen's estranged daughter, whose Alpha ability lets her force emotions onto other people. After stealing something from Red Flag, she meets Rosen again in the season 1 finale when he saves her from a Red Flag assassin. Secretly working for Stanton Parish.

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• Abusive Parent: Danielle accuses Dr. Rosen of being this. When his marriage was in trouble he had Danielle use her power on her mother to calm her down. He continued doing this for years after he found out about his daughter's Alpha power and that using her power was causing serious damage to her.
• The Mole