This episode jumps around a lot with nearly all of the characters having at least a small part. Most of the episode seemed to be about Amanda, but there were a lot of other things happening too. By the end of the episode, several plot lines had merged or intersected. Hopefully, they're starting to consolidate things for the finale. It starts out with Amanda waking up from dreams about chasing someone through some hallways. While laying in bed she pulls out an envelope from some sort of convalescent care center. Who sleeps with envelopes? Crazy people, that's who. Clarice is also being awakened by one of her spouses, who's got news of their finding the avatar on the chip she used in Graystone's lab. He says that they know it was there at one point, but that it was transferred to another device. Clarice decides to get closer to Amanda to find out where it went.
She finds her during Amanda's daily pilgrimage to the train bombing memorial, where Amanda is causing a scene over them relocating it. She's losing it and Clarice steps in to help, but Amanda sees someone standing in the growing crowd and takes his picture quickly as if spooked. In the car, she tells Clarice it was her brother Darius that she saw, which wouldn't be so weird if he wasn't dead. Sometime later, Amanda comes across a car accident in the city and sees her brother again. She chases after him and is lead to a dead end. She takes a pill, and a poster of a painting of a bridge off of the wall. At her home, Clarice is busy affixing a cheap ribbon to an expensive bottle of the neon green antifreeze-like alcohol they call ambrosia. Her husband tells her their wife will be upset about losing the bottle, but Clarice says it's a worthwhile sacrifice if she can get closer to Amanda. She says she believes that god is speaking to her through Zoe and Amanda, and that she can only find his message if she goes through Amanda to get to Zoe. At the Graystone's, Amanda is impressed with the gift, and elaborates on her insanity. She tells Clarice that her brother died in a car crash they were in on the bridge in the painting on the poster. And then continues about her years of therapy and all the good drugs she's been on.
While all that's happening, Tomas Vergis sneaks up on Daniel at a pyramid game, and they get a bit snippy with each other. Vergis tells him he's heard rumor that they only have one MCP, which he says he knows is false because the one they stole from him never worked. This is meant to further intimidate Daniel, but instead encourages him because he was able to get it to work. Although he doesn't know how or why the MCP works, he realizes he has a slight advantage. Since the chip works for him but not Vergis he can use that as proof that he developed the technology if the truth starts to come out.
Zoe meets with Lacy in the v-world VIP room to tell her she thinks Daniel is starting to realize she's still in the robot. She tells her that the plans got to come together faster, and that her part of getting Philomon to help her get the robot out of the lab is coming along well. Lacy tells her that her part isn't working out as well and that she just needs more time, but Zoe just gets bitchy and impatient. Later, Lacy meets with Keon on a playground to talk about why Barnabas won't help with the plan. He tells her she needs to be STO, and she says she's ok with signing up in order to get to fulfill her mission of getting the robot to Gemenon. He says it's a serious thing and she persuades him with kisses. It seems like Lacy and Zoe only have one strategy for getting what they want, but at least it's working.
Back in the lab, Philomon is meeting up with Zoe thinly disguised as Rachel for a date in v-world. He's chosen a Viper flight simulator, but Zoe's no Starbuck and quickly clips his wing and spirals into the ocean. A freshly ejected Zoe meets Philomon on shore and watches her Viper burn in the water. When he asks why she wouldn't just make her avatar a better pilot, She explains that she wanted her avatar to be more realistic instead of impossibly perfect like everything else in the virtual world. She tells him she doesn't like the fakeness of v-world and that it would better serve humanity if they used it as an extension of life rather than a replacement. He seems to like her ideas and he tells her that he works with military robots and then they make out. Zoe takes a break from this to elaborate on her ideas, telling him that there are ways to make v-world more realistic. She links this to robots, saying that outside experiences would help them work better. She not so subtly tells him to take the robot out of the lab.
Joe meets up with Herecles at his real life lame job, and forces him into an alley to show him around New Cap City. After a talk about how this somehow isn't creepy because Tamara isn't quite dead, Herecles agrees to do it. His only real advice in the game is to try not to die, which seems challenging since as soon as they enter bullets are flying all over the place. Those roving fighter planes are a real nuisance. Herecles tries to get Joe around in the game, and explains that it's modeled after real life and is realistic in every way except there's no law and little order. Joe doesn't get it. While walking down the street the annoying fighter planes come back and in a clumsy attempt to escape, Herecles bites it. Joe logs out to find an angry little gamer in the alley with him. Later at home, Joe goes back into the game and is only there for a short time before a woman named Emmanuelle (Leah Gibson) gets the jump on him. She tells him Herecles told her he would need a new guide and that she's willing to do it for a price. She gives him the same simple advice for being able to stay in the game and find his daughter: don't die.
Daniel comes home to Amanda watching the game, upset that the team is losing. He tells her about Vergis' plans and asks where the fancy rare ambrosia she offers him came from. When she said cryptically that it was from a friend he asks if he should be jealous. Amanda says she doesn't know, and he goes down to the lab to work. Amanda takes some pills and calls Clarice to hang out. They meet up in the 'dive' Clarice always chills in, smoke strong purple herbals, and talk. Mostly about how very crazy Amanda is. She shows Clarice the envelope, and explains it was a mental hospital and that she was there for a while because her grip slipped on reality. It seems that Zoe's death has been causing a relapse into the crazies, if there was ever a time she was normal. Amanda says her punishment for not paying enough attention to her loved ones while they were alive is that she gets left behind with her guilt when they die. Clarice tries to calm her with some monotheism, saying she needs to trust in god. Dense little Amanda doesn't get it though, and asks which god she should trust.
Meanwhile, Daniel enters the lab to find Philomon making kissy faces and wakes him up by loudly playing the piano. Daniel is ready to spend all night starting all over with the robot to figure out how to replicate the MCP, and tells Philomon that he needs to be more focused. But Philomon tells him he's got an idea. Basically that the MCP has some sort of randomly generated unique part to it like a person, which can't be exactly duplicated. This sounds a lot like Zoe's avatar to Daniel, and after questioning Philomon about what he knows (nothing, really) he dismisses him for the night. While poking around on his computer, he takes notice of their doggie's strange affinity for the robot, despite it being a mostly inanimate object. Daniel is on to Zoe.
While I don't feel that Amanda's being completely crazy cakes is a really big revelation, I'm glad that they got it covered. At least now she's officially not just randomly annoying and unpredictable for no reason. I'm glad that Zoe's plan has her dad on to her existence in the robot, it'll give poor unfortunate Lacy time to get her part of the plan to work. I'm hoping that Joe finally mans up and gets used to the game and it being a game. Did this culture really just make a jump from no technology whatsoever to holographic worlds? I know the holobands are relatively new, but there had to have been previous steps up to this technology. Joseph's complete lack of tech savvy seems a bit unbelievable to me. Though his inability to grasp a world with no rules does fit into his character a little. Even the mob has rules.
No comments:
Post a Comment