Tag: science fiction

Maniac Season 1 Episode 5: Exactly Like You Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

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Maniac episode 5, titled “Exactly Like You”, relates another of Owen and Annie’s dreams/reflections while under the influence of the “B” pill. It’s Owen’s turn to create the setting, with Annie following along. Gertie also inserts herself into the story, and some other characters from previous episodes make cameos in the dream.

In this dream, Owen is a high-end con artist, named Sir Ollie Hightower, who’s on his way to a séance at an upper class mansion, where he plans to pull off a heist. Annie is his estranged wife, Arlie, who also has an invitation to the event. What they both really want is to steal a valuable antique manuscript from the hostess, Lady Neberdine.

Partnership is always on Ollie’s mind. He wants a partner desperately, but has been burned so many times in the past that he’s now determined to work alone, with only minimal help from his driver. This is one, or maybe two, of Owen’s defense mechanisms. He’s lonely, and so overwhelmed by his loneliness that he can’t find a way out of it. He’s given up on trying to find anyone.

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Manifest Season 1 Episode 2: Reentry Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 7 Comments

In episode 2, Reentry, the passengers continue to settle in at home after their 5 year absence, and begin to make connections with each other. Connections with the people they left behind are further tested and explored, sometimes with supernatural help. Potential enemies begin to reveal themselves, with deadly consequences.

The episode opens on reporters describing the destruction of the plane that carried Flight 828 home from Jamaica. The plane’s sudden explosion ended episode 1, with 20 passengers having felt an inner call to witness the incident, and Cal jolting awake in bed at the moment of the explosion.

The reporters stand in front of what’s barely even a smoldering shell of an aircraft. The explosion and subsequent fires burned up everything but a few pieces of the plane’s exterior, and those are charred beyond recognition. Whatever someone was trying to hide, mission accomplished.

We also learned that it’s been 4 days since the plane’s return, the plane exploded shortly after midnight, and the 20 passengers were recorded on surveillance cameras.

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Maniac Season 1 Episode 4: Furs by Sebastian Recap

~ Metacrone

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Episode 4, Furs by Sebastian, is entirely comprised of one of Annie and Owen’s immersive “B” pill experiences. This one is driven by Annie, with Owen as a loyal sidekick, though his issues do bleed into the scenario as well. They begin as a seemingly normal, working class couple, but that doesn’t last long. Neither of the subjects really has “normal” coded into their genes. They couldn’t make “normal” work if they tried.

Normal is overrated anyway.

We begin with Bruce Marino (Owen’s alias in this reality), who’s waiting in his car outside of the Department of Motor Vehicles and reading a marriage advice book by Dr Greta Mantleray titled See Her, See You, See We. He’s worried that his marriage is failing and hopes that Dr Greta can help him fix it. He underlines a passage in the book: “She’s often telling you what she needs. Your job as her husband is to hear it.”

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Manifest Episode 2: Sneak Peeks and Episode 3 Promo (Video)

~ Metacrone

Spoilers below, obviously.

NBC has released two short sneak peek videos, plus the promo, for episode 2, Reentry, of its new series, Manifest, which follows the passengers of a plane which disappeared for 5 1/2 years. This should be an interesting episode, since most series use their second episodes to highlight secondary characters and introduce the universe’s mythology in more detail than they had time for in the first episode.

That appears to be the case in this episode, since in one sneak peek we meet Michaela’s (former?) best friend, Lourdes, and the other follows up on the plane explosion that capped off the pilot.

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Maniac Season 1 Episode 3: Having a Day Recap

~ Metacrone

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Yes, we are having a day. In episode 3, Having a Day, we learn about the two worst days of Owen’s life. They were so traumatizing that the day he attempted suicide was not his worst day. His worst day was when he hallucinated for the first time and ended up in a psych ward. Over the course of the episode, Dr Muramoto’s day goes even worse than that.

On the bright side, Dr Mantleray returns to supervise the project he founded, and he proves to be an inspiring, if eccentric, leader. Annie, Owen and #5 are all red-flagged, but survive the ordeal. Owen and Annie begin to bond as a team. Azumi survives a trip to the real world.

After an episode full of obstacles and trauma, the group forges ahead to the next stage of the trial, the “B” pill, which will hopefully lead to better days.

Episode 3 begins where the last episode ended, with the subjects regaining consciousness from the “A” pill. Owen is awake before the others. The scientists have the subjects’ “reentry” timed down to the second. The subjects are all traumatized as they come to.

One of them, #3, says that the treatment was unethical. Carl the Genie tells her, “You waived ethics in your consent form.”

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Maniac Season 1 Episode 2: Windmills Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

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In episode 2, Windmills, we get to know Annie Landsberg, whose world is both the opposite from and the same as Owen’s. While Owen’s life has been filled with ongoing trauma dealt out by his large, abusive family, Annie has very little family, but has been shaped by a few key traumatic events and the loss of loved ones. Owen lives in poverty by choice, in order to maintain his integrity and mental health, while Annie has no choice but to eek out a living, in what’s clearly a difficult economy, on her own.

Owen has learned to retreat inside himself as a defense against the family he’s outnumbered by, while Annie has learned to posture and be aggressive when threatened. In episode 1, we saw her use her trench coat to appear larger, and her voice and facial expressions to drive away potential threats before they became serious. Since she’s on her own, she tries to scare away anyone who might hurt her before they can get too close.

Having grown up in a family full of aggressive posturers, Owen is immune to the tactic, until the aggressor gets serious about inflicting harm. He most likely can instinctively tell when that switch has flipped. At the end of episode 1 he walks right through Annie’s defenses as if they aren’t there, shocking her into taking a different approach with him.

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Maniac Season 1 Episode 1: The Chosen One! Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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I’ve gone back and forth on whether to write about Maniac, Netflix’s new black comedy which was created by Patrick Somerville and Cary Joji Fukunaga and stars Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, but I decided to wait until I’d watched the whole thing before making a decision. During the first few episodes, I thought I wouldn’t, because it reminded me of Legion and other surreal, but aimless, shows that I’ve been burned by in the past. Professional reviewers were even comparing Maniac to those shows. But as the season continued, Maniac became something else.

Maniac is a surrealistic, quirky, scifi black comedy that can get very dark and can go off on tangents that don’t make sense at first. It’s also, at least for now, a limited series, which means it’s written as a self-contained story. And what Maniac is, at its heart, is a lovely, optimistic, long form, indie romantic comedy, with a beginning, middle and end. Both indie films and works of surrealism have difficulty coming to a satisfying conclusion (and sometimes even commercial works do, looking at you, Castle Rock S1!), so the ending of Maniac is a major accomplishment, in my book.

I kind of fell in love with this show, and it appears that I’m going to have writer’s block until I write about it. There are 3 other partial recaps in my drafts folder that are going nowhere right now, so let’s give Maniac a try, shall we?

Like most Netflix shows, and many other shows as well, the first three episodes serve as an extended introduction to the season. In episode 1, we get to know Owen Milgrim (rhymes with pilgrim, which is a seeker or wanderer), played with depressed, understated misery by Jonah Hill. You feel like he’s always on the verge of crying, and it’s taken a monumental amount of strength for him to reach this point in his life. He’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia, but refuses treatment.

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Manifest Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 16 Comments

Oh-My-Gosh, you guys! Manifest is a hit! If you were avoiding watching because you figured it would just be cancelled like all of the other broadcast scifi shows, I think you should give this one a chance. 10.4 million people watched Monday night, which is an increase over the number of people who watched its lead-in show, The Voice. No show has ever built on The Voice’s audience before- everyone has always experienced a drop. It matched the debut of last year’s big hit broadcast drama, The Good Doctor.  And according to TVLine’s poll, 92% of viewers say they’ll keep watching.

Of course, Mr Metawitches and I watched it, too. The mister liked the show a lot. He’s much closer to your average viewer than I am, though he doesn’t care much for run of the mill cop-lawyer-doctor shows, either. But he also doesn’t like the dark, twisty, gross turn that scfi and fantasy have taken in this decade. He’s looking forward to watching the mystery unfold on Manifest this season, as well as the relationships between the characters.

This show appears to be a turn away from the dark and twisty mentality, toward a more positive, family-oriented outlook with characters who want to be good people and do good in the world. What professional reviewers would call hokey or cheesy these days. In fact, I think I saw one or two use those words.

But, honestly, I’m ready for hokey and cheesy to come back. I think a significant portion of the viewing public are, too. The world is a dark place, and we want to believe that there’s good in the world and good people who can be trusted.

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Hard Sun Season 1 Episode 4: Can You Hear Him Now? Recap

~ Metacrone

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Episode 4 continues the story of the Good Samaritan killer, which was begun in the previous episode. The Grim Reaper seems to have become an agent of chaos, in addition to his role as bringer of death. He’s given up on trying to get God’s attention, and wants to send a message to humanity and to Father Dennis instead. Father Dennis has become the stand in for an absent God, while the entire cast are becoming new versions of Job, with the threat of Hard Sun slowly stripping everything they love from their lives .

The other characters also put time into their season long story arcs, but without the same intensity that we’ve seen in previous episodes. After the deep questions of episode 3, this episode focusses on much more mundane questions. Hard Sun is still coming, but no one particularly cares what it is or what it means, as long as they can take care of their own until it gets here.

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Kiss Me First Season 1 Episode 6: You Can Never Go Home Recap

~ Metacrone

 

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Adrian has decided to move on from team sports to a one on one battle with Leila. For all of his brave talk about wanting to play a high stakes game, he’s changed the rules at every turn to make sure the deck is stacked in his favor. Leila’s captivity at Adrian’s hands is different from anything we’ve seen before on Kiss Me First, and could be triggering for some viewers who aren’t expecting the sudden change in tone.

Someone, meaning Tippi, Force or Adrian, fished Leila out of the water after the end of episode 5, and tended to her injuries. The action moves back to London for the season finale, though it’s not clear in the beginning exactly where Leila is, other than being held hostage.

I appreciate that Kiss Me First once again shows Leila holding it together while she fights her battle, but needing to break down later. That’s the reality of being strong and good in a crisis. Leila isn’t a psychopath who fakes emotions like Adrian. She’s reserved. Her emotions are internalized, and sometimes deferred to a time when she can express them privately and safely.

For the grand finale, Adrian goes for kidnapping, assault and torture. During the precredits sequence we see Leila stripped down to her skivvies, lying on a mattress, strapped down, and hooked up to an IV that’s keeping her drugged. She rises to consciousness briefly when a bright light shines into her eyes, and struggles against her bindings, whimpering and complaining. Before long she’s drugged unconscious again.

After the title sequence the show moves to Leila’s house, where Jonty is sneaking in through the kitchen window. He can’t stand being left out of the loop any longer and needs to find out what’s happened to Leila. He finds Tess instead. She’s hoping that Jonty has news of Leila.

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