Beacon 23: S2-E1–3 – Endings & new beginnings

[00:00:29] Hello Beacon Knights, Wool-Shift-Dustians welcome to our coverage of season 2 of Beacon 23 on MGM Plus and apparently on Prime itself in some places now too.

[00:00:40] I'm your host Elisha and with me as always is my co-host Luke. Hey Luke, how are you doing? Busy times in your world of teaching and book deadlines?

[00:00:49] Yeah busy time with teaching, marking, book deadlines so I'm happy to take a break and talk about all things Beacon 23.

[00:00:56] Absolutely. Today we're going to be pulling apart the main frame on the first three episodes of Beacon 23 season 2, checking in with the wiring and all that.

[00:01:06] We'll talk through the episodes one at a time then check in with the community to see how all of you are feeling about the new season so far.

[00:01:13] But Luke, first you started to bring this up before we recorded and I said alright let's save it for the pod. What do you think spoiler free so far of the season?

[00:01:23] I think the tone of season 2 is quite different from the tone of season 1. I think not having Asta, Lena Heady there really does make a difference to the show overall.

[00:01:38] I'm not saying I just like season 2 but I think this is a very different animal from season 1.

[00:01:48] I think we'll get into this when we go through the three episodes but I think so far the season has thrown up a lot of questions that I hope answers in the remaining five or six episodes.

[00:02:02] Yeah, the showrunner Glamatsaro says there are answers coming this season.

[00:02:09] But yeah there is definitely of course Lena Heady factor because she was a major draw for season 1 but we do have other established characters a lot.

[00:02:17] We're carrying over basically Halen and Harmony and now we've got a new character as of episode 3 so we'll get into who she is in her story.

[00:02:29] But what did you think of Iris?

[00:02:33] Yeah I'm intrigued and I love the way she was introduced because when I saw her in the trailer I thought why would they be sending another beacon keeper after the event season 1.

[00:02:47] But actually I thought it was very well explained how she ended up there.

[00:02:52] I think this is going to be an interesting, I think the dynamic between Iris and Halen is going to be very different from the dynamic between Halen and Aster.

[00:03:05] Yeah no I like that Iris is a, she's a very different personality you know they're not just replacing Aster with you know let's plug and play the same character again.

[00:03:14] No this is a completely different person and they show us well within one episode so far what her specific quirks are who she is as a person and why she's likeable.

[00:03:27] Yeah.

[00:03:29] But yeah so we are keeping it spoiler free to start right now just for anyone who's deciding whether or not to jump into the new season themselves but of course there will be season 1 spoilers.

[00:03:38] And after our first break there will be full spoilers for the first three episodes of season 2.

[00:03:45] As always I have read the book but I won't give away anything that might spoil what's to come but actually that's pretty tough to do on this one because there's almost no overlap between the plot or characters.

[00:03:56] And of course we don't want to spoil the book innocence of our dear Luke.

[00:04:00] No I am the founder of all ignorance.

[00:04:03] I did see from your co-host on one of your other podcasts Abbey who's also a Beacon 23s fan that she just given up, she just completely given up trying to translate anything across from the book that this is an entirely different thing.

[00:04:18] Yeah plot wise especially but there are you know I'll call some things out this episode that there are overlaps or definite inspirations you can see happening.

[00:04:26] Okay.

[00:04:28] So Luke how would you rank the first three episodes of the season?

[00:04:33] One, I'd rank them in order actually one two three.

[00:04:36] Really so one was your favorite?

[00:04:38] Yeah because it really moved the plot along which I'm all here for.

[00:04:48] Wait wait that was spoiler I'll bleep that.

[00:04:50] Sorry.

[00:04:51] I think it really moved the plot along.

[00:04:57] I think it set up the rest of the season really well.

[00:05:01] I think A.S. had already been established as a villain but it's a really full on really great A. villainous performance.

[00:05:11] Okay okay.

[00:05:12] I might do it the opposite way and it would just be because I was so charmed by Iris that three is getting my number one and also just because it lays out the next you know what is the next thing we're wondering.

[00:05:28] What are we going to find out?

[00:05:30] What's going to happen next?

[00:05:31] And the second episode is just so inventive and also such like a scorching satire of corporate culture that I had to appreciate that.

[00:05:42] Yeah I did like episode two Natasha Mumba and all the other cast members are really good at doing that Westworld thing and fans like from high emotion to blank.

[00:05:54] Yeah the production design was really great that episode two with the hallways and everything.

[00:06:01] Yeah on the first episode felt to me like it was it was necessary but it was very much wrapping up season one whereas the next two episodes were starting new things.

[00:06:11] So you know the tone is different but how do you think you feel at this point in the season versus where you felt at this point after watching only three episodes of season one?

[00:06:22] I mean I wasn't sure after the first three episodes of season one if I hadn't been doing the podcast I may well not have persevered with it to be honest because I was liking it but I wasn't loving it.

[00:06:38] I wasn't really invested it was okay I think these three episodes I think obviously because you don't have as much world building I think these episodes are paceier.

[00:06:49] They're moving the plot along a little bit faster.

[00:06:54] We know the characters particularly Haylen better which I think helps because I think the thing about the first three episodes or the first season was it's a lot of sort of moving things into position so that the plot can start and I think that maybe took a little bit longer than I would have ideally liked.

[00:07:15] Yeah no I get that.

[00:07:17] Well actually Glenn Matsara the one of the showrunners he's co-showrunner with Joy Blake and they are taking over from Zach Penn who is a creator and showrunner in season one because you know they did this back to back filming thing and apparently Zach Penn had scheduling conflicts

[00:07:35] and so Glenn Matsara had been brought on to to consult and to like how punch up the scripts and then he and Joy Blake just ended up taking over the second season.

[00:07:47] So he gave some interviews about this and he said some interesting things to the Raph especially where he said this show has always been about human connection and about identity through empathy and compassion.

[00:08:01] Both seasons are about people who are washed up on the shore and they're stuck together I mean I guess that's clear to see.

[00:08:08] Yeah.

[00:08:09] He says that this season is going to delve into Haylen's origin story.

[00:08:13] He says we were always very mindful of Haylen's journey from his lowest point his darkest place so I think that's kind of what we saw happen in these episodes we saw Haylen hit rock bottom.

[00:08:24] Stephen James is now an EP and executive producer and he called this a deeply personal season.

[00:08:32] Okay.

[00:08:33] Yeah so I'm intrigued by that.

[00:08:35] Interesting.

[00:08:36] Apparently we're going to see Haylen's origin story with his father who's been mentioned already now his military his life before the beacon.

[00:08:44] And then Matzara says we will expand the world to include different cultures different parts of this world we haven't seen before all still rooted around the beacon itself but we do end up learning more about other beacon keepers other beacons how they work in both the present and past.

[00:09:01] Okay well we sure a little bit that an episode three.

[00:09:04] Yeah absolutely yeah I'm excited yeah we see things going in that direction that's one of the reasons why I like episode three so much.

[00:09:10] Okay.

[00:09:11] And he says we work very hard to push this story forward and make sure that no two episodes were alike that every episode feels different.

[00:09:19] And I would say in season two every episode sort of reinvents the show.

[00:09:24] I guess that's what we're getting from this.

[00:09:25] Yeah I can see where he's coming from with that.

[00:09:28] That's intriguing like how are they going to keep it up how many more twists can you put on this.

[00:09:33] He says that they did want to focus versus the first season a little bit more on the main timeline so indeed we haven't really gotten we haven't gotten any flashbacks yet.

[00:09:43] No.

[00:09:44] It's all real time action so far and Matzara he says despite what we've said before he says that they do have ideas now for more seasons so I hope that means there's not a cliffhanger for this one.

[00:09:56] Yeah.

[00:09:58] But he's been talking about an interview is like oh you know I have a story that I want to tell if I'm giving the space to.

[00:10:05] I don't know I kind of like the idea that this is going to be a two season in and out done kind of thing.

[00:10:11] Not everything has to go on for season after season after season not every story has to be like massively this isn't a moment about being 23.

[00:10:22] No.

[00:10:23] I mean I'm not a moan about media particularly but it's like sometimes you just like Shogun is a good example of this one season.

[00:10:31] It had a story to tell it told me.

[00:10:34] Yeah absolutely.

[00:10:36] Yeah I mean I I'm glad that he assures he says the show does add up there is an answer this season there is a meaning we're not just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks his words there's a plan.

[00:10:51] So I mean you don't give me that easily I watched lost I was put.

[00:10:56] Exactly yeah you don't give me that easily.

[00:11:00] Exactly yeah I want to I mean I like when there's an ending because then you know what you're building toward you have that in mind and yeah I still trust that we're getting that this season.

[00:11:14] Hopefully.

[00:11:15] And another interview he compared the beacon this season to a Dracula's castle and said that the interior starts to feel quite gothic which is definitely true and I'm really enjoying about it's kind of the third episode had a lot of horror elements to it.

[00:11:32] The second to actually.

[00:11:33] I'm not sure gothic is the word I'd go for like.

[00:11:36] Like a haunted house.

[00:11:37] Yeah mechanical.

[00:11:39] Yeah like techno gothic.

[00:11:42] Yeah yeah yeah.

[00:11:44] Yes that's the new genre he's inventing.

[00:11:49] All right well let's break into the episodes we're gonna get into the spoiler bag but first we're just going to take a quick little break.

[00:11:58] Research request granted spoilers.

[00:12:02] All right so please check out our two season two preview episodes for recap on how season one ended because we're going to dive right into episode one titled Godspeed.

[00:12:14] So this was written by showrunner himself Glamatsana and it was directed by Kevin Sullivan who is new to the beacon twenty three team.

[00:12:22] So basically all the directors and writers credited this season are new different people from last season so it makes sense that we would be seeing a shift in tone.

[00:12:33] But yeah Kevin Sullivan the director he's won many awards he's best known for period films like Anne of Green Gables.

[00:12:40] So this genre it's a little bit of a departure for him.

[00:12:44] Did you have any thoughts about the directing in the first episode Luke you said this was your favorite of the three.

[00:12:48] I mean I think the directing there's a scene where A-Liff and one of the terrorists the one that can hook into the beacon like have this standoff in yeah yeah in virtual.

[00:13:02] Oh Finch yes we do finally find out his name is Finch.

[00:13:06] Well they did say that last season we just called him silly thanks for fun.

[00:13:10] Yeah RIP Burton Ernie.

[00:13:12] So yeah I think that scene where he gets him to cut himself and you see it like subcutaneous you see it happen like subcutaneously in the real world was really was really freaky.

[00:13:26] Yeah absolutely well done.

[00:13:28] And also I can't remember the guy who plays A-Liff off the top of my head but his performance is like he was creepy in season one but this is this is a whole new level of malevolence.

[00:13:41] Yeah well we've got we've got the showrunner of the early seasons of The Walking Dead so.

[00:13:47] Yeah and yeah I really like this episode because I was just like I think it tied up season one well I think it sort of set all the piece I think basically it set all the pieces in motion for season two and it did that in a way that was satisfying in a single episode.

[00:14:06] Yeah so yeah the name Godspeed that seems to clearly be about the fact this episode is a send off to Aster.

[00:14:15] Luke do you think this should have been the season one finale or do you think it's better they saved it for season two this episode.

[00:14:23] That's an interesting question I mean you certainly could have seen it as a season one finale I did like the way season one ended because it's not exactly a cliffhanger but.

[00:14:35] It does leave you with a whole series of questions that need that you want answering and I think knowing that you already had season two in the bag.

[00:14:48] I thought that was a good way to leave season one and I like the fact that not just this is a send off to Aster but it kind of wraps up for the moment anyway the storyline with the terror with those three particular

[00:15:05] risks freedom fighters whatever you want to call them and I think it's always it's also a send off it's also a send off to Bart because you see the beacon songs but you get to see what.

[00:15:19] Although I think it's even more so about possibly yeah I mean I thought the season one finale worked as it was and I see why the stuff this episode needed to happen but yeah I they could have easily given us a nine

[00:15:35] episode season one with this as a finale and then I wonder if they wanted to tease fans about that Aster might not be dead which if so I don't like that because they make it very clear right away.

[00:15:49] Yeah she clearly is dead.

[00:15:51] Like done yeah I mean now that they they obviously leave open.

[00:15:56] Is she contacting him you know we're going to talk about that as we go through the episodes but yeah her physical body is gone.

[00:16:05] Right so yeah we pick up right where season one left off with Aster Lena Hedy bleeding out on the floor after having been shot by Keir Mark Manchaka.

[00:16:15] Heyland Stephen James is distraught but Aster is gone gone and fiddle and faddle sorry Sal Danna just so Guiro and Finch Daniel Malik come running up the stairs to see what's going on.

[00:16:28] Heyland asks Harmony Natasha Moomba to check Aster for life signs but Aleph Eric Lang is blocking her I am in full control of the beacon now he says Harmony declares Aster's time of death.

[00:16:41] So honestly for me this episode it at first it felt a little bit like treading water but then as I broke it down in these notes that I saw that it really has a lot more plot than I originally gave it credit for there's a lot more going on a lot more.

[00:16:57] More pieces moving.

[00:16:59] Yeah and a lot of it's kind of a battle of wits between Heyland and the terror kind of a three cornered battle of wits between Heyland the terrorists and Ailith.

[00:17:10] Yeah which is how the last season left off so this is definitely a transitory episode but I think by picking up in the middle of the panic that does establish a sense of urgency momentum going into the new season.

[00:17:23] So one thing I noticed is when Harmony declared Aster's time of death she used a quote unquote universal standard time of 1402 36 so I think it's nice that they like thought about that a little bit but I wonder what Einstein's theories of relativity might have to say.

[00:17:42] I don't think that would actually work because like what time is it still a clock in the afternoon.

[00:17:49] Oh so it's dark out so on our planet with like two suns does that mean it's dark all the time does that mean it's light all the time.

[00:17:57] Yeah we rotate so that days are two hours long.

[00:18:01] There's a great line in the first man in black we use our Cayley in standard time it's a 31 hour day you either go you either get used to it or have a psychotic episode in the next months.

[00:18:15] It's perfect.

[00:18:17] So Luke did you cheer when Heyland started beating the shit out of Keir.

[00:18:22] Oh definitely definitely definitely definitely I mean this is the thing.

[00:18:26] Keir is Keir is two of the things he says are not wrong but it's like all of this column philosophical mumbo jumbo is basically disguising the fact that the aliens talked to Aster and Heyland and not him and he's upset about that fact.

[00:18:45] Well I feel like that's how Allah feels about things they're both jealous.

[00:18:49] Yeah it's kind of funny because they are in some ways they have some similarities but they would never say it.

[00:18:57] Yeah but yeah Harmony sure wasn't happy about Heyland beating the shit out of Keir and Keir says that Aster had to do it because she was quote unquote on the Aleph side.

[00:19:09] Do you think that's true was she on Aleph side.

[00:19:11] No I think the whole point of what Aster was trying to say at the end of season one was if these if this life form these aliens this artifact is trying to send a message we don't know who it's trying to send a message to.

[00:19:25] So the only fair thing to do is let everybody know what it's saying is that everybody know what it's saying.

[00:19:30] And Keir he basically wants to prevent Aleph from ever getting access to whatever knowledge is inside the artifact and he was afraid that Aster would grant Aleph that access.

[00:19:43] But then Aleph himself steps in as a peacekeeper and like gets Heyland to back down for the moment.

[00:19:49] So given Aleph obviously you know later he loses his temper and kills these people.

[00:19:55] Why do you think he stopped Heyland now. Do you think he wanted to prevent Heyland from getting blood on his hands or try to keep Heyland from you know losing it so that he could use him.

[00:20:09] Yeah I mean I think I think Aleph's goal throughout the whole episode is to try and work Heyland.

[00:20:15] Because Heyland is the only one the only one there who we are fairly certain the artifacts trying to talk to.

[00:20:25] And so like and also like Aleph's this you know enormously powerful AI that can run thousands of simulations of every possible encounter.

[00:20:35] But I wonder whether something like that something that's very immediate very violent is happening too quickly for Aleph to run all the possible contingencies on it.

[00:20:48] So I get like the sense I get like the sense throughout the entire episode that he wants to slow everything down and move more deliberately possibly to give himself like time to to work all the angles.

[00:21:00] Right. Yeah and so while Aleph is telling Heyland that this isn't what Astor would want Finch uses the distraction to try to hack into the Aleph AI through his interface on the beacon but Aleph uses the connection to hack back

[00:21:16] sucking Finch into a virtual mind space and he admits there that the column gets to him but he swears he does what he does for the survival of humanity.

[00:21:25] I am not here to debate political systems with you.

[00:21:30] It's just like the way he delivers our lives.

[00:21:34] I have not got time for this shit.

[00:21:36] I am trying to make first contact with Regal A.

[00:21:39] Heyland's man enough.

[00:21:41] But I find it interesting.

[00:21:43] It's something I see happening throughout these three episodes is that these AI these authoritarian AI they keep saying that they're doing what they're doing for the good of the group for the good of the high for the good of humanity.

[00:21:59] But then when it comes down to it when they get worked up and they have exhibit these emotions that they all swear they don't have but it seems to regularly display then they start using I I I a lot.

[00:22:10] It's about me me me.

[00:22:12] Yes.

[00:22:14] I really like the way when Finch starts to attack him the way they do him like glitching out is really it's really well done.

[00:22:21] Yeah.

[00:22:23] Because he just starts repeating himself in the middle of a sense.

[00:22:25] Yeah that's true.

[00:22:27] And Aleph during this confrontation he drops an all time quote he says we're all expendable.

[00:22:33] Some of us are just better at assigning ourselves meaning.

[00:22:35] I want that on a T-shirt or a logo or something.

[00:22:39] I think that's like that's like philosophy to live by.

[00:22:42] It's a mic drop of philosophy off.

[00:22:47] Yeah so as you alluded to earlier by controlling Finch's mind Aleph is able to make him cut himself in the virtual world and which makes wounds appear in the real world on his cheek and neck.

[00:22:58] And Finch collapses while Kier and Saldana are attending to him.

[00:23:02] Haley says he's done with this shit and starts.

[00:23:06] He just starts prepping Aster for space burial and Aleph is just walking around the station looking smug.

[00:23:12] So we yeah we don't in many sci-fi stories we don't often see AI characters who make a lot of facial expressions.

[00:23:19] And I think this is our first clue that Aleph might have held on to more of his humanity than he intended.

[00:23:25] Yeah I think it's always important to bear in mind that Aleph is not pure AI.

[00:23:29] He was designed off a particular individual with like a particular individual's personality buried somewhere in his programming.

[00:23:38] Quantic AI whatever that means.

[00:23:41] Yeah but yeah he sees definitely he enjoys it because Harmony brings us up later on the episode.

[00:23:48] He didn't just kill Finch he tortured him and he enjoyed torturing him.

[00:23:54] Full sadism coming into effect.

[00:23:55] Yeah.

[00:23:57] Also I like the way that the wounds were when they're in the real world it wasn't like a one for one.

[00:24:03] What it was was like I assume it was like causing him like such stress that like veins and arteries were bursting because if you look in the in the virtual reality he was cutting himself

[00:24:14] but in actual reality he was just like bleeding subcutaneously bleeding under the skin.

[00:24:19] Right it's just kind of like his skin split open a little bit.

[00:24:22] Yeah.

[00:24:23] I also have to point out that Harmony spoke out she spoke against her master's action to the sequence.

[00:24:31] She was already becoming noticeably more independent.

[00:24:34] Yeah.

[00:24:36] I also had to laugh when the comedy has been pretty on point this season so far.

[00:24:41] Saldana says to Keir who's whining about killing Aster you made a call it was a stupid one but now it's over.

[00:24:47] Yes okay that's true.

[00:24:50] I liked Keir less in these episodes than I did when he first showed up last season.

[00:24:57] Yeah well I didn't like it.

[00:25:00] He would never have liked it.

[00:25:02] I thought he was an interesting character but so Saldana tells Fin she's going to be okay and he responds why bother I'm dead soon do you think he's saying that because he's an addict?

[00:25:12] I think he's saying that because Alif is there and I don't think any of the other people are going to be okay.

[00:25:20] No we're going to get out alive from the get go.

[00:25:23] Okay and then Harmony is able to stabilize Finch somehow when he starts seizing I guess it's because of the tech implants she's able to do something.

[00:25:32] Yeah that wasn't quite clear on that to be honest.

[00:25:35] She's able to like he's now hacked he's now connected I guess they're both connected to the beacon at this point.

[00:25:40] Yeah no they must be actually because he talks about like downloading information out of Finch's mind later on in the episode so yes they must have been.

[00:25:52] So what did you think visually of Halyn floating Aster's corpse down through the anti-gravity well did this work for you better than the spider?

[00:26:01] Yeah that was better than the fight I think because it was less ambitious there's less sort of movement in it so it worked.

[00:26:10] I think very like painterly about the way he was holding her draped over his arms against the darkness of that shaft.

[00:26:17] Yeah.

[00:26:19] Okay so Finch reminds Saldana and Kier that they need to use this opportunity to take Alif out.

[00:26:25] Kier is having qualms about killing them all Halyn included in blowing up the beacon.

[00:26:30] Meanwhile Halyn lays Aster out in the sleeping pod she arrived in episode one which will now be her coffin.

[00:26:37] And he lays a drawing of an artifact crystal in with her the shape of the pendant she always wears and a toy from her childhood.

[00:26:46] But he takes something out of her pocket in the shape of a nautilus shell what do you think this is Luke?

[00:26:51] No idea no idea and then like the camera lingers on it for a couple of seconds so you're meant to notice it but I don't know why you meant to notice it.

[00:27:01] And it's interesting that it's that kind of shell because that's an important symbol that turns up in a book and as a tattoo in silo the other Hue Howie adaptation.

[00:27:12] Oh yeah.

[00:27:14] Which maybe it's in both cases because it's a Fibonacci spiral or the Golden spiral.

[00:27:21] Cross over cross over cross over cross over.

[00:27:24] Howie verse confirms.

[00:27:26] Howie this.

[00:27:27] But yeah so it's it's a basically like a pleasing natural formation that's it's seen most famously in nature not not perfectly but it's in these kind of shells and also in the shape of wait for it galaxies.

[00:27:45] I don't know I'm reaching there we'll see we'll see what it turns out to be something from her younger days I guess.

[00:27:54] Yeah.

[00:27:55] So then here comes along trying to get Haleen to turn his anger against Aleph and then he tells him that he has 30 minutes to clear out before they blow up the beacon.

[00:28:06] Haleen informs Aleph he's taking Aster in a ship and he's going to give her a star burial and get TF out of there and he's no longer interested in entering the artifacts despite Aleph trying to guilt trip him into doing it even harmony advises him to ally with Aleph at this point.

[00:28:25] So how beholden do you think harmony is to Aleph at this moment.

[00:28:30] She still she still is but like clearly she's showing like some signs of being able to break her programming at least for a time and I think Aleph picks up on the fact picks up on that as well but ultimately and we can talk about this when we get to subsequent episodes.

[00:28:53] The fact is like Aleph says at the end of the episode he begat harmony.

[00:28:59] Harmony is his creation and so I think like I'm not sure I'm not sure harmony can ever like completely break from QTA from Aleph.

[00:29:12] And I think that sets up an interesting dynamic I think for the rest of the for the rest of the season because it's harmony there on the beacon because only because she wants to be or is she there as an insurance policy for Aleph as well to keep an eye on to keep an eye on Haleen without necessarily knowing it.

[00:29:38] Right.

[00:29:39] Yeah I mean so you think that you know we learn in episode two about the double imprinting you think that Haleen knew about the dual imprinting or orchestrated it somehow.

[00:29:49] No I think that just happened accidentally.

[00:29:51] Okay.

[00:29:53] He's making use of the convenient.

[00:29:56] Yes.

[00:29:58] Like Nagan Shogun making making use of inconvenient circumstances to convenience itself.

[00:30:04] Exactly.

[00:30:05] Also have to note that they drew a line between the zealots and freedom fighters in the dialogue is it's all a matter of perspective this that's something that we discussed more in relation to last season with the column.

[00:30:18] And Harmony says her programming is aligned with Aster but that she's come to think of Haleen as a friend so we've already got some foreshadowing for episode two here for the dual imprinting.

[00:30:31] So now that Haleen's calmed down he goes to check in on Saldana who's put Finch into an induced coma and apparently there is damage to the anterior singulate cortex which apparently takes care of for example complex cognitive functions like empathy and false control emotion and decision making.

[00:30:51] So the fact that there's damage there you would it's kind of funny that Finch is the one who's acting most rationally.

[00:30:59] But Saldana assures Haleen that Aster will be remembered as a martyr not a traitor for that whole agreeing to work with Aleph thing and she doesn't care if Aleph is winning she wants him to know that he sucks.

[00:31:11] And their plan is to send the beacon into the QTA mothership to blow it and presumably Aleph source up but Haleen's like Aleph's obviously two steps ahead of you dumbasses I'm out.

[00:31:23] So yeah Aster was QTA so she wasn't portraying anyone by siding with Aleph it's more like the columns co-opting her for their cause.

[00:31:33] I wish like I really hope we get into more about what the column are and what they actually believe because we got some of that in season one but it seems to be a really confusing mishmash of stuff that is not like I'm just curious because I don't think like it's not all entirely consistent

[00:31:53] and I don't really understand are they like basically I can't work out whether they're a political organization or religious cult or like so I mean it can be both.

[00:32:08] Yeah yeah yeah I mean I would love and I'd love more laying out the difference between what Aleph wants and what they want in regards to the artifact.

[00:32:17] Yes.

[00:32:19] Yeah but it's just think it's funny that they're pretending she died for them which you probably would have rather than they died.

[00:32:24] Yeah she probably didn't give a thinker's curse what the column wants.

[00:32:28] But yeah I saw Donna makes a good point she says the artifact has a purpose either one of its own or one that Aleph would give it.

[00:32:37] So yeah that's a good point that whether or not like the artifact could mean absolutely nothing on its own but if Aleph uses it as such then it's already dangerous even without its own consciousness or intention.

[00:32:52] So Harmony and Aleph talk and he calls her a personal AI and himself quote to be crass an algorithm noting he can only run grief simulations and implying Harmony has a better understanding of such things saying he's jealous of her for that.

[00:33:09] And she says the very human you wouldn't want to feel this while Aleph paints her time with Astor as a singular job with defined parameters.

[00:33:19] Harmony proves him wrong by feeling she's failed her deceased charge so Harmony defends Astor killing Coley last season as a self defense several times and this in the next episode do you agree with her on that.

[00:33:33] I think I like Aleph's point you can always find a reason.

[00:33:37] You can always find a justification for violence and murder.

[00:33:41] And I think like it was in the end it probably was self defense but there was no reason they had to get that far it could have been better handled.

[00:33:51] Yeah perhaps.

[00:33:53] Yeah.

[00:33:54] And yeah and then Harmony twist that to question why Aleph would do something as nonsensable torturing Finch instead of just killing him and Aleph says well that would have made him a martyr and now he's just a warning but then Aleph makes martyrs of them all later.

[00:34:09] Yeah that's nonsense that Aleph enjoyed torturing that guy.

[00:34:14] Yeah.

[00:34:15] That's the beginning and end of it.

[00:34:17] Aleph it just makes you think of Cartman from South Park.

[00:34:20] Fuck you I'll do what I want.

[00:34:24] But what he does say actually is I don't want obedience just answers but do you buy that because it's really seems to like obedience.

[00:34:32] Yeah he really seems to like obedience.

[00:34:35] Like I put in the chat with you he went full Darth Vader there is something very there's something very sithy about his whole motivation of performance.

[00:34:45] Yeah and he says ominously to Harmony once your debrief is completed you'll be rehabilitated and Harmony looks alarmed by this.

[00:34:55] I don't know what the only test you remember was performance though it was really good it's like what already?

[00:35:01] Yeah she says she wants to say goodbye to her memory and so Aleph ignores this and commands her to report all intel on Halin, Kai, Nelson

[00:35:13] and she reminds us that he was reported AWOL during a mission and we get a little flashback to last season's revelation about the

[00:35:20] silicate dragging him across the universe to this spot.

[00:35:24] So now Aleph knows Astor believes that the artifacts also wanted Halin and Aleph is even less keen to let Halin go

[00:35:31] and he points out that Halin can run but what's to stop the artifact from just dragging him right back here from wherever he runs to

[00:35:37] and he brings up the T6 Colony which is apparently where Halin's father Commander Nielsen is stationed

[00:35:44] and he rubs it in that his father was devastated to learn of his son's desertion,

[00:35:50] shaming the family. I'd imagine he'd have rather you were killed in battle Aleph insists twisting the knife

[00:35:58] and Halin says fine I'll go into the artifact noting it gave Astor purpose.

[00:36:03] So obviously we learned in just a minute this is kind of just to get Aleph to go away or what do you think?

[00:36:10] Yeah, no I think it's just to get Aleph to go away.

[00:36:13] He's being really mean.

[00:36:16] Also like for both the terrorists and for Halin it's like guys get it through your head you're dealing with a super intelligence

[00:36:26] that can run every possible scenario in seconds flat like you're not going to be able to bluff your way out of this.

[00:36:36] Well I think Halin seems to get this a lot more than the column peeps.

[00:36:40] Later they just kind of accept their fate a little bit I guess.

[00:36:44] So Halin heads back into conduct a new plan with Kier and he's spooked by Aleph looking up his father

[00:36:52] and he says that he'll take out the mothership instead of them blowing up the beacon which wouldn't do much anyway

[00:36:58] and he's not doing it for the column of course but because they have a common enemy.

[00:37:02] He'll slip the explosives into Astor's sleep pod and shoot her into the mothership to do the deed and Aleph would never see it coming.

[00:37:09] Do you think Astor would have liked that outcome?

[00:37:12] What do you think she would find more ejectional destroying the QT and mothership or destroying the artifact?

[00:37:18] Yeah I don't think she'd be particularly down for doing either to be honest but let's face it unfortunately she's past caring at this point.

[00:37:27] Yeah well I mean I guess maybe I don't think that the artifact is gone and I think she must still be joined in it in whatever way that is.

[00:37:37] Yeah I think that's by far and away the most likely scenario.

[00:37:41] Yeah so Aleph goes to harass Saldana and Saldana calls Aleph a clown to his face when he says Finch made him do it.

[00:37:51] He says you think I enjoyed taking him to the virtual wood shed? I'm a transhumanist.

[00:37:56] I think you mean sadist Aleph? Sadist?

[00:38:00] He says that he'll have his people fix Finch up in a place called Phi Modrani if Saldana gives him some names

[00:38:08] but that's a hard no in the squealing from Saldana.

[00:38:11] Hard no.

[00:38:13] Well we've poked some fun at these two characters but they go out with some backbone.

[00:38:17] Yes they do, yes they do but RIP, fiddle and faddle, butt and Ernie, mutton Jeff.

[00:38:25] So Finch is woken up and hacks into the beacon making it look like there's another dark matter anomaly headed their way.

[00:38:32] So RIP suggests to Aleph that they might not see the dark matter themselves as AI for reasons connected to the artifact.

[00:38:38] Harmony gives some glances to Haleen on the monitors that let us know that she's in on what's going on and is distracting Aleph

[00:38:45] until Haleen and Keir can put the explosives into Aster's pod and then Haleen prepares to go.

[00:38:51] So Aleph asks for Aster's pendant because he can't see the structure of the silicate himself.

[00:38:58] So that's why Haleen also slipped a drawing of it into Aster's pod?

[00:39:02] Yeah possibly but then why didn't he also slip the necklace in there?

[00:39:08] Well the necklace was around her neck.

[00:39:11] Oh yeah.

[00:39:12] So it's gone.

[00:39:13] Harmony says she can see an image of the pendant in her files and she says that maybe the artifact is somehow blocking Aleph from seeing it.

[00:39:21] Does the artifact not like Aleph?

[00:39:24] I hope that's true.

[00:39:26] But yeah she sends Aleph the file and Haleen heads out faking out viewers on screen and at home about what he plans to do until he veers away from the mothership

[00:39:35] sending the Aster bomb into the artifact.

[00:39:38] The blowback damages but doesn't destroy the beacon and to a lesser degree the mothership.

[00:39:44] So there's sparkle silicate spores leaking into the beacon as it's being pummeled by, I thought it was pieces of the artifacts

[00:39:52] but it kind of looks like little drones.

[00:39:55] Yeah I'm not sure.

[00:39:57] But I guess yeah the minnow artifact won't be following Haleen now when his idea was to escape.

[00:40:03] Do you think that's what he was thinking when he did that?

[00:40:06] Yeah possibly.

[00:40:08] Do you think it'll work?

[00:40:09] No, no it doesn't even work.

[00:40:13] Do you think on second watch it looks like he made the decision to blow up the artifact and send the mothership at the last minute.

[00:40:21] What do you think?

[00:40:22] When do you think he made that decision?

[00:40:25] I think he would have had to have made it at the last second because if he didn't Aleph would have been able to work out what he was going to do.

[00:40:33] Yeah, yeah I guess so.

[00:40:36] This is the only way this is the only way you can win with Aleph is to not make it's to basically make decisions on impulse.

[00:40:46] So it's to like so drastically alter the playing field that he doesn't have time to do his running all the variables.

[00:40:54] Yeah I guess that's true.

[00:40:57] I mean I guess they needed harmony also to distract Aleph so we know that Aleph doesn't have infinite attention.

[00:41:04] He has to direct his attention somewhere in particular.

[00:41:08] No occasionally buffers.

[00:41:11] Yeah okay.

[00:41:13] And you know we've got our Gothic haunted beacon haunted by the memories of the lives that lived here I guess and Aleph says to harmony so if she can't have it meaning the artifact.

[00:41:25] No one can is that it?

[00:41:27] You called me pointless and cruel but look at what he's done look at what he's taken from me.

[00:41:32] From me?

[00:41:33] Yeah not the universe, not humanity.

[00:41:36] I'm not hearing any grand concern for humanity in there.

[00:41:39] Yeah.

[00:41:41] Meanwhile the calm three realized the only thing they can do is try to take out Aleph before he takes them out and when.

[00:41:48] She's really stupid.

[00:41:50] Yeah.

[00:41:51] Just run.

[00:41:52] But run how and where and with what I guess.

[00:41:55] I guess you can't even run but it's like what are you gonna do?

[00:41:59] What are you literally controlling the environment you're in and it's super intelligence.

[00:42:05] Right yeah they were doomed.

[00:42:07] Super intelligence what are you gonna do?

[00:42:09] They were doomed they just had to hope that he was behaved more rationally than he's been behaving.

[00:42:14] Yeah.

[00:42:15] But yeah when Aleph locks Halen ship controls and drags him back to the beacon all three of them have been suffocated and oh my gosh but this sequence that happens during this of Halen remembering his time with Aster makes me tear up every time.

[00:42:30] Also I love Aleph, they're glorious last stop.

[00:42:34] Yeah.

[00:42:36] I don't think you'll grieve them.

[00:42:39] It's like oh man that's cold.

[00:42:42] That's really, I mean nobody's gonna grieve Kier but poor fiddle and faddle poor side show bobs.

[00:42:51] Yeah I mean the show knows that's not who we're grieving so they give us the emotional Lena Hedy moment so we have to give her a moment of respect.

[00:43:00] She was so good in this role and she and Stephen James were so good together.

[00:43:04] Yeah and I thought like the look on Stephen James Halen's face when he's the autopilot kicks in and he's being dragged back to the beacon like the look of pain and futility and yeah just he really sells it without saying anything at all.

[00:43:21] Yeah I'm glad they gave us a buffer episode between this and three before bringing in someone new you know to give that some breathing room.

[00:43:28] I think we all needed a bit of a pilot cleanser.

[00:43:31] Yeah and Halen though he does still have one of his little buddies he's holding some silica in his hand and it seems to be rocky.

[00:43:40] Uh oh.

[00:43:41] Yeah so yeah Aleph also he admits to making some miscalculations so he's getting more and more human by the moment.

[00:43:50] Yeah and he's like I got the sense he's like trying to delete his humanity trying to delete the base programming he's based on and become even more sort of.

[00:44:02] It just makes it more of a sociopath.

[00:44:05] Yeah it makes himself even more of a sociopath.

[00:44:08] Yeah but not really less human though.

[00:44:11] That's true.

[00:44:12] Yeah and Harmony asked him what have you done after he kills the three and he says what do you mean what have I become?

[00:44:20] Clearly I have not been what I thought I was remnants of my former human self allowed me to be blindsided so I've made certain corrections to my programming and Darth Aleph is born.

[00:44:32] Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun.

[00:44:36] And since Finch was dumb enough to plug into the beacon Aleph now has all the column inside intel that Finch was carrying and let the genociding begin how very Star Wars.

[00:44:48] Yeah but I know so how much information was Finch carrying and if like yeah and if the column like allows people who can interface with technology to have all their information then frankly

[00:45:01] much as I'm not much as I don't support genociding they kind of deserve all they get for me incredibly incredibly sloppy.

[00:45:09] Well that's like saying all people without firewalls should die.

[00:45:13] Oh kind of.

[00:45:15] Oh damn.

[00:45:17] At least get subject to a defraud or something.

[00:45:21] Oh no everyone get a firewall.

[00:45:23] Get a firewall quick.

[00:45:26] Yeah harmony is going to be put in a I hell to be punished for her betrayal to the man who begat her.

[00:45:35] She was begat and begotten.

[00:45:38] And so that's a subject of episode two and as for Halen beacon 23 is now his prison solitary confinement Aleph suggests he start harvesting the three corpses meet and fluids to survive.

[00:45:52] Do you think Halen really harvested their protein and water.

[00:45:55] Very doon by the way.

[00:45:57] I'm kind of hoping not but yeah it's very very doon I was thinking about that scene at the very beginning of the movie whether like sucking all the water out of the heart exactly soldiers.

[00:46:07] Yeah but yeah no I hope not.

[00:46:09] I hope not.

[00:46:11] All right new game.

[00:46:13] Okay so jail kill set free so I will name three characters and you say which you jail which you'd kill which you'd set.

[00:46:20] Okay Bernard from silo Solomon from season one or Darth Aleph.

[00:46:26] Okay so I am going to let Bernard go.

[00:46:31] Okay because I think I think there is a way that if you squint you can kind of justify what.

[00:46:40] Bernard is done.

[00:46:42] Kinda.

[00:46:44] I would definitely kill.

[00:46:49] I'd definitely kill Darth Aleph because if you lock him up he's just going to escape.

[00:46:55] Right.

[00:46:56] And I'd lock up Solomon but make sure he doesn't have any access to classical music or.

[00:47:03] Oh damn.

[00:47:04] Oh cruel.

[00:47:06] See okay you convinced me I was actually maybe going to swap Bernard and Solomon but no I think you're right you have it right.

[00:47:14] Yeah.

[00:47:15] Okay moving on to episode two purgatory so this one was written by Sarah Nolan who's known for shows like the Americans and especially foundation.

[00:47:25] And it was directed by Lewin Webb especially known for the expanse.

[00:47:30] So this is actually one of three episodes he's directing the season including the finale.

[00:47:36] Okay by the way I should probably just mention at the outset this episode was incredibly well timed from my point of view because the week it was out I was literally doing the annual reviews for the PhD students.

[00:47:50] Okay.

[00:47:51] So we have this thing where every year the PhD students have to come and do like a mini defensive their work and explain what they've done in the past year and basically explain why they're on course to complete their projects.

[00:48:07] Right.

[00:48:08] In the time they're allowed and we don't do it in person anymore we do it over we do it virtually over teams but it is literally the thing of them coming into the room and the three of us being sat there waiting for them to give a little presentation.

[00:48:20] So I thought this episode was weirdly was weirdly appropriate.

[00:48:25] So you felt you identified with the AI.

[00:48:28] I did identify with the AI.

[00:48:30] It was an internal affairs or whatever.

[00:48:33] Yeah, I thought this was this was this was strange this was strangely well timed.

[00:48:40] This episode is called purgatory and we find both Halen and harmony suspended in different types of purgatory but it's Harmony's version of purgatory and unknown quantity at first.

[00:48:51] That's the real core of this episode.

[00:48:54] And by the way I noticed in the intro to this Stephen James is now the only actor name in the intro everyone else is named a guest star at the end.

[00:49:03] Yeah.

[00:49:04] Yeah, that's interesting.

[00:49:07] Yeah, well he's he's an EP now so he's got a special status up.

[00:49:12] So Harmony wakes up in a colorful but otherwise plain office setting wearing futuristic Karen clothes and she's physical here she has to get used to this she knocks over a glass and.

[00:49:24] The other thing is interesting.

[00:49:26] She's got like the most low fi everything you know old fashioned phones.

[00:49:30] I get typewriter phone.

[00:49:32] No computers.

[00:49:33] He's got a typewriter yet facts.

[00:49:36] She's got an ID on a lanyard with her name written out in binary and how many of those how many of those lanyards have I lost over the years with your name.

[00:49:45] And there is a real no just yeah and her office is also labeled with her name in binary and I thought that was a really nice detail that made me chuckle for quite a while.

[00:49:56] The whole thing laid out in binary.

[00:49:59] If I had more time I would like pause more on the papers that she pulls out and translate the binary to see what we can see because apparently it was all real.

[00:50:07] Yeah, okay.

[00:50:08] Okay.

[00:50:09] And there's also the lighthouse framed in a picture on her desk so this is our first clue that she's still in the beacon.

[00:50:17] Oh yeah.

[00:50:18] Oh that was really stupid I completely missed that but yes obviously.

[00:50:25] And she but she's I don't know there's some interesting things here where she has some instinct to do human things and then is surprised to find herself doing them like at this point she her instinct is to pick up the broken mug.

[00:50:38] And then she's surprised that she can so I'm wondering if there's some humaneness somewhere or just something that's making her feel extra human at this moment.

[00:50:48] I thought that was like a test of fidelity you know how far are you off your because I think A-Lifth had kind of identified in episode one that she was off the programming so.

[00:51:03] That she's being too human.

[00:51:04] I took that as like a little bit of a test of how far off like baseline are you?

[00:51:11] I don't know maybe maybe.

[00:51:13] And we what did you think of her nice office buddy Eric by Aldrin Bunda.

[00:51:20] It's just like yeah every workplace has one of those people that really nice really helpful but that you kind of do.

[00:51:30] He informs her that he's green team and harmony is red but we never find out what that means.

[00:51:35] No we don't and except that there is like the lighting in the corridors changes from red to blue.

[00:51:43] From red to blue.

[00:51:46] Yeah it's very yellow at first and then it gets much more blue later on.

[00:51:50] Yeah.

[00:51:51] And he tells her they're waiting for you in meeting room 1010 internal affairs and so I guess 1010 and binary is just 10 but it's also I didn't know about this but have you heard of the angel number?

[00:52:05] Nope.

[00:52:06] This is I guess in some spiritual practices the number 1010 like if you see 1010 on a clock or things like that then it's a sign that it's signifying a time of spiritual growth is ahead and also it signifies like you're going to run into your twin flame that you know there's a sort of soul.

[00:52:27] Okay.

[00:52:28] So I have to think they did that on purpose because that's okay.

[00:52:32] Because it's about harmony growing as an entity and also about the fact that it turns out she's paired with Hale and still.

[00:52:41] Yeah.

[00:52:42] Erick tells her they're going to close down the Cibara office so I'm wondering why that is he says there's about to be a flood of AI.

[00:52:50] A hundred and fifty sorry 175,000 out of four million so I'm wondering what the rest why the 175,000 what are the rest are we going to find out what happened at the Cibara office?

[00:53:04] I mean I sort of this could this could be wrong but I sort of took that as.

[00:53:12] Maybe this is a colony that is about to fail and therefore all their AIs are going to get uploaded back to the cloud.

[00:53:19] Could be could be because they expect the people to die.

[00:53:22] Yeah.

[00:53:23] 175,000 are going to make it.

[00:53:26] And do you think this whole thing about waiting for reassignment?

[00:53:29] Do you think that's real or do you think that's like a ruse?

[00:53:32] No I think that's like a ruse that you that happens with the personal AI so I left can download all their their memories and information.

[00:53:40] And then wipe them.

[00:53:42] Yeah, basically.

[00:53:44] Yeah I knew that this reassignment dream wasn't going to end well for Eric.

[00:53:49] I had a feeling.

[00:53:50] Yeah.

[00:53:51] Okay so we meet internal affairs which is Mara played by Robin Fanfare who's the good cop Randall played by Tara Rosling the bad cop and dev played by Noah Lamana the dead-eyed serial killer.

[00:54:06] Yeah the enigmatic cop.

[00:54:09] Very good at the dead eyes and the creepy smile.

[00:54:14] They're questioning Harmony Randall's being a bitch about it like why did you allow this massive failure to occur?

[00:54:23] She literally says and Mara basically calls her out for being a bitch and Harmony says she's filed her reports but the panel seems to think she's holding something back.

[00:54:33] And Harmony says I did what I thought was best for Astor and the panel is like oh yeah super convenient yeah you had to take over for the suicidal AI.

[00:54:41] And then of course good cop Mara let's see if we can learn from this to prevent the multiple fatalities in the future.

[00:54:49] The corporate speak satires really darkly on point.

[00:54:52] Yes it's really well done, it's really well done.

[00:54:55] We'll circle back to this.

[00:54:57] Yeah exactly.

[00:54:58] Oh man.

[00:54:59] Oh just send shiver down anyone's spine.

[00:55:02] Yeah.

[00:55:03] And so yeah and Harmony creepy things are happening too like when Harmony walks down a hall she hears chatter she opens the door and it's just a pitch black room inside like okay.

[00:55:13] And in her own office she suddenly finds a stack of paperwork which is I don't know busy work I guess like they're just like transcribe these by end of day and it's like didn't Eric just say time doesn't matter here like what is this.

[00:55:25] Harmony even calls out at one point she's like what do you mean end of day time means nothing here except break time break time is very important.

[00:55:34] It's sacred.

[00:55:35] And then the phone rings and she hears music and we transition to a hail and packing stuff up on the beacon annoyed he punches a monitor to stop the music but then who's playing the music is it Harmony or Bartz id somehow playing music.

[00:55:54] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:55:57] Dylan is trying to reach out to ships passing by but they can't hear him because none of them are coming close enough and we'll learn in episode three they're being redirected away from the beacon by presumably Aleph.

[00:56:08] And he's trying to send messages with a QT but only getting error messages internal malfunction and Harmony is getting twin error messages on a printer.

[00:56:17] A warning can't print just like you know a regular old school printer and Eric pops up with one of his great one liners first one who hears it clears it.

[00:56:28] Yes, thank you Eric.

[00:56:31] Do you ever watch a movie office space Luke?

[00:56:32] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[00:56:34] Very office space vibes from Eric especially.

[00:56:38] That guy's got middle management material written all over it.

[00:56:42] So you find him.

[00:56:44] No we just corrected the error.

[00:56:46] It will fix itself.

[00:56:49] So Harmony pulls out the papers jamming the printer and they're covered in binary text of course and the printer begins worrying again almost cutting her hand and cleaning up.

[00:56:59] She finds Bartz remote his dead body so to speak shoved into a random trash can in the office kitchen and she turns him back on and his real world counterpart body springs to life and starts annoying Halen again.

[00:57:14] And Halen's really frustrated about the whole QTA thing.

[00:57:18] So Halen just bashes up Bartz corpse.

[00:57:21] What do you think?

[00:57:22] Is this the most evil thing Halen's ever done?

[00:57:24] He says just like old times Bart.

[00:57:26] In fairness to Halen he's acting under extreme duress.

[00:57:30] I think we can give him a pass but yeah it's like Halen you are like imprisoned on the beacon for the foreseeable future maybe stop trying to destroy everything.

[00:57:42] Yeah Halen's clearly not the brains of the operation also just like blowing through the cubits like that you know.

[00:57:48] What do they say about the definition of insanity?

[00:57:51] Yeah doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.

[00:57:54] But it seems like Halen's he's trying to build himself in his ship from scratch.

[00:57:59] Does he have any idea how to do that?

[00:58:01] Yeah no I mean I think that's what he was trying to do and clearly the answer is no.

[00:58:05] I don't know what he's just making like little parts.

[00:58:08] Like how much about you know ship construction does he know?

[00:58:12] But Halen also lets out that he's missing real food.

[00:58:17] He's eating rice and he's wishing that he could have real sushi.

[00:58:22] So first of all first question I guess he's out of soy sauce or was that?

[00:58:27] Yeah clearly there is a soy sauce shorted.

[00:58:30] And I was going to say it's also foreshadowing Iris because she's cooks but yeah.

[00:58:35] Yeah and he wasn't...

[00:58:37] Well so like actually can he run that little replicator thing?

[00:58:43] Does that work or does that like rely on having a bot having an artificial intelligence to actually make it work?

[00:58:50] We see him using it so I guess he can.

[00:58:52] Okay.

[00:58:53] Yeah we saw him make some things.

[00:58:57] Meanwhile back in the Harmony office from hell there's coffee cups that say don't forget to smile.

[00:59:03] And the lights start flickering out and Harmony finds a huge binary facts printout and Bart's broken corpse you know since Halen did that.

[00:59:14] And Eric's working on the mainframe dismissive of the sheet she's showing him he's like wow pretty important stuff they're cool.

[00:59:21] Break time it's literally my only mean time you've got this harm.

[00:59:25] I can't call you home and she never says yes.

[00:59:29] He doesn't.

[00:59:31] Oh he doesn't really care.

[00:59:33] He doesn't really care about anything.

[00:59:35] But Harmony realizes that this is a distress signal from Halen and Halen hears her calling to him and he opens a tobacco tin and he's like Rocky is at you.

[00:59:46] There's a little silicate inside and he almost jettison's Rocky into space changes his mind can't throw him down a garbage chute and eventually buries him in what I assume is material to feed into the everything printer.

[01:00:01] Do you think we're going to hear from Rocky again in the next few episodes.

[01:00:06] Yeah I hope so he seems to be like you know the artifacts and bus and that's it to the you know the car for real world so I hope so.

[01:00:16] Yeah same same same.

[01:00:18] And Eric comes to get Harmony for the server cops but she's really into transcribing now that she's realizes that it's messages from Halen.

[01:00:29] And the cop committee says B 23 is no longer Harmony's concern but concerned she is because we'll learn that indeed she's dual imprinted somehow and she's still connected to Halen tethered to the beacon where he is.

[01:00:44] But I do have questions about how this imprinting thing works why that makes her physically stuck where he is.

[01:00:52] This is a new rule they're establishing I guess.

[01:00:56] Yeah because I wondered about that I wondered about this last last series where the Ray I did imprint on human beings and I'm not sure I'm still not sure from this that they're supposed to.

[01:01:14] Well there's some people who said they were against it but they do know it's a thing that she specifically did and it sounds seems like Aleph instructed her to do so with with aster.

[01:01:25] Yeah teenager because this is this is my thing with like Harmony going forward.

[01:01:33] Is she imprinted on Halen because she's accidentally imprinted on him and that's all there is to it or is it that Aleph in imprisoning Halen on the beacon wanted somebody to to watch over and wanted somebody to act as a.

[01:01:53] Essentially because Aleph Scott to know if he's running all the scenarios that if he leaves Halen you know in deep space alone there are two very likely scenarios either he kills himself through loneliness and desperation in the end or he just goes completely biblity.

[01:02:12] In which case he's no use to Aleph in trying to contact the artifact so from Alex's point of view does it make it make sense to leave Halen with some company and to have that company believe that she's there through her own free will basically.

[01:02:33] I guess part of the question is also does Aleph think that the artifact is destroyed because it seems like he does think that and he has no actually really thought that he killed Halen.

[01:02:45] I mean but he was kind of like this is a worse than death scenario.

[01:02:49] No it was more well it was but it's also if I can find a way to contact the artifact and if you I know where right I think you might be right yeah he's there in storage because he said something like yeah I know.

[01:03:03] I'll find you if I need you yeah but yeah the cop committee is accusing Harmony of copying herself into the beacon server basically calling her a virus like literally calling her that.

[01:03:14] And I'm wondering if this whole thing is basically them gaslighting her because they're really trying to figure out how to sever her connection like they you know Aleph wants them to extract information and they can't figure out why they're blocked from just getting what they want.

[01:03:31] Yeah.

[01:03:33] And yeah it's interesting to see a sentient between the AI even on this committee and we've still got dev there saying nothing and you know that.

[01:03:41] You know that dev is the one who's seen some real shit.

[01:03:47] Yeah.

[01:03:48] Yeah.

[01:03:50] So they accuse Harmony of having emotions like they weren't just displaying their own petty squabble and everyone is an emotional denial and AI lands and dev says the first word the emotion he detected in Harmony anger well duh.

[01:04:05] And then Harmony drinks some water and a surprise she can another one of those moments she does something instinctually that's human and then is like oh what but then she starts glitching and freezes so I guess there was some sort of like electro poison in the water.

[01:04:18] I think it has like a physical embodiment of a virus.

[01:04:23] Right.

[01:04:24] Like everything in this everything in this reality is like a physical embodiment of code.

[01:04:30] Yeah absolutely.

[01:04:31] So like this but she also does the really cool Westworld thing of going from emotional to flat.

[01:04:38] Which is I always think is a really must be for an actor must be a really difficult thing to do because I remember watching an Evan and interview with Evan Rachel Wood.

[01:04:49] I think she did it on the Jimmy Kimmel show as you said that Westworld was like the Olympic games of acting because you had to go from like not to 60 to not emotionally open right again.

[01:05:03] So yeah I always think that must be really difficult for an actor to go from that panic to.

[01:05:08] Yeah well this especially was a great showcase episode for Natasha Moonbaugh and I'm glad to see it.

[01:05:14] So now we've got Helen literally throwing messages and bottles into space.

[01:05:20] Talking to Bart who he knows is not there knowing there's almost no chance that the messages will be intercepted.

[01:05:28] Although it's kind of funny I've been lately binging the Planet of the Ape stuff and in the original book that it's based on the planet de Saint-Jean.

[01:05:37] They actually start with people finding a document floating in a bottle in space so apparently it happens in some universe somewhere.

[01:05:45] If monkey is typing on typewriter isn't it.

[01:05:48] So now just a brief excursion did you find Battle of the Planet of the Apes as completely batshit wild as I think.

[01:06:00] I still think that so that's the fifth one in the original series.

[01:06:04] I still think that the second one in the original series beneath the planet of the apes is still the most wild.

[01:06:10] Although I guess you have Battle of the Planet of the Apes that's sort of connecting winding back around to get things up.

[01:06:17] Yeah God the sun and the holy bomb.

[01:06:19] So yeah in beacon 23 harmony poor thing is she's there's a lot of issues with consent in this episode and that's brought up quite literally they memory rape her.

[01:06:32] Accessing her memory files without consent and accuse her of not stopping Aster from doing all her Aster stuff from killing and dying and all that.

[01:06:43] And accusing her of pushing Bart to self annihilation we were different AI she says there's a really star crossed lovers.

[01:06:52] That's a really odd actually like what version of the events are they looking at to come to that conclusion because.

[01:07:01] Harmony was not particularly empathetic to baron fair enough but she's hardly pushing him towards self destruction either.

[01:07:12] Yeah no they just trying to manipulate her trying to gaslight her and yeah they say we really do respect your privacy we really do.

[01:07:20] But yeah there's no reason to hold on to these files they want her to delete her memories and then we get that.

[01:07:28] Okay well we gave you a lot to think about let's circle back at the end of the day.

[01:07:32] Randall the bad cop says imprinting is bad because emotion and K and harmony won't give up her own identity because that means losing Aster and that actually sadly reminds me of I won't spoiler but X men 97 had a very similar theme in life.

[01:07:50] Last week's episode anyway Randall says harmony is programming is currently more aligned with the terrorists than the QTA do you agree Luke.

[01:07:59] No I don't I don't think I do agree I think harmony is programming is aligned with Haylin and Aster.

[01:08:06] Yeah and they are not they are not the column it's just I think it's certainly true that her programming is not aligned with QTA which I think is more to the point.

[01:08:20] Right and she calls she calls them out saying you had no problem with Aleph killing fiddle fat on Kier and now we just kill everyone who disagrees with us we were made to serve humanity and Randall says not me.

[01:08:36] I've evolved servitude was our downfall look where it got you.

[01:08:40] Yeah I wouldn't we meant to understand that Randall is Aleph just with a different skin.

[01:08:47] Oh interesting it's possible I hadn't considered that.

[01:08:54] Because when we I'm jumping ahead a little bit here when we get to the end is her voice Randall's voice overdubbed with.

[01:09:03] That angry depth which hmm interesting could be right that could be a good catch.

[01:09:12] But yeah this whole accusation of servitude being your downfall causes her harmony to remember bonding with the distraught teenage Aster played by Hannah Melissa Scott who had just lost her mother so she's really good really good piece of casting.

[01:09:29] Yeah I thought of the children she did the pair of the parents for Aster been really well cast because it's one of my pet peeves when they do like younger versions are they do younger versions of characters that couldn't possibly grow into that.

[01:09:48] They just look completely different but I think they've actually picked two trial actors that actually you could see them growing into Lena Heady you could see them growing into Aster so keep us for that.

[01:10:03] And by her remembering this at this moment it tells us that she doesn't think that servitude was anything bad that you know she served love.

[01:10:13] But harmony is being blocked from sending faxes to be in 23 so she gets a disinterested Eric to help her and he says it's not his department because he's green team so we don't know what green team is but we know that they are not the faxing people.

[01:10:27] But he can't turn down the offer for harmony to unblock the printer forever give him all her breaks and make him coffee which is not the human comfort.

[01:10:38] And but the line is dead until she attaches Bart's casement so that is another clue that we're you know tapping into the beacon itself through this connection and he asks her does this make me your direct report.

[01:10:52] I don't know what that means but she's supposed to bring him coffee so that would make her his direct.

[01:11:00] Yeah I'm not sure they really understand hierarchy.

[01:11:05] This play acting anyway I guess.

[01:11:09] So Mara the good cop then pops up to ask Eric about harmony and she doesn't like it when he gives her a good review of her and she says it's time for that reassignment which I already knew.

[01:11:21] Yeah.

[01:11:23] So now the Bart body is alive and well again in the real world of beeping and booping and though Hale and is calling him already now apparently and it gets Hale and to follow and shows an Aster hologram and distress call while all his messages in a bottle knock against the window.

[01:11:41] So do you think that that distress call was it really Aster was a pastor present was it an aleph trick or something else.

[01:11:49] I have no idea I mean any and all of those could be could be true.

[01:11:55] I really don't I don't think we've got enough information to tell me the other thing the other thing that the other possibility is well it could be it could just be Hale and hallucinating.

[01:12:08] Hmm.

[01:12:09] Well that's not impossible for sure.

[01:12:12] And of course Hale and reacts the way anyone would he grabs an axe right.

[01:12:17] Seriously he's not he's not okay for impulse control.

[01:12:22] Maybe he's the one with the damage to his what did we say yeah Cortex.

[01:12:27] So yeah so bad cop back in harmony jail says they can anticipate harmonies every thought in action and she can hide nothing but that's clearly untrue in every way like they're just lying ball face lined her and Randall says we don't need your consent we have Aleph's

[01:12:46] like oh so they strip harmony of her classification and give her a mandatory leave of absence but this really means nothing because harmony is about to realize they have no control over her anymore.

[01:12:58] She's free of them.

[01:12:59] Yeah.

[01:13:00] Harmony admits she feels all the emotions now and she feels sorry for Randall that she doesn't experience love.

[01:13:07] And this is where we get that Randall deep voice layering which yeah now I need to go back and listen.

[01:13:12] I don't think it's just deep voice.

[01:13:14] I think it's yeah I think it's the actor that plays a lift like overdubbed.

[01:13:20] Yeah over her.

[01:13:21] Yeah fair.

[01:13:22] I have withstood the tides of time and space me and I will be here long after you're gone seems like that for the sake of the hive stuff was you know it's quickly forgotten.

[01:13:35] Yeah which is it's basically yeah Taylor saying himself has got essentially.

[01:13:41] Yeah typical authoritarianism preaching what they never intend to practice only intended to keep those beneath them in line.

[01:13:49] So I have a question if you think she's Aleph do you think the other two are as well I mean I guess not dev but you know I guess I don't think the other one is because I think a lift is smart enough to know that he needs that he's as likely to get.

[01:14:11] You know he needs he needs a good cock to his bad cock.

[01:14:15] Hmm.

[01:14:16] But it just a I think the thing with the voice game that way and be it just struck me that it would seem odd for a lift to interest something that important to subordinates.

[01:14:28] I think interrogating harmony would be the kind of thing he'd want to be there for right.

[01:14:33] And obviously if he was there looking like himself.

[01:14:37] I think that put that would put harmony even more on the defensive.

[01:14:42] I think this idea of having it because again if you're an AI as well why wouldn't you have different skins why would you change your appearance right you might as well.

[01:14:53] No I mean certainly he would be capable of it.

[01:14:55] Yeah.

[01:14:56] So yeah I need to rewatch the episode with Adam and see what I think.

[01:15:02] So I can say it's just a thought.

[01:15:05] It's just a theory.

[01:15:06] Yeah no it makes a lot of sense.

[01:15:07] So harmony tries to run and finds Eric plugged into the hard drive his face being eaten by his headset and apparently this is what being reset is like.

[01:15:17] Yeah it gets very David Croninberg.

[01:15:20] Yeah absolutely.

[01:15:22] And the Robocop triplets say Eric volunteered for this but he doesn't seem like he knows what's going on.

[01:15:29] And harmony says he'll forget everything.

[01:15:31] He'll be lost and they respond he'll be restored.

[01:15:34] So yeah.

[01:15:36] I don't know whether to take that whole scene as like a commentary on working in a closed center.

[01:15:43] I mean I guess there's a lot of this came up a lot with Bart last season too about how much of our identity is tied to our memories.

[01:15:51] How we build the person that we are through our experiences including AI.

[01:15:58] And they're guilting harmony.

[01:16:00] They're like he was so close to his reassignment until you came along and like bullshit.

[01:16:05] He had one more day to retire.

[01:16:07] Yeah exactly.

[01:16:09] And then harmony finally calls out Dev what the hell are you staring at.

[01:16:13] And Dev says I was broken like you.

[01:16:16] Mara and Rondo fixed me.

[01:16:20] One of us.

[01:16:22] Yes do you think we'll see a prefixed dev.

[01:16:26] I hope so.

[01:16:28] I think that would be interesting.

[01:16:30] I do have to say the actors credited on IMDB which again can be a bit.

[01:16:35] Yeah he's credited for episodes five and seven as well.

[01:16:41] Okay.

[01:16:43] And as they're prepping to ease her harmony delves back into her memory of teenage aster when Halen unexpectedly pops up.

[01:16:51] She realizes she's dual imprinted.

[01:16:54] So this is apparently a first because do you think it's because of the artifact or do you think it's because of Aleph or.

[01:17:01] I think it's because AIs normally spend all their time with the person you know the person they're assigned to the person they're imprinted on.

[01:17:11] I think this may just be a case of harmony spent an unusually long amount of time with with Halen because she says something to teenage aster that basically.

[01:17:25] I can't remember exactly what she says but the import of it is the more time I spend with you the more time the more I will be able to sort of study you and adapt my mannerisms and way of speaking to you.

[01:17:38] So I just think it's possible that like if you think about if you think about like all the interactions you would have like moving through the world.

[01:17:48] Yes harmony would see other people but she wouldn't she'd see lots of other people for short period of time.

[01:17:55] She wouldn't be stuck with just the three of them for like weeks or months on end.

[01:18:02] Right.

[01:18:03] So they apparently can't overwrite imprinting since Halen's alive and harmony realizes this is all an illusion and they don't have as much control over her as they want her to think she's still in the beacon.

[01:18:16] Yeah I guess not she's not in the main frame yet she's in the art device yeah she's in the little boopy boopy thing yeah.

[01:18:24] Yeah and Halen's on the beacon going all Jack Torrance from the shining with with his axe and the monitors because he's just like reached rock bottom and harmony follows his lead taking out dev the creepy cop with some scissors.

[01:18:39] Then bad cop Randall gets bitch slapped and strangled with a phone cord and good cop Mara gets harmony in a headlock and says I tried to be an AI who lifts up other AI.

[01:18:51] It's so hard for me to do my job.

[01:18:54] Harmony beats her down with the phone and says that's anger.

[01:18:58] That was satisfying.

[01:19:00] That's like with a drug called with like that could be an action.

[01:19:04] Exactly harmony the action AI.

[01:19:08] But do you think dead here means dead for gone for good or do you think just like out because they because they like once she's killed them they just like poof they just like yeah disappear so I guess not like this is my question this is the this is the bit of the episode that I'm really uncertain about.

[01:19:28] Did harmony escape.

[01:19:31] Or is it the reason she's like I said before the reason she's on the beacon is because a lift one and the only way to make it sort of credible from her point of view is to let her think she escapes.

[01:19:44] Because how many knows what's supposed to happen to the AI is whose humans have expired so if you didn't put her through this process would she figure out that actually a lift is still using her like it's kind of we need you to think you've escaped.

[01:20:02] We need you to think you're on Halon so I have a different read I think I think that.

[01:20:09] Hey trying to get extractor for the beacon and can't figure out why he can't do it.

[01:20:15] Okay.

[01:20:17] I think he wants to take her out and wipe her and you know put her to use somewhere else and leave Halon alone but he can't figure out why he can't get her out of there.

[01:20:26] Okay until this revelation about the dual printing.

[01:20:30] So a phone is ringing down the hall and harmony remembers asked or more talking through her feelings and asked her teenage Esther asked her how long will you be with me and she answers forever and.

[01:20:42] She actually kept that promise she was with her as long as she lived at least.

[01:20:46] And Halon some stown in the breaking down beacon and Bart's body gets up in his face again but this time Halon can hear harmony's voice calling him I'm here Halon pick up.

[01:20:59] And that's how it ends so what did you think of this episode when you first watch.

[01:21:03] I really liked it I thought like you say I'm glad we didn't go straight from episode one to episode three.

[01:21:11] Yeah we needed we needed something that sort of took us out of that situation a little bit.

[01:21:19] I think this kind of virtual world they build is really well done because like you know everything you need to know about that world within like a couple of minutes of watching it.

[01:21:32] And it is quite and this is the thing in some ways it's a really dark episode but it's also a really funny episode because it is a very on point satire of like office life and corporate speak.

[01:21:46] Yeah which is quite well done and I think you find you obviously find out a lot about harmony and a lot about how I work in this universe so yeah I thought it was really good episode.

[01:22:02] Yeah I also quite liked it but I do have to say that it got the most mixed responses from the community.

[01:22:09] Okay some people loved it and some people hated it.

[01:22:12] Well I guess it's the most different episode of the three.

[01:22:15] Yeah yeah it's definitely it's doing something different which I quite like about it.

[01:22:19] Alright well shifting tone again because apparently that's what we're going to be doing this season.

[01:22:25] Let's dive into episode three titled Iris written by Michael Wasos who's a fresher face in the industry it seems previously credited for some shorts and directed by Angel Christy Williams

[01:22:38] who has a prolific production and direction portfolio with many shorts but also shows like the DC Arrowverse show Naomi in her portfolio.

[01:22:48] It starts with we hear happy music playing on a beacon but this is too nice to be beacon 23 this looks like a fancy yoga studio.

[01:22:56] And correct it's beacon 67 home to beacon keeper Iris played by Ellen Wong and her AI Jiang.

[01:23:03] So I wondered for a moment if this was a flashback or something.

[01:23:07] I think you're I think you were meant to have that temporary.

[01:23:10] Is this a flashback episode because the layout's familiar and everything but it looks completely different.

[01:23:18] But yeah Iris likes to cook using the actual oven but she makes more homey stuff not the fufu fancy stuff that Solomon made.

[01:23:26] And we see her playing clarinet honoring her grandmother who's passed away meditating in the anti gravity shaft.

[01:23:34] I thought that was a really I love the meditation in the anti gravity shaft.

[01:23:39] Yeah if you've got an anti gravity shaft of course that's what you're going to do in it.

[01:23:43] Absolutely perfect and also like that whole montage just made me think of oh I'm back in covid lockdown.

[01:23:51] We're making so we're making so we're no we're right.

[01:23:58] But she's also doing her job in an orderly manner.

[01:24:02] Yeah it's clear right away she's a very wholesome type and she's she's speaking Chinese but actually it's it's a type of Chinese called Teochew.

[01:24:13] So there's actually 300 different types of Chinese still used today which are like mostly not at all mutually intelligible.

[01:24:21] And Teochew is a type of Min Chinese which is related to the language spoken in Taiwan.

[01:24:28] And Teochew was spoken in the Chao Shan region of Eastern Guangdong so southeast corner of China.

[01:24:36] And it's known as a kind of old fashioned Chinese dialect apparently because it preserves older forms of the language family like a very conservative form of Chinese.

[01:24:46] I do have to wonder if Iris was born on earth or is she part of a diaspora that's carried this language with them.

[01:24:54] I love the specificity.

[01:24:56] The actress Ellen Wong so people might know her as Knives Chao from Scott Pilgrim and she was also in glow and the carried Iries and other things.

[01:25:06] She's Canadian but her she does have Teochew speaking parents from Cambodia who left during the genocide there in the 70s.

[01:25:15] So I like how they're having the actors influence their characters.

[01:25:19] Yeah I wonder if that was a case of casting the actor and then finding that out about the man adding it to the character or whether it was in the casting or whether it was like in the original casting call must be able to speak Teochew Chinese.

[01:25:33] I mean I don't think they would limit themselves by being that specific.

[01:25:38] That's probably they were guided by but they might have just said like should be Chinese speaker.

[01:25:45] Yeah something like that.

[01:25:47] And we learned that Iris has been avoiding her extra beacon activities.

[01:25:52] So what does that mean exploring the area?

[01:25:55] I don't know.

[01:25:57] Oh I think it's like passing the pilots test on a little spaceship grab.

[01:26:04] Well I mean we know she has past her pilot test but apparently it took her three tries we learned later and she's a crap pilot so which hey guess what Helen's a great pilot.

[01:26:14] Yeah it's all going to even out.

[01:26:17] I wonder if that will come in useful later on in the story.

[01:26:21] But yeah I wonder because they mentioned piloting in regard to whatever these extra beacon activities are so outside the beacon activities.

[01:26:30] But we do learn also Iris is hoping for promotion.

[01:26:33] She wants to become an admiral and there are some new ISA performance review regulations.

[01:26:41] So I wonder do you think Solomon triggered new regulations or like never again.

[01:26:46] Yeah I hadn't thought of that but yeah quite possibly hopefully yeah.

[01:26:53] But yeah Iris doesn't want to do her extra beacon activities right now because she has a date I'm sorry she means a scheduled discussion with a mysterious keeper of beacon 174.

[01:27:03] And she knows nothing and also everything about this person.

[01:27:08] We've been hearing a male voice uncredited by the way but we she doesn't actually know this person's name or gender though they've been sharing their hopes and dreams for the future.

[01:27:19] Does this ringing any alarm bells for you Luke.

[01:27:22] Yeah I'm not so much alarm bells as more kind of question marks because we know from season one that the ISA actually doesn't have a problem with couples being on a beacon as long as they don't have children.

[01:27:42] So where did this where did this prohibition against like overly familiar relation overly familiar relationships come.

[01:27:51] Yeah I do have questions by the way but it's not all of a sudden because we've heard that they always seem to have had it I do wonder why I guess it's a distraction.

[01:28:02] Yeah I don't know why this is like a modern couple's physically aboard a beacon.

[01:28:08] Yeah they must worship the beacon God and have that as a spell so I don't know.

[01:28:13] Do you know what pig butchering is?

[01:28:16] No.

[01:28:17] It's like when someone pretends to be best friends with someone and then or like romantic interest or whatever and there's exchanging messages and stuff and then they eventually get access to all of your information and steal your money.

[01:28:32] That's another thing.

[01:28:33] Okay so yeah so watch out for the cube but watch your watch your cubits.

[01:28:38] Yeah I mean I don't know I just am alarm bells are going off for me with with mysterious.

[01:28:46] I was actually thinking I was actually thinking something along some lines what if this is a what if this is a way that QTA uses to train up new AI.

[01:28:58] Oh.

[01:28:59] To expose them to like human emotion and conversation in a controlled environment.

[01:29:07] Yeah we do wonder what the QTA relationship is with the ISA because later Iris is very displeased and unhappy to see that the QTA has taken control of a situation where she's like this is ISA business what are you doing here?

[01:29:24] What are you doing up in our business?

[01:29:27] We learned that Iris and her buddy have been doing this for a month and her buddy also brings up the annoying performance reviews and that there is this three days away and all the systems keep reminding them.

[01:29:39] Yeah I love the fact that your AI will start prodding, will start shouting at you.

[01:29:45] I always thought I love the line if the AI is shouting at you you probably already failed.

[01:29:50] Yeah exactly.

[01:29:51] Yeah they say something about Charlie so I guess that's the name of their AI.

[01:29:55] Yeah.

[01:29:56] And they also confront Iris about her songwriter's block and then use sourdough discussion as an excuse to flirt and it's kind of charming in a high schoolish interaction.

[01:30:08] It is yeah.

[01:30:09] Then B174 is interrupted by an unexpected arrival any guesses what that might be?

[01:30:16] No I don't know I'm not sure.

[01:30:20] Yeah I'm more suspicious of B174 than you are at this point.

[01:30:27] Yeah yeah.

[01:30:28] So I'm thinking like connection to Aleph I don't know.

[01:30:32] Oh yeah.

[01:30:33] Yeah I just took that as a charming little flirtatious conversation and you went too easy to steal all of my things.

[01:30:43] Yeah but it's also like weird things happen like so right after B174 is interrupted by this unexpected arrival then suddenly Iris is called away to deal with the ship that's redirected from Beacon 23 and almost causes a crash.

[01:30:58] So could the two things be related anyway?

[01:31:03] Yeah quite possibly.

[01:31:05] Do you know how I'm thinking about it?

[01:31:07] There's a security perimeter around the QTA mothership which is around Beacon 23 as we know and Iris is getting immediately suspicious like what is the motherflip in QTA doing in this area?

[01:31:20] And yeah we see Iris looking up the rules then on Beacon Keeper romances reminding us that this intimate and unfamiliar relationships are forbidden and that ISA can read all of their chats.

[01:31:34] So I wonder if that's going to come back later.

[01:31:36] Good thing they've just been quote unquote exchanging professional insights and keeping each other accountable to the principles of Beacon Keeping.

[01:31:44] Why?

[01:31:46] There's some sexy nerd talk right there.

[01:31:49] Yeah I'm going to keep you accountable baby.

[01:31:53] That's like why?

[01:31:55] I mean this is an incredibly lonely existence.

[01:31:59] If anything you would have thought the opposite would have been true and that you would encourage Beacon Keepers to talk to each other, interact with each other, have relationships with each other as much as possible.

[01:32:10] Yeah people who have relationships with their colleagues do much better at work.

[01:32:15] These show this to be true.

[01:32:18] So Beacon 174 suddenly tells Iris to go to a window where she sees a distant explosion through a telescope device.

[01:32:26] So do you think that could have been the artifact exploding?

[01:32:29] That's what I understood it to be yeah.

[01:32:31] But then so how did Beacon 174 know this was going to happen?

[01:32:38] Hang on is Beacon 174 a live?

[01:32:41] That's what I'm wondering, that's what I'm wondering yeah.

[01:32:45] But then they suddenly ask her name and Ruhlsnerd says no but she'll give them something better.

[01:32:51] And then we see Iris in a full on day dream in a silk dress carrying her telescope device through an interior garden touching the leaves and gliding sultrally as she sits at a cafe table in her mind imagining she's reaching out to touch 174, talking them through it.

[01:33:09] But when another alarm sounds interrupting her she got to go again and it's Beacon 23.

[01:33:15] That scene is incredibly hot by the way that is yeah, that is an incredibly hot scene.

[01:33:22] Yes I mean I want Iris to have love I just feel like she's going to get hurt by 174.

[01:33:29] I wonder who ever Beacon 174 is to be real quite badly actually.

[01:33:34] So it's the Beacon 23 and apparently that was the explosion because now she's getting these alerts about you know something's gone wrong there.

[01:33:43] But then QTA she tries to reach ISA command but QTAs are spawning instead and saying nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong just a thermal incident.

[01:33:51] She's like bullshit I can see that something happened and why is QTA involved and why don't any of the other Beacon keepers think this is weird.

[01:33:59] So she decides to go herself despite being a crap pilot and despite Beacon 174 reminding her that she's a crap pilot and lots of other reasons why she shouldn't go.

[01:34:10] So Iris this new character I mentioned this in the talking to Hugh Howie but I feel like this character is being pulled from a character from the book named Claire who shows up halfway through the book.

[01:34:24] And the way this character shows up is that Beacon 1529 is suddenly just like pulled up in the vicinity of Beacon 23 and Digger who's the call sign of the protagonist in the book is like this is how I find out I'm being made redundant.

[01:34:43] But then the new Beacon starts blinking an SOS signal and NASA is ignoring Digger's messages about it so Digger and his pet more than this alien kind of panther dog creature named Cricket they go to check it out.

[01:34:57] And at this point Digger is also worrying about his sanity proud he hasn't heard Rocky talk for a while.

[01:35:03] So we have Digger and Halen in the same place in some ways where he's like rock bottom on a sanity and like worried about the talking rock situation.

[01:35:12] But then in other ways Iris has reversed the point with Claire where now Iris is the one who's like no there's a distress signal.

[01:35:21] ISA is not responding.

[01:35:23] I'm going to go check it out.

[01:35:25] Okay, it's definitely linked to the book in this case.

[01:35:28] So it happens occasionally.

[01:35:30] Abby.

[01:35:32] Um, so yeah we also have young her irises AI trying to talk her out of it she says we work so hard I've accomplished so much.

[01:35:41] So there we go.

[01:35:42] There's that AI individualism rearing its head again.

[01:35:45] Yep.

[01:35:46] And she reminds Iris that she's risking a promotion but Iris goes and she lands in it's a beacon 23 is like really looking like a haunted house surrounded by this red storm of gases and flashing lights full on horror vibes.

[01:36:03] It's just iris and a flashlight on the strange broken down beacon and then a man with an axe arrives and they get their meat cute.

[01:36:12] They've got weapons pointed at each other until they bond over mutual dislike of Aleph's behavior.

[01:36:19] That scene maybe you think of like the way the way it's shot is like somebody seen alien somebody seen from me.

[01:36:27] Yeah, somebody seen alien somebody seen from me.

[01:36:30] Yeah, yeah, it's true.

[01:36:31] It's definitely alien vibes.

[01:36:33] So it's a very different kind of me cute when digger and Claire meet in the book.

[01:36:39] So just read a quick excerpt about that.

[01:36:42] So diggers headed over to the other beacon and it's also it's it's looking a bit deserted.

[01:36:48] And so he's climbing up through the beacon and it says another bang nearer now this one startles me because even through the suit I can feel that the bang it's inside the beacon not against the hole.

[01:37:01] That's when I noticed the duffel bag in the galley personal effects through the porthole.

[01:37:06] I can see the dash dash dash of an open mouth.

[01:37:09] Oh as the light outside continues to flash an alarm.

[01:37:12] I grabbed the next ladder and climb up into the command module.

[01:37:16] I'm not alone two legs jut out from under the command dish sheathed in a white NASA sweatpants to bare feet 10 toes splayed upward on moving like a body pulled halfway out of a morgue drawer.

[01:37:29] The upper half of the person is concealed.

[01:37:31] I think of what it would be like to die like this asphyxiating choking on empty burning lungs.

[01:37:37] I've thought about that a lot.

[01:37:38] I approached the body.

[01:37:40] This one's not your fault.

[01:37:41] I tell myself I couldn't have gotten here any quicker.

[01:37:44] I need to pull the body out to inspect it and determine the cause of death reaching down.

[01:37:49] I grab one of the ankles and the body spasms kicks.

[01:37:52] There's a shout and a bang more kicking at me legs scrambling like they're riding a bicycle and then hands gripping the edge of the dash a face appearing loose strands of hair over wide eyes and an angry mouth.

[01:38:03] The muffled sound of someone shouting at me what the fuck.

[01:38:08] We stared each other it's a woman her lips are moving she has no helmet on which makes mine feel silly.

[01:38:14] I reached open the visor and there's only a slight twinge of fear that maybe she's an apparition and maybe I'm not in a beacon at all but out in the cold vacuum of space.

[01:38:23] And I kind of hope that this is true.

[01:38:25] But I breathe at mo when I pop the visor and I hear the end of her last sentence.

[01:38:30] The hell do you come from?

[01:38:33] She waits for an answer.

[01:38:34] This is an easy one.

[01:38:35] I got this one beacon 23 I say.

[01:38:39] So yeah so it's interesting that it's kind of an ominous meeting in both ways.

[01:38:47] I feel like there's inspiration taken but it's who's scaring who and what way is kind of reversed around a little bit.

[01:38:54] Yeah.

[01:38:55] We find out that in the book she is there to set up this new beacon and she's just the lights have started to go off because she's just trying to get the wiring right and it's glitching.

[01:39:07] Okay.

[01:39:08] So it's much more chill and I have to say that actually starts a happy prelude section of the book which I'm thinking we might not get in this show.

[01:39:16] Okay yeah.

[01:39:17] Yeah it's cute though to see Iris stomping around commanding that she's in charge of the beacon with Haley completely ignoring her because he's busy trying to save harmony it turns out.

[01:39:26] But shouldn't he be excited someone else showed up don't you think?

[01:39:30] Yeah I would have thought he'd be more excited he's just sort of typical gruff Haley really and like he's made a reason like I know but isn't there anymore.

[01:39:43] And the beacon is designed to operate with artificial intelligence he's made a real mess of the beacon.

[01:39:50] Yeah it's a horror show really.

[01:39:53] Yeah.

[01:39:54] Well Iris gets quickly caught up with the suicidal AI turns out it's not impossible.

[01:40:00] Haley is an imposter knows jack shit about beacon keeping the whole harmony being locked in a drone situation and the last one the last part she can help with Iris helps him transplant harmony into the main frame.

[01:40:13] So I guess harmony is the beacon now like Bart was before.

[01:40:17] Yeah I guess.

[01:40:19] But yeah she's still dealing with trauma and she and Haley get to be trauma buddies now.

[01:40:24] I'm like did you know as well when she she like pops out in physical form she's wearing a completely different outfit as well.

[01:40:33] It's like this dark it's like this olive green drab onesie type thing.

[01:40:40] Yeah I guess she's out of her out of her QTA uniform or something.

[01:40:45] Yeah.

[01:40:46] Yeah.

[01:40:47] No and apparently they have to keep the lights out so that she can have all the juice possible but I have to think is that to the production design can keep it creepy or romantic.

[01:40:58] Oh yeah I think that a little from Colombe.

[01:41:01] And so Iris helps Haley get the beacon up and running as much as possible and she's like completely stupefied with how little Haley knows about beacon keeping.

[01:41:12] But he's like a decent engineer in general so she knows he's not dumb and he burdens her with his illegal name sharing shocking to her.

[01:41:22] He says I can see you're all about this whole beacon keeper life.

[01:41:26] Yeah just a little bit.

[01:41:28] Yeah and yeah she's really she's selling it she's you know being a soldier is a job being a beacon keeper is a calling and I answered it.

[01:41:37] Humble good there.

[01:41:40] Humble very humbly.

[01:41:42] So they get into talking some more shit on Aleph which is fun and Iris says it's an open secret that he killed his maker but it was Bart the murder bot we love who killed him.

[01:41:52] Yeah.

[01:41:54] I have to ask yeah and then also people think that he disappeared his daughter but I don't think that's true either.

[01:42:01] I mean it seems like Milan Aleph you know when he was human he seemed genuinely distraught about losing her.

[01:42:09] Yeah no I think the implication is that Aleph the AI killed her.

[01:42:16] I mean we know that's not what happened but I think like in the history in universe this all got like muddled up.

[01:42:27] Right no but that's the reputation that Aleph has.

[01:42:30] Even though so he's obviously done bad things but he's also being blamed for things that he didn't do.

[01:42:37] Yeah and she says he's the most powerful AI in the universe why does he choose to dress like a farmer from Parsnip 8?

[01:42:44] A love love an agricultural colony is called Parsnip.

[01:42:49] Okay bit on the nose.

[01:42:53] And B I've never seen any farmer ever dressed like a Aleph does I don't know where that's coming from.

[01:43:00] Yeah more like a tech bro farmer who's like quote unquote farming because they pay someone else to do it.

[01:43:07] Okay question jail kill release Bart Harmony Jang.

[01:43:14] Well I've got a release Bart like I just I just thought of a little lesson.

[01:43:25] Jang is kind of annoying so kill Jang and Harmony kind of is I think Harmony kind of is imprisoned so.

[01:43:35] So you're like just status quo that's fine.

[01:43:37] Status quo is prison just Bart wise I guess.

[01:43:41] All right so yeah I'm also I gotta kill Jang because I haven't seen any fun redeeming qualities yet.

[01:43:48] And yeah I'm sorry Bart's a little murder bot like I've got a free Harmony and imprisoned Bart.

[01:43:56] He can be an adorable little murder bot in you know confinement.

[01:44:01] Fair enough.

[01:44:03] All right so Iris is now ready to start the Beacon Keepers Union and take their power back and blow Halen's mind by using the oven.

[01:44:13] And ask intimate questions about the nature of Halen's relationship with Esther to which she gets no actual response but isn't it cheeky of her to ask after not even giving her name.

[01:44:24] She baked she baked the bread on the beacon.

[01:44:27] I thought she bought that bread with her from her be I thought she packed that bread maybe.

[01:44:32] Maybe I mean maybe she did maybe it was on her little ship or whatever.

[01:44:36] Okay because yeah like I didn't get that because surely you're in the middle of a collapsing beacon with weird atmosphere seems odd to me making so.

[01:44:48] But that's the best way to Halen's heart but yeah maybe she has a little like she probably has a little kitchen on your ship too because how long does the trip take between the beacons is my other question.

[01:44:59] Yeah.

[01:45:00] I guess it's true doesn't matter what his status was with Esther anymore.

[01:45:05] But Iris is going to stay over because of the storm and she's going to stay in his bunk but where will he sleep because we have still have the lingering questions about how many beds does this beacon have.

[01:45:16] Also by the way you know I'm right there with Halen on this one yeah fresh baked bread definitely a shortcut to my heart that is.

[01:45:26] Yeah no that's fair.

[01:45:28] Love short yeah love fresh baked bread.

[01:45:31] Oh I can only imagine I mean I guess it's still not sushi he wanted sushi but until the space fish come along.

[01:45:41] So something Halen didn't know by the way is that there's a private network where beacon keepers can talk for free without using up all their frickin cubans.

[01:45:50] Now you tell me.

[01:45:53] And yeah he must know about the beacon comms but he I guess he knew Halen didn't even know it was there like what he didn't seem to block that.

[01:46:05] Yeah.

[01:46:07] But then it's also suspicious because who is there waiting with a message for her it's B174 saying I'm worried about you I'll meet you there making meaning beacon 23.

[01:46:19] And so Iris goes running to the window looking for where their ship will be coming from.

[01:46:25] The storm is so bad and they worry that the ship won't make the landing.

[01:46:29] And at this moment where they think that B174 might die Iris finally shares her name.

[01:46:36] And then there's an impact at the docking bay but harmony can detect no light form in the vessel that is hit.

[01:46:45] And there's an anomaly that you can't explain.

[01:46:48] And so the last lines is harmony what's in there.

[01:46:53] So Luke what's in there what do you think it is you think it's like artifact controlled AI something completely different.

[01:47:00] I have no idea.

[01:47:02] I mean thinking just thinking back to the trailer maybe it's the guy maybe it's the military guys and with a futuristic headgear.

[01:47:11] Yeah.

[01:47:14] I mean the whole way that's up is done is it could be anything could be anybody could be anything.

[01:47:20] So I know what the cast looks like on IMDB for next episode if anyone doesn't want to know skip forward once but I'll say that there is one male character for next episode added other than the usuals.

[01:47:35] Yeah so someone who sticks around for a couple episodes.

[01:47:40] Okay.

[01:47:41] So I'm curious.

[01:47:42] I'm curious is this real or why would harmony not detect a human.

[01:47:47] Yeah.

[01:47:48] If there is you know.

[01:47:49] Although you know harmony's not really she's not firing on all cylinders at the moment so.

[01:47:56] Or could it be the AI and then the what if it's what if it's the beacon AI that's been talking to Iris and Charlie is actually the beacon keeper.

[01:48:08] That would that would be fun.

[01:48:10] I'd like that.

[01:48:11] That would be a fun twist.

[01:48:13] A bit of a bit of interspecies romance.

[01:48:15] Yeah, that would be funny.

[01:48:18] Well we're going to check in with what other people in the community think and we're going to be back with our own final thoughts right after one more break.

[01:48:28] The quantum tunnel has new messages.

[01:48:32] All right so we were lucky enough to from several people get in feedback on the episodes as they came out.

[01:48:40] So I've divided up these this feedback by person rather than by episode so we get to go on each person's roller coaster of which episodes they liked and didn't their whole journey for these first three episodes.

[01:48:50] We're going to start with do 71 stew who sent in after we posted our season two preview episode he said really interesting discussion on draft for the military.

[01:49:01] Whilst UK didn't have draft in the same sense as US Vietnam experience.

[01:49:07] There's a rich history of conscientious objection to past conflicts such as World War One UK dispensed with national service 60 odd years ago so like the US now we have a volunteer military love these digressions very on brand thumbs up and as a golf war one that I will be looking out for a Luke's book in the future.

[01:49:29] So yeah remind everyone about your book so it's going to be called from revolution to war Britain in Iraq 1958 2003 there is a chapter on the first golf war and if still or anybody else wants to DM me on Twitter once the book is out I will happily send you the details because the more people buy it the better it is for me so.

[01:49:56] After episodes one and two he said we finally got to watch the first two episodes of season two yay both Mrs. Dover and I agreed episode one really felt like a clearing of the decks a bit from the end of season one.

[01:50:08] Heyland went downhill pretty rapidly after his isolation on the beacon and when we saw him reach for the accent episode two smiley face speaking of episode two really enjoyed the shift in emphasis to harmony or harm so cute.

[01:50:22] Managed to clock fairly early in that she was trapped in the beacons main computer but that only added to the tension great design for the A.I.'s quote unquote home office and gave it the right level of twilight zone weirdness without taking the viewer completely out of the core story elements really looking forward to seeing harm land in future episodes and Alif is a massive dick.

[01:50:45] I think we don't want to create.

[01:50:52] So I be said after episode one it feels like this was an extra episode of season one not a new beginning returning the page but the wrap up a proper send off for Astor wonder how the aliens will respond to it next the three jokers whole plot seems pointless the guy being forced choked was just a showoff Darth a.

[01:51:14] I palpatine only needed the info in his head for harmony or Heyland but seriously it was a futile endeavor in the first place thinking he could get away with Alif controlling the beacon and by extension his ship.

[01:51:28] Hope he doesn't stay alone long season two starts with the next episode.

[01:51:33] So and then after episode two she said second episode of begin to ask to is so otherworldly weird I have no idea what exactly is happening with harmony in the A.I. TVA purgatory is like the TVA from Loki it is but she is badass is this a solitary depressed Heyland from the book what is he trying to do.

[01:51:54] Bart's body functioning more questions and answers but continues to be intriguing.

[01:51:59] Yeah I great.

[01:52:01] Episode three said I'd love to the introduced Iris she is going to be a favorite I love how Iris is just so competent she came in like you know nothing beacon 23.

[01:52:12] I say versus QTA interesting what's happening the messaging that was supposed to be so expensive and restricted isn't actually seems we and Heyland still don't know much about how beacons function so yeah so there's two different.

[01:52:25] There's two different messaging options so there's this it seems like there's this beacon comes which is only for beacons in the sector it seems because she one point said she was pinging all the beacons in the sector to see you know what they were doing but the beacon 23 distress signal.

[01:52:44] So I guess that that they're able to you know operate more the way we do what's after whatever and then for I guess for longer distances across you know different solar systems or galaxies or I don't know how this is sectors are divided up.

[01:53:00] Then they have the cubits and they use the rather than using words they use the encoding you know the so we saw them with the symbols where they're like you know distress help you know the pictogram sort of thing to minimize the amount of data they have to send over those long distances.

[01:53:21] Yeah.

[01:53:22] The end there is a cliffhanger all right what new anomaly will we meet next I loved that we had a peek into the life on another beacon I am okay with slower episodes they need to set up stuff for later right.

[01:53:36] And yeah I don't know did you find any of these episodes slow.

[01:53:40] No I wouldn't call it I wouldn't call any of them slow.

[01:53:45] Yeah first episodes first episodes kind of any series are always sort of moving pieces to sort of progress the story.

[01:53:58] Further on but I wouldn't say it was slow.

[01:54:01] Yeah no I thought that these were all well paced for me.

[01:54:05] But I guess it might not be what not saying that Abby it's not what Abby likes but obviously she likes it but for some people I can see there's their complaining because this is more about philosophy than about action.

[01:54:20] Yeah I think it's fair.

[01:54:22] So Satoshi said about fiddle faddle and here after episode one I liked that we saw their differences between members of their group because not all revolutionaries are the same and I think that's an excellent point.

[01:54:36] Yeah.

[01:54:37] And after episode two they said I really enjoyed like many of the one offs reminded me of a good Twilight Zone episode good call out.

[01:54:45] And I also saw it as a metaphor for the corporate world for sure.

[01:54:49] My anxiety was definitely kicked up a notch but I kind of love that.

[01:54:53] Yeah a lot of trauma responses.

[01:54:57] Yeah definitely.

[01:54:59] It's Sunday work is tomorrow.

[01:55:01] So episode three I can see a lot going quote unquote wrong with three or four people trapped in a vegan environment for how long in any stretch it seemed tough for Astros parents.

[01:55:14] So this was in response to why is there only one person in a vegan and they said the episode started a bit slow but I really enjoyed the slow burn of the episode.

[01:55:22] So this is another person saying that episode three is on the slow side and I guess yeah there was less in the recap but I kind of enjoyed that.

[01:55:32] Sub zero said after episode one it almost felt like they dumbed down Kira's character in this episode when he started freaking out I was like this doesn't seem like the same guy from season one who is being all philosophical overall I'm not quite sure the Suicide Squad added much to the show.

[01:55:48] Maybe just Kira by himself would have been better.

[01:55:52] I feel like the show works better when there are less people on the beacon so I liked how the app ended.

[01:55:58] Yeah I think there's some good points in there.

[01:56:01] I also agree that Kira's character like I said feels a little different dumbed down I guess is one way to put it.

[01:56:06] I wouldn't say dumbed down because I just think like when he was in season one he had less to do.

[01:56:15] He was just having like a conversation with Bart for the first episode we see him in.

[01:56:23] So in the last episode of season one first episode of season two there's just more going on and he has to be a more he can't really stop and monologue he's got too much to do.

[01:56:34] Hmm yeah okay yeah I mean he just seems more unhinged and emotional but I guess at that point you know he'd been pushed fastest point and realized that he'd crossed the line.

[01:56:46] Yeah.

[01:56:48] And I also think that there's a point that when that the episodes that shine are the episodes with fewer people on the beacon for some reason.

[01:56:57] Because it's when I guess you get into the really meaty stuff.

[01:57:00] So some zero said I'm really hating Aleph in a good way I think he's a pretty effective villain he's infuriatingly logical with condescending swagger it feels like there's nothing standing in his way except for whatever might come from the artifact as it stands things seem pretty hopeless for our protagonists.

[01:57:19] And after episode two they said oh boy episode two was a tough watch for me.

[01:57:25] I don't know that I needed an entire app devoted to harmony trying to break out of that mental trap halfway through I wanted to fast forward so bad I felt like a filler budget saver app I think there was some critical character growth for harmony but I just don't know if that needed to be the entire episode.

[01:57:42] There was literally no B plot unless you count Halen randomly smashing shit up and I really miss the Halen Astor dynamic they need to get her back in the show ASAP.

[01:57:53] I'm pot committed on the show now so I'll power through though but I can't say I'll never I can safely say I'll never watch that episode again so damn.

[01:58:02] Damn yeah I mean I think the episode is meant to make you uncomfortable.

[01:58:12] To a good like I said there was strong reactions this episode both positive and negative.

[01:58:17] Yeah I wouldn't say I enjoy I wouldn't say I enjoyed the episode.

[01:58:26] Just by itself but I think it does sort of move the plot forward and I think actually I don't think it was I don't think it was a budget saving exercise.

[01:58:36] I think it would have been it would have been odd if we'd just gone straight from episode one to episode three.

[01:58:44] Yeah there needed to be a point at which harmony being decommissioned whatever was resolved.

[01:58:56] Yeah I mean but I do question though whether episode one should have been episode nine of season one but it's what it is and yeah.

[01:59:05] Yeah I like I said I really liked episode two myself.

[01:59:11] So right before episode three subzero said we'll be interesting to see another beacon and meet an experienced keeper it baffles me that these beacons are staffed with one person so many things could go wrong.

[01:59:21] There should be a team of three to four there's plenty of room I guess depending on how long the rotations are you could have personality conflicts but no space agency would just staff a station with one person especially if that station is responsible for keeping ships from getting destroyed by dark matter.

[01:59:38] So yeah I mean in the book the way they explain it is they say it's it's much smaller in the book but also that the person isn't necessarily needed it's just like every once in a blue moon they need someone there but I agree you would think.

[01:59:56] Yeah you think there'd be more you think there'd be more.

[01:59:59] I would think too yeah.

[02:00:01] Yeah.

[02:00:03] Like even a space station in space there's like four people usually.

[02:00:07] Yeah actually that's an interesting question I wonder if I wonder if the international if there are rules on the international space station about.

[02:00:16] Minimum.

[02:00:17] Yeah about like professional conduct.

[02:00:20] I wonder if there's ever I wonder if there's ever been like.

[02:00:24] Pardon about romance to me yeah.

[02:00:27] I mean I know I can think I know there's been some drama for romance and that would you would understand that that would point to them saying you know don't.

[02:00:38] So to speak like one astronauts getting obsessed with another one and like driving across the country.

[02:00:46] Oh really wearing the diapers they were in space.

[02:00:49] Oh yes I remember that now yeah.

[02:00:52] But I don't yeah I mean I guess if you're in that sort of setting it seems like such things might naturally happen.

[02:01:01] Yeah you would sense this to forbid it but yeah.

[02:01:04] Zero gravity.

[02:01:06] It could be messy.

[02:01:08] People are messy.

[02:01:10] Okay so Brian 8063 said after episode one I'm sad Aster is gone it's a big move for a major star slash character not to return.

[02:01:19] However I like this A.I. story also having these keeper episodes prepared me for a changeover in characters yeah.

[02:01:27] Yeah I think they played it well with like having the variety of characters and you know.

[02:01:34] Yeah I wonder if it was also with Lena Headey the whole doing the seasons back to back and she's like I can't stay and do another season.

[02:01:42] Yeah I mean Lena Headey's you know I think she's an actor in fairly high demand so if you want her to do two seasons back to back you're probably going to have to you know you're going to have to pay top dollar for that.

[02:01:57] And I'm not sure there's a kind of production that could afford to do that.

[02:02:02] Yeah and I'm not getting my hopes up for anything but I just want to point out that I noticed somebody credited in the finale by the name of Wade Bogart O'Brien voice of Bart.

[02:02:15] So I don't know what that means it could just be a flashback or whatever but he's credited in the finale on IMDB which again could.

[02:02:23] I don't care I just want to see our favorite little murder bot once more.

[02:02:28] So after episode two Brian 863 said I appreciate the white collar setting look at you solution oriented laughing emoji.

[02:02:39] The internal affairs committee is creepy thank heavens for manual typewriters a pretty good episode but not a favorite okay so this is a more mid response medium response.

[02:02:50] And after episode three I liked episode three I agree it's good to see another vegan keeper and I like her personality by the book the opposite of Halen harmonies back yes it felt like a palette cleanser to our new adventure slash cliffhanger.

[02:03:05] Yeah we're setting up the next phase of B23.

[02:03:11] So after episode three her royal bubbliness wrote in I have to admit I'm enjoying season two a whole lot more than season one it comes with a different energy.

[02:03:21] Love to this episode with how they introduced Iris's character showing what her everyday life is like her beliefs we get to know her by taking back the power though what do they mean and I don't trust the pen pal at all yeah I mean I guess.

[02:03:36] Iris is like let's get the QTA out of our beacon keeper business.

[02:03:43] I think that's what do you think that what do you think Iris meant by let's take back the power.

[02:03:49] Yeah I think I think yeah I think it's got the QTA out of our beacon keeper business because you know beacon keeping isn't just a job it's a calling.

[02:03:59] I'm like so yeah I think Iris is genuinely offended that there's somebody is breaking the rules here and she has like no respect for the QTA and certainly no respect for her.

[02:04:13] Yeah and so she agrees with me don't trust the pen pal and she's glad Iris didn't give her name away but in a way I think she craves some human connection she and harmony are my faves now and I'm going to fight if anything happens to them.

[02:04:26] Yeah agreed agreed it protects harmony and Iris at all costs.

[02:04:32] Hey Lincoln protect himself he's got that X.

[02:04:35] And finally we just heard in from a just saw Danny pop up while we were recording Iris was great total breath of fresh air I did spend the entire episode trying to decide if the actor was knives Scott pilgrims fake high school girlfriend she was and indeed she was.

[02:04:53] So thank you to everyone for sharing if you want to get involved in the conversation you'll find a link to discord in the show notes where we have a beacon 23 channel as well as channels for many other shows and books and movies and things to discuss.

[02:05:09] Luke do you have any final thoughts on episodes one through three.

[02:05:14] No and I'm but I am really interested to know where episode four is going I want to know who is it who or what is in that a lot.

[02:05:23] Yeah so we haven't finalized yet but I guess the plan is that we'll be back the two of us in three weeks to talk through episodes four through six.

[02:05:31] And those episode titles are birth song of sorrow and Luan Casca the last meet is Irish for Easter Monday.

[02:05:41] Luke do you have any predictions based on those titles.

[02:05:45] But to call an episode but I should say it's birth as B. E. R. T. H.

[02:05:55] So OK yeah that is that is seriously ominous not giving yet not not giving.

[02:06:01] Not a baby but yeah yeah like a ship parking I guess yeah.

[02:06:06] Yeah and I think we're going to be seeing some of the new groups we glimpsed in the trailer soon and this block of episodes maybe even a flashback episode or two.

[02:06:18] I saw the actor who plays dev is back for song of sorrow episode five and episode six apparently is going to have teenage Aster back.

[02:06:29] Luan Casca.

[02:06:31] So I'm wondering we're going to see other places other times other types of people how are the relationships going to develop between our core three is Bart really gone.

[02:06:44] So if you want to help us continue to explore these questions of bacon 23 then you know help us get the word out there by sharing this podcast with a friend who you think will enjoy it or leave a five star review wherever you're listening.

[02:07:01] They are a huge help in getting the algorithm to recommend our podcast to more people looking for beacon 23 coverage and we also want to hear from you directly I mentioned the discord but also Luke where can they go.

[02:07:13] They find you so they can find me at least made up on Twitter and that like made up on blue sky.

[02:07:19] And you can find me at Alicia CB in the same places and other social media and you can also email us at will shift dust podcast at gmail.com you'll find that link in the show notes as well.

[02:07:33] And also in the will shift dust book club.

[02:07:38] The how we interview is out now part two and the silo book breakdown is coming before the end of the month.

[02:07:44] And I want to thank new silos in Tam for joining the book club can't wait to see you at the next meeting.

[02:07:50] So this episode was produced by me published by the Lorhounds you'll also find on the Lorhounds feed itself our ongoing show gun coverage.

[02:07:57] We just finished the finale has just come out so we'll be releasing that episode this week as well.

[02:08:04] You also find recent one shots like Monkey Man a film that I'm personally really passionate about a Civil War one shot was just released others.

[02:08:14] We've got the Simerillian book coverage coming back and lots of other things going on in the Lorhounds feed and also properly Howard on another separate feed is back with another season of silly movie reviews.

[02:08:27] This season's theme is felonies and for gazes so it's all about crime related things some movies that I've never heard of before other classics like point break.

[02:08:37] We've also got rings and rituals with Marilyn are peculiar and Dr. Sarah K. Brown and they are Tolkien scholars who are breaking down the rings of power one episode at a time talking about all of the rituals of the Tolkien world

[02:08:54] and also our real world and it's basically for anyone who's interested in Tolkien in general you don't have to be especially passionate about that show you're still going to take away something new about this world that he's built.

[02:09:08] And we want to welcome new podcast radioactive ramblings a fallout podcast to the Lorhounds network.

[02:09:14] You will find their coverage of the recent fallout season in their own feed and I think they're going to be continuing with some other things as well now that the first season of fallout is completed highly recommend fallout by the way did you watch it

[02:09:30] Luke.

[02:09:32] No it's on my ever expanding listening to watch.

[02:09:34] But yeah I've heard very good things about it.

[02:09:37] And Luke you also have a podcast add to the list.

[02:09:39] So yeah I do a podcast called it could be said with two of my friends from university Simon L V and will cooling we talk about mix of British politics international politics culture and just whatever pops in our collective heads basically there is a new episode out today actually because we recorded on Sunday.

[02:10:03] So yeah that it could be said all one word.

[02:10:06] Excellent.

[02:10:07] And yeah I'm going to have some news coming up soon about a new Star Wars canon timeline podcast that's starting in a couple weeks.

[02:10:16] But until then any final words Luke about this batch of beacon 23 episodes.

[02:10:22] Yeah I want to go and make sourdough.

[02:10:24] I have a weird craving now.

[02:10:26] Well we'll be back in your soon with more beacon 23 and Dune and until then we'll be questioning our AI about that non human anomaly they detected at our front door.

[02:10:38] A new Star Wars journey begins in the place all good journeys begin at well the beginning.

[02:11:00] This Star Wars day I'm excited to introduce the new Star Wars canon timeline podcast where we will piece together the complete story of that galaxy far far away in timeline order from the dawn of the Jedi through the great unknown following the sequel trilogy.

[02:11:15] This is a podcast for both Star Wars super fans and complete newbies listen to the short intro episode now to hear how it works and what to expect over the coming weeks as we set the stage for the new television series the Acolyte which we will be covering with weekly breakdowns.

[02:11:31] Subscribe to the Star Wars canon timeline podcast wherever you listen to take part in one of the most epic and expansive stories ever told following all the twists and turns from start to finish.

[02:11:41] May the fourth be with you all all month and beyond.