WEBVTT 00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:18.440 Hello, Carol. This is your favorite podcast, 00:00:18.679 --> 00:00:21.940 E Pluribus Unum, on your favorite show, Pluribus, 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:25.559 where we do a deep dive into the hive mind. This 00:00:25.559 --> 00:00:29.879 is Eric. And this is Josh. And this is episode 00:00:29.879 --> 00:00:34.780 five. I have to ask right off the bat, Josh, 00:00:35.159 --> 00:00:38.420 what are your initial thoughts on episode five, 00:00:38.619 --> 00:00:42.070 Got Milk? I enjoyed this one. Yeah, it really 00:00:42.070 --> 00:00:44.829 dove into those themes that we've been talking 00:00:44.829 --> 00:00:49.130 about of loneliness and grief. But especially 00:00:49.130 --> 00:00:51.490 in this episode, there was a lot about overcoming 00:00:51.490 --> 00:00:56.189 grief. And there was also the same theme of that 00:00:56.189 --> 00:01:00.429 illusion of independence that Carol had. And 00:01:00.429 --> 00:01:03.990 this episode really exemplifies her first step 00:01:03.990 --> 00:01:06.489 forward into not only breaking that illusion 00:01:06.489 --> 00:01:10.530 of independence, but finally truly becoming independent. 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:13.439 Yeah, overall really great episode and it ended 00:01:13.439 --> 00:01:15.799 on a pretty cool, I guess you could call it a 00:01:15.799 --> 00:01:18.620 cliffhanger, but I think as we talk, I'm going 00:01:18.620 --> 00:01:21.180 to get into a little bit about how I don't think 00:01:21.180 --> 00:01:25.780 it's as much as a cliffhanger as it first seemed. 00:01:26.879 --> 00:01:30.180 I will say I was as shocked as Carol at the end 00:01:30.180 --> 00:01:32.140 there, so I don't know. You're gonna have to 00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:35.180 do some pretty heavy convincing. My overall thoughts 00:01:35.180 --> 00:01:38.299 on this episode are quite similar. It reminds 00:01:38.299 --> 00:01:41.959 me a lot of episode three, where it feels half 00:01:41.959 --> 00:01:46.379 character study and half mystery, and not as 00:01:46.379 --> 00:01:49.480 much intense action as we had in the last episode, 00:01:49.560 --> 00:01:52.560 especially at the end there. Again, overall, 00:01:53.319 --> 00:01:56.010 Rey knocks it out of the park. She... literally 00:01:56.010 --> 00:01:58.310 carries the entire episode on her shoulders. 00:01:58.469 --> 00:02:02.090 We're with her the entire time. The only other 00:02:02.090 --> 00:02:05.510 folks in the episode in particular are coyotes. 00:02:06.769 --> 00:02:08.509 That's interesting as well. That's one thing 00:02:08.509 --> 00:02:10.750 that we'll probably get into a little bit later 00:02:10.750 --> 00:02:15.169 in the episode, but I guess I was slightly confused 00:02:15.169 --> 00:02:18.449 or I had two paths of thinking whether it was 00:02:18.449 --> 00:02:22.199 coyotes or if it was wolves. Well, let's roll 00:02:22.199 --> 00:02:25.259 into this episode here. The episode begins with 00:02:25.259 --> 00:02:28.620 us looking through a hospital window toward the 00:02:28.620 --> 00:02:31.900 desert and it backs up. And one of the first 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:34.419 things that we see in this opening sequence is 00:02:34.419 --> 00:02:38.159 a man lying in a portable cot and he's drinking 00:02:38.159 --> 00:02:41.060 a carton of milk, which I think is a direct reference 00:02:41.060 --> 00:02:45.860 to the title of the episode. And Carol is standing 00:02:45.860 --> 00:02:49.080 outside one of the nurses' stations and the telephone 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:52.710 rings. And it's your favorite character, actually. 00:02:53.050 --> 00:02:55.669 And she has something to say. Yeah, Lakshmi is 00:02:55.669 --> 00:02:59.409 certainly quite the character. But we find out 00:02:59.409 --> 00:03:04.050 from Lakshmi that not only did the joined that 00:03:04.050 --> 00:03:06.569 was around Carol at the end of last episode begin 00:03:06.569 --> 00:03:08.750 this sort of crying as they're chanting out, 00:03:08.949 --> 00:03:11.370 please, Carol, but it also made the rest of the 00:03:11.370 --> 00:03:14.430 hive mind cry. And Lakshmi's very angry about 00:03:14.430 --> 00:03:19.460 Carol making her child cry. I feel like at this 00:03:19.460 --> 00:03:22.259 point, I'm feeling about Lakshmi that she's likely 00:03:22.259 --> 00:03:26.139 the survivor that has the wool pulled over her 00:03:26.139 --> 00:03:29.360 eyes the most, because it is her child that is 00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:32.020 part of the hive mind at this point. Well, I 00:03:32.020 --> 00:03:34.080 half agree with you and I half disagree with 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:38.039 you. And this is why with Lakshmi, I think she 00:03:38.039 --> 00:03:42.800 is deluded. I don't know that it's a I bought 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:45.819 into it scenario. I think she's diluting herself, 00:03:45.819 --> 00:03:51.180 but I think she's also angry with herself as 00:03:51.180 --> 00:03:55.280 much as she's angry with Carol. And imagine that 00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:58.699 you're in this situation and here's your child 00:03:58.699 --> 00:04:01.900 that's also not your child. And she's obviously 00:04:01.900 --> 00:04:06.400 intelligent enough to know that, but she can't 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:09.520 let that go as a mother. And you have this other 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:13.240 woman who's never had children coming in to tell 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:15.740 you your child's no longer your child anymore, 00:04:15.939 --> 00:04:19.160 pointing out the obvious, but you absolutely 00:04:19.160 --> 00:04:22.180 refuse. That is just a cognitive dissonance for 00:04:22.180 --> 00:04:25.180 you, and it makes you angry because I think in 00:04:25.180 --> 00:04:27.860 the back of her mind she knows Carol's right. 00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:32.279 And I think that bothers her. And every time 00:04:32.279 --> 00:04:35.879 we see Carol have an outburst, it obviously directly 00:04:35.879 --> 00:04:40.360 affects Lakshmi. And here it is again. She's 00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:44.199 made quote unquote her son cry. And I think it's 00:04:44.199 --> 00:04:48.120 just another reminder that no, this isn't business 00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:52.220 as usual. This isn't your son still. And I think 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:55.959 she's going to come around eventually. But I 00:04:55.959 --> 00:04:59.980 think her being against Carol at this point works 00:04:59.980 --> 00:05:03.699 perfectly. But it's like the other character 00:05:03.699 --> 00:05:06.279 we spoke of previously having more in common 00:05:06.279 --> 00:05:09.360 with Carol. than one might think on the surface. 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:11.740 I believe the same thing with Lakshmi and I think 00:05:11.740 --> 00:05:14.420 that's why they brought her back in this episode 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:17.519 because I didn't see necessarily that she was 00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:21.959 mad at Carol. The reaction I got both from Lakshmi 00:05:21.959 --> 00:05:27.000 and the actress playing her was frustration of 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:30.699 coming close to admitting that Carol's right. 00:05:30.939 --> 00:05:33.980 I like that take quite a bit. Yeah. And one thing 00:05:33.980 --> 00:05:36.639 that we didn't really get from this conversation, 00:05:37.019 --> 00:05:41.360 we know that her son cried, but we don't know 00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:43.779 if the rest of the hive mind were also chanting, 00:05:44.199 --> 00:05:47.139 please Carol at the same time. Oh my goodness. 00:05:47.439 --> 00:05:49.740 Something interesting to think about as well. 00:05:50.199 --> 00:05:51.899 And imagine you're sitting there at dinner and 00:05:51.899 --> 00:05:53.740 then all of a sudden all the joined that are 00:05:53.740 --> 00:05:56.879 around you start chanting, please Carol. I mean, 00:05:57.160 --> 00:05:59.639 horror movie material there. Pretty good stuff. 00:06:00.369 --> 00:06:04.329 I love Lakshmi, she's absolutely fantastic. At 00:06:04.329 --> 00:06:08.430 this point, Carol goes back to check on Zosia 00:06:08.430 --> 00:06:11.129 and there's a nurse in the room and she asks 00:06:11.129 --> 00:06:14.069 the nurse if Zosia is going to be okay and so 00:06:14.069 --> 00:06:16.910 forth. And instead of the nurse being overly 00:06:16.910 --> 00:06:19.529 friendly, like we're so used to the joined being, 00:06:20.269 --> 00:06:26.029 she is actually very stoic and... just very flatly 00:06:26.029 --> 00:06:28.209 says she'll be alright and doesn't even look 00:06:28.209 --> 00:06:30.930 Carol in the eye and turns very quickly and exits 00:06:30.930 --> 00:06:34.089 the room. And you can tell that she's put off, 00:06:34.550 --> 00:06:37.970 this joined person is put off, and it shows a 00:06:37.970 --> 00:06:41.790 different dimension of these characters, right? 00:06:41.990 --> 00:06:44.490 All up to this point except for the last part 00:06:44.490 --> 00:06:47.589 of the last episode, they've been Mr. Rogers. 00:06:48.209 --> 00:06:50.089 It's like when you upset your partner and you 00:06:50.089 --> 00:06:51.949 still have to live together and so you just... 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:55.519 our ships in the night, and you just answer questions 00:06:55.519 --> 00:06:58.819 with one word. So it seems like they're having 00:06:58.819 --> 00:07:03.839 an emotional response to her literally drugging 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:06.620 Zosia and trying to get the truth out of her. 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:09.560 Any guy out there who's forgotten to take the 00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:12.199 trash out knows this sort of response that Carol 00:07:12.199 --> 00:07:17.199 is getting from the hive mind. They're not necessarily 00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:19.740 angry or aggravated, but they are disappointed 00:07:19.740 --> 00:07:23.579 in Carol. and they're making that known to her. 00:07:23.720 --> 00:07:25.839 It's a stark difference from what we've seen 00:07:25.839 --> 00:07:28.639 from The Hive Mine previously and it's almost 00:07:28.639 --> 00:07:33.839 as if this is a defensive posture that they've 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:36.339 taken with Carol and we really dive into that 00:07:36.339 --> 00:07:40.439 quite a bit more in the next scene where Carol 00:07:40.439 --> 00:07:45.019 leaves Zosia's room and then Carol goes out to 00:07:45.019 --> 00:07:48.100 the waiting room and lies down on a bench out 00:07:48.100 --> 00:07:51.990 there with her pillow. and proceeds to fall asleep. 00:07:52.389 --> 00:07:54.949 And I thought it was very interesting that the 00:07:54.949 --> 00:07:58.509 hive mind specifically waited for Carol to go 00:07:58.509 --> 00:08:02.389 to sleep to begin their sort of exodus out of 00:08:02.389 --> 00:08:05.509 the hospital. It's almost as if they wanted to 00:08:05.509 --> 00:08:08.660 wait until she was gone or sedated. in order 00:08:08.660 --> 00:08:11.720 to leave so that she couldn't ask them where 00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:13.800 they were going because they would most likely 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:16.360 end up telling her or she couldn't ask them to 00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:19.120 stay in particular to please her. It would please 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:21.579 her if they all stayed. They waited until she 00:08:21.579 --> 00:08:23.779 was asleep to leave so that she couldn't do that. 00:08:24.420 --> 00:08:28.779 And that leads us to where Carol wakes up and 00:08:28.779 --> 00:08:31.480 she finds herself alone within the hospital. 00:08:31.500 --> 00:08:33.700 And again, this is where we start getting back 00:08:33.700 --> 00:08:37.659 into that cinematography of Carol being very 00:08:37.659 --> 00:08:41.019 small within the frame and a vast amount of empty 00:08:41.019 --> 00:08:45.559 space and Echoing audio as well. And this is 00:08:45.559 --> 00:08:48.200 also where once again with the cinematography 00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:53.000 we begin to see Carol obstructed by items within 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:55.840 the frame whether that's a window or a chair 00:08:55.840 --> 00:08:59.320 or anything along those lines were reverted back 00:08:59.320 --> 00:09:03.159 to that same cinematography that really Expounded 00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:06.169 that loneliness that Carol might be feeling Well, 00:09:06.250 --> 00:09:08.870 and not surprising, this episode is directed 00:09:08.870 --> 00:09:12.809 by Gordon Smith and it was written by Ariel Levine, 00:09:13.049 --> 00:09:15.389 both of which who worked on episode three that 00:09:15.389 --> 00:09:18.370 seems to have both the aesthetic that you're 00:09:18.370 --> 00:09:22.330 describing and sort of the writing and interaction 00:09:22.330 --> 00:09:26.110 between Carol and her environment and Carol and 00:09:26.110 --> 00:09:29.490 the joined in such a really beautiful way. I'll 00:09:29.490 --> 00:09:33.340 even say that. I didn't realize the idea behind 00:09:33.340 --> 00:09:36.299 them purposely waiting for her to fall asleep 00:09:36.299 --> 00:09:39.759 so that they could exit without any drama. A 00:09:39.759 --> 00:09:42.460 brilliant catch on that one, by the way. And 00:09:42.460 --> 00:09:45.360 again, another really beautiful ballet sequence. 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:47.019 I'm just going to call them ballet sequences 00:09:47.019 --> 00:09:48.779 from this point on, because I have a feeling 00:09:48.779 --> 00:09:51.440 we're going to have several of them. At this 00:09:51.440 --> 00:09:53.940 point, we find out that the hive mind is no longer 00:09:53.940 --> 00:09:56.039 even talking to Carol on the phone, but they 00:09:56.039 --> 00:09:59.019 do have a message that says, this is a recording 00:09:59.019 --> 00:10:03.399 and We're still happy to help you, and our feelings 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:06.080 haven't changed about you, Carol, but we just 00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:09.200 need our space. And they beat us over the head 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:12.940 with it, right? And her reaction to the message 00:10:12.940 --> 00:10:16.759 is also pretty phenomenal, and how she behaves 00:10:16.759 --> 00:10:20.259 as we hear the repeats of the message throughout 00:10:20.259 --> 00:10:25.009 the episode are... with comic gems, but also 00:10:25.009 --> 00:10:27.909 if you've ever been in a breakup scenario or 00:10:27.909 --> 00:10:29.889 something like that, essentially, and everything 00:10:29.889 --> 00:10:32.009 now becomes awkward between the two of you. It 00:10:32.009 --> 00:10:35.590 very much had that feel to it. And it was uncomfortable, 00:10:35.590 --> 00:10:40.629 but also done in a very funny way. But the fluid 00:10:40.629 --> 00:10:43.730 way that everyone leaves the hospital itself, 00:10:44.309 --> 00:10:47.070 the fluid way that we see all the traffic leave 00:10:47.070 --> 00:10:50.629 Albuquerque, especially as... Ray climbs the 00:10:50.629 --> 00:10:53.870 ladder to go up to the roof to really see the 00:10:53.870 --> 00:10:56.769 breadth of the impact that she's had as far as 00:10:56.769 --> 00:10:59.649 people exiting and I love it because she's standing 00:10:59.649 --> 00:11:02.269 on the roof and she's watching everybody leave 00:11:02.269 --> 00:11:05.730 and she says good riddance and Then about two 00:11:05.730 --> 00:11:09.629 seconds later. She goes fuck you and It's funny 00:11:09.629 --> 00:11:12.970 because between those two seconds. I said fuck 00:11:12.970 --> 00:11:19.120 you And I like yeah Yes, Carol You tell them. 00:11:19.840 --> 00:11:23.000 And this is when we hit one of my favorite things, 00:11:23.159 --> 00:11:26.000 the timestamps. We get eight days, 22 hours, 00:11:26.139 --> 00:11:30.620 36 minutes and 30 seconds. I am compiling my 00:11:30.620 --> 00:11:33.940 timestamp research right now. So I'll post that 00:11:33.940 --> 00:11:36.700 on our social media feeds and I'll post it in 00:11:36.700 --> 00:11:40.100 the show notes for this episode so that we can 00:11:40.100 --> 00:11:42.639 further discuss these timestamps and what they 00:11:42.639 --> 00:11:45.500 may really mean for us and see if there is some 00:11:45.500 --> 00:11:48.580 sort of a correlation or a pattern. but at this 00:11:48.580 --> 00:11:50.299 point when she's standing on the roof it leads 00:11:50.299 --> 00:11:55.059 us to the next sequence where she goes home and 00:11:55.059 --> 00:11:58.480 she needs to draft a script for a video so that 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:01.299 she can communicate with the other immune. Yeah, 00:12:01.679 --> 00:12:03.720 I enjoyed this one quite a bit because it's similar 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:07.179 to how we are drafting the scripts for talking 00:12:07.179 --> 00:12:10.720 about this episode. Eventually she orients herself 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:13.559 and figures out what she is trying to communicate 00:12:13.559 --> 00:12:15.620 with this video. I thought it was interesting 00:12:15.620 --> 00:12:20.399 that she does things specifically to look more 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:23.059 trustworthy, I guess you could say, within the 00:12:23.059 --> 00:12:26.720 video. She removes the liquor bottles and she... 00:12:26.779 --> 00:12:29.659 is adding makeup and trying to make herself look 00:12:29.659 --> 00:12:32.139 good and more respectable as she's recording 00:12:32.139 --> 00:12:35.919 this. Yeah, she thinks it's possible to reverse 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:38.759 this particular thing. She reiterates that they 00:12:38.759 --> 00:12:42.000 cannot lie, that apparently everyone that was 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:44.740 joined worldwide cried all at the same time, 00:12:45.080 --> 00:12:49.279 and that they abandoned her in Albuquerque. I've 00:12:49.279 --> 00:12:52.480 been abandoned here all by myself. But she also 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:55.000 does the same thing she did in episode three. 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:58.019 She says, You should treasure your individuality 00:12:58.019 --> 00:13:01.080 and that humanity needs saving and that we owe 00:13:01.080 --> 00:13:04.220 it to humanity. And I'm going to say it again, 00:13:04.259 --> 00:13:07.639 I think she believes this about humanity as a 00:13:07.639 --> 00:13:10.399 whole, but I think she even more strongly believes 00:13:10.399 --> 00:13:13.279 it about the humanity in herself, that she's 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:17.059 looking to save herself in this scenario as much 00:13:17.059 --> 00:13:20.340 as she's looking to save humanity. I like that 00:13:20.340 --> 00:13:22.940 take quite a bit. Yeah, I think there's some 00:13:22.940 --> 00:13:26.019 substance to that. and not only her humanity, 00:13:26.279 --> 00:13:30.500 but her individuality as well. Well, she finishes 00:13:30.500 --> 00:13:33.080 her video finally and then she says, well, you 00:13:33.080 --> 00:13:35.100 know, we need to get this delivered out. So she 00:13:35.100 --> 00:13:37.200 makes her phone call and she listens to that 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:40.159 message once again, nodding her head as they 00:13:40.159 --> 00:13:42.059 make their way through saying that they need 00:13:42.059 --> 00:13:45.820 their space. And she states when she goes to 00:13:45.820 --> 00:13:49.159 put the blue envelope, by the way, outside with 00:13:49.159 --> 00:13:52.019 the tape in it, she tells them. I need you to 00:13:52.019 --> 00:13:53.919 pick this up. I need you to make copies of it. 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:56.759 I need you to deliver it to the other 12 that 00:13:56.759 --> 00:14:00.559 are unaffected. And I'll stay far, far away because 00:14:00.559 --> 00:14:04.740 God knows you need your space. And when she goes 00:14:04.740 --> 00:14:07.940 outside to leave that package by the rock, we 00:14:07.940 --> 00:14:11.779 find that it's not one of the joined that is 00:14:11.779 --> 00:14:13.879 coming to pick up the message, but it's actually 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:16.360 a drone that comes to pick up the message. So 00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:19.830 they're really emphatically. letting Carol know 00:14:19.830 --> 00:14:22.429 that they do not want to be near her. And I was 00:14:22.429 --> 00:14:27.529 thinking that drones don't have an unlimited 00:14:27.529 --> 00:14:30.549 range, right? So they're thinking the same thing. 00:14:31.049 --> 00:14:35.710 There's likely still at least one joined still 00:14:35.710 --> 00:14:40.409 within Albuquerque that is responsible for interacting 00:14:40.409 --> 00:14:43.690 with Carol. There's at least somebody still there. 00:14:44.169 --> 00:14:46.309 I want you to keep that thought in mind when 00:14:46.309 --> 00:14:50.110 we talk about another sequence later on. But 00:14:50.110 --> 00:14:52.850 you're right, they do use this drone to come 00:14:52.850 --> 00:14:55.649 pick up the envelope and just her reaction at 00:14:55.649 --> 00:14:59.429 the drone arriving versus a quote unquote person 00:14:59.429 --> 00:15:02.490 arriving to pick up the package is absolutely 00:15:02.490 --> 00:15:06.129 priceless. Yeah, once again, just another great 00:15:06.129 --> 00:15:09.809 lineless delivery from Ray that we've grown to 00:15:09.809 --> 00:15:12.820 love so much within this show. For sure. You 00:15:12.820 --> 00:15:15.019 actually remind me of what ends up happening 00:15:15.019 --> 00:15:17.980 next here. She goes inside to make herself a 00:15:17.980 --> 00:15:20.100 drink, and I noticed that the label on one of 00:15:20.100 --> 00:15:24.539 the vodka bottles was called Tater Tears. Which, 00:15:24.639 --> 00:15:27.320 you know, vodka is made from potatoes, but I 00:15:27.320 --> 00:15:31.720 thought Tater Tears and having that Tears line 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:33.779 in there, especially with what happened with 00:15:33.779 --> 00:15:37.539 the last episode. I have to think is on purpose. 00:15:38.039 --> 00:15:40.120 And I like it. It's those little things. And 00:15:40.120 --> 00:15:42.740 I'll mention another one here later on. But she 00:15:42.740 --> 00:15:45.960 goes to bed that evening. And this is the first 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:48.559 time I recall seeing her go to bed. We've seen 00:15:48.559 --> 00:15:51.620 her sleep on the couch primarily. And it didn't 00:15:51.620 --> 00:15:54.919 register to me until now that maybe she had been 00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:58.279 avoiding going to bed because that was the bed 00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:01.179 that she shared with Helen. And there's this 00:16:01.179 --> 00:16:05.179 moment where the camera's behind. and we see 00:16:05.179 --> 00:16:08.659 the bedroom beyond that, and she looks at the 00:16:08.659 --> 00:16:12.399 bed and takes this slight breath and a small 00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:18.700 sigh, and that's it. But my gosh, in that, you 00:16:18.700 --> 00:16:24.980 hear all of her sadness, loneliness, grief in 00:16:24.980 --> 00:16:27.840 those two seconds, or I did anyway, and I felt 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:32.139 it, and I thought, again, such a great performance. 00:16:32.350 --> 00:16:37.090 and such a beautiful way to express so much and 00:16:37.090 --> 00:16:40.090 so little. Here's where we also notice that she's 00:16:40.090 --> 00:16:45.330 still wearing the handcuff. And my question was, 00:16:45.970 --> 00:16:48.549 with all the opportunities seemingly that she 00:16:48.549 --> 00:16:53.570 has had to take that handcuff off, is she still 00:16:53.570 --> 00:16:57.090 wearing it because she feels guilty? Yeah, I 00:16:57.090 --> 00:17:00.210 think it does symbolize possibly the guilt that 00:17:00.210 --> 00:17:04.349 she felt over having caused that cardiac arrest 00:17:04.349 --> 00:17:09.829 within Zosia. And so much of this series so far 00:17:09.829 --> 00:17:14.690 has really portrayed Carol as a prisoner as well. 00:17:14.789 --> 00:17:16.910 And I think it symbolizes a bit of that. And 00:17:16.910 --> 00:17:19.150 as we get to sort of the end of the second act 00:17:19.150 --> 00:17:25.009 into the third act and the idea of Carol finally 00:17:25.009 --> 00:17:28.009 becoming the independent person that she always 00:17:28.009 --> 00:17:31.339 believed that she was. and also a little bit 00:17:31.339 --> 00:17:34.859 about how Carol tends to solve problems at the 00:17:34.859 --> 00:17:38.359 same time. I really felt that this scene in particular 00:17:38.359 --> 00:17:42.940 where she finally sleeps in her marital bed that 00:17:42.940 --> 00:17:46.359 she shared with Helen, it really is that first 00:17:46.359 --> 00:17:49.720 step in her overcoming the grief of Helen's death. 00:17:50.039 --> 00:17:53.359 And I think that the Agatha Christie novel, which 00:17:53.359 --> 00:17:55.759 is And Then There Were None, has a lot to do 00:17:55.759 --> 00:18:00.250 with the story. To be fair, I haven't personally 00:18:00.250 --> 00:18:03.210 read this particular Christie novel, but it's 00:18:03.210 --> 00:18:06.769 about 10 people that were murderers and they're 00:18:06.769 --> 00:18:10.170 invited to this isolated island where they're 00:18:10.170 --> 00:18:14.230 killed off one by one. And it's essentially about 00:18:14.230 --> 00:18:17.450 the consequences of your past actions coming 00:18:17.450 --> 00:18:20.190 back to bite you. And it just got me to thinking 00:18:20.190 --> 00:18:23.710 about these 10 people, are they similar to our 00:18:23.710 --> 00:18:28.509 13 survivors? Is this isolated island similar 00:18:28.509 --> 00:18:32.049 to the isolation that has become our planet? 00:18:32.549 --> 00:18:35.029 Do you have any thoughts, particularly on the 00:18:35.029 --> 00:18:37.829 novel that was shown there? This is where we're 00:18:37.829 --> 00:18:40.170 introduced to the other characters in this episode, 00:18:40.369 --> 00:18:42.309 whether they're coyotes or wolves. They may be 00:18:42.309 --> 00:18:45.650 wolves, definitely. And they are rummaging through 00:18:45.650 --> 00:18:49.509 our trash outside. But before she sees them, 00:18:49.670 --> 00:18:52.789 and she walks past a painting, and it's a painting 00:18:52.789 --> 00:18:55.650 of these two cats. in the bedroom before she 00:18:55.650 --> 00:18:57.890 looks out the window and sees the coyotes or 00:18:57.890 --> 00:19:01.430 the wolves. Carol calls to leave a message about 00:19:01.430 --> 00:19:03.470 turning on all the lights at this point because 00:19:03.470 --> 00:19:05.650 she feels like if all the lights were back on, 00:19:05.789 --> 00:19:07.869 then maybe the animals wouldn't come into town 00:19:07.869 --> 00:19:13.029 to raid the trash. And she looks over to reluctantly 00:19:13.029 --> 00:19:18.430 grab her partner's sleeping mask. in order to 00:19:18.430 --> 00:19:21.029 feel like she can get some rest, I guess, and 00:19:21.029 --> 00:19:23.309 it is sitting on the Agatha Christie novel, and 00:19:23.309 --> 00:19:27.450 then there were none, I'm going to say that it's 00:19:27.450 --> 00:19:31.470 just what it is on the surface. She's alone, 00:19:31.730 --> 00:19:34.210 and then there were none, meaning that there 00:19:34.210 --> 00:19:37.809 are no joined around her at all. And I think 00:19:37.809 --> 00:19:40.670 it was just reinforcing that, but I really like 00:19:40.670 --> 00:19:42.670 your take on it where you start to dig a little 00:19:42.670 --> 00:19:45.430 bit deeper about the consequences because that 00:19:45.430 --> 00:19:48.529 also rings absolutely true. She is here alone 00:19:48.529 --> 00:19:51.029 because of the consequences of her actions that 00:19:51.029 --> 00:19:54.910 she purposefully did. This wasn't her just getting 00:19:54.910 --> 00:19:57.910 angry because of her reaction. This was her drugging 00:19:57.910 --> 00:20:01.509 someone to get them to speak and potentially 00:20:01.509 --> 00:20:06.710 causing a heart attack. And now she's as dangerous 00:20:06.710 --> 00:20:10.279 as she thinks they are to her. This also gets 00:20:10.279 --> 00:20:12.359 us to the next morning. Apparently she's able 00:20:12.359 --> 00:20:14.420 to get some rest and she goes out to clean up 00:20:14.420 --> 00:20:17.200 the trash, leaving another voicemail to come 00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:20.359 by and pick up my garbage here. And I wanted 00:20:20.359 --> 00:20:23.619 to bring up something here. This brings up the 00:20:23.619 --> 00:20:26.400 concept of inefficient communication in this 00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:29.900 episode for me. And here's where I am with that. 00:20:30.359 --> 00:20:33.539 Number one, she's trying to communicate with 00:20:33.539 --> 00:20:37.349 people around the world via a camcorder. tape 00:20:37.349 --> 00:20:41.269 that maybe she bounces it down to a disc or whatever 00:20:41.269 --> 00:20:44.250 and gets it delivered to these people. In a world 00:20:44.250 --> 00:20:47.329 where we know that, she could pick up the phone 00:20:47.329 --> 00:20:50.690 and talk to people as they're on her television, 00:20:50.690 --> 00:20:54.309 right? And be just more direct or even through 00:20:54.309 --> 00:20:57.250 the internet and do a Zoom call or something, 00:20:57.309 --> 00:21:00.269 right? The same thing with her communication 00:21:00.269 --> 00:21:06.400 with the joined where now she's forced to leave 00:21:06.400 --> 00:21:11.240 a message in order to seek her demands, completely 00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:15.500 inefficient on the part of the hive mind. And 00:21:15.500 --> 00:21:19.900 my question is, is it purposeful or to be passive 00:21:19.900 --> 00:21:25.160 aggressive, maybe, or is it just a simple way 00:21:25.160 --> 00:21:27.720 for them to accomplish what they're trying to 00:21:27.720 --> 00:21:30.440 accomplish, which is keep her at more than arm's 00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:33.670 length because she's dangerous? It could very 00:21:33.670 --> 00:21:36.549 well be a bit of both. I like your train of thought 00:21:36.549 --> 00:21:38.230 with that one. That's really interesting and 00:21:38.230 --> 00:21:40.529 something I hadn't quite thought about myself. 00:21:41.450 --> 00:21:43.750 Well, the next morning they come to pick up her 00:21:43.750 --> 00:21:45.869 trash and they do explain to her that the bags 00:21:45.869 --> 00:21:49.210 need to be less than 17 pounds. And of course, 00:21:49.210 --> 00:21:51.829 when the drone comes by to pick it up, it comically 00:21:51.829 --> 00:21:55.809 gets caught up in the light pole. A fantastic 00:21:55.809 --> 00:21:58.769 sequence. I loved it. I laughed hard, especially 00:21:58.769 --> 00:22:03.160 when they hold after the drone gets caught up 00:22:03.160 --> 00:22:05.619 in the light fixture and it's hanging there with 00:22:05.619 --> 00:22:08.579 the garbage bag and just a few seconds later 00:22:08.579 --> 00:22:12.059 with perfect comic timing the bag bursts and 00:22:12.059 --> 00:22:14.059 all of the garbage ends up back on the ground 00:22:14.059 --> 00:22:17.059 again. This is Carol literally having to start 00:22:17.059 --> 00:22:21.039 completely over with what used to be a pretty 00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:25.160 mundane thing for anybody becomes sort of a major 00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:28.109 deal. and she decides to take herself into town 00:22:28.109 --> 00:22:31.009 to deposit the trash in the city and just put 00:22:31.009 --> 00:22:33.490 it in a local recycling bin and a local garbage 00:22:33.490 --> 00:22:36.470 bin. Also very funny because she's trying to 00:22:36.470 --> 00:22:39.250 take the silver platter and the silver dome and 00:22:39.250 --> 00:22:41.630 put it into the recycling bin and things just 00:22:41.630 --> 00:22:44.009 aren't working in the way that they should. But 00:22:44.009 --> 00:22:47.089 it leads us to a very interesting clue, I would 00:22:47.089 --> 00:22:49.799 say, in the bottom of the recycle bin. Yeah, 00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:52.720 once again, just expanding on the thought of 00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:55.859 this illusion of independence that we all have. 00:22:56.119 --> 00:22:58.640 As independent as you think we are, we still 00:22:58.640 --> 00:23:03.079 trust in the society as a whole to accomplish 00:23:03.079 --> 00:23:07.819 even the bare minimum of tasks. And as Carol 00:23:07.819 --> 00:23:10.599 is completing this very basic task of throwing 00:23:10.599 --> 00:23:13.779 out her garbage, she finds at the bottom of the 00:23:13.779 --> 00:23:17.799 garbage can a bunch of empty milk cartons. And 00:23:17.799 --> 00:23:21.099 at that point, she even goes to a larger dumpster 00:23:21.099 --> 00:23:25.420 that's got a very vivid yellow lid on it. And 00:23:25.420 --> 00:23:28.059 I do believe that color has a lot to do with 00:23:28.059 --> 00:23:31.519 this series as a whole, not only with the stark 00:23:31.519 --> 00:23:35.799 yellow of the marketing or the stark yellow of 00:23:35.799 --> 00:23:39.220 the jacket that she was wearing way back in episode 00:23:39.220 --> 00:23:42.279 one, but that yellow lid reminded me of that 00:23:42.279 --> 00:23:44.119 same color. And it could be pretty innocuous, 00:23:44.279 --> 00:23:47.220 you know, it could just be recycling, but there 00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:48.819 may be something there and that's something I 00:23:48.819 --> 00:23:52.220 haven't dove too much into here. But at the bottom 00:23:52.220 --> 00:23:56.339 of this dumpster, when she opens the lid, she 00:23:56.339 --> 00:23:59.960 finds nothing but almost a sea of these milk 00:23:59.960 --> 00:24:03.559 cartons. We never really knew up to this point. 00:24:03.849 --> 00:24:08.569 how the hive mind are obtaining sustenance at 00:24:08.569 --> 00:24:11.289 all. Right. I mean, to be honest with you, I 00:24:11.289 --> 00:24:13.990 assume they just ate and went to the bathroom 00:24:13.990 --> 00:24:17.609 and showered just like other humans. It was now 00:24:17.609 --> 00:24:20.690 was just perfunctory, right? And you just did 00:24:20.690 --> 00:24:22.609 it because you needed fuel or you needed to be 00:24:22.609 --> 00:24:24.549 cleaned. And they're the milk cartons like you 00:24:24.549 --> 00:24:26.970 would get if you were a kid in school and it 00:24:26.970 --> 00:24:28.609 was the milk that came with your lunch, that 00:24:28.609 --> 00:24:31.910 sort of thing. They very much have that. laid 00:24:31.910 --> 00:24:34.609 out, they're also regular milk, chocolate milk, 00:24:34.750 --> 00:24:36.970 strawberry milk, which is also interesting, but 00:24:36.970 --> 00:24:40.890 she is lying in the bottom of this recycled dumpster 00:24:40.890 --> 00:24:43.690 covered in empty milk cartons and she says, you 00:24:43.690 --> 00:24:47.549 motherfuckers sure love your milk. Just like 00:24:47.549 --> 00:24:52.190 us from Wisconsin, we love our milk. Right, right. 00:24:52.309 --> 00:24:54.250 I mean, when you look at the vastness of the 00:24:54.250 --> 00:24:56.589 universe, we don't really eat that much cheese. 00:24:58.160 --> 00:25:01.160 Well, speaking of cheese and dairy, we get a 00:25:01.160 --> 00:25:04.299 good hard look at a milk carton and it says Duke 00:25:04.299 --> 00:25:08.039 Dairy and it's a local dairy. And what does she 00:25:08.039 --> 00:25:11.500 do? Normally we would say follow the money, but 00:25:11.500 --> 00:25:15.740 Carol, follow the milk. And there's a really 00:25:15.740 --> 00:25:18.579 interesting sequence as she enters Duke Dairy. 00:25:18.740 --> 00:25:22.339 And I'm not quite sure that the difference between 00:25:22.339 --> 00:25:25.380 the normal, the chocolate and the strawberry 00:25:25.380 --> 00:25:30.230 milk. are innocuous, right? Because as she enters 00:25:30.230 --> 00:25:34.609 into the Duke dairy sort of manufacturing, we 00:25:34.609 --> 00:25:39.109 see the production line of all of these cartons 00:25:39.109 --> 00:25:42.170 and she even flips through some of the unglued 00:25:42.170 --> 00:25:45.589 cartons as well. But we see some full cartons 00:25:45.589 --> 00:25:49.279 and they're twisting. almost like a double helix 00:25:49.279 --> 00:25:52.339 or a sequence of RNA, and they're different colors. 00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:56.099 It's not all in an order. It's normal milk, it's 00:25:56.099 --> 00:25:58.279 chocolate milk, and then it's strawberry milk, 00:25:58.700 --> 00:26:03.180 almost like that RNA sequence that made up the 00:26:03.180 --> 00:26:05.759 initial outbreak, I guess you could call it, 00:26:05.819 --> 00:26:08.220 of the joining. So a very subtle hint there, 00:26:08.660 --> 00:26:11.319 and just how those milk cartons sort of twisted 00:26:11.319 --> 00:26:14.440 around into a double helix was really interesting. 00:26:15.259 --> 00:26:18.700 Great catch. I did not catch that. I've seen 00:26:18.700 --> 00:26:22.559 so many extremely satisfying manufacturing videos 00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:25.079 where you're manufacturing paper goods or anything 00:26:25.079 --> 00:26:28.960 like that and you're bottling bottles of liquid 00:26:28.960 --> 00:26:31.099 and so forth and it's just very satisfying and 00:26:31.099 --> 00:26:33.539 so I just got caught up in all of that and how 00:26:33.539 --> 00:26:35.960 this machine works and what's going on here but 00:26:35.960 --> 00:26:38.059 you really caught something there that I think 00:26:38.059 --> 00:26:41.079 may be subtle but I think that is put in there 00:26:41.079 --> 00:26:44.160 most certainly intentionally and I really like 00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:46.829 that. Well, what we discover at the Duke dairy 00:26:46.829 --> 00:26:48.950 is that they find out that the packaging facility 00:26:48.950 --> 00:26:51.529 has been converted over to packaging a different 00:26:51.529 --> 00:26:54.490 liquid into these milk cartons, which is why 00:26:54.490 --> 00:26:57.490 I said that the regular chocolate and strawberry 00:26:57.490 --> 00:26:59.789 flavors didn't necessarily matter because it's 00:26:59.789 --> 00:27:03.390 all this sort of yellowish, almost oily, consistent 00:27:03.390 --> 00:27:07.869 liquid with no odor. And now we're really starting 00:27:07.869 --> 00:27:10.410 to come up with some pretty interesting questions 00:27:10.410 --> 00:27:14.559 because what is this? Why is it? Why do they 00:27:14.559 --> 00:27:16.900 consume it? And as you mentioned, we have this 00:27:16.900 --> 00:27:19.920 really neat sequence that finds Carol making 00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:23.039 her way to the storage portion of the Duke dairy. 00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:28.059 And we find that she has these pallets of what 00:27:28.059 --> 00:27:30.759 look like 40 pound bags, the little brown bags, 00:27:31.380 --> 00:27:33.900 like what you would carry your salt for your 00:27:33.900 --> 00:27:36.759 water softener or something like that. That's 00:27:36.759 --> 00:27:40.259 what the bags look like. And it looks like they're 00:27:40.259 --> 00:27:43.519 filled with a crystalline substance that almost 00:27:43.519 --> 00:27:46.500 looks like sugar or salt. And this goes back 00:27:46.500 --> 00:27:48.420 to what I mentioned at the beginning of the episode 00:27:48.420 --> 00:27:51.500 where I don't think our cliffhanger is quite 00:27:51.500 --> 00:27:54.779 as much of a cliffhanger as we're sort of led 00:27:54.779 --> 00:27:57.559 to believe. When she goes to the back and finds 00:27:57.559 --> 00:28:01.380 these large bags of this white salt -like substance, 00:28:02.180 --> 00:28:06.940 she also finds that it's being pecked at by crows, 00:28:07.420 --> 00:28:09.559 these sort of carrion birds. And I think that's 00:28:09.559 --> 00:28:14.339 our very first clue as to what exactly happens 00:28:14.339 --> 00:28:17.960 in our cliffhanger here. But Carol shoes away 00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:21.440 the crows, which, if anybody knows crows, that's 00:28:21.440 --> 00:28:23.519 the worst thing you can do. Never make an enemy 00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:25.819 of a crow, because they remember things, absolutely. 00:28:26.380 --> 00:28:28.200 Make friends with the crows, certainly, if you 00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:30.680 ever see one. But she grabs one of these big 00:28:30.680 --> 00:28:33.400 40 -pound bags, and the next scene is we see 00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:36.299 her as she's struggling to bring that back home. 00:28:36.460 --> 00:28:41.269 And she begins... doing some testing on the white 00:28:41.269 --> 00:28:44.849 substance that she's found at Duke Dairy. Yeah, 00:28:45.069 --> 00:28:48.069 she so smartly uses the pH in drinking water 00:28:48.069 --> 00:28:52.130 testers from her hot tub to determine that the 00:28:52.130 --> 00:28:56.150 liquid has a pH balance of 7 .1, which essentially 00:28:56.150 --> 00:28:59.049 means that it's neutral, like water or celery, 00:28:59.269 --> 00:29:02.000 which is mostly water. And my first thought, 00:29:02.079 --> 00:29:05.660 being the number nerd to a certain degree, were 00:29:05.660 --> 00:29:09.019 the ham radio channels that Menuselis was dialing 00:29:09.019 --> 00:29:11.460 through from the previous episode, which were 00:29:11.460 --> 00:29:16.700 7 .129 and 7 .132. So I don't know if that's 00:29:16.700 --> 00:29:19.539 a little nod there, but again, I'm very confident 00:29:19.539 --> 00:29:21.940 that Vince Gilligan doesn't put anything into 00:29:21.940 --> 00:29:24.359 his work that doesn't actually mean something. 00:29:24.920 --> 00:29:27.579 So this prompts Carol to create another video 00:29:27.579 --> 00:29:31.819 for the immune and to see if she can further 00:29:31.819 --> 00:29:34.740 the investigation, so to speak, or share more 00:29:34.740 --> 00:29:37.880 of the clues that she's discovered on her own. 00:29:38.460 --> 00:29:40.859 And again, it points out the utter inefficiency 00:29:40.859 --> 00:29:44.119 of the communication style here. But she does 00:29:44.119 --> 00:29:47.140 ask herself in this scene, are you even getting 00:29:47.140 --> 00:29:50.430 these messages? How am I even to know? I like 00:29:50.430 --> 00:29:52.950 the scene quite a bit where she records herself 00:29:52.950 --> 00:29:55.849 and she's just providing evidence to the rest 00:29:55.849 --> 00:30:00.009 of the survivors as she calls them. And when 00:30:00.009 --> 00:30:02.930 she gets aggravated with herself, she finally 00:30:02.930 --> 00:30:06.910 has almost a realization that she needs to stop, 00:30:07.349 --> 00:30:11.710 take a breath, and delete that video that she 00:30:11.710 --> 00:30:14.049 had just recorded and go and re -record it again. 00:30:14.549 --> 00:30:18.160 So it almost plays into the fact that While she 00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:21.380 is finding this individuality within herself 00:30:21.380 --> 00:30:25.240 and true independence, she's also learning how 00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:28.519 to communicate with other people in a more healthy 00:30:28.519 --> 00:30:31.259 way at the same time. It almost plays into like 00:30:31.259 --> 00:30:34.680 a stoic philosophy a little bit where you are 00:30:34.680 --> 00:30:39.160 best to the earth and other people as a whole 00:30:39.160 --> 00:30:41.380 when you're the best version of yourself. And 00:30:41.380 --> 00:30:44.569 she's slowly figuring it out that not only can 00:30:44.569 --> 00:30:46.589 I be this independent person and be the best 00:30:46.589 --> 00:30:49.529 version of myself, but that's also the best version 00:30:49.529 --> 00:30:53.869 that is most valuable to the people around me. 00:30:54.809 --> 00:30:59.970 I saw it as still the cynical Carol, but then 00:30:59.970 --> 00:31:02.390 doing the things that she knew she needed to 00:31:02.390 --> 00:31:06.230 do in order to make the message palatable for 00:31:06.230 --> 00:31:10.839 her very, very small audience. And so now that 00:31:10.839 --> 00:31:14.940 I'm trying to doubt her sincerity and her arc 00:31:14.940 --> 00:31:17.200 here, if that's what it is, if we're taking a 00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:19.900 curmudgeon and making them into not necessarily 00:31:19.900 --> 00:31:22.779 a people person, but someone that can work with 00:31:22.779 --> 00:31:25.960 and communicate with other people without treating 00:31:25.960 --> 00:31:28.980 them poorly, whether outwardly or in her mind. 00:31:29.900 --> 00:31:32.940 And especially when you talk about removing the 00:31:32.940 --> 00:31:36.130 liquor bottles from... behind her, putting a 00:31:36.130 --> 00:31:39.109 suit coat on, doing her makeup and her hair, 00:31:39.609 --> 00:31:43.789 redoing videos. For me, that leans more into 00:31:43.789 --> 00:31:48.410 performance than it does into sincerity. She's 00:31:48.410 --> 00:31:51.430 still trying to get something, which is, I need 00:31:51.430 --> 00:31:55.750 these people on my side. And a calculating person, 00:31:55.809 --> 00:31:58.670 which I believe Carol is, would do these things 00:31:58.670 --> 00:32:02.299 to do that. It's more like, I screwed up. I need 00:32:02.299 --> 00:32:04.740 to get you back in our room again and we need 00:32:04.740 --> 00:32:07.779 to start talking about this again. I really like 00:32:07.779 --> 00:32:11.039 the performative aspect that you mentioned because 00:32:11.039 --> 00:32:13.839 it may be a theme with this episode because I 00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:17.700 think that the joined and the hive mind, their 00:32:17.700 --> 00:32:20.160 actions throughout the entire episode have been 00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:22.960 overly performative as well. You know, they're 00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:28.009 really going the extra mile to... Show that Carol 00:32:28.009 --> 00:32:31.029 is alone and we're gone now and who are you now 00:32:31.029 --> 00:32:34.710 that we're gone? It's how I felt with the conversation 00:32:34.710 --> 00:32:37.490 she had with Larry last week and did you notice 00:32:37.490 --> 00:32:39.450 his character design by the way? I want to point 00:32:39.450 --> 00:32:42.930 this out He was wearing what looked to be a biking 00:32:42.930 --> 00:32:46.309 outfit like when you ride your 10 speed 12 speed 00:32:46.309 --> 00:32:49.170 and that's that's your hobby, right? But he was 00:32:49.170 --> 00:32:52.250 also sunburned. I don't know if he noticed he 00:32:52.250 --> 00:32:54.410 was sunburned on his face He was sunburned on 00:32:54.410 --> 00:32:58.400 the top of his legs And I thought, what brilliant 00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:02.759 detail to have to adjoin is that you have the 00:33:02.759 --> 00:33:06.359 sunburned cyclist to come in to talk to Carol. 00:33:07.539 --> 00:33:10.240 And I guess this sort of leads us into the next 00:33:10.240 --> 00:33:13.940 scene, you know, that is that night where the 00:33:13.940 --> 00:33:17.579 wolves or coyotes return. And this kind of brings 00:33:17.579 --> 00:33:21.079 me back to the first scene where they show up 00:33:21.079 --> 00:33:24.220 and they're getting into her trash. And I almost 00:33:24.220 --> 00:33:29.119 think that These wolves or coyotes are a small 00:33:29.119 --> 00:33:33.380 metaphor of Carol being alone and this pack that 00:33:33.380 --> 00:33:36.619 is her antagonist. And that shows up again here 00:33:36.619 --> 00:33:41.859 where this pack is now trying to uncover the 00:33:41.859 --> 00:33:44.960 grave of Helen. And they obviously smell Helen 00:33:44.960 --> 00:33:48.259 decomposing beneath the dirt here in her grave 00:33:48.259 --> 00:33:52.099 and are attempting to eat her. And I just want 00:33:52.099 --> 00:33:56.819 to highlight, this is our second clue. of what 00:33:56.819 --> 00:33:59.319 the potential cliffhanger of this episode could 00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:02.880 be if indeed we do look at the wolves or the 00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:06.539 coyotes as being a hive mind, being a pack mind, 00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:09.340 and they're also trying to dig up this grave 00:34:09.340 --> 00:34:13.119 to consume for sustenance. But again, this is 00:34:13.119 --> 00:34:17.940 another example of Carol finally taking that 00:34:17.940 --> 00:34:21.039 step into being a truly independent person. There's 00:34:21.039 --> 00:34:24.019 no one else around her. that is going to stop 00:34:24.019 --> 00:34:27.440 these wolves or coyotes from digging up her wife 00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:29.900 out of her grave. So she has to do it herself. 00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:34.119 She's alone against the pack. And this was such 00:34:34.119 --> 00:34:36.780 a well -directed sequence. I think this might 00:34:36.780 --> 00:34:40.199 be the first time we've really cut into a starkly 00:34:40.199 --> 00:34:43.820 handheld... experience as far as cinematography 00:34:43.820 --> 00:34:46.519 because she goes outside and she tries to confront 00:34:46.519 --> 00:34:49.519 these wolves and quickly finds out that she's 00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:53.099 fairly ill equipped to take care of a pack as 00:34:53.099 --> 00:34:55.880 they're growling at her. So she runs back inside 00:34:55.880 --> 00:34:58.559 and we get this great handheld sequence where 00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:01.980 she runs out to the police car. and she jumps 00:35:01.980 --> 00:35:04.400 in and she's trying to wrench out the shotgun 00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:06.860 that is in between the seats and she can't seem 00:35:06.860 --> 00:35:10.219 to get it out and this drives her to change her 00:35:10.219 --> 00:35:13.500 mind and now she she wants to use the police 00:35:13.500 --> 00:35:17.000 car itself as the weapon to get rid of this pack 00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:19.940 of wolves or coyotes from digging into Helen's 00:35:19.940 --> 00:35:23.860 grave so she hops in and she even flips on the 00:35:23.860 --> 00:35:26.320 the siren and the lights and she goes around 00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:29.599 the block gets through the back of her yard slams 00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:32.269 through her nice little fence that she's got 00:35:32.269 --> 00:35:37.210 and scares off the the pack and ends up parking 00:35:37.210 --> 00:35:40.949 literally on top of Helen's grave almost to protect 00:35:40.949 --> 00:35:45.030 it and from what we see at the very least it's 00:35:45.030 --> 00:35:47.550 so late and she's so tired that she ends up falling 00:35:47.550 --> 00:35:50.449 asleep within the car with the lights still on. 00:35:51.150 --> 00:35:54.710 She wakes up the next morning and she is in the 00:35:54.710 --> 00:35:58.809 car and she looks over at the shotgun and you 00:35:58.809 --> 00:36:01.710 see that there's this little button and she pushes 00:36:01.710 --> 00:36:08.409 the button and the release opens up and she goes, 00:36:08.809 --> 00:36:13.289 son of a bitch. And she sees that she's still 00:36:13.289 --> 00:36:17.170 wearing the handcuff and she reaches for the 00:36:17.170 --> 00:36:21.130 keys and sees that the key to the handcuff is 00:36:20.920 --> 00:36:25.219 on this key chain and once again says, son of 00:36:25.219 --> 00:36:30.260 a bitch. And again, it makes me wonder, was she 00:36:30.260 --> 00:36:33.239 unconscious of the idea of having that on her 00:36:33.239 --> 00:36:36.679 wrist all this time or was she subconsciously 00:36:36.679 --> 00:36:40.639 wearing it because she felt guilty or as you 00:36:40.639 --> 00:36:43.599 mentioned, was she consciously or subconsciously 00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:47.179 wearing it because it is a symbol of her being 00:36:47.179 --> 00:36:52.820 a prisoner in this situation. You have so eloquently 00:36:52.820 --> 00:36:58.679 described this episode in that she's gone from 00:36:58.679 --> 00:37:03.500 being a person who believed they were independent, 00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:06.519 yet still relying on the basics like garbage 00:37:06.519 --> 00:37:10.940 and police, to becoming the person that takes 00:37:10.940 --> 00:37:15.139 care of those things directly. And now including 00:37:15.139 --> 00:37:19.820 relinquishing herself from her own self -imposed 00:37:19.820 --> 00:37:24.199 prison. So again, another brilliant scene. And 00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:27.699 I think this also exemplifies how Carol has gone 00:37:27.699 --> 00:37:30.219 about her problem solving in the past. She's 00:37:30.219 --> 00:37:33.199 approached this situation, understandably, with 00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:37.230 a lot of emotion. And every decision that she's 00:37:37.230 --> 00:37:40.250 made pretty much up to this point has been an 00:37:40.250 --> 00:37:44.230 emotional decision. We find that when she takes 00:37:44.230 --> 00:37:46.730 emotion out of it and she takes a breath or she 00:37:46.730 --> 00:37:49.750 falls asleep and she wakes up with a clear head, 00:37:50.030 --> 00:37:52.809 she sees that the solutions to these problems 00:37:52.809 --> 00:37:57.610 of getting the shotgun or uncuffing herself are 00:37:57.610 --> 00:38:01.130 actually fairly simple. And when she changes 00:38:01.130 --> 00:38:05.119 her outlook on how to approach a problem, then 00:38:05.119 --> 00:38:09.139 she finds that the solution has been right in 00:38:09.139 --> 00:38:12.500 front of her the entire time. It leans into the 00:38:12.500 --> 00:38:16.360 thing where when you become so, whether it's 00:38:16.360 --> 00:38:20.900 obsessed or just distracted by the thing or things 00:38:20.900 --> 00:38:23.599 that are directly in front of you, how you lose 00:38:23.599 --> 00:38:28.219 sight of the things that are simple. And this 00:38:28.219 --> 00:38:31.329 next scene is really great as well. she wakes 00:38:31.329 --> 00:38:34.110 up the next morning and she realizes she has 00:38:34.110 --> 00:38:37.809 to find a solution for Helen's grave. So she 00:38:37.809 --> 00:38:41.369 goes to some sort of gardening place and she 00:38:41.369 --> 00:38:44.989 picks up these slabs of square concrete and she 00:38:44.989 --> 00:38:49.590 brings them back home and she is placing them 00:38:49.590 --> 00:38:52.809 on Helen's grave and she ends up making a cairn. 00:38:52.889 --> 00:38:56.030 as the Vikings might have called it, to not only 00:38:56.030 --> 00:38:58.090 protect her grave, but I felt that it was very 00:38:58.090 --> 00:39:02.750 symbolic of, again, taking that next step of 00:39:02.750 --> 00:39:06.070 overcoming her grief of losing Carol. And it 00:39:06.070 --> 00:39:08.050 literally takes her all day. We almost get a 00:39:08.050 --> 00:39:13.849 time lapse of Carol placing the Karen on top 00:39:13.849 --> 00:39:18.360 of Helen, and it literally ends on... The sun 00:39:18.360 --> 00:39:20.639 setting behind her as she's closing the doors 00:39:20.639 --> 00:39:24.699 to the cop car. It felt very symbolic that sunset 00:39:24.699 --> 00:39:29.840 meant that she is finally overcoming that grief 00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:32.639 and she's setting the Sun on this grief and taking 00:39:32.639 --> 00:39:37.000 the next step and of course she she makes a Tombstone 00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:39.460 for Helen as well. And I think you looked into 00:39:39.460 --> 00:39:41.300 that a little bit more than I did So I want to 00:39:41.300 --> 00:39:43.920 hear your thoughts on the tombstone specifically 00:39:44.750 --> 00:39:47.530 On the headstone, it looked to me as though she 00:39:47.530 --> 00:39:51.070 painted an orchid that sort of overarched Helen's 00:39:51.070 --> 00:39:54.429 name. And when you go to look up orchids, there 00:39:54.429 --> 00:39:56.809 are tons of meanings, but I knew there was something 00:39:56.809 --> 00:39:59.309 here that I think would stick for me. And it's 00:39:59.309 --> 00:40:02.730 that orchids have come to symbolize eternal love 00:40:02.730 --> 00:40:07.050 and also are an important part of sharing sympathies 00:40:07.050 --> 00:40:09.630 after the death of a loved one. And she does 00:40:09.630 --> 00:40:13.570 place it in the center. the tiles as well very 00:40:13.570 --> 00:40:15.809 similarly to what you were describing the Vikings 00:40:15.809 --> 00:40:20.329 would do. She sits down after honoring her lover 00:40:20.329 --> 00:40:23.710 and makes herself a drink and as she does she 00:40:23.710 --> 00:40:27.050 knocks over the bag of the crystalline substance 00:40:27.050 --> 00:40:29.530 and she sees that there's a barcode she hadn't 00:40:29.530 --> 00:40:32.710 recognized before and she's very smart again 00:40:32.710 --> 00:40:35.949 she takes her large bag of crystals over to her 00:40:35.949 --> 00:40:38.610 favorite grocery store and she uses the scanner 00:40:38.610 --> 00:40:42.349 there to scan the barcode but We don't get any 00:40:42.349 --> 00:40:45.849 satisfaction. The barcode doesn't work. She thinks 00:40:45.849 --> 00:40:49.769 that this bag is awfully similar to a dog food 00:40:49.769 --> 00:40:52.530 bag. She goes to the dog food aisle. She finds 00:40:52.530 --> 00:40:54.829 a bag that is quite similar with a label on it. 00:40:54.949 --> 00:40:57.190 She peels the label back and what does she find? 00:40:57.809 --> 00:41:01.869 The same barcode. and she flips the dog bag over 00:41:01.869 --> 00:41:04.250 and finds out that the dog food is manufactured 00:41:04.250 --> 00:41:08.150 at a place called Agriget. So another item that's 00:41:08.150 --> 00:41:10.909 being manufactured right there in town that she 00:41:10.909 --> 00:41:14.670 can now go and investigate. And that's exactly 00:41:14.670 --> 00:41:18.190 what she does. She heads to the Agriget warehouse 00:41:18.190 --> 00:41:21.190 and she sort of moves into the back of the warehouse 00:41:21.190 --> 00:41:24.849 where there's a refrigerator area. We see mostly 00:41:24.849 --> 00:41:29.769 in this fridge that it's primarily fruits and 00:41:29.769 --> 00:41:33.829 vegetables on the warehouse shelves in here. 00:41:34.250 --> 00:41:37.570 And we get to the cliffhanger of the episode 00:41:37.570 --> 00:41:45.110 where she lifts up the plastic and another amazing 00:41:45.110 --> 00:41:48.570 performance from Rey without any dialogue. She 00:41:48.570 --> 00:41:53.989 is surprised and that surprise quickly morphs 00:41:53.989 --> 00:41:58.989 into horrifying as she gasps and we cut to black. 00:41:59.329 --> 00:42:01.820 And then that's the end of the episode. I want 00:42:01.820 --> 00:42:04.820 to note, just as a nerd, that when we first appear 00:42:04.820 --> 00:42:08.599 at Agrijet, that we have a box truck that is 00:42:08.599 --> 00:42:11.099 parked where they do their freight, and it's 00:42:11.099 --> 00:42:14.320 a Danichi freight. And that is in respect and 00:42:14.320 --> 00:42:16.739 honor to Paul Danichi, who was a cinematographer 00:42:16.739 --> 00:42:19.280 who worked on Better Call Saul. So I just thought 00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:21.639 that that was a cool Easter egg to be throwing 00:42:21.639 --> 00:42:25.780 in there. But yeah, her reaction is the classic 00:42:25.780 --> 00:42:28.320 horror of the gasp and the covering your mouth, 00:42:28.340 --> 00:42:31.300 and then the screen goes black. My question to 00:42:31.300 --> 00:42:33.619 you is now, because you pointed out a handful 00:42:33.619 --> 00:42:36.300 of times in this episode that you seem to think 00:42:36.300 --> 00:42:39.500 that you might have a theory. I want to ask about 00:42:39.500 --> 00:42:45.139 the theory first because I have thoughts and 00:42:45.139 --> 00:42:48.960 my question is this. Are you telling us that 00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:52.559 you think this is a Soylent Green situation? 00:42:52.940 --> 00:42:55.820 Yeah, I think you really caught on to my thinking. 00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:58.920 And I think when we first see the white substance 00:42:58.920 --> 00:43:03.300 as Carol goes into Duke's dairy, we find that 00:43:03.300 --> 00:43:05.800 there are crows pecking at the bag specifically. 00:43:05.940 --> 00:43:08.820 And of course we know that crows are a carrion 00:43:08.820 --> 00:43:14.300 bird. They tend to eat the leftovers of a carcass 00:43:14.300 --> 00:43:16.460 after it's already been killed by a predator. 00:43:16.730 --> 00:43:19.869 And in the next scene, if we were to take the 00:43:19.869 --> 00:43:23.409 wolves and the coyotes as a metaphor for the 00:43:23.409 --> 00:43:27.869 hive mind in general, we find the wolves or coyotes 00:43:27.869 --> 00:43:32.630 digging up Helen's grave in order to be a Acherian 00:43:32.630 --> 00:43:36.250 creature as well and feast on the carcass of 00:43:36.250 --> 00:43:39.010 their prey that has been killed by other means. 00:43:39.789 --> 00:43:45.000 What's under the tarp is likely some of the 863 00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:47.860 million dead humans that died during the joining. 00:43:48.900 --> 00:43:51.980 The hive mind has refrigerated these dead bodies 00:43:51.980 --> 00:43:56.039 and are now using them as sustenance. So I think 00:43:56.039 --> 00:43:58.840 that is fairly well explained throughout the 00:43:58.840 --> 00:44:01.860 episode. And I didn't feel that the cliffhanger 00:44:01.860 --> 00:44:05.000 was as much of a cliffhanger as we were led to 00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:08.039 believe. Unless of course they gave us a bit 00:44:08.039 --> 00:44:09.719 of a red herring here. What are your thoughts 00:44:09.719 --> 00:44:14.599 on that? I will say that Yes, there is most certainly 00:44:14.599 --> 00:44:17.539 a possibility that what is under the plastic 00:44:17.539 --> 00:44:22.400 sheet is a frozen corpse or several, but I would 00:44:22.400 --> 00:44:25.980 also posit that they are not consuming them or 00:44:25.980 --> 00:44:29.699 eating them. It was just more convenient to store 00:44:29.699 --> 00:44:35.800 them in this manner. Maybe they're against cremation. 00:44:36.059 --> 00:44:38.500 We don't know if they're against burial, but 00:44:38.500 --> 00:44:40.460 we've seen what could potentially happen with 00:44:40.460 --> 00:44:43.539 that. So that might be off the books. I would 00:44:43.539 --> 00:44:46.820 say this as well. If this is a Soylent Green 00:44:46.820 --> 00:44:53.980 situation, then I'm out because that is not where 00:44:53.980 --> 00:44:57.380 this should even remotely go. I'll be extremely 00:44:57.380 --> 00:45:00.320 disappointed if that's what it is. What I more 00:45:00.320 --> 00:45:04.989 see and I would love is, We have an entire episode 00:45:04.989 --> 00:45:09.369 where Carol had all of the evidence and all of 00:45:09.369 --> 00:45:13.289 the deduction and all of the clues put together 00:45:13.289 --> 00:45:17.170 in a very, very interesting way that led from 00:45:17.170 --> 00:45:21.329 one thing to another. And I would love to find 00:45:21.329 --> 00:45:25.050 out that what they're consuming is actually a 00:45:25.050 --> 00:45:28.989 liquid that it has all the nutrients and all 00:45:28.989 --> 00:45:33.320 of the whatever you might need to make the human 00:45:33.320 --> 00:45:36.739 body run as efficiently as possible without having 00:45:36.739 --> 00:45:41.360 to cook or chop up fruits and vegetables or do 00:45:41.360 --> 00:45:43.920 any of that stuff. So it becomes another efficiency 00:45:43.920 --> 00:45:48.980 thing and that they're taking vegetables and 00:45:48.980 --> 00:45:52.659 other items and making them into whatever this 00:45:52.659 --> 00:45:55.460 drink is that is a power drink, a super drink. 00:45:55.639 --> 00:45:59.679 Let's call it manna. they make manna now. And 00:45:59.679 --> 00:46:03.019 that is what is easier to keep those that are 00:46:03.019 --> 00:46:07.000 joined in their proper nutrition. Yeah, that's 00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:10.280 certainly another way to look at it. And I definitely 00:46:10.280 --> 00:46:13.099 had the feeling in the back of my mind that they 00:46:13.099 --> 00:46:17.619 are purposefully leading us this way as well 00:46:17.619 --> 00:46:20.800 as a sort of a red herring. So that's certainly 00:46:20.800 --> 00:46:23.400 something to keep in mind. And I think it's something 00:46:23.400 --> 00:46:27.300 we'll all be mulling about over the next 10 -day 00:46:27.300 --> 00:46:30.679 wait we have until the next episode and perhaps 00:46:30.679 --> 00:46:33.539 even longer than that I could very well see it 00:46:33.539 --> 00:46:39.780 where after this that Carol believes that they 00:46:39.780 --> 00:46:42.820 are utilizing these dead bodies as their sustenance, 00:46:42.820 --> 00:46:49.099 but When she presents that to the other 12 survivors 00:46:49.550 --> 00:46:52.929 as what she believes is fact, we find out that 00:46:52.929 --> 00:46:55.610 it is indeed fiction. And once again, we find 00:46:55.610 --> 00:46:59.469 Carol alone and cut off from the remainder of 00:46:59.469 --> 00:47:02.449 the survivors due to that reason. Well, I tell 00:47:02.449 --> 00:47:05.050 you what, it keeps getting deeper. We keep coming 00:47:05.050 --> 00:47:08.449 up with interesting theories as this thing rolls 00:47:08.449 --> 00:47:11.190 along. We are figuring out what clues we can. 00:47:11.510 --> 00:47:15.170 And I am most certainly quite excited for the 00:47:15.170 --> 00:47:18.539 upcoming episode six. Well, I think that'll do 00:47:18.539 --> 00:47:21.860 us this week for E Pluribus Unum. Thank you, 00:47:21.860 --> 00:47:24.340 Carol, so much for listening to us, and we'll 00:47:24.340 --> 00:47:25.480 talk to you next week.