My husband came up with a similar theory without the physical 4th floor. When he saw the identical projector/earphone setup he quipped, “The people responsible for the duplication are all part of the same entity and I’m betting those responsible don’t have counterparts. Look. even Management has their own duplicate.”
There was something even more strange about ‘management’. The voices didn’t sound normal in their headsets. Either aliens, the parent universe of the two split off and that device allos them to communicate across universes, or something.
I was confused by Emily constantly referring to ‘our’ side with the others. They are all from the original universe, but that Emily was supposed to be from the other side. So why were they all treating her like she was one of them? Is she a double agent? Or is she actually the original Emily and the two Emilies swapped sides just like the Howards, only the other Emily was hit by a car after she came through? But then didn’t we see her sidekick in the room show up at Pope’s place after Howard killed him? Or was that his counterpart?
I love this show, but it can get twisty. Lose your attention for a few minutes and you can be completely lost.
The showrunner says in the Q&A I previously mentioned that the “second season focuses in large part on the history and origins of Management.” So we might learn why the weirdness around those scenes in the two conference rooms.
(BTW, everyone here is calling the devices that were placed on the desks projectors, but I assumed they were actually cameras, so Management could see everything in the rooms.)
Reviving this thread to let everyone know (in case you were unaware) that the second season of this show starts on Starz on Sunday, December 9, at 9pm (right after Outlander). I’m looking forward to it, although I’m surprised they’re starting a new season now. Most shows are either taking a mid-season break or aren’t starting their new season until after the new year.
I’m only on episode 3 of the first season, so I’m going to post without reading the thread because I want to vent. The Starz app (which otherwise seems pretty good) blurbs “Catch up on Season 2 now!” given that S2 just started. But when you actually follow that link to do so (or watch the S1 episodes without following the link, for that matter), each episode has a spoileriffic preview for S2! :smack: WTF, Starz, WTF.
I’ve started watching Season 2. I guess I’ll hold my thoughts for a week or so.
About 40 minutes into the first episode of season 2 I found myself thoroughly confused, so I stopped the recording and (over the next 10 days) binged the entire first season via On Demand. I watched the original run back in March, but had forgotten so much the season 2 premiere was just gibberish.
I’m now caught up on the first 3 episodes of season 2, and while I love this show to death, I have to call shenanigans on a couple aspects of the premise and last season’s plot:
- There is massive security regarding the tunnel, and only 1 person at a time, and you need a visa, and blah blah blah. So what the hell is interface? There are like 30 private stalls with just glass separating the two universes. I’m sure it’s very strong glass, but still. That seems like a massive security hole for people in charge of the border. If you wanted to mount an unauthorized crossing by force, you’d ignore the tunnel and head straight for interface.
1a) So, yeah, what’s the deal with the tunnel? If interface really is separated by an inches-thick pane of reinforced bullet-proof plexiglass (or whatever), the 100-foot tunnel seems like nothing but an affectation. It’s worth noting that the first season very strongly implied that when we see Howard Alpha using the tunnel to cross in the middle of the season, that was all new to him. As in, he didn’t use a long tunnel in his interface days. So it stands to reason the other side doesn’t have a tunnel for interface either. So you don’t need a tunnel to get within inches of the other universe.
- The school performed some seriously miraculous prediction to place those sleeper agents. The team was a woman and two guys. Of the two guys, the one who died in the crossing worked in the mail room. How long could he have worked there? Let’s say a few years, so a few years ago Indigo recruited his Prime, fine, I’m on board. The second guy we don’t really see on our side; maybe a cubicle drone? Same deal.
But the woman specifically told Clare how much of an honor it was to meet her, and that she was in the school but a year behind Clare. Her Alpha counterpart was an executive assistant to the head of strategy. (She got his coffee.) Uh, yeah, way to predict your secretary counterpart would strike gold on the 1 in a million chance of scoring a high security secretary gig in a decade or two. That goes way beyond straining credibility.
Much more logical would have been to replace your ordinary counterparts and then apply for those high security positions. But we know from the show that they just came over, and their Alpha versions already had those jobs and in fact Baldwin hadn’t even killed them yet. Which brings me to…
2a) Why all the training with the school again? For Clare it makes sense, but for the woman who crossed and shot up the building, she maybe spoke 20 sentences (19 of them off screen) during the entire time she was pretending to be her Alpha…she replaced her that morning. A lifetime of schooling to play that role seems like monumental overkill. Or, rather, a tremendous, extravagant, and pointless waste of resources.
Having said all that, I really do love this show.
Shit, this started again already? I hope i recorded it.
I believe three episodes of the second season have already aired but will probably still be available via the On Demand service of your cable company.
I thought the tunnel was just supposed to be an atmospheric version of Checkpoint Charlie. Note the uneven, precarious floor and weird seismic noises, representing the shifting relations between the two sides. As you point out, there is no tunnel on the Interface floor. Interestingly, in the basement tunnel right where the border line is painted on the floor, on the walls you can see some warped tiles and smashed equipment, so I guess the story is that the lab where the fateful experiment was conducted (“if anyone knows what they did, they’re not telling”) was there in the basement.
You can think of the tunnel as a version of Checkpoint Charlie if you like. Personally, I treat the show as a metaphor for the silliness of all human conflict. During the Cold War, East and West Germany were bitter enemies despite having the same history up until the end of the Second World War. And in the show, Earth Alpha and Earth Prime had the same history until the incident that resulted in the parallel worlds.
I’m pretty much with Ellis Dee: I like the show a lot, but there are some serious contrivances that one must handwave away, and I feel like the brilliant underlying concept and the execution of so much else tells me they could have done better.
To pick at Interface a little more: why does it even exist to begin with? If they have diplomats and customs, why do they need people (who are not “read in”) wearing elaborate Fifties costumes and communicating in code? (There can’t be very much communicated in each encounter, when you think about it and how constrained their cipher is: maybe the equivalent of a word or two?) TBH, I think this is something they thought would be cool in the pilot, but then abandoned it once the series got underway.
An example of why I feel that they are more thorough in many other ways: I love the detail that Peter has installed this heavy duty lock in the room where he stays. We see that he is working counterintelligence against his wife, but what was the excuse he told her, I wonder? Just that he was afraid she might one day murder him in his sleep?
Peter needs no “excuse” for distrusting his wife. He knows that she is from the other side and sent to spy on him and she knows that he knows.
But he has pretended at times to be more “with her” than he actually was.
They both know that they are actively against each other’s teams, but they have to protect each other individually to keep themselves safe.
I guess I took a different initial impression from the intentional car crash: that he seemed to be just saying “fuck it” and joining her “team”. Not out of true-believer fanaticism (and BTW, one wonders whether her “true belief” is shaken now that she knows Pope had her parents killed), but out of a pragmatic self-preservation drive, combined with having never been very ideological to begin with.
Then when we saw he was bugging her shoe, I was a little surprised (and pleased, as I always kind of liked Peter’s character). But I took that as something he was engaging in way on the DL, while maintaining an outward facade to her of “I’m not going to be your lover, but I am professionally working in concert with you” while working with her to maintain the further-out facade of married normalcy to her parents et al.
Ah, yeah, I see how you got there. Your reasoning makes sense, though that wasn’t my take-away.
I think both of them put Spencer above everything else; over the job/cause, each other, and even themselves. The car accident was to provide a cover for the family so they could keep Spencer.
Right after the car accident (between seasons) they sold the house and bought a fortifiable apartment they could share while still feeling reasonably safe from each other, since the trust at that point was almost nil. As the months went on they have gradually begun trusting each other a tiny bit, like eating food the other prepared. But not so much as to abandon the nighttime fortifications.
The whole time they’ve both still been openly aligned with their opposing causes, and they both know it. But by now it’s more like opposing spies who occasionally share non-critical intel to help each other out. Sort of like every spy relationship you see on a show like Homeland.
Bugging her shoe was him still working for his cause, which she wouldn’t see as a betrayal in and of itself because she knows he’s actively working against her cause. The problem is that by doing so he blew her cover, which is a major problem for both of them because it puts their family (Spencer) at risk.
Have we seen evidence that she has fortifications of her own?
We haven’t seen her room, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she does or doesn’t.
I would be surprised if she does.