I was too busy to post an overview of episode 4 after I saw it, so my memory of it isn’t quite as fresh. I just saw episode 5 last night, so I should be able to give a proper recap.
Episode 4 recap:
Main:
Pottinger and Berlin are in a transport vehicle, bringing mining supplies and “other goodies” back to Defiance.
A group of guys snipes the drivers and guards, leaving just Pottinger and Berlin alive.
The lead thief urinates on Pottinger
Nolan is called in to track down the thieves
Tommy and Nolan look over a corpse that one of the thieves had stepped on, and notice that there’s a footprint with dust that’s particular to the Defiance mines. Nolan dusts it off and pretends that it’s not evidence that the thieves were miners with McCawley’s group.
McCawley comes home to discover boxes of mining supplies, and starts berating his godson as an idiot.
Nolan shows up and is ready to take care of the godson until McCawley trades in some favors. They plan to silently return the goods.
However, the godson finds out that Berlin has some video of the thieves that she’s in the process of recovering, and skips out on them.
The godson tries to steal the camera, but Berlin sees his face and he ends up kidnapping her.
McCawley and Nolan track down the godson. McCawley takes the godson outside and pulls a Steinbeck and puts down ol’ Lennie.
Pottinger shows up at the McCawley house and boots McCawley out (presumably taking everything McCawley owns)
Tertiary:
Stahma tries to convince Datak that they should work as a team. He declines, because she’s a woman. She points out that they never followed the rules of society when they were young and, on Earth, do not have to. She points out how much he hated his father and how cruel and traditional he was, which were things that Datak had hated. Datak, however, appears to have embraced traditional Castithan religion while in the slammer and is more interested in going the traditional route now than ever before.
He gathers his former dons and kills one at random, as a scapegoat for their obedience to his wife, in his absence.
He takes Alak to Alak’s music LP factory - which is apparently a booming business - and declares that it will become a front for the mafia.
Datak smashes and burns Alak’s hand in a press.
Stahma finds out what Datak had done, convinces the dons to kick the crap out of Datak, and she boots him from the house. She is now the official head of the mafia.
Tertiary:
Pottinger reveals to Amanda that he was abused/molested by Votans as a young boy, after everything had gone to hell.
She reveals that she had been raped by someone in the E-Rep, gotten pregnant, lied about it to the E-Rep guy that was friendly with her in Season 1 as being his, and then they’d split up when she terminated it.
Tertiary:
Doc Yewl… Don’t remember if there was anything.
Tertiary:
Tommy/Berlin/Irisa… Nolan has annoyed Tommy further by dealing with the godson in a manner sensitive to the town’s internal politics rather than the law.
And episode 5 recap:
Main:
Amanda is attacked by a masked man in her home. She kicks his butt and throws him out the window.
Nolan is enlisted to track down the masked man.
Nolan confronts her in an alley, intimates that she’s his property and he’s going to do mean awful things to her. Coming out of the alley, she sees him across the way and realizes that the Nolan she just saw was a hallucination.
Nolan reports that there’s no evidence that there had been an intruder at her house. She agrees that she’s hallucinating.
Doc Yewl and Pottinger also appear to be affected. Yewl is seeing her old lover. Pottinger is seeing Amanda’s old E-Rep boyfriend.
At home, Amanda believes the house is being invaded. Tommy and Irisa - who have been put on watch duty - go to make sure. Amanda somehow ends up shooting Irisa and Tommy.
Irisa heals magically, and lies that she wasn’t shot to Nolan, despite the blood splatter, etc.
Amanda has run away. Nolan’s crew put out an APB on her.
Amanda turns up at the Needs Want, collapses, and starts foaming at the mouth.
Yewl is nowhere to be found. They look Amanda over and notice she has a whatsit (a sick/malfunctioning Emo? or something?) transplanted in the back of her neck.
They take her in to surgery, and just as they’re starting the procedure to remove the Emo, Yewl shows up and helps them remove it. Nolan is unaware that anyone other than Amanda was affected.
Tertiary:
Datak and Yewl are friends. She gives him a pep-talk basically saying that he needs to chill out with his whole Castithan thing, but also get smart and - if he wants his family back - figure out a way to do it.
Stahma has taken in McCawley to live with them, as family. She makes claim to Alak’s ability to help her with the Mafia. Potentially, she’s sizing him up as a new mate, to replace Datak.
Datak goes to see Stahma and uses some sort of Castithan legalese to claim visitation rights. He discovers that McCawley is living there and that he seems to be friendly with Stahma.
Christie (McCawley’s daughter/Alak’s wife) goes to find Alak and instead meets Alak’s sexy flunky girl. After complaining to the woman about Castithans, and how she’s going to have to deal with Datak’s visitation rights because of stupid legalese, the crazy sexy chick invites Christie out to go do something regrettable.
Datak hires an Irathient boy toy at the Needs Want, but it’s soon revealed that the man is actually a spy/contact for the Voltanus Collective. Datak says to send message that he’s ready to lead any movement that help remove Defiance from the Earth Republic’s control.
Datak goes to talk to McCawley, and lets him know that he’s got weapons on the way, to deal with the E-Reps. McCawley’s interested.
Tertiary:
Yewl had a lover who helped her to do bad things (war criminal style scientific research on people) back in the day.
Eventually, the lover killed herself.
Yewl is seeing her because of the Emo. She decides to keep seeing the hallucinations as long as she can, but cuts out Pottinger’s Emo for him.
It’s revealed that the Emo or Emo disease was something that Yewl had developed for Pottinger, to be able to upload Amanda’s memories to the cloud, so he could look through them.
Supposedly, his memories weren’t uploaded.
Tertiary:
Pottinger’s hallucinations of Amanda’s old beau reveal that Pottinger’s interests in her might have more to do with the beau than with her. The dialogue was a bit unclear, but there was some things about the two men as boys, about a hair, and that Pottinger had wronged him.
I didn’t feel like episode 4’s main story was all that interesting. The writers needed a way to get McCawley in greater trouble and more angry at the E-Reps, but I didn’t really care about the godson and nothing they portrayed about him made him seem like someone worth caring about. They should either have introduced him in an earlier episode or come up with something else.
It’s hard to tell what Stahma’s intentions are with McCawley. It could be as simple as a matter of family, that she took him in. At the end of the day, she might genuinely be family-minded and wanting to give her child a nice life with a woman he likes, and to be friendly with her family. She could be attracted to powerful men and is just as happy to be with McCawley as Datak. She could still be trying to claim the mines somehow. There just ain’t no knowing.
And I’m really curious about Pottinger’s intentions. I’d never paid attention to Amanda’s relationship with fedora guy, from the Earth Republic, nor thought it relevant to much. I don’t even remember the guy’s name. Now he appears to be central to something or another. We don’t know whether Pottinger likes her at all, even likes women, or even whether - whatever creepy past he might have - his intentions are creepy now. He might be trying to track down the artifacts or some other secret and is just using spycraft to do so.
Does Pottinger know about Irisa’s…implants? Her file was erased, but Yewl knows all about it, so he might have found out from her. In fact when he first started asking her questions about the contents of her safe I assumed he was talking about Irisa, then once he asked her if she could really do what she claimed in her book, I wasn’t sure.
Regardless, I am pretty sure Pottinger is only disguised as human. Like Mayor Nicky, and probably the same race as her and Yewl (what is it called again?)
Still not advancing Irisa’s story that much, they’re mostly keeping her in the background the past few episodes. I’m wondering if her implants have anything to do with the ones Yewl, Pottinger, and Amanda have. Obviously it’s not the same, but how do either of them fit in and what do they all do? Curious as to why all 3 had the same chip, but I’m thinking it was to share Amanda’s memories or emotions for some unknown purpose. I’m also not clear on whether her hallucinations were deliberately caused using the chip (by Pottsy), or an unintended side effect. And why is Yewl also picking up blasts from the past? My guess, Amanda Knew Too Much, so the Earth Republic zapped her memories, and Pottsy and Yewl are trying to get them back on the sly because she’s booby trapped or something.
I was wondering if Stahma had Rafe taken in to get on his good side vs her husband. I definitely think she has an ulterior motive for everything she does. It’s strange to see Rafe plotting with him. If they do work together Datak will gain power and use it against Stahma. He’s not going to give up his empire easily.
I think Yewl is probably the person most active in keeping the artifacts hidden and secret, so I’m doubtful that she’d tell him anything about them, let alone if she had any reason to believe that it might find its way back to the Earth Republic.
So far as the show has indicated, it seems like Yewl is pretty happy with having the implants in Irisa. While her method for suppressing knowledge is pretty laidback and non-interferist, it does seem to be pretty effective. So I’d imagine that if she wanted the implants to be found or extracted from the Irathient girl, that they’d be gone.
Indogenes.
I hadn’t thought of that, though I suppose it’s possible. What makes you think he’s not human? That he’s searching for something, without seeming to do it as part of his official capacity?
The episode described what the neck implants were and what had affected them, but they cruised through it too fast for me to follow. Maybe tonight, I’ll go through and write down the dialogue, here.
As much as i enjoy the show as it is game of thrones has spoiled me for certain things. You don’t let a guy like Datak Tarr go with a beating after you betray him, that is ridiculously stupid. I never expected him to walk out of that tent, but then i remembered he was a main character and this ain’t GoT.
I didn’t think it was unrealistic. Certainly, there are cases in history of royals committing horrendous acts on their relatives, in the name of power. But there’s also cases of royals letting their relatives get away with completely unforgivable things for decades, because they are after all relatives.
A realistic show would, of course, incorporate all sorts of variations.
Datak is a vicious murderer, everyone in that tent was perfectly aware of that. Not just that but the religion he was showing obsession with explicitly encouraged him to kill his wife. Betraying him, beating the crap out of him and then just letting him go is something that would only happen because he happens to be a main character on the show.
I don’t think Yewl put Irisa’s implants in, I thought it was part of an experiment that she was forced to participate in.
I guess I’m thinking of Pottinger as a possible Indogene in disguise because he seems to be a little too smart for a human. Plus he figured out that 1)Yewl had a hidden safe in her office and 2)How to open it without any more information from her and 3)How to read Yewl’s writings that were in the safe. He didn’t have them translated or anything, it seemed obvious from his face as he leafed through them that he knew instantly what he was looking at, and he came to her immediately afterwards and knew all about it without questioning her previously. So if he’s experienced in Indogene language and safes he’s either had a LOT of experience with them (which is possible), or he is one himself.
I’m still trying to figure out Yewl. She’s made mention of atoning for past sins and experiments on humans, but is that just her cover story or is she genuinely repentant? And had Pottinger planted memories of her ghost lover into her chip to gain information and see if she’s hiding anything, or what was the meaning of those bits?
Yes. At least one Indogene portrayed herself as a human. And the Indogenes created a Manchurian Candidate Indogene/Human clone from an astronaut, kidnapped before the aliens ever revealed themselves to Earth.
Mayor Nicky, who kicked off season 1, was revealed to be an Indogene in disguise.
Probably, but I just don’t see what benefit they would gain. I think it’s more about Stahma going against millenia of oppression and becoming liberated. I bet she causes a female Casti revolution.
Maybe, but then again Hideyoshi, son of peasants and conqueror of Japan, upon reaching power decided that it was too dangerous at the top to allow peasants to weild weapons and banned the practice. Stahma could always decide that all feminism accomplishes is more people to compete for power against.
Pottinger has been ordered by his E-Rep boss (Mercado) to go scout an Arcfall wreck for super soldier robots.
Pottinger is okay until Mercado forces him to take Nolan, as a former professional Arc Hunter. Gruggingly, he’s forced to go along with it.
Pottinger and Nolan lead a troup of soldiers out to the Arc.
Nolan learns about the history of Pottinger’s BioMan, adopted and raised as his friend/pet/thing.
They search the Arc and Nolan finds out that they were there to get robotic soldiers. But all are fried except one which has escaped.
Leaving the Arc, they discover that the robot has killed all the E-Rep soldiers.
Going back in, they prepare a MacGuyveresque trap for it.
Needing more time, Nolan tells Pottinger that his life depends on buying them time. Pottinger sends his BioMan to stop the robot. The BioMan dies, his “brain” fried.
They beat the robot.
Tertiary:
One of Stahma’s main businesses is being blockaded by traditional Castithans.
Talking to Datak, she discovers that the guy leading the blockade is incorruptible.
She gets together with the guys wife and her friends and tries to convert them over. Despite some success with one, she’s out of luck with the wife.
She poisons them and frames the wife and her friends as feminist crusaders, murdered by the husband.
He’s put up for public shaming.
Tertiary:
Tommy decides to quit working with Nolan.
Berlin and him are going to move to Texas together.
Irisa is caught mid-mouth stab by Tommy. She convinces him to let her prove that the stabbees come back to life, unharmed.
They talk about things (I don’t remember what).
The stabbee wakes up, and Irisa makes Tommy promise that he won’t tell anyone.
She says that she “needs him”
Tommy goes back to Berlin and tells her he can’t go, because he needs to be available to Irisa.
Berlin dumps him.
Tertiary:
Mercado goes to Amanda and asks for a way to “get outside his skin”. She says that the Needs Want doesn’t do that sort of thing and directs him to another place.
Mercado dresses up as a Castithan in his office.
Mercado goes to a secret party, composed entirely (?) of humans dressed up as aliens.
He introduces himself to a pretty young woman - Christie, also dressed as a Castithan, presumably brought there by the former Needs Want girl that Alak hired to run the radio station.
I’ll admit that I do find it a good, proper SF idea that people would dress up all Voltany, when exposed to a bunch of foreign cultures. It will be interesting to see how well that goes off with real Voltans. One can presume that the Earth Republic isn’t a fan of the practice.
Otherwise, it was a pretty stupid episode, I’ve got to say. I expect that the next episode will carry on like normal, despite the loss of hundreds of E-Rep soldiers; it made no particular sense why Tommy would stay for Irisa or why she would ask him to; and Pottinger’s relationship with his BioMan failed to display him as either a nice guy deep down or as a selfish b-tard.
I don’t understand why Christie would choose to be a Castithan of all the races she could choose. It seems like if she’s already in an ideal position be treated like a traditional Castithan woman if she so chose?
I agree with you, some of the stories this episode felt like filler or were badly set up. The biomans history felt like it was just set up to make his death more dramatic and to humanize Pottinger a little bit but it just felt contrived to me. Same with Tommy and his triangle. But you didn’t mention Berlin and Nolan in the sack together, which of course is going to get back to Tommy and further what’s looking like a big conflict between him and Nolan. Unless it was one of those neck chip hallucinations?
I think Christie painting herself up like a Castithian was because of her new husbands “You can be such a…human!” comment a few episodes ago. She ran to Arch Slut, who told her “the only way you can understand them is to be one of them”. So that was what led up to the make up bar scene.
Now Mercado dressing up as a Casti was strange IMO. But we haven’t seen much of him so far so we don’t really know anything about him. It looks like he’s going to be getting a bigger role (until he dies next episode).
Also, McCawley visits Datak’s hovel; Datak pulls out a case. The contents of which glows blue and is implied to be an explosive powerful enough to leave McCawley’s eyebealls atop the arch.
No, his was a complete ban on any weapon use by peasants.
“Hideyoshi aimed at disarming potential adversaries, and he launched what was known as the great “sword hunt.” Also, in order to discourage uprisings, he wanted a distinct line between various social classes. Peasants, he proclaimed, were ‘strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of weapons.’ He followed this with a promise to melt down the weapons collected for building a great statue of the Buddha.”[sup[/sup]](Japan, to 1700)
I don’t know of anything limiting peasants to just firearms. If there was, it would be in relation to the ashigaru, but I don’t see any such reference. Though obviously they did end up specializing in firearm use.