A stem cell is a cell that can differentiate into all other cell types. An egg is a stem cell.
Koumba turning his nicely prepared breakfast into a giant messy sandwich in order to try it the way Carol ate it was a nice touch.
Also, I can’t help but think the writer of this episode got a note from an Apple TV exec saying, “Do the individuals have to use Zoom to call each other for their chats? Why not FaceTime instead?”
Sure. People eat 2 to 4 pounds of food per day. 8 billion people eat 8 to 16 megatons of food per day. So if they could find a few million elephants that died of natural causes every single day they would have enough meat.
I think the breakfast told us something - that Koumba hadn’t been surprised since everything changed. The others cater to every need, but perhaps they can’t show him things he isn’t already familiar with. Maybe that will turn something in his brain - like maybe he’ll eventually get sick of the complete lack of creativity and originality.
John Cena’s body seemed to indicate that they are okay with milking the billions of domesticated animals that require milking.
Of course, he also said that “We can’t purposefully kill, harm, or otherwise interfere with any form of life,” when they pretty clearly purposeful interfered with all human life.
Yeah, this is what makes me think the “Rules” are BS. They’re playing Carol, and the other 12 humans. They don’t know how to change the 12, but they do know there’s some way the 12 can change them. They’re playing the nice naive people game to keep the humans in the dark.
They are saying what their biological imperative drives them to say.
It has zero to do with ethics, they do what she wants because upsetting her is a worldwide catastrophe. The question is “will this upset Carol enough to cause us to seizure”, and if it’s yes they won’t do it. I doubt they would use the eggs this way, it would trigger a volcanic reaction.
I am happy/relieved that they made the human meat thing an almost non-issue. I was really worried that the plot of the show was going to hinge on the other survivors turning on the hive mind just because they ate corpses, like that was some grand evil thing the hive mind did rather than just a practical, harmless, obvious move. Mr. Diabate knowing about it and just being like “yeah, ick, but whatever, it makes sense” is an unexpectedly great way to handle the false drama of this discovery. I was fully prepared to be annoyed at that plot line and I’m quite pleasantly surprised it didn’t end up being a big deal.
I’m confused about the issue related to Carol’s consent to be other-ized. In the very first episode, they indicate that they plan to make her join the hive mind. And she reminds them that they told her that she can be her own person, and they sort of give her a non-answer by telling her when she understands how great it is to be one of them, she’ll be happy to be part of them. Basically it’s almost like they’re retroactively justifying taking her over because they’re confident she will be happy they did it. And because that’s exactly what she’s asking, if they felt that they needed her permission to convert her you would’ve expected them to say that then. They don’t say, IIRC, that it will be her choice or that she’ll have an option not to become part of them. Later when the conversation comes up again, they (through Zosia) say they’re following a biological imperative by forcing the remaining un-hived people to join the hive.
So it seems clear that once they figure out how to assimilate the remaining survivors, they’re going to do so and they’re not going to ask permission. Am I missing something? Did everyone else also understand that to be the situation?
So, then, for them to be able to convert her but saying they won’t without her permission seems like an inconsistency. There may be an explanation for their inconsistency – for example, perhaps they’re lying to her now about needing her permission and they plan to convert her anyway and they have some plan to get her cells without risking a bad interaction with her that hasn’t come to fruition yet. Or perhaps they’re lying in some way about having the ability to do so (technically it’s Mr Diabate telling us and not the hive directly). But I would expect Carol to say basically “hey, you basically told me you weren’t going to need my permission to assimilate me before, why are you saying you do now?”
Everybody always makes fun of avocado toast until they actually try it.
I agree that the others seem to be making it up as they go. They obviously weren’t too concerned about consent when they forcibly kissed strangers or crop dusted the entire planet.
BTW - Does anybody know how long it takes to drive from Paraguay to New Mexico? I seem to remember when I was a kid that that wasn’t even possible.
I think there’s a decent chance that the “solution” will not be about reversing the change, but rather modifying it, possibly even through argument and logic rather than science. For example - how can they justify what they’re doing if they’re dooming everyone to starvation?
Vince Gilligan does have a thing for lawyers.
The permission is not whether or not to convert her. The permission is to harvest stem cells from her body which would require a painful procedure. Remember that they won’t physically harm the survivors.
Here’s how the conversation played out at the end of the episode:
Carol: “It’s me. Is it true that you need our stem cells to turn us into you? And furthermore, is it true that you need our express permission to collect those stem cells?”
BILLBOARD: That is correct Carol. On both counts.
Carol: “I am officially going on record that I do not consent. You will not lay a finger on me. Repeat that back.”
BILLBOARD: No stem cells will be collected from your body.
Clearly leaves a giant loophole.
That does make sense, though it is a bit wild that they think extracting a sample from someone, a temporary discomfort, is something that would be too harmful to do but removing someone’s individuality permanently is acceptable. But that does make sense if they truly believe that their existence is far superior to Carol’s and she’d be happier like them.
But with their extreme aversion of causing harm (even refusing to kill plants) I suppose it makes sense that taking a painful sample against someone’s will could be unacceptable to them.
But yes, Checkov’s frozen eggs are definitely a workaround here.
The way I understand it, if the Hive can convert Carol painlessly (e.g. by reworking the virus so it affects her and then flying another plane over her house) then they’ll do it. However, if they need to cause her any kind of physical discomfort or inconvenience, no matter how minor, then they won’t. When Carol discussed this with Zosia in episode 3, Zosia didn’t know that, when the Hive eventually found a way to infect her, it would involve a painful procedure, so Zosia was able to say (in a roundabout way) that they’d infect her whether she liked it or not because she was operating under the assumption that they’d be able to do it painlessly.
I must say, I’m losing patience with Carol’s refusal/inability to ask the Hive obvious questions. If I were her, asking “Are you still working on a non-invasive way to infect me?” would’ve been the first thing I would’ve asked.
They can’t lie, but they can refuse to answer. But a refusal to answer is an answer, so I agree that she should ask them this.
But I’m almost certain that, before the season is over, she’s going to remember her frozen eggs and go into a panic to get them back.
I think that’s only true of fertilised eggs, and then the stem cells wouldn’t be Carol’s, they’d be the embryo’s.