S01.E11: Asalah

[ottoDbusdriver]

Episode Description:

Quote

When a woman who has been affected by the Debris is found with knowledge of Bryan's past, he is forced to confront his trauma.

 

Air Date: May 10, 2021

[shapeshifter]

So is this what they call a “bottle” episode?

I want to watch the show that was the previous 2 episodes. 

[janeta]

The fake beard and hair… I can’t even…. 
 

I want to know more about what the injections are stopping.

[shapeshifter]

4 minutes ago, janeta said:

The fake beard and hair… I can’t even….

I was afraid it would be too snarky of me to ask if the hair and makeup folks were out sick with Covid when they shot this episode. "Too snarky" because that may really have happened. 🤕

[janeta]

2 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

I was afraid it would be too snarky of me to ask if the hair and makeup folks were out sick with Covid when they shot this episode. "Too snarky" because that may really have happened. 🤕

I know hobbyist cosplayers who do better fake hair. Everybody else in the ep looked fine. 
 

do we know how many eps are left in this season? I'm wondering where it will all end up…

[shapeshifter]

28 minutes ago, janeta said:

32 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

I was afraid it would be too snarky of me to ask if the hair and makeup folks were out sick with Covid when they shot this episode. "Too snarky" because that may really have happened. 🤕

I know hobbyist cosplayers who do better fake hair. Everybody else in the ep looked fine. 

For sure!
But I am guessing that a lot of shows that have weak episodes in bizarre ways this season are due to some Covid-related event --especially because I recall reading that there were a lot of outbreaks in Hollywood after productions resumed, and so that likely could have happened in Vancouver as well.  
I'm recalling the effect of Writers' Strike of 14 years ago and how some worthy shows disappeared. 
Maybe it wasn't that the hair and makeup person was out with Covid; maybe the supplies didn't get delivered.
IDK. I can successfully cut and style my own hair, but nobody has invited me to do theirs, LOL.
Regardless.
Somebody should have made a decision to toss the fake hair. A hat could have signified he was in the past, as would a sepia filter.

And the whole episode dealt with this one aspect of the past without tying into the rest of the story adequately. 
At the end, when Bryan questioned why he was seeing the past, the audience was left wondering the same.

[Jenniferbug]

Not a terrible episode, but I was really hoping for more answers than we got. I would have preferred a flashback to whatever incident caused him to need the mysterious shots over "shit goes sideways in Afghanistan and causes PTSD" because, yeah, we know that. 

Still, I find myself hoping this show does get renewed because they are setting up things I want answers to (the shots, what is going on with the agent who changed faces, Ash's debris group whose name I can't remember, etc). 

[janeta]

25 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

And the whole episode dealt with this one aspect of the past without tying into the rest of the story adequately. 
At the end, when Bryan questioned why he was seeing the past, the audience was left wondering the same.

From the promo for next week, it looks like the debris will figure out a way to continue the interaction with someone else.

[MyArchangel]

2 hours ago, janeta said:

I know hobbyist cosplayers who do better fake hair. Everybody else in the ep looked fine. 
 

do we know how many eps are left in this season? I'm wondering where it will all end up…

2 more episodes are left.

[MyArchangel]

So with the ending of this episode and the Native America talking about 4 different types of metal and the dark metal wind coming next, are they going in the direction of Native American’s being the forefathers of the alien spacecraft or related somehow? 

Edited May 11, 2021 by MyArchangel

[shapeshifter]

26 minutes ago, MyArchangel said:

So with the ending of this episode and the Native America talking about 4 different types of metal and the dark metal wind coming next, are they going in the direction of Native American’s being the forefathers of the alien spacecraft or related somehow? 

I shuddered at them going in the NA direction --maybe because the bad fake hair destroyed my faith in the show's ability to realistically portray anything, let alone cultural themes.
Or maybe, as was commented in Reddit, it was the treatment of gender issues that made me cringe at the story going in a NA direction:

Quote

Also a bit disappointing that the show used the deaths of two innocent women as props for the main male lead’s character development.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Debris/comments/n9lx55/debris_s01e11_asalah_episode_discussion/

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by shapeshifter

[salaydouk]

What a drop off...  

But regarding the hair and beard, I am pretty sure this was time/cost related, but there were a ton of different ways to show time/location difference without using a dead fake ferret... but I don't believe that root case for it was Covid.  I read somewhere that filming for Season1 happened between Nov 2020-Apr 2021 and the series premiered on Mar 1, 2021. So at the very least it means the show was at least in post production for at least half of the episodes and possibly was still filming the last 1-2 episodes when the show premiered.  So I am thinking they simply did not have time in the schedule to get the hair/beard right.

The explanation of Bryan's war crime does not make any freaking sense.  He and his team are hunting for insurgents and they run into them in a cave and he goes nuts and kills them... but they are a special set of insurgents working with the CIA... and he was going to be charged with a war crime for killing them?!?!  Ah that is a load of just crap...  US soldiers looking for insurgents, finds them and kills them this _not_ a war crime.  If they were women and children and they kill them yes that is a war crime.  But not what he described here.  Would the CIA be POed heck yeah, could they have tried to get him strung up on charges perhaps.    But here is the deal, the US military would not charge a US service member with war crimes.  The service member would be charged with the specific article/crime under the UCMJ(Uniform Code of Military Justice) they are alleged to have committed, ie with Murder, Dereliction of  Duty, and the catch all Conduct Unbecoming, etc.  But US does not charge its own with the the blanket charge of "war crimes."

George driving himself across the country?!?!  Huh?   Why wouldn't Garcia have gone with him?  I mean slap on some colored contacts! And what is the deal with him needing aluminum foil?

This stupid episode had to make it explicit so we all know Bryan is the Soldier and Finola is the Penguin in the Soldier and Penguin story.  Like it wasn't obviously based on how Bryan was looking at Asalah the entire episode, the fact that she had to be dead, and the fact that Brya n's PTSD prevents him from being more open, didn't make it obvious.   But it did make me think about Bryan thanking Finola for worrying about him when he board the plane after undergoing tests after being cloned. And him saying it had been a long time since someone worried about him.    

What I am still trying to figure out though is why would Maddox getting out from being charged under the UCMJ be enough for Bryan to say that Maddox saved his life. What else happened that this episode did not show what other events are they connected by?  Was the purpose just for us to see the point where the two of them met? And yes I would have definitely been more interested in knowing the reason for the shots..

But what was the point for the time flux in and out where we go from just a real memory to memory Bryan "seeing"/or real Bryan inserted into (with present knowledge) the memory and then moving back to just a real memory?   If Finola's "guess" is right and that the debris has "copied" their information/knowledge.  Then the debris specifically wanted him to relive this memory for a reason, probably not the emotional ones, but most likely to see if he can "see" the other elements, like the CIA/Maddox being there, that foreshadow his current life or see other undercurrents that are about to bubble up now.  The premise of the show is the alien ship blew up 3 years ago and elements have just now started falling on Earth.  So how long ago was this event in Afghanistan - 3 years, 2 years?  

Also is it me but wasn't this episode a really strange riff on the Star Trek TNG episode "Inner Light"? 

Edited May 11, 2021 by salaydouk

[sempervivum]

Thanks to Salaydouk for the comments on the military crime aspect; you confirm that this plot point doesn't make sense (surprise!)

I thought the most peculiar line was Finola's 'I think the debris is starting to try to know us' (or words to that effect). Hasn't that been an ongoing theme from the beginning?

Groan at George randomly driving cross country (but forgetting to bring along his trusty roll of tinfoil), and double groan at the introduction of Magic Native Americans.

[shapeshifter]

17 minutes ago, salaydouk said:

What I am still trying to figure out though is why would Maddox getting out from being charged under the UCMJ be enough for Bryan to say that Maddox saved his life. What else happened that this episode did not show what other events are they connected by?  Was the purpose just for us to see the point where the two of them met? And yes I would have definitely been more interested in knowing the reason for the shots

There was a line about Bryan being uniquely effected/sought out by the Debris, so maybe the War Crimes charges were in part an elaborate ruse to get Bryan beholden to Maddox. 
IDK.
This episode seemed like a hodgepodge of backstories they needed to cram into the season before the end (including poor George’s road trip). 
So, regarding:

19 minutes ago, salaydouk said:

Also is it me but wasn't a really strange riff on the Star Trek TNG episode "Inner Light"?

Maybe?  
But this Debris episode is not in any way this show’s “best” whereas “Inner Light” (aka “Time’s Arrow”?) is described as possibly the Star Trek franchise’s best (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)).

[salaydouk]

9 minutes ago, sempervivum said:

Groan at George randomly driving cross country (but forgetting to bring along his trusty roll of tinfoil), and double groan at the introduction of Magic Native Americans.

If this show is doing what I think it is doing... then while cringe worthy it might be, the Native American aspect was already brought up in Episode 3, where the girl and a bunch of other people found access points to other dimensions.  And that such things had been apart of Native American folklore or centuries... 

 

[salaydouk]

17 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

There was a line about Bryan being uniquely effected/sought out by the Debris, so maybe the War Crimes charges were in part an elaborate ruse to get Bryan beholden to Maddox. 
IDK.
This episode seemed like a hodgepodge of backstories they needed to cram into the season before the end (including poor George’s road trip). 
So, regarding:

Maybe?  
But this Debris episode is not in any way this show’s “best” whereas “Inner Light” (aka “Time’s Arrow”?) is described as possibly the Star Trek franchise’s best (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)).

Well not sure how the Debris fits in and whether or not at the time the two of them were in Afghanistan that anyone knew about it or its affects. But yes insofar as to get Bryan loyal to Maddox getting him out of prison would create something.... Also the CIA regularly employs members of US Special Forces for missions, so there might yet still be more to this...

Agreed this seemed like it tried to sum up 5% of this season and setup to confuse us about the remaining 95% and to set up a second season. 

"Inner Light" was one of the best TNG episodes, not my #1 favorite, but darn good... Time's Arrow is a different episode entirely and was the actually the next episode.   And this episode of Debris was not close to be being better then the previous two. But the similarity of Bryan being "connected" to the woman  like Picard was to the Probe just sort of hit me... 

Edited May 11, 2021 by salaydouk

[saber5055]

Well, this episode put me back to where I was before the last two very good episodes -- this show I want to like is just background noise. I spent my hour staring at Bryan's Taliban beard and wondering why THAT was the choice of the make-up person. So I pretty much missed the story, didn't know if the dead Afghan woman was good or bad or Bryan's hope-to-be squeeze. Or even how she died. And therefore, I have nothing to contribute here.

[shapeshifter]

51 minutes ago, saber5055 said:

Well, this episode put me back to where I was before the last two very good episodes -- this show I want to like is just background noise. I spent my hour staring at Bryan's Taliban beard and wondering why THAT was the choice of the make-up person. So I pretty much missed the story, didn't know if the dead Afghan woman was good or bad or Bryan's hope-to-be squeeze. Or even how she died. And therefore, I have nothing to contribute here.

Afghan woman was good and naïve and ill-fated. She tried to warn Bryan that It's A Trap! and she got shot somehow. 
I think Bryan knew it would never work out between them anyway. 

Finola and her father are the Bizarro version of Asalah and her grandpa.

 

 

ETA from Reddit, the End credits audio transcript:

Man: We have found Beneventi. Over. Repeat. We've found Agent Beneventi.

Woman: He's in a state of confusion. There's a laceration on his chin and a wound on his upper chest.

Man: What the hell happened to these men?

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by shapeshifter

[saber5055]

33 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Woman: He's in a state of confusion.

Add me to that state of confusion.

[Jenniferbug]

35 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Afghan woman was good and naïve and ill-fated. She tried to warn Bryan that It's A Trap! and she got shot somehow. 
I think Bryan knew it would never work out between them anyway. 

Finola and her father are the Bizarro version of Asalah and her grandpa.

 

 

ETA from Reddit, the End credits audio transcript:

Man: We have found Beneventi. Over. Repeat. We've found Agent Beneventi.

Woman: He's in a state of confusion. There's a laceration on his chin and a wound on his upper chest.

Man: What the hell happened to these men?

 

I've thought about making a thread here for all of those. They're getting pretty interesting. I transcribed the last 2 episodes for the Reddit thread 😊

[redpencil]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

ETA from Reddit, the End credits audio transcript:

Man: We have found Beneventi. Over. Repeat. We've found Agent Beneventi.

Woman: He's in a state of confusion. There's a laceration on his chin and a wound on his upper chest.

Man: What the hell happened to these men?

I apparently don't hear the end credits audio since I watch on tv (and they never play credits, or if they do it's scrunched at the bottom with an ad or promo of some kind playing on the rest of the screen, so no credits audio for sure). But this confirms what I was thinking about the beard. I assumed it was to cover up the actor's scar, which they wanted to tie in later. Beard could have been done better, and the hair certainly could have been better, but I think that was a legitimate reason for it.

This episode definitely wasn't as good as the last two, but I do like the idea of the debris having some sort of collective purpose, beyond just individual pieces having their own effects. I also thought the emotional aspects, especially after Bryan was "pulled out", was done really well. The actor has definitely grown on me.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, Jenniferbug said:

I've thought about making a thread here for all of those. They're getting pretty interesting. I transcribed the last 2 episodes for the Reddit thread 😊

Thanks! https://forums.primetimer.com/topic/118412-end-credits-transmissions/

 

 

[tennisgurl]

Not as good as the two parter we just finished, but certainly interesting. Nothing really shocking in Bryan's backstory, I guessed that the poor young woman would die and that would lead to his crimes that got him sent to jail before being bailed out, but it was still handled alright. That fake facial hair though, lord. I spent the whole episode concerned about that mongoose living on his face, that cannot be safe in a war zone. 

So the Debris is learning about people? It seems like that lines up with what we have previously seen from debris, it could easily be trying to learn more about human behavior for some reason. So many of the debris have been used rather metaphorically to deal with the human experience and things people feel, so maybe that was all on purpose? The debris is trying to see how people react to things or to learn more about how they think? 

Finola and Bryan bickering about potholes was fun, I wish that they had more interactions this week now that the characters and actors are really gelling. 

Now there are Magical Native Americans? What now? This really has gone full X-Files. Maybe this is going to turn into some kind of ancient aliens thing where aliens have come here before and they dropped off stuff some other time?

Edited May 11, 2021 by tennisgurl

[shapeshifter]

3 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Now there are Magical Native Americans? What now? This really has gone full X-Files. Maybe this is going to turn into some kind of ancient aliens thing where aliens have come here before and they dropped off stuff some other time?

It does look like a possibility, but I will be very disappointed unless they manage to handle it better than any other writers have.

[Jenniferbug]

11 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Thanks! https://forums.primetimer.com/topic/118412-end-credits-transmissions/

 

 

Thank you for linking it here! 

[Whimsy]

13 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

For sure!
But I am guessing that a lot of shows that have weak episodes in bizarre ways this season are due to some Covid-related event --especially because I recall reading that there were a lot of outbreaks in Hollywood after productions resumed, and so that likely could have happened in Vancouver as well.  
I'm recalling the effect of Writers' Strike of 14 years ago and how some worthy shows disappeared. 
Maybe it wasn't that the hair and makeup person was out with Covid; maybe the supplies didn't get delivered.
IDK. I can successfully cut and style my own hair, but nobody has invited me to do theirs, LOL.
Regardless.
Somebody should have made a decision to toss the fake hair. A hat could have signified he was in the past, as would a sepia filter.

And the whole episode dealt with this one aspect of the past without tying into the rest of the story adequately. 
At the end, when Bryan questioned why he was seeing the past, the audience was left wondering the same.

That beard was so far out of regulation it was ridiculous. I could’ve given it a pass if all the other soldiers we saw didn’t get the shipment of razors in their care packages, but Bryan was the only one. 

11 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I shuddered at them going in the NA direction --maybe because the bad fake hair destroyed my faith in the show's ability to realistically portray anything, let alone cultural themes.
Or maybe, as was commented in Reddit, it was the treatment of gender issues that made me cringe at the story going in a NA direction:

 

OG Roswell started on an interesting alien/NA direction but then they dropped it entirely. 

6 hours ago, redpencil said:

I apparently don't hear the end credits audio since I watch on tv (and they never play credits, or if they do it's scrunched at the bottom with an ad or promo of some kind playing on the rest of the screen, so no credits audio for sure). But this confirms what I was thinking about the beard. I assumed it was to cover up the actor's scar, which they wanted to tie in later. Beard could have been done better, and the hair certainly could have been better, but I think that was a legitimate reason for it.

This episode definitely wasn't as good as the last two, but I do like the idea of the debris having some sort of collective purpose, beyond just individual pieces having their own effects. I also thought the emotional aspects, especially after Bryan was "pulled out", was done really well. The actor has definitely grown on me.

That’s interesting about the beard covering the scar, but makeup or CGI would’ve been a better choice. That beard was so distracting I had a hard time paying attention to the story. 

[alvajon]

I couldn’t take my eyes off Bryan’s fake beard and wig the whole time--had a hard time following the storyline.   Surely NBC could afford proper props, pandemic or not.  Besides, why was he the only one with long hair and beard? Trying to look like a Taliban soldier I suppose, but in a U.S. soldier uniform?  

[Melina22]

23 hours ago, janeta said:

I know hobbyist cosplayers who do better fake hair. Everybody else in the ep looked fine. 

To be fair to Debris, I'm constantly watching movies that cost millions to make, with A list stars wearing the fakest, deadest-looking, most amateurish wigs you could imagine. It absolutely baffles me, and has ruined so many shows and movies for me. They can de-age actors but they can't CGI their hair so it looks remotely real? Or, you know, found them good wigs? 

So I give Debris a pass. Or, no, not a pass because it wrecks the show and our suspension of disbelief, but at least Debris is in illustrious company. 

[shapeshifter]

55 minutes ago, Melina22 said:

So I give Debris a pass. Or, no, not a pass because it wrecks the show and our suspension of disbelief, but at least Debris is in illustrious company. 

I don't know, @Melina22, Bryan's cheap wig and beard may be in a shameful class of their own, LOL. 

[Diapason Untuned]

On 5/11/2021 at 10:16 AM, salaydouk said:

The explanation of Bryan's war crime does not make any freaking sense.  He and his team are hunting for insurgents and they run into them in a cave and he goes nuts and kills them... but they are a special set of insurgents working with the CIA... and he was going to be charged with a war crime for killing them?!?!  Ah that is a load of just crap...  US soldiers looking for insurgents, finds them and kills them this _not_ a war crime.  If they were women and children and they kill them yes that is a war crime.  But not what he described here.  Would the CIA be POed heck yeah, could they have tried to get him strung up on charges perhaps.    But here is the deal, the US military would not charge a US service member with war crimes.  The service member would be charged with the specific article/crime under the UCMJ(Uniform Code of Military Justice) they are alleged to have committed, ie with Murder, Dereliction of  Duty, and the catch all Conduct Unbecoming, etc.  But US does not charge its own with the the blanket charge of "war crimes."

Apparently these were different insurgents. You're right about how the show presented what happened with Bryan, but I'll assume they went with something the audience would find easier to understand like war crimes, rather than the UCMJ.

 

Quote

George driving himself across the country?!?!  Huh?   Why wouldn't Garcia have gone with him?  I mean slap on some colored contacts!

Garcia doesn't seem to like him very much, plus he has other work to do.

 

Quote

And what is the deal with him needing aluminum foil?

He's still paranoid.

 

Quote

What I am still trying to figure out though is why would Maddox getting out from being charged under the UCMJ be enough for Bryan to say that Maddox saved his life. What else happened that this episode did not show what other events are they connected by?  Was the purpose just for us to see the point where the two of them met? And yes I would have definitely been more interested in knowing the reason for the shots..

They seem to be saving the shots for later. I'm actually wondering if they were going to give Bryan over to the Afghan government or something.

[jaigurudeva]

Just gonna jump in on that terrible beard (and wig!) convo, cause holy cow. They're clearly spending most of their time on base, so there's no reason for his beard (and hair) to get so long and out of regulation, he looked like he wandered out of the Appalachians in 1879 or something. If they wanted to cover his scar, they should've used skin wax to cover it and then a lighter stubbly beard over that (best case scenario, depending on time constraints, should be to let the actor grow in his own beard for a week, and patch in whatever his scar won't grow).

From my understanding, given that they said the insurgents (counter-insurgents? double agents? it was pretty hand-wavy saying that this particular group was working with the CIA on something, maybe it'll come back later) were working with the US in some capacity I imagine they wouldn't fire upon US soldiers and would try to explain that they weren't enemy combatants, but Beneventi in his rage killed them before they had a chance. If that's the case, it's definitely something that could get him court martialed (USMJ article 119 probably). More likely it would probably get shoved under a rug and Beneventi would get shipped out somewhere else, but maybe the CIA might've been pissed enough to make a stink with top brass.

Definitely weird that the CIA would take Beneventi into their ranks after screwing up so bad in the Marines, though, specifically on a CIA op. There's definitely more going on there. Interesting that the credits audio referred to him as "Agent Beneventi" and not "Sargeant Beneventi," it means that the incident in question happened when he was in the CIA, not the Marines. Maybe it was relatively recent, around the time of the first Debris shower, and a microscopic piece of Debris shrapnel is in his face? Could the injections be meant to control or counter it's effects or something? Maddox is definitely the kind of person to use somebody as a guinea pig for that kind of thing.

The set-up for next episode has me very worried they're going to stumble into "Magical Native American/Noble Savage" tropes. I really hope they do it right and got a Native writer or sensitivity reader to go over their upcoming material, or it can get bad.

[shapeshifter]

11 minutes ago, jaigurudeva said:

Just gonna jump in on that terrible beard (and wig!) convo, cause holy cow. They're clearly spending most of their time on base, so there's no reason for his beard (and hair) to get so long and out of regulation, he looked like he wandered out of the Appalachians in 1879 or something.

🤣😆😂

🧔 ←looks like my ex 35 years ago.

 

14 minutes ago, jaigurudeva said:

Interesting that the credits audio referred to him as "Agent Beneventi" and not "Sargeant Beneventi," it means that the incident in question happened when he was in the CIA, not the Marines.

Can a CIA agent be undercover in the Marines?
And/or, can the CIA recruit an active Marine to work for the CIA?

 

 

16 minutes ago, jaigurudeva said:

The set-up for next episode has me very worried they're going to stumble into "Magical Native American/Noble Savage" tropes. I really hope they do it right and got a Native writer or sensitivity reader to go over their upcoming material, or it can get bad.

Yeah. I'm dreading it.

[redpencil]

1 hour ago, jaigurudeva said:

From my understanding, given that they said the insurgents (counter-insurgents? double agents? it was pretty hand-wavy saying that this particular group was working with the CIA on something, maybe it'll come back later) were working with the US in some capacity I imagine they wouldn't fire upon US soldiers and would try to explain that they weren't enemy combatants, but Beneventi in his rage killed them before they had a chance.

I don't think they were good guys by any means. They were just a different group of insurgents. My impression was they weren't working with the CIA, but the CIA had an ongoing op that involved them in some way, and wanted them alive to continue learning more info or whatever. I feel like we would have heard about it if he had actually killed an undercover CIA agent or something.

[alvajon]

I think we should have a page devoted to Bryan’s wig and beard...

[Diapason Untuned]

2 hours ago, jaigurudeva said:

Definitely weird that the CIA would take Beneventi into their ranks after screwing up so bad in the Marines, though, specifically on a CIA op. There's definitely more going on there. Interesting that the credits audio referred to him as "Agent Beneventi" and not "Sargeant Beneventi," it means that the incident in question happened when he was in the CIA, not the Marines.

 

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

Can a CIA agent be undercover in the Marines?
And/or, can the CIA recruit an active Marine to work for the CIA?

The CIA does have a division for paramilitary operations. He could well have been working for them. 

[salaydouk]

3 hours ago, Diapason Untuned said:

The CIA does have a division for paramilitary operations. He could well have been working for them. 

Honestly I don't know about the inter-workings of the CIA, but I do know that the CIA does pull resources from United States Special Operations Command which comprises all of US military branches special forces divisions.   So it is very possible to be active duty member of say Army Delta or Navy Seal teams and be temporarily assigned to a CIA operation and take orders from a CIA handler.  But you cannot be active duty military AND a member of the CIA at the same time. 

6 hours ago, jaigurudeva said:

Just gonna jump in on that terrible beard (and wig!) convo, cause holy cow. They're clearly spending most of their time on base, so there's no reason for his beard (and hair) to get so long and out of regulation, he looked like he wandered out of the Appalachians in 1879 or something.

No question that Bryan's hair and beard were out of regulation.  Bu there are _numerous_ cases , esp with Iraq and Afghanistan, where member are allowed to not follow the groom regulations when they are  "in country" whether they are on or off base.  The necessity being that if they are say on patrol, where locals would have the longer hair and beards, it would provide them with "cover" in case they were spotted by locals who would question if they were locals or US military.  And the same would go if they were trying to do a quick insertion/exfill, looking a like local buys them even an extra second or two to either get away or to get the first shot off... 

What was more annoying about the military scenes are a) if he was MARSOC he and his men would not be on random patrol as we seen when they ran into Asalam the first time.. and b) in that same sequence Bryan and another guys were walking around with baseball caps on... yeah ah that is a big fat no...

6 hours ago, Diapason Untuned said:

They seem to be saving the shots for later. I'm actually wondering if they were going to give Bryan over to the Afghan government or something.

Rarely does the US government hand over its Active Duty members to the local governments for trial. It has happened, ie Okinawa, for various reason where there has been repeated issues or if the service member is caught before he/she can return to base.  But the agreement between the US and the Local Governments, Status of Forces Agreement, that allows the base to exists usually stipulates that all service men/women s are to be tried by the US military.  In the case of Afghanistan and it being a war zone, it would be highly unlikely that they would turn him over. 

 

6 hours ago, Diapason Untuned said:

Apparently these were different insurgents. You're right about how the show presented what happened with Bryan, but I'll assume they went with something the audience would find easier to understand like war crimes, rather than the UCMJ.

Correct they were a different group of insurgents... 

I am pretty sure that the audience would understand it if they just said they were going to try him for Murder.  Explaining UCMJ, yeah forget about that... 

[salaydouk]

14 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

 

All of that electricity flowing through Bryan's brain should have either killed him or left him brain damaged.

There is no way that Maddox doesn't know where George is at any given moment.  Not with all of those security cameras around.  That is perhaps the silliest part of the series.

I am waiting for Maddox to use a piece of the debris to travel back in time and change the course of history where his wife doesn't have the accident, fucking up the lives of everyone else as a result.

 

 

Seriously... Bryan should be dead!!!

I thought the same thing Bryan just told him he wasn't there.  So wouldn't Maddox have kept the facial recognition searches going?

Maddox has been shown in a couple of episode working with the Russians to get a piece of debris from them it what appears to be a 3 way swap with China.  Wasn't it in this episode where he take a piece of debris out of the storage area, and the tech says to him something to the effect of, " I did not hear that this piece had been requested."  So I agree Maddox is trying to get something that will undo whatever it was that happened to his son. 

 

[tvfanatic13]

Can someone please explain the subplot Afghanistan (and Maddox) to me. I am very confused. Perhaps I was mesmerized by WIG, but I couldn’t follow it. TIA. 

[salaydouk]

1 minute ago, tvfanatic13 said:

Can someone please explain the subplot Afghanistan (and Maddox) to me. I am very confused. Perhaps I was mesmerized by WIG, but I couldn’t follow it. TIA. 

I think part of it is few things...

1)  To explain how Bryan and Maddox met and to provide a backstory for why it might be difficult for Bryan to "turn on" Maddox and not believe the intel coming from Finola/NI6 about it. 

2) The mission that we saw in this episode appears to possibly been a CIA mission, looking to take out a Taliban leader. That apparently went sideways, And now the question is why.  And there was some funky "hazing" effect where Bryan changed from being memory Bryan to being current Bryan in the memory for a split second in a couple of places.  I am not sure if the subplot was to show something from the past that wasn't quite right and to re-see it...

3) To explain why/how Bryan got messed up with the possible PTSD and emotional - why he keeps arms length from other.  (Very normal for combat veterans.) 

4) It makes sense that this show as has one of the leads be a combat veteran.  At some point in these missions "hard" choices have to be made to potentially let say 10 people die so 1000 can be saved. It takes a certain amount of hardiness/callousness to be able to accept that fact.  

5) And to be a bit snarky.... it seems like lately Hollywood has to put a token vet into everything.  Even thought they get most of the details stupidly wrong.  

[AnimeMania]

53 minutes ago, salaydouk said:

And there was some funky "hazing" effect where Bryan changed from being memory Bryan to being current Bryan in the memory for a split second in a couple of places.  I am not sure if the subplot was to show something from the past that wasn't quite right and to re-see it...

I thought that happened at the time that he was getting the electric shocks.

[Diapason Untuned]

2 hours ago, salaydouk said:

Honestly I don't know about the inter-workings of the CIA, but I do know that the CIA does pull resources from United States Special Operations Command which comprises all of US military branches special forces divisions.   So it is very possible to be active duty member of say Army Delta or Navy Seal teams and be temporarily assigned to a CIA operation and take orders from a CIA handler.  But you cannot be active duty military AND a member of the CIA at the same time. 

I was thinking that he had left the Marines at that point to join the CIA's Special Activities Center or something, or maybe he was on loan.

 

Quote

in that same sequence Bryan and another guys were walking around with baseball caps on... yeah ah that is a big fat no...

I got the feeling that was based on some movie I can't really remember...Jarheads, maybe?

 

Quote

I am pretty sure that the audience would understand it if they just said they were going to try him for Murder.  Explaining UCMJ, yeah forget about that... 

Yes, but then you'd have people going "bUt THeY weRE TerRorIsTs" if they charged Bryan with murder. War crimes sounds more serious, gives more of an impression he did something wrong.

[salaydouk]

25 minutes ago, AnimeMania said:

I thought that happened at the time that he was getting the electric shocks.

Hmm... I am thinking I am going to have to suffer looking at the fake ferret on Bryan's face again to see... 

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by salaydouk

[salaydouk]

1 minute ago, Diapason Untuned said:

Yes, but then you'd have people going "bUt THeY weRE TerRorIsTs" if they charged Bryan with murder. War crimes sounds more serious, gives more of an impression he did something wrong.

But the statement... "bUt THeY weRE TerRorIsTs" should also becoming out of those same peoples mouths at him being tried for a war crime, no?

Your point however is valid... using war crimes instead of murder allow the average viewer to retain "suspension of disbelief" because by enlarge he/she does not understand military life.  

3 minutes ago, Diapason Untuned said:

I got the feeling that was based on some movie I can't really remember...Jarheads, maybe?

Two wrongs don't make a right... garbage in equals garbage out... 

I know I should let it go and let it slide cuz it is Hollywood, but when simple stuff like that is messed up, esp when they are otherwise in what looks like full gear, it really just irks me. 

[mythoughtis]

The flashback did explain a lot...  but they should have left the comments about the war crimes to a separate episode.  Brian’s  war crime was committed on a mission after the one we saw and all they did by making the comment was confuse the two missions in viewers minds.   Yes, he was upset about the woman’s death and that’s why he committed the war crimes on the subsequent mission.  But hear that discussion next episode.  

we still don’t know why the debris made Brian relive this.  Obviously it could retrieve the memory- can it only process memories by reliving them? 
 

[shapeshifter]

22 minutes ago, mythoughtis said:

we still don’t know why the debris made Brian relive this.  Obviously it could retrieve the memory- can it only process memories by reliving them? 

I suppose that would be more accurate.

[MyArchangel]

13 hours ago, salaydouk said:

I know I should let it go and let it slide cuz it is Hollywood, but when simple stuff like that is messed up, esp when they are otherwise in what looks like full gear, it really just irks me. 

I felt the same way when I saw the first episodes of “Nurse Jackie” and she was using a mortar & pestle to crushing percocet and then reglued her Sweet & Low packets because she placed the crushed percocet in her coffee for during her shift. Ugh...of course the running joke was that anytime one of us on shift was having an “off day” on the floor someone (usually one of our trauma docs trying to be funny) would say “well looks like Katie didn’t bring her special Sweet & Low today”....we’d chuckle but it still a bit of a grind in the back. Also can’t watch 9-1-1 either because that flaming piece of garbage isn’t even close to reality. That could be part of the reason why not one member (either active or retired) from the LAFD (Los Angeles Fire Dept) is involved in any capacity with the show. My son is a fire fighter with LA County FD (the county fire department) and even members of their department were approached about contributing/working with the writers and all declined. 

[CarpeFelis]

On 5/10/2021 at 11:27 PM, shapeshifter said:

So is this what they call a “bottle” episode?

I want to watch the show that was the previous 2 episodes. 

My sentiments exactly! Those last 2 episodes were really the only ones that seemed to connect emotionally with the main characters and didn’t just feel like “find another debris chunk, fix problem of the week, lather, rinse, repeat”.