S01.E08: Who's There?

[txhorns79]

Quote

Kirsten arrives in Severn City to rescue the Traveling Symphony – only to find herself trapped in a family conflict that began twenty years ago.

Streaming 1/6/22.

[Hanahope]

So I guess Kirsten did suddenly believe David/Tyler was in the right?  seriously?  you know he still stole children, right?  just because you have Arthur's book in common does not make you soulmates.  your first instinct about him was 100% right, hopefully she realizes this now and acts before its too late.  sucks to lose the museum though, but you know you can probably get to a town and find a lot of the same stuff sitting in empty houses.

The ending was chilling, those children have mines, or other weapons, i'm sure of it.  

[aghst]

Twenty years later Tyler's still blowing things up.

OK, I get that he hates Clark and Elizabeth was a shitty mother.

Was it revenge that drove him all these years, to recruit children and plot ways to blow things and people up?

Maybe the book goes into it but I don't know why he'd be this charismatic leader who could make children suicide bombers.  He seems like a loner, alienated from his mother and just about everyone else.  Unlikely he survives by himself all these years.  Maybe other people took him in over the years and he blew them up as well.

He hates his former life so he's going to blow up a museum to it.  I thought he rigged the whole airport, not just the tower.

Kirsten seems to remember Clark, probably has no reason to think he might be malevolent, but she recognizes that they're prisoners.  But she wouldn't know what Tyler was going to do.  If she thought the TS were in danger she would have.

She seemed to accept that Sarah wanted to remain at the airport.  But what will she tell the rest of the TS, who won't want to leave without her?

Clark came to admire the elites, the CEOs who were his clients.  So he seized the moment to become a leader but then started to be obsessed as to whether the MoC children loved him.  Still he longed for the before and was going to build a memorial to it.

 

He may be authoritarian but the MoC is a right course, compared to what the TS was doing.  Sarah said she'd done the circuit for 19 times (or years) and probably came to like some creature comforts for her cold bones.  Maybe TS bartered their performances for food, because if they're a traveling troupe, where would they grow crops, as the MoC had done?  TS would have been killed if they didn't have Kirsten who's a ninja with the knives.

Kirsten bonded with the TS, which became her family.  Tyler bonded with nobody.  

[HappyHanna]

7 hours ago, aghst said:

Maybe the book goes into it but I don't know why he'd be this charismatic leader who could make children suicide bombers.

In the books he is a generic, creepy, marry-all-the-women cult leader. He doesn't make kids into suicide bombers. He isn't a fleshed out character, and never goes to the airport. 

Needless to say I really, really, really did not like this episode.  Maybe the TS is being held hostage, or maybe, just maybe, they are excited about being somewhere safe, with amenities, while they prep for yet another Hamlet.  That Kristin would, seemingly, now be on side Tyler (while I would like to think she is playing the long game, after this week there is one episode to wrap stuff up, there isn't time for a long game), that Tyler was able to set up a bomb to blow up the museum by use of his hand held game console (what kind of genius was he at 8, since he hasn't had tech to practice on in the years since), that his plan all along seems to be to use his child army to get revenge on the airport...I get that HBO wanted to make things more exciting, and that it is an adaptation of the book, but this is basically turning the book on its head. 

Edited January 7, 2022 by HappyHanna

[Melina22]

There was something very haunting, almost disturbing to me about seeing all the airport passengers, still at the airport so many years later. Here they'd shown up at a random place, supposedly for a couple of hours, not realizing they were doomed to spend the rest of their lives there. Sure, it ended up being one of the safest spots on earth, but still... 

I'm only halfway through the episode. I know it sounds silly, but I'm dreading that maybe Tyler kills everybody, or destroys one of the only safe, civilized places left. Or that Clark murders all the TS. I'm in denial. I probably wouldn't have been this sensitive pre-pandemic. 

I still don't understand two things. First, what turned Tyler into such a monster. He had a charismatic, somewhat neglectful father, and a sort of selfish mother, who truly cared about him when the chips were down. So he was better off than half the planet. What's his deal? 

Second, I cannot accept that a few days after Tyler BLOWS UP HER FRIEND, killing two innocent children, she's all "I like him now! I won't stab him any more. Meet all my friends!" Nope. 

I'm afraid to keep watching. 😬

[Hanahope]

2 hours ago, Melina22 said:

Second, I cannot accept that a few days after Tyler BLOWS UP HER FRIEND, killing two innocent children, she's all "I like him now! I won't stab him any more. Meet all my friends!" Nope. 

in a prior episode, tyler claimed that another member of his cult (implying an older teen?) told the children "a different story" when he was away/out of commission due to the stabbing, and got two of the children to blow up Gil.  course Kirsten didn't appear to question this claim one bit, which was incredible.  he clearly was making it seem like it was her fault because she stabbed him, rendering him unable to counter the "different story".  Kirsten had previously appeared to be smarter/more streetwise than what she is being shown as around david/tyler.   

Edited January 7, 2022 by Hanahope

[pasdetrois]

I have to come here after every episode to learn what the heck just happened.

[Hanahope]

so i don't get the impression that the MoC is holding the TS captive.  that's the story tyler told kirsten and that's why she got that impression.  but none of the TS thought they were being held captive, they were just in a quarantine.  the TS was fine with the situation, they had better conditions than on the road.  even if the one virus isn't around anymore, the MoC (who apparently have been very insular) doesn't know what other types of sickness the TS might have picked up in 20 years of traveling around.

I think Elizabeth doesn't want to tell the TS about Sarah because she believes they will lose focus/interest in doing the play if they find out Sarah is dying.  she is probably right.

[PotterOtherP]

3 hours ago, Melina22 said:

 

I still don't understand two things. First, what turned Tyler into such a monster. He had a charismatic, somewhat neglectful father, and a sort of selfish mother, who truly cared about him when the chips were down. So he was better off than half the planet. What's his deal? 

Second, I cannot accept that a few days after Tyler BLOWS UP HER FRIEND, killing two innocent children, she's all "I like him now! I won't stab him any more. Meet all my friends!" Nope. 

I'm afraid to keep watching. 😬

He tried to save someone's life and instead saw that person shot to death by the powers that be, who then were a hair's breadth away from murdering him and his mother, settling for locking them in a plane for a month, and still didn't trust them.

No explanation for your second point though 

 

[Melina22]

58 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

In a prior episode, tyler claimed that another member of his cult (implying an older teen?) told the children "a different story" when he was away/out of commission due to the stabbing, and got two of the children to blow up Gil. 

I totally missed this! I still find it a stretch though, that Kiersten would trust him. 

13 minutes ago, PotterOtherP said:

He tried to save someone's life and instead saw that person shot to death by the powers that be, who then were a hair's breadth away from murdering him

I can see this turning someone into an angry, untrusting person, perhaps with paranoia, but not into a psychopathic killer. JMHO. 

[Hanahope]

4 hours ago, Melina22 said:

I still don't understand two things. First, what turned Tyler into such a monster. He had a charismatic, somewhat neglectful father, and a sort of selfish mother, who truly cared about him when the chips were down. So he was better off than half the planet. What's his deal? 

the episode where they shot the other plane's passenger, clark also had an internal monologue where he talked about tyler being "off", having Arthur's charisma but "twisted" and implying that tyler was becoming a little dangerous and 'needed to go.'  this was also suggested, but not really explained well, when tyler had all the kids up in the tower and using the walkie-talkie to "talk" to their dead friends/relatives.

honestly, i just think clark thought tyler would eclipse him as 'the leader' when tyler got older.  he saw that tyler got all the younger kids rounded up. clark became 'the leader' after what happened with that one janitor who pretended to be a homeland security agent and conned a bunch of people into leaving.  clark didn't want to give up his power, and feared someone else, tyler, using their charisma to get everyone else to follow him, doing who knows what, but definitely not following clark.

 

 

[aghst]

2 hours ago, Hanahope said:

so i don't get the impression that the MoC is holding the TS captive.  that's the story tyler told kirsten and that's why she got that impression.  but none of the TS thought they were being held captive, they were just in a quarantine.  the TS was fine with the situation, they had better conditions than on the road.  even if the one virus isn't around anymore, the MoC (who apparently have been very insular) doesn't know what other types of sickness the TS might have picked up in 20 years of traveling around.

I think Elizabeth doesn't want to tell the TS about Sarah because she believes they will lose focus/interest in doing the play if they find out Sarah is dying.  she is probably right.

Clark told Elizabeth that they would not perform the play Hamlet because it encouraged people to challenge leaders.

Then said the TS can't leave because it would be a security risk.

So he planned to keep them there against their will?  They may have preferred to stay but if any of them wanted to leave he wouldn't let them.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth was urging him to open up the place to the world, because the disease was gone.  But the point was, maybe some of the MoC people didn't want to be cooped up, wanted to explore.  There is a risk because we've clearly seen there are hostile peoples.

[Melina22]

I'd say that none of that would really happen IRL, but if years of watching true crime have taught me anything, it's that people regularly do the most awful things for reasons that make absolutely no sense. So I guess Clark and Tyler really could exist, and their evil actions wouldn't have to be logical to onlookers. 

I guess my reluctance to keep watching is that I don't want this show to turn into a full-on bleak horror movie. Also, it would help if I had even the foggiest memory of how the book ended. 

 

[aghst]

38 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

the episode where they shot the other plane's passenger, clark also had an internal monologue where he talked about tyler being "off", having Arthur's charisma but "twisted" and implying that tyler was becoming a little dangerous and 'needed to go.'  this was also suggested, but not really explained well, when tyler had all the kids up in the tower and using the walkie-talkie to "talk" to their dead friends/relatives.

honestly, i just think clark thought tyler would eclipse him as 'the leader' when tyler got older.  he saw that tyler got all the younger kids rounded up. clark became 'the leader' after what happened with that one janitor who pretended to be a homeland security agent and conned a bunch of people into leaving.  clark didn't want to give up his power, and feared someone else, tyler, using their charisma to get everyone else to follow him, doing who knows what, but definitely not following clark.

 

 

Clark is a mad king.  He wanted the power and he also wanted to be loved, especially by the kids who grew up or were born after the pandemic.

Yeah he feared Tyler eventually usurping him.  But it's stupid because he was like 40 years older than Tyler.  By the time Tyler grew up to be a man, he'd be an old man.  Sure Clark can still rule for awhile and Tyler is now in his late 20s.  Would have made perfect succession, though maybe Tyler as a teen would have convinced the adults to follow him and dump Clark?

Even though Clark had kept them safe all these years and found ways to grow food and enjoy all the comforts which wouldn't exist outside the airport.  They probably knew about the Red Bandanas and other hostile people looking to take what they have, kill them for it.  So the airport was secure and they had security and quarantine procedures, in case they brought in infected people.

 

[Hanahope]

1 hour ago, aghst said:

lark told Elizabeth that they would not perform the play Hamlet because it encouraged people to challenge leaders.

Then said the TS can't leave because it would be a security risk.

So he planned to keep them there against their will?

but clark didn't do this until Kirsten and tyler/david showed up.  he had voted for the play beforehand.  and tyler didn't know any of this stuff before he and Kirsten got there, and he had already poisoned Kirsten against them.   She told the TS immediately that they were being held captive.  

yes, he probably overheard Clark and Elizabeth talking about this and relayed the information to Kirsten, but that didn't happen until Kirsten was separate from the TS and she didn't go back to them after hearing this.

of course, this all just be bad writing.  :)

 

[KarenX]

2 hours ago, Hanahope said:

clark didn't do this until Kirsten and tyler/david showed up.  he had voted for the play beforehand.

I guess this is a question:

Do we think that Clark read Station Eleven and recognized the scene and thus recognized Kirsten and Tyler? That’s why he objects now?

It’s not totally out of character for young people to assume that old people have no knowledge of young people culture and that old people can’t understand it. Kirsten and Tyler think they are so smart fooling this old person by pretending to be actors doing a real scene and the old person saw through it immediately?

 

[Hanahope]

54 minutes ago, KarenX said:

Do we think that Clark read Station Eleven and recognized the scene and thus recognized Kirsten and Tyler? That’s why he objects now?

i don't think so.  he seemed to mostly be opposed to Hamlet.  I do think that he felt 'something' off with "lonagen" (tyler) even though he didn't recognize tyler at the time.

but they did show that later that night, he remembered the same words Kirsten and Tyler used in their scene as being spoken by Miranda, so at that point, i think he realized that it was tyler (though i don't think they ever showed clark actually seeing station eleven or knowing miranda gave copies to arthur, who gave them to kirsten and tyler).

[overtherainbow]

It seems silly to me these people have been content to stay inside the airport for 20 years, still believing there's a deadly virus out there but I guess the trauma of it lingers so they cling to the only thing they know. 

Maybe Tyler is right that they need to forget the past in all its ugliness, and just focus on rebuilding, but goes about it the wrong way.

The power dynamics in this episode is interesting. No, Clark may not use kids as suicide bombers, but is he honestly any less of a cult leader than David/Tyler? He manipulates people to get his way, holds people captive and doesn't seem at all receptive of any outside influence beyond the people that are "recruited" like the TS. He couldn't be so naïve as to think his airport gang could live in a hermetically sealed environment forever without it eventually coming undone by the world, could he?

Edited January 8, 2022 by overtherainbow

[Mr. R0b0t]

100% the connection was the phrase Miranda said before turning out her wine and it being used in Station Eleven (the comic) and in the control tower scene.

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Mr. R0b0t

[Armchair Critic]

I cannot stand Alex. She keeps putting them in bad situations and now she ratted out Kiersten being outside the grounds.

[Melina22]

On 1/7/2022 at 11:38 AM, pasdetrois said:

I have to come here after every episode to learn what the heck just happened.

I hear you! After several tries I finally finished this episode and really, really hated it, partly because half the time I either didn't know what was happening, or didn't understand why things were happening. Plus it was so relentlessly bleak. There's a reason I've never watched TWD. 

I'm going to force myself to watch the next episode, but judging by the figures moving in on the airport, I'm not expecting things to improve. 

Does Kiersten understand that Tyler is Arthur's son? 

Are we ever going to see Miranda again? 

To end on one positive note, this show is doing an exceptionally good job on the aging makeup, much better than most shows and movies I've seen. 

[bilgistic]

The aging makeup was great...except on Miles (the man who rigged up the solar panels/Clark's boyfriend). It looks like they just plopped a bad partially gray wig on his head and said, "Done!" Clark's makeup job was amazing.

I feel like it's being telegraphed that I should like Kirsten/the actor who plays her more than I do. I don't understand her acting choices. She's supposed to be 28ish (and is 34 in real life!), but she plays the role with what I assume is supposed to be a literal wide-eyed "innocence" that seems...forced? She seems like an older teenager.

I can sort of understand it on one hand; her formal education ended at nine years of age. She grew up with limited exposure to people outside of the Traveling Symphony*, who all seem to have coddled her/treated her like she's an amazing actress because she was a gifted child actress? I'm sure I don't understand that part of it. None of them knew of her pre-pandemic, right?

But on the other hand, wouldn't she be kind of hardened by learning to survive against literal threats to her and her friends' life by way of the Red Bandanas and post-apocalyptic/post-pandemic life? And as others have mentioned, she's too trusting of David/Tyler.

*Like others, I'm glad we only had to suffer through a couple episodes of the "plays". Too twee, indeed.

[MrPissyPuppy]

8 hours ago, Melina22 said:

Are we ever going to see Miranda again?  

I think she died when she saw (hallucinated?) the astronaut.  

[Haleth]

Ugh, this show.  I was so excited when I learned there would be a series called Station Eleven.  This is not Station Eleven, this is another TWD spinoff, sans zombies.  I don't understand why smart, capable Kirsten is suddenly listening to and believing creepy Tyler, when everyone else at the TS is perfectly happy at the MoC.  Here's a clue, when you think everyone else is delusional, maybe you are the one with the delusion.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Haleth

[Melina22]

5 hours ago, Haleth said:

This is not Station Eleven, this is another TWD spinoff, sans zombies

Couldn't have put it better myself. After such a promising start, I'm so disappointed in where this is going 

[meep.meep]

On 1/7/2022 at 12:34 AM, HappyHanna said:

In the books he is a generic, creepy, marry-all-the-women cult leader. He doesn't make kids into suicide bombers. He isn't a fleshed out character, and never goes to the airport. 

And he's a religious fanatic.

The previous episode (in the apartment) showed that you can make changes to the original material that expand it.  This episode showed that you can also make changes that belittle the original story.  

[SunnyBeBe]

On 1/9/2022 at 6:41 AM, Haleth said:

Ugh, this show.  I was so excited when I learned there would be a series called Station Eleven.  This is not Station Eleven, this is another TWD spinoff, sans zombies.  I don't understand why smart, capable Kirsten is suddenly listening to and believing creepy Tyler, when everyone else at the TS is perfectly happy at the MoC.  Here's a clue, when you think everyone else is delusional, maybe you are the one with the delusion.

For me, it was obvious Tyler was a disturbed, possibly unstable kid when we first saw him before the flu.  It appeared to be more than normal child contempt he exhibited.  And, for me, Tyler bringing the plane survivor into the group, was more of very poor judgment and perhaps not his fault, but the risk was too great to bring the sole survivor into their group. Still, to me he was a bad apple guy, who only got worse. And for Kirsten to fold that way…..ridiculous for a survivalist like her.  Making characters stupid is rarely appealing to me.  

[Cinnabon]

2 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

For me, it was obvious Tyler was a disturbed, possibly unstable kid when we first saw him before the flu.  It appeared to be more than normal child contempt he exhibited.  And, for me, Tyler bringing the plane survivor into the group, was more of very poor judgment and perhaps not his fault, but the risk was too great to bring the sole survivor into their group. Still, to me he was a bad apple guy, who only got worse. And for Kirsten to fold that way…..ridiculous for a survivalist like her.  Making characters stupid is rarely appealing to me.  

Yes, it was a good instinct he had in wanting to help the lone survivor of that plane, but he should have understand in time that they just couldn’t take that chance if they all wanted to survive. And while a month in quarantine seemed perhaps overly long, his mom went with him and fully supported her son in that situation. In time, he should have realized that the adults did the right thing. I really don’t understand Tyler’s hatred for his mom. Sure, she wasn’t perfect, but she obviously loved and supported him. 

[shrewd.buddha]

There exists a graphic novel whose message is so powerful that it can obsess a child (Kirsten ) into constantly reading it.  And just telling its story second-hand, from memory, people (Tyler) can seduce children from their parents in less than an hour.  Five-year-old children can be tricked into sneaking into their grandparent's house and used as suicide bombers.
Somehow Tyler's cult of children don't seem to have trouble surviving  without a stable source of food and shelter -- and play dress up like they are in Neverland. 

On 1/9/2022 at 6:41 AM, Haleth said:

This is not Station Eleven, this is another TWD spinoff, sans zombies. 

This.  Sad, but true. 

[SomeTameGazelle]

So I guess I got part of the answer to my question about why Kirsten was in Lear . . . she introduced herself to Clark as "Young Goneril" so I assume that there was a typical adult Goneril. It does make me wonder how much acting she was actually doing in the play. Presumably very little, but when she said she enjoyed acting more than anything I assume she has other acting experience.

I have to admit I was surprised she was young Goneril -- I have just been assuming all along that she was the heroine and therefore must be Cordelia.

I was interested in Arthur's comment that Kirsten's home life was sad -- I would like to get some insight into that before the series ends. Not necessarily a lot but we basically know nothing about Kristen's life before Jeevan.

I have been loving Sarah but I was frustrated by her telling paranoid Kristen not to tell the Symphony that she was dead until later, as if she were already dead. What if she does live?

Edited February 26, 2022 by SomeTameGazelle
Goneril vs Cordelia thought

[chocolatine]

1 hour ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

I was interested in Arthur's comment that Kirsten's home life was sad -- I would like to get some insight into that before the series ends. Not necessarily a lot but we basically know nothing about Kristen's life before Jeevan.

Spoiler

Kirsten's home life before the pandemic is never addressed again on the show, but in the book Arthur thought that Kirsten's mother was a stage mom because she accosted Arthur for further opportunities for Kirsten to work with him, and Arthur was disgusted and said that Kirsten should "just be a kid." But Kirsten herself had said multiple times that acting was what she loved most in the world, so it wasn't clear to me whether her mother was really a stage mom, or just trying to create more opportunities for her kid to do what she loved. Kirsten herself never expressed any negative emotions about her parents in the book, and she had a very close relationship with her brother (who doesn't exist on the show).

 

[SomeTameGazelle]

36 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

her brother

Kirsten has mentioned having a brother. There was one flashback of her with a baby that I assumed was the brother until there was a later scene where it turned out that the baby she was playing with was Alex. And then she mentioned something about her brother having died, but in a way that gave me the impression that perhaps her mother had miscarried or the baby had died at birth but my recollection is that it was not 100% clear.

Do we know who Alex's parents are supposed to be?

[Anela]

I stopped watching for a while, and I'm finding this episode hard to stick with, as I've been trying to finish.