S01.E08: The Orpheus Syndrome

[Paloma]

11 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

I wonder if perhaps these plot holes might have been inserted deliberately to poke fun at B movies.
And also an homage to B Horror movies?

I don't know if the plot holes were inserted deliberately, but the episode definitely felt like a humorous homage to B horror movies. In fact, when we first saw the workshop I asked my husband, "Is this like Ray Harryhousen's stuff?" I generally didn't watch old B horror movies and wasn't that familiar with RH, but my husband is a big scifi fan and watched a lot of those movies, and he agreed that Arthur's creations were probably an homage to RH.

[Cotypubby]

1 hour ago, Paloma said:

but my husband is a big scifi fan and watched a lot of those movies, and he agreed that Arthur's creations were probably an homage to RH.

It was an homage to Phil Tippett. I think the Orpheus head may have been a sculpture of his face? He even created all the maquettes shown in the episode and filmed the stop motion scenes.

I loved everything about this episode! This was my favorite so far. 
 

Someone was asking about how Laura knew Arthur removed the incriminating piece of film, there was a close-up of the film when Laura removed it from the fire showing that there was a new splice between the leader and the middle of the film scene. Arthur had removed the sequence of Laura turning off the light. (And for those wondering, safety film takes a while to actually burn, so that was totally accurate. I have film reels that have been in a fire and were only slightly damaged.)

[Paloma]

9 minutes ago, Cotypubby said:

It was an homage to Phil Tippett. I think the Orpheus head may have been a sculpture of his face? He even created all the maquettes shown in the episode and filmed the stop motion scenes.

I loved everything about this episode! This was my favorite so far. 
 

Someone was asking about how Laura knew Arthur removed the incriminating piece of film, there was a close-up of the film when Laura removed it from the fire showing that there was a new splice between the leader and the middle of the film scene. Arthur had removed the sequence of Laura turning off the light. (And for those wondering, safety film takes a while to actually burn, so that was totally accurate. I have film reels that have been in a fire and were only slightly damaged.)

Thanks for this information. I hadn't heard of Phil Tippett, but now that I looked him up it makes sense. I also appreciate your clarifying what happened with the film Arthur threw in the fire. I was confused about that because I didn't know why it wasn't burning quickly and because I didn't know what made Laura take the reel out of the fire and look at it. I thought maybe she took it out because she was frustrated that it wasn't burning up or she was suspicious that he did not give her the right reel. 

With this show you really have to pay attention to every scene to get the clues. In addition to my confusion about the burning scene, I did not notice at all, until Charlie said something, that there were strips of film in the Orpheus head (or what I kept thinking of as the Medusa). 

[Ms Blue Jay]

7 hours ago, Paloma said:

That bugged me, too, for a couple of reasons: (1) jumping from a high place to rocks below is likely to be a painful death (if you don't die instantaneously), and Laura had already said that his death from poison would not be painful and would be like going to sleep (of course, he had no reason to trust that she was telling the truth); and (2) if he stayed to die in her home, she would have had to figure out how to dispose of the body. I guess she could have dragged his body to the railing and thrown it over, then claimed it was suicide, but that might not be so easy and might still leave evidence if anyone investigated.

 

Maybe we're supposed to assume this as his reason, but as the poison started to work would he really be thinking clearly and quickly enough to realize she would need his face to log in and so he needs to ruin his face? Obviously I'm overthinking this, but it did take me out of the story when we saw the murder play out. 

Yeah, Max did this to punish Laura.  He said remember my face.  I take him at his word.  I think he didn't want Laura to choose how he dies.  He wanted to choose it himself.

[Tuggy]

On 2/24/2023 at 3:21 AM, ofmd said:

And I love how often this show features older characters/ actors.

 

That is something that cannot be stated too often! They are all absolutely amazing in their roles and they fucking look their age, which is pretty rare...

[Chaos Theory]

Horror movies back in the day worked on shoe string budgets so if you had this big moment that a single actor/actress held up because they couldn’t or wouldn’t do it it could break the movie.   I could see everyone getting frustrated at Laura when the entire budget could be ruined because she couldn’t do a trick.

As for the police not investigating.  I like to call it the CSI effect.   If everyone says “it was an accident” and the autopsy guy says “it was an accident” the police are not going to waste tax dollars to say otherwise.  They may send a cop to take statements but I doubt little else happened.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Chaos Theory

[Milburn Stone]

Like some others, I had never heard of Phil Tippett, but I went to the IMDB, and he sure has done some good stuff!

But am I wrong that stop-action (à la the simulated stop-action we saw in the clips) was more Ray Harryhausen's thing than Tippett's? The Medusa-head model in particular was a callout to Harryhausen's work in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Clash of the Titans.

I once did a two-month commercial shoot with ILM and had the privilege of seeing the warehouse room with all the miniatures and models from their films-to-date, which Arthur's studio reminded me of. I had the feeling the creation of the episode started with the question, "What if Ray Harryhausen worked at ILM?"

Edited March 1, 2023 by Milburn Stone

[Black Knight]

On 2/24/2023 at 12:46 AM, Ms Blue Jay said:

Max would certainly have a family.

Max was an older man, and a lot of older people don't have family to speak of anymore. The older generation of relatives - parents, aunts/uncles, if any - are often dead. In the person's own generation, there may not be any siblings, if the person was an only child or their sibling(s) have already died; same for cousins. He didn't have any children from his marriage to Laura, or we would've heard about them. There might be some blood relatives scattered around who are cousins of some degree, but if they're not close or in regular contact, then it wouldn't be much of a thing.

(Technically I have a lot of blood relatives, but once my parents depart this earth, the likelihood of any of my remaining relatives being interested enough to challenge an apparent suicide is nil. I'm not close to or in regular contact with any of them.)

[Ms Blue Jay]

I have enough of life and family experience to really disagree with that.  To each their own.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Ms Blue Jay

[desertflower]

On 3/1/2023 at 8:44 AM, Milburn Stone said:

But am I wrong that stop-action (à la the simulated stop-action we saw in the clips) was more Ray Harryhausen's thing than Tippett's? The Medusa-head model in particular was a callout to Harryhausen's work in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Clash of the Titans.

Harryhausen was definitely one of the first ones doing stop motion, for sure. But I think the reason this character was more based on Phil Tippett is because he worked for years making all his stuff by hand at ILM and then they started transitioning to CGI effects and he had to try to adjust to that. In this episode there was a quick exchange at the beginning when Arthur said something about not being able to change with the times when the computer stuff started. 
There is a great documentary on Disney Plus called Light and Magic which is all about ILM and they talk to Phil Tippitt a lot. He seems like such an interesting guy and so talented. 

Edited March 6, 2023 by desertflower

[pasdetrois]

On 2/23/2023 at 5:45 PM, Ms Blue Jay said:

It would be funny for Charlie to try this in other workplaces like a law office or a used car dealership etc.

Or Capitol Hill.

[merylinkid]

I said in another thread that Charlie's lie detector is just noticing a bunch of tells with her subconscious.   She doesn't know how she knows, but she knows.   I can imagine being surrounded by so many lies in the barbershop that her subconscious would be screaming.  The psychological effect would manifest itself as a physical thing like an eye twitch.    Get her out of that environment and it goes away after awhile.   It came back with Laura because her brain was still tender so to speak.   Give her a lie free environment long enough and it will heal.

Awww, Charlie found a great place to work, out of the way, safe.   And the guy dies.   DAMMIT.   Back on the road.

Did not like the ending.   Laura was clearly losing it by seeing Max and Arthur in the crowd even before Charlie and Raoul played the tape.    So she would have broken even without that.   

[akg]

On 3/6/2023 at 11:48 AM, merylinkid said:

Laura was clearly losing it by seeing Max and Arthur in the crowd even before Charlie and Raoul played the tape. 

When first watching, I assumed what Laura was seeing were busts made by Arthur. I realized later that, as awesome as that would have been (her victims playing such a direct part in her breaking), it wouldn't make sense. Arthur probably never created one of himself and I have no idea how Charlie and her friend would have gotten their hands on Max.

[SnarkShark]

On 2/24/2023 at 2:33 AM, LaylaGirl said:

Nick Nolte can still act. I thought he did great work in this. Loved the episode, even though with the high body count.

It was good to confirm that his wasted body and voice are just surface issues.  He was great here.  

[One Imaginary Girl]

A little thing I liked was when the time was mentioned on screen as "About a week later."

[WritinMan]

On 3/1/2023 at 8:44 AM, Milburn Stone said:

But am I wrong that stop-action (à la the simulated stop-action we saw in the clips) was more Ray Harryhausen's thing than Tippett's? The Medusa-head model in particular was a callout to Harryhausen's work in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Clash of the Titans.

A couple years ago Tippett made an experimental stop-motion horror movie called Mad God. He started it years ago, but recently finished it with some help from Kickstarter. I got the feeling that the film Arthur was making was a reference to that.

 

[Ceindreadh]

On 2/24/2023 at 5:46 AM, Ms Blue Jay said:

There were some things I couldn't fully grasp.  How did Laura keep the company going and supposedly "save" Max and Arthur after killing that actor?  What exactly was her motive?  Why was killing that actor a good idea?  The movie didn't even get released because Arthur was so devastated, right?  So what was Laura trying to accomplish? All of this confused me.

 

Laura didn't intend to kill the actor.  She presumably thought that the actor was overreacting and just needed to suck it up and get the scene done before they ran out of time and money. 

Afterwards, assuming that the movie wasn't completed because of the death, there would likely have been some sort of insurance payout which would have kept the company afloat.

[snarktini]

On 3/7/2023 at 2:01 PM, akg said:

When first watching, I assumed what Laura was seeing were busts made by Arthur. I realized later that, as awesome as that would have been (her victims playing such a direct part in her breaking), it wouldn't make sense. Arthur probably never created one of himself and I have no idea how Charlie and her friend would have gotten their hands on Max.

I came back a day later to rewatch the ending because I was confused. So Laura basically just cracks up under the guilt/stress at the party, before they even show the red light clip? She only thinks she saw Arthur in the audience because of her guilty conscience? She hallucinates Max running and jumping again?

On first watch it felt like an elaborate sting where she'd been drugged and tricked by body doubles in the audience and the Orpheus props (like the little dude with the red lightbulb head) to drive her over the edge. But I guess the only thing Raoul and Charlie did was get the film footage, everything else was her losing it all on her own.

Definitely not one of my favorites. The episodes are getting creepier.