S01.E08: Ace in the Hole

[Guest]

Quote

Weir is forced to play his final ace when Crowley's nefarious psyop to win support of the Shared Data Act and hijack democracy succeeds; Crowley's counter puts both Liv and Ben in mortal danger.

Dropping May 7, 2023

[Snazzy Daisy]

I have the exact same reaction as Ben’s!

“What the blue, bloody fuck was that?”

😂😂😂

Nice twists on ex-wife/GI Jane and Jo Madi’s the bad guy.

That Kyle the psycho intern is still on the loose, ready for hire.

Lucky for Hailey to be able to (still) keep the stolen money.

Is “Crowley” really finished??!

Will John or Ben run the Arda Analytics now?

Well, Rabbit Hole has been a little bit confusing & fun ride… 😘

 

[dwmarch]

Is this the season finale? If so, this was a good way to wrap things up. I'm glad to see Weir had something of a plan going all along although I think I'd have to rewatch from the beginning to see how well it all ties together.

I loved Hailey's look in that brown leather skirt. There was no particular plot related reason for her to change into it and that makes me love her even more. No answers on whether or not she works for some other company or agency yet. I'm going to guess Defense Intelligence Agency based on the skirt because Whistler on NCIS: Hawaii has the exact same one (leather on the front, stretchy back).

Crowley had access to all that data and was just using it as a blunt-force object. This is a similar weakness to various villains in 24 who could only leverage such information against the CTU team so long as they could keep them on the phone. Oh no, the bad guy is going to call me and threaten to expose all of my secrets if I don't do something for him right now! What if I just send the call to voicemail? It's a bit of a dramatic shortcut to suppose that every person has some deep, dark secret that they will immediately kill someone else to protect. But some folks aren't going to care about their dirty laundry. Some folks are not going to react the way the villain thinks they will, no matter what his algorithm says.

Speaking of CTU, when the villain was firing up Skynet, I had a feeling I saw those letters come up and sure enough, part of the data he trawled was from a 24 wiki:

[Pike Ludwell]

Well, they're obviously setting up for a season 2, which is good. Though the writing and directing made this confusing at times, and there were too many lucky coincidences in the execution of the plans, overall I really liked it. 

I wanted the intern dude to get some more punishment - the writers let him walk free. I guess they see him as a good villain for a season 2. At least John got in a good solid punch at the elevator.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Pike Ludwell

[chaifan]

OK, that was a fun little series, and a good set up for Season 2.  Which we will probably see in 2026.

I still think there's more to Hailey then has been revealed.  And I like that Crowley had someone in his ear.  So there's still a big bad out there to take down next season.  And (at least to me) Ben is still a little murky. 

The twist with the ex-wife was nice, but raises questions... First, was there ever an ex wife?  I got the impression that was all a story from some line at the end.  But if so, why did the FBI think there was an ex wife?  And didn't one of the team members talk about having dinner with Weir's ex the night before they all were killed?  Second, is that really GI Jane's house, and somehow Weir managed to change FBI records so it listed as his ex wife's house?   I find it strange that she was set up in the house early enough for Jo to stumble across her.  Also, was the bottle of wine a plant, for Jo's benefit?  Seems a little odd, but also seems odd to have "accidentally" been there, given how meticulous Weir is about these things. 

The intern - I got the impression that he didn't shoot Homm because he heard Crawley get shot.  Once Crawley is dead, the assignment is over, so he left.  There was certainly time to get a shot in even after Hailey spotted him.  Why else would he just leave? 

 

 

[blackwing]

Crowley is dead, assuming that was really Crowley.  Kiefer's ex-wife isn't really his ex-wife, so where is the real ex?

I do wish we had gotten some definite confirmation one way or the other about Hailey.  She says she found him on a dating app, that he didn't set up but apparently was set up by his team.  Why did his team want John to meet her?  It wasn't random.

I get that they leave Kyle the Intern alive for Season 2, but why didn't Jack want to chase after him?

[Ceindreadh]

17 hours ago, Pike Ludwell said:

Well, they're obviously setting up for a season 2, which is good. Though the writing and directing made this confusing at times, and there were too many lucky coincidences in the execution of the plans, overall I really liked it. 

I wanted the intern dude to get some more punishment - the writers let him walk free. I guess they see him as a good villain for a season 2. At least John got in a good solid punch at the elevator.

I cheered loudly when the intern got punched in the face! 

[Netfoot]

On 5/8/2023 at 9:42 AM, chaifan said:

I like that Crowley had someone in his ear.  So there's still a big bad out there to take down next season.

I thought the earpiece contained the voice of the algorithm. Which could indeed be a great "big-bad" for future seasons. And topical, too. Shades of Person of Interest but I'd be fine with that.

[Ceindreadh]

When Ed was sitting waiting to be interviewed, I was convinced that he was going to die before he could say anything.

And then I remembered that this is Rabbit Hole and not 24, and John Weir gets to have a happy ending to a season.

[Guest]

I finally got around to watching the finale and I thought they did a decent job of wrapping it up. I’m glad that the surprise reveal was the ex-wife rather than Hailey. That would have been so obvious and this still leaves room for a reveal with her if there are future episodes. It wasn’t perfect but was a mostly satisfying wrap up. 
 

On 5/8/2023 at 6:42 AM, chaifan said:

The twist with the ex-wife was nice, but raises questions... First, was there ever an ex wife?

There was an ex-wife. She was the women who was kidnapped at the start of the episode in what turned out to be a flashback. I’m not sure if the ex-wife fake out made any sense. I am also not sure I care enough about the show to rewatch and see if it did. 

[juliet73]

I thought it was a pretty good series.  Definitely had to suspend belief in a lot of the situations, but all in all, it was entertaining.  

I wasn't expecting the ex wife twist.  I fell for the red herring of Jo's wife being kidnapped, not a flashback of Wier's ex wife.  

Obviously, the person on the other end of the earpiece in Crawley's ear is the villan for season 2.  Hope they bring Kyle back.  I can do without Jo's daughter and her BS. Also, I don't mind the flashbacks intertwined with the present day, but I can do without Weir's fantasy scenarios.  

Biggest complaint of the series is NO ONE except for the kid at the electronics store recognized Weir.  The dude is plastered all over the news and I'm assuming social media, but no police officers or fbi agents or any people on the street notice him?  Also, he's in that high tech vault setting off the sensors, yet there is not one camera in this super secure room capturing him walking outside the lines on purpose or Hailey removing the key from the box? 

Glad Ed survived...I was getting a bit worried there at the end.  He and Kyle were my favorite characters. 

 

[KeithJ]

Overall the series was pretty good, confusing at times but good.

I only had a couple issues with it:

#1 - I can't see that legislation being passed in the US, ever (unless Crowley had most of Congress and the President in his pocket already).

#2 - The legislation was for access to the governmental databases (unless I heard that wrong) but it looked like he was accessing pretty much every single company database out there.  Those aren't governmental databases.  At one point he said "Link to social media companies provided by data act".  Social media companies aren't government companies, why would those be provided?  He also searched for users with anxiety disorders and depression.  The US government maintains a database of those people?

Non-issue - I'm glad Hailey didn't turn out to be bad.  I was just waiting for her to turn on John at some point.

Edited November 29, 2023 by KeithJ