S01.E05: Do I Know You?

[paulvdb]

Quote

30 years in the past, Kira’s groundbreaking research captures the attention of Paul Darros as well as the affection of Professor Eleanor Miller.

Premiered today on Australian streaming service STAN.

[RachelKM]

I've been enjoying this show to an extent.  But it feels a little rushed and a little tonally confusing.

But this was my favorite episode and I realized it was the least like the rest of the show because it actually focused on a single emotional arc and that worked better for me.

That said, was the lady last week supposed to be Elenore's mom?  Because that was not a woman who had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's more than 20 years earlier. 

[DoctorAtomic]

WOW big 2030 reveal! I was going to say 'funny they say 'spoiler alert' in 2030', but that's not to far away. Postdoc 'spots' don't just 'open up'. Once a position is created, you have to post the job and interview people like any other. There's laws. Good casting for young Kira though. And good with older 'Lucy'. 

I think they did a good job on the exposition for the OG without doing a information dump. 

Nice tie in with the pregnancy issue here and last time with Lucy saying she likes being a mother to Charlie. 

Hawes was bringing all of it. That's been as good as anything I've seen her in. 

Nice touch on the bird being in the room when Lucy woke up. The whole bar code was just a tattoo. Brilliant. 

Poor Jules! Their shared memory is a real big mystery.

 

 

[DoctorAtomic]

17 hours ago, RachelKM said:

I've been enjoying this show to an extent.  But it feels a little rushed and a little tonally confusing.

I think maybe because we're not used to shows like this actually getting to the point. It's the *fifth* episode and they already revealed why and how Lucy got printed! But I think the real plot is how and why Jules got printed since clearly Kira didn't know, and I have no reason to believe she was trying to pull one over on Lucy. So I guess the boss guy somehow bought Josh off or threatened him to printing a new version when Lucy escaped maybe? Though to what end? To see if they could perfect the process? He didn't strike me as having an agenda beyond seeing if it could actually be done. I don't know where they would get the scan of Eleanor that young, but I can roll with that detail. 

Or maybe they thought it would be easier to experiment on a younger version with the neurons. The neuron printing for older Eleanor didn't seem like it was secret, so the boss probably knew about the whole situation. I could see him pushing to experiment further. That would be a huge money maker. Or, the more simple answer. If you can print people with their memories intact, you're essentially immortal. 

This also leads to the question as to why Jules was given a cover story and brainwashed and adopted if they intended to experiment with her. She woke up in the hospital with the junk still in her ear, so someone printed her and hustled her out of there. 

Sadly, Lucy and Jules are kind of under a death sentence. 

17 hours ago, RachelKM said:

That said, was the lady last week supposed to be Elenore's mom?  Because that was not a woman who had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's more than 20 years earlier. 

I don't think this was a setup, like with the grandfather, but it's not clear if we were supposed to buy-in that the character was older than the actor. Regardless, in the scene, she seems to only recognize Jules, not Lucy, and that seems to track with what Ritter-as-Eleanor said to young Kira at the pool, and we saw the picture of the only the Jules version with the mother. I think the show would have shown a picture in the room with the Lucy version if so. 

Maybe people just age slower in 2050+. That's entirely possible. People are living longer even today. 

[RachelKM]

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I think maybe because we're not used to shows like this actually getting to the point. It's the *fifth* episode and they already revealed why and how Lucy got printed!

I meant more, other than this episode, it feels like some character development has been rushed, not the plot.  

 

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I don't think this was a setup, like with the grandfather, but it's not clear if we were supposed to buy-in that the character was older than the actor. Regardless, in the scene, she seems to only recognize Jules, not Lucy, and that seems to track with what Ritter-as-Eleanor said to young Kira at the pool, and we saw the picture of the only the Jules version with the mother. I think the show would have shown a picture in the room with the Lucy version if so. 

I don't think it was a setup either.  The reaction by all following Lucy and Jules to them visiting her was surprise and a little concern. It was not planned.

My point was that the woman was supposed to have been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's more than 20 years prior.  Alzheimer's progresses slowly (in most cases) but not that slowly.  I would believe advances in medicine but we saw how quickly Eleanor progressed (ironically, absent a vascular component, Eleanor's disease progression was really quick). 

Edited July 23 by RachelKM

[DoctorAtomic]

It could have been Eleanor's drug delayed the progression too. 

[RachelKM]

1 hour ago, DoctorAtomic said:

It could have been Eleanor's drug delayed the progression too. 

Eleanor specifically said that her treatment wasn't effective for early onset Alzheimer's and we saw it not work for her.

Also, her mother would have been living with and declining from her Alzheimer's for the 20 years it took for Eleanor to discover the drug aided with symptoms and progression.

I like the show. I just thought it was a little sloppy to have Eleanor's extremely rapid decline juxtaposition with her mother's apparent lack of decline during a much longer span of time.

[DoctorAtomic]

No, that's something I hope they address because it's a sloppy detail. I totally forgot she was supposed to be the mother. Unless she's a relative? It's not explicit she is. 

[RachelKM]

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

No, that's something I hope they address because it's a sloppy detail. I totally forgot she was supposed to be the mother. Unless she's a relative? It's not explicit she is. 

Fair enough.  I don't think wasn't explicitly confirmed that Kathy Baker's character is Eleanor's mother.  It was an assumption made by Lucy and Jules that the woman was the mother whomever "Eleanor" was. 

That said, IMDb lists the character's name as Melissa Miller. If that's correct, she and Eleanor have the same last name making it unlikely that she is a relative from her maternal side, like a younger aunt or something. If she was a paternal aunt, I suppose should could just have regular old age related dementia and/or Alzheimer's diagnosed a the more standard age range of 65 or older.