S01.E07: The Dog's Honest Truth

[paulvdb]

Quote

Kira confronts hard truths when the printout she made of Eleanor meets Lucy, while Jules tries to turn the tables on Darros and Xander to escape the compound.

Premiered today on Australian streaming service STAN.

[DoctorAtomic]

Quite the shot of Lucy and Eleanor in the kitchen. Hawes really killed the 'what if I could have you back' monologue. 

So we at least have some confirmation that 'Eleanor' was away in Berlin. Which, like I said, you can just have her on sabbatical and no one is really going to be contacting her regularly for meetings, etc., and it's far away enough that Lucas wouldn't be constantly in touch. Poor guy though.

Not that I agree with printing out people, but I don't think you can just say 'you need to just let go' to Kira Manning precisely because of what she went through. 

I thought we were going to get the usual esoteric nonsense with the psychologist, but she just blathered on to Lucy and earned that backhand. That's why you cast Ritter. 

Huge loving it with 'go and earn her trust' and Jules not buying it for a millisecond and making off with the key and robbing the place. 

Reed Diamond consistently hilarious. Oh, right. She'll lead us to Lucy. I do feel a little bad for him. He's not really the bad guy here. Lucy escaped, and it's entirely reasonable she could be dangerous since his guy got shot. Jules was supposed to be settling in at the compound, and it's not his fault she escaped either. I hope he ends up turning on Darros. But, he also disdains the printouts so I don't know. 

I'm not sure I'd be berating my own printout either. Knowing me, I would not care for it. 

[CarpeFelis]

3 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I thought we were going to get the usual esoteric nonsense with the psychologist, but she just blathered on to Lucy and earned that backhand. That's why you cast Ritter. 

Her tone was so “nyah nyah nyah” I was disappointed Lucy didn’t mutter “smig bitch” right after that.

[DoctorAtomic]

She was a little much with the 'Darros has plans for Jules' because Darros arranged for her to be adopted, and without Lucy taking action, likely would have just still been a regular high school kid. 

I don't quite get the plan there. Were they always going to take her away to the compound? That's probably more traumatizing. She wasn't getting along with Richard, but that seemed more like typical teenager. She got along well with the mother. They didn't explain how they got the data from Eleanor as a teenager to print her out that young. 

I take the point that all the printouts are potentially brilliant scientists, so it makes sense for Darros to get a young Eleanor and young, uh, him, to continue his agenda, but I don't see how the adoption fits in there. 

I also enjoyed the big mystery of the bloody knife. Oh, my dad killed himself in the bath. It was awful. That's it? Yes. 

At least we age gracefully!

[justmehere]

4 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

They didn't explain how they got the data from Eleanor as a teenager to print her out that young. 

This - and also Darros, for Xander. The technology didn't exist when they were young, so I don't understand how that happens if they need an age-related scan vs. some kind of aging control of the printouts.

[DoctorAtomic]

The printing technology didn't exist when they were young, but scanning did. Young Eleanor-as-Ritter got scanned for the pregnancy issues. So they used that for Lucy. Darros could have had a scan of his of his younger self for any medical reason. He would have been younger right around now-ish or 2030-ish, and he's a billionaire. He'd be able to get access to his medical data. Or, maybe in the future, you actually own your data. And we saw in the flashback that young Darros (same actor) apparently was beaten by his father. He could have gotten a scan for a concussion at some point. It seems like these scans are fairly routine procedure. And the young version of Darros doesn't seem *that* young, so the scanning technology existing is fine with me. 

The question is where they got the data for young Eleanor-Jules. We know Eleanor looked like Jules at the time of the suicide from their memories looking in the mirror, so maybe they scanned her for trauma, and again, big billionaire got his hands on it. 

It's not a huge point, but Darros was up front about saying he printed her, and we know where the Lucy and older Eleanor scans came from. I'd just like to know since the show has been thorough. So far all the plot points have been addressed. 

Darros specifically wanted to print a young Eleanor. It seems like it should be something we should know. 

Technically, the series already aired, so I don't want to search and get spoiled. 

Edited August 6 by DoctorAtomic

[RachelKM]

Wow, Keeley's performance during her "I changed" speech was really good. I like that they took this track. It was strongly hinted at in the last episode. But I wasn't sure they would address it so directly. Kira got pre-illness Eleanor back.  But there was not getting her per-Eleanor's illness self back. She lived her grief and it shaped her.

Speaking of Eleanor... or rather Eleanor v.2, she's awesome.  (Kira, gurl, I get it.  I'd want her back too.) She handled what had to be a devastating series of emotional blows and remained focused and smart and retained some sense of warmth and humor. I've always liked Rya Kihlstedt. But I'm more accustomed to her playing more cold and/or villainous characters. She played them with humanity, but they were not often endearing or warm on any level. 

I was worried from the memories shown via Kira's story that I would have a hard time buying her as someone Lucy could conceivable grow into.  But "Me, Me, and Me" together work and I can genuinely see the same brain characteristics resulting in each of those women.  They are not the same person.  But they have a believably similar core. 

 

On 8/6/2024 at 10:02 AM, DoctorAtomic said:

I don't quite get the plan there. Were they always going to take her away to the compound? That's probably more traumatizing. She wasn't getting along with Richard, but that seemed more like typical teenager. She got along well with the mother. They didn't explain how they got the data from Eleanor as a teenager to print her out that young. 

I've been wondering as well where they got the scan for Jules.  Like Darros, Eleanor would have been a teenager around now. So, unless there have been wild advances that I'm not aware of in real life and/or fictional ones that have not been even hinted at in the show, it doesn't seem likely that teen Elanor would have undergone a scan of the time necessary for this project. 

I suppose if you know she won't have much memory, putting Lucy's brain map in a teen body might yield Jules. DNA should direct the physical development part.  And I can see Darros (I keep wanting to type Davos) deciding he would prefer an Eleanor print that was further from her Alzheimer's and whateves as to the physical and emotional maturity.

As far as the purpose, I'm getting The Boys from Brazil/Anna to the Infinite Power vibes. Eleanor was a  He probably would have left her in the care of her adoptive family and then approach her in college and recruit her. Eleanor was a genius in her own right and getting her on board would be coup.

Edited August 9 by RachelKM

[DoctorAtomic]

7 minutes ago, RachelKM said:

I suppose if you know she won't have much memory, putting Lucy's brain map in a teen body might yield Jules.

There's no way Darros would play those odds. We know "Jules" is definitely the young Eleanor from the picture on the pillow, so I think it's fair to assume that Jules was printed directly from young Eleanor data. Darros definitely wants that inherent intelligence, and we've seen Jules enough to conclude that she's young Eleanor. 

The actual scanning technology, I can buy being around for a while that it's a routine medical diagnostic tool. It would make sense that Kira would use existing, proven technology as the input data to print the organs. And then people. 

I don't care where he got the data. I'd just like them to throw me a bone. It could be as simple as when the dad killed himself, they scanned her for trauma as a routine procedure. 

But all three of the me, me, and me gang came from that original Eleanor. We've seen Ritter-as-Eleanor when Kira and her first met, and we've seen Fix-as-Eleanor in the mirror from both their memories. The show has been playing very fair with the audience, so I think we're ok saying they're all the same Eleanor. 

I'm confident that Darros' plan will come to light as the conclusion to the season, similarly because they've been playing fair. I just don't follow the logic of printing Jules and sending her off to be adopted. Darros only said he printed her but not why. 

15 minutes ago, RachelKM said:

He probably would have left her in the care of her adoptive family and then approach her in college and recruit her.

It could be as simple as that. I think that leaves too much to chance, as maybe Jules doesn't have the same academic interests as original Eleanor did. Or maybe he was waiting on developing his own printout to interact with her a little more down the line as peers. I do think the show needs to say something about this. 

16 minutes ago, RachelKM said:

Speaking of Eleanor... or rather Eleanor v.2, she's awesome.  (Kira, gurl, I get it.  I'd want her back too.)

Watching the OG show, I can buy Kira's motivations because of all the chaos going on. I think this show could have leaned into it just a bit more in case there's viewers just not familiar with the original. 

[RachelKM]

3 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

There's no way Darros would play those odds. We know "Jules" is definitely the young Eleanor from the picture on the pillow, so I think it's fair to assume that Jules was printed directly from young Eleanor data. Darros definitely wants that inherent intelligence, and we've seen Jules enough to conclude that she's young Eleanor. 

Eleanor's DNA would produce the physicality of young Eleanor.  So a young Eleanor physical match is neither surprising or helpful to questions of about the age of the scan. Personally, I wouldn't assume anything.  And there's not much concern about odds.  Kira and Josh concluded the lack of memories was due to the detail of the scan. If Darros used the same data, Jules would have no memories that Lucy didn't have. But I guess we'll have to watch to find out... or perhaps this show won't even address it. 

I suppose she could have been scanned when she was in the hospital at some point as a teenager.  I don't know why anyone would have gone to the trouble for a then likely smart but not yet distinguished teen in the 2020s but it's certainly not impossible to imagine.  It just seems more unlikely to me than Darros deciding placing an amnesiac 30yo's brain data in a 16 body was worth it to have an Eleanor that had 15-20 years more life before her. 

[DoctorAtomic]

So far, the printouts have been based on the scans of the person at that age. 

I'd argue that just the DNA might produce an Eleanor-looking teenager, but not young, brilliant Eleanor-to-be-neuroscientist rock star. So I'm saying that Darros doesn't take the risk to print out a Jules that might or might not become the brilliant scientist. He wants that certainty that it's actual teen Eleanor. And so far, the show has only shown us that it's the actual Eleanor or young Darros scans being used. 

When I'm saying "playing fair", I'm saying the show is consistent. We can draw inferences logically derived from what we see. 

Darros could have done the DNA into another body scan, but I think we would have been tipped off from Josh, for example, that this wasn't the same type of printing that Kira did for Lucy and post-death Eleanor. 

[RachelKM]

4 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I'd argue that just the DNA might produce an Eleanor-looking teenager, but not young, brilliant Eleanor-to-be-neuroscientist rock star. So I'm saying that Darros doesn't take the risk to print out a Jules that might or might not become the brilliant scientist.

Possibly.  But you could model an identical physicality from the DNA.  Also, a physical scan is believable for now.  A brain scan a whole other matter to my mind.  But, again, we'll see.