S01.E02: Brave New World

[formerlyfreedom]

Will faces unforeseen challenges on his first day at his new job; Katie receives her first assignment; Maddie reconnects with an old acquaintance; and Carlos pays the price for Will's collaboration.

 

 

[Dowel Jones]

So the outsiders are the "RAPS"?  I wonder what that acronym is.

 

Carlos had a mechanic shop with a variety of cars on the jacks, yet street scenes show only the occupation personnel in cars.  It looks like the collaborators are more equal than anyone else, which, I would think, would sure do a lot for resistance membership.  But then again, Bowman seems to be quite eager to sell out the resistance leadership in order to have a chance at finding his son.

 

I'm overloaded on characters already.  Who is Maddie, again?  I did like the way she cut George to the bone by leaving with the goodies.  Back door man, indeed.

[Netfoot]

Is it just me?  Or did Will Bowman learn to love the taste of Kool-Aid really fast?

[AlliMo]

I think this actually has potential. Some of this episode reminded me of occupation period of "Battlestar Galactica."

 

I'm genuinely intrigued to find out just what exactly "The Factory" is and does to people.

 

That comment about everybody being jealous of his hair - how meta.

Edited January 22, 2016 by AlliMo

[GreyBunny]

The Factory - I'm going to guess Carlos and the other people with him are being harvested for organs, or something similarly awful.  

[Armchair Critic]

The Factory - I'm going to guess Carlos and the other people with him are being harvested for organs, or something similarly awful.

 

Soylent Green is people! ;)

[whiporee]

They all looked like they'd been sterilized for the Factory, so they're probably working on computer stuff. Always scary when missed genders are forced to strip by people in uniform. 

 

The prisoners also looked vacant, like maybe that last yellow light wiped their brains or something. 

 

As for the rest of the show, I like it, because it's got that buddy cop vibe, but the buddy cops are on the wrong side, and you want to cheer for them to do well, but when they do well people get thrown into the Factory for God knows what. Or killed for God knows what reason. 

 

Or are they? Will's boss made a great point -- what chance to a bunch of guerrillas have against the invaders? All they really will accomplish is making things worse. But sometimes that's the point of being alive, I guess.  

[Primetimer]

To put it another way: Geronimo wishes you'd pipe down.

Read the story

[tvsoothesthespirit]

I agree with the recap. The resistance seems to take only the most rudimentary of precautions.  Maybe the FBI agent realizes his wife is the leak? That would be an interesting development!

 

I agree that people in the factory are working on computer systems, maybe the drones, maybe the grand project that motivated the invasion?

 

I really need some more character development -- I honestly don't even care what happens to people. I was excited that Carlos was being sent to the farm, so that maybe we could learn more about it. It would have been good to go a few episodes before Mr. FBI started collaborating; maybe I would have been more invested if I knew more about him/his family, what was happening.

[Omar G.]

I really need some more character development -- I honestly don't even care what happens to people. I was excited that Carlos was being sent to the farm, so that maybe we could learn more about it. It would have been good to go a few episodes before Mr. FBI started collaborating; maybe I would have been more invested if I knew more about him/his family, what was happening.

 

That was a big problem with "Fear the Walking Dead" was it was tough to feel sympathy for these particular Los Angelenos and their teens when everybody seems to be getting along pretty OK and there's no real immediate danger.  You know Josh Holloway isn't going to be killed off anytime soon, so it's hard to get worried that he's in any real jeopardy.

[sjohnson]

The show has said children are sent to the factory. It's hard to imagine much use for children. It's also hard to imagine an endless need for unskilled labor. Surely at some point they have enough of that. Even worse, having conscript labor raises questions of how to detect sabotage when it would be so easy to compromise a clean environment. Really I expected the workers to be cyborged, used as biological components in the system. You could get very Grand Guignol with that. Showing a "worker's" skull removed for cables to relay information/commands, then the arms and legs cut off so they'd fit into the control circuit box in a giant machine of some kind.

The derring do is a little tedious.

Paul Guilfoyle's character is probably Geronimo, which I'd think more a symbol or job title than a person. By insisting on such a quick advance of information immediately acted upon, he's risking the very quick discovery of his informant. Doesn't seem prudent.

Guilfoyle's group slaughtering the random bomber faction appears to be meant to acquit his group of killing innocent civilians while making them gratifyingly effective as resistance leaders. Sorry, the ability to kill dissidents from your strategy is not a plus, not even for effectiveness, much less make you inspirational. Infighting like that has killed many a resistance movement.

[Netfoot]

That was a big problem with "Fear the Walking Dead" was it was tough to feel sympathy for these particular Los Angelenos and their teens when everybody seems to be getting along pretty OK and there's no real immediate danger.  You know Josh Holloway isn't going to be killed off anytime soon, so it's hard to get worried that he's in any real jeopardy.

 

The real problem was that it was a horrible show, populated by people that you could only root against.  I gave up when I realized that zombies were never going to get that douche-bag Nick, and eat his face.

 

Josh Holloway won't be killed off any time soon because he drank the Kool-Aid and licked his lips!  If he had shown any inclination to work against his masters, even on the down-low, then he might be someone whose fate was hard to determine.

 

Paul Guilfoyle's character is probably Geronimo

 

Or Proxy Snyder.  

[riverheightsnancy]

I know some people are postulating that Will (He will always be sawyer to me ;) ) is part of the faction or resistance with his wife. I don't think so. I think his wife is involved (in an ancillary way), but he does not know about her involvement. If he was involved, he would have known about the guy who bombed the truck (or was going to-that messed up his attempt to find his son) and I do not think he would have found him so quickly. Nope, I think he and his wife (always be Lori to me), would also talk about it. I do think it was interesting that Will's partner suggested taking their time to find this guy, I wonder if he was testing him to see if he could get him to slow down. I hope that his partner is also another person that is in the resistance. That might be a cool twist. I am liking it. Extremely scary when they had to strip down and get de-bugged. Couldn't help but think about WWII during those scenes. Totally better that FTWD regarding the LA scenes. 

[Canada]

I think I can give this show one more episode to wow me or I'm out.  Really dull stuff so far and a bunch of characters I don't give a crap about.

[anadyr21]

For an occupied territory, I don't get any real sense of fear or urgency. It's been 8 months. Certain medications and foods are scarce. Yet, no one looks like they're starving or in desperate need of anything. In the first episode, wifey's sister's hair was way too bouncy and fabulous. Everyone looks clean and reasonably dressed. From this episode, the food box had a lack of chicken, but I didn't hear anything that suggested there wasn't enough food. I know an occupied territory can look more like Vichy France than Warsaw, but this occupation seems like more of an inconvenience. Wifey still moves around the city and the closed bar rather freely, but aside from wearing a hat, doesn't seem to understand the meaning of a clandestine meeting.

 

I find the secondary characters to be much more interesting than the main characters. I want to hear hubby's boss' story. He guessed that she was former FBI. How did she end up in her position? Same for the Proxy. Is everyone from Homeland former military/law enforcement? 

 

The only scene I actually liked was the "showers." At least it looks like the factory question will be answered, so, yay to not drawing that out. I'm still on the fence with this show, and I don't actively hate anyone, so I'll stick around for another episode.

[savinggrace]

I think the problem with this show is that it's not Dystopian enough. I need my dystopian society to be either clinically clean with conformity or gritty with fight-for-survival chaos. Other than the occasional drone, there is minimal evidence on Colony of alien occupation or anything beyond a hard-knock life in the city.

If the selling point of this show is alien occupation they'd better get on it. I get that they want to maintain some suspense but in the absence of anything really interesting on the show they need to throw some sort of alien bone to the audience. I want to like this show but I'm honestly bored.

[ZoqFotPik]

 

Who is Maddie, again?

Katie's sister. It was her son who needed the insulin in the last episode.

 

 

So the outsiders are the "RAPS"?  I wonder what that acronym is.

According to Wikipedia, it is short for RAPtors, which the Redhats use as a logo. It's possible the Invaders are an avian based species.

 

 

He guessed that she was former FBI

He thought she was CIA.

 

I thought it was funny that the bar was still apparently stocked after 8 months. 

[riverheightsnancy]

If the selling point of this show is alien occupation they'd better get on it. I get that they want to maintain some suspense but in the absence of anything really interesting on the show they need to throw some sort of alien bone to the audience. I want to like this show but I'm honestly bored.

I have to wonder if the Alien invasion is a lie by the government to exert more control over people and really scare the populace into conforming. I would like that as an ultimate twist and FU, but not likely. I wish that the descriptions for the show hadn't been so specific and clear. I would have liked the alien thing to unravel more slowly. 

[Dowel Jones]

I have to wonder if the Alien invasion is a lie by the government to exert more control over people and really scare the populace into conforming.

 

However, the size and breadth of that wall around LA would indicate some kind of seriously omnipotent force to enable its construction in such a short time.  We're not talking IBEW and Teamsters locals, here.

[anadyr21]

Katie's sister. It was her son who needed the insulin in the last episode.

 

According to Wikipedia, it is short for RAPtors, which the Redhats use as a logo. It's possible the Invaders are an avian based species.

 

He thought she was CIA.

 

I thought it was funny that the bar was still apparently stocked after 8 months. 

Wait, was that the same chick who hooked up with guy and got the box of food!?! The same chick whose son is running out of insulin and is so desperate that she has her sister pulling illegal guns and stealing from the hospital!?! You just found a hook up who was willing to give you food and you didn't think to ask for insulin or medical help!?! But, your hair is fabulous!?! This is an occupation and you're too respectable to use sex as a means of survival, literally, for your son's survival!?! Tell me I'm mixing up my characters!

 

The boss might have been former CIA. I may have gotten it mixed up.

[Clanstarling]

I'm not sure what to think about the Factory. The strong concentration camp/gassing images made me expect to see a pile of bodies. Since I couldn't see the faces of the group going into the light, I sort of thought they were "doctors" who would harvest the bodies. And that the whole diabetes thing has to do with something the Aliens can't stomach. Though since the friend, a seemingly major character, is a prisoner, that seems unlikely.

 

I would expect the pay phones to be monitored. This is set in a post-NSA America, you'd think people would be a little more aware - especially with drones flying around as a constant reminder they're being surveilled.

 

I took the massacre of the splinter group as more of a "loose lips sink ships" situation, so they couldn't lead back to Geronimo, and it had the added bonus of getting rid of their dissidents. I didn't get much of a sense of compassion (or even desire to project compassion) from the two higher ups in Geronimo, so I don't think the civilian deaths made much difference to them.

 

I do find it interesting to see the collaborators perspective, and like that they seem to be going towards showing the different reasons they collaborate. So far we've seen survival, greed, desire to protect from further catastrophe as reasons - both stated and not.

 

I haven't seen any of the Walking Dead, so the references to the actors' previous roles or situations in those series mean nothing to me. But I can get on the dislike of the wife character, even so.

Edited January 26, 2016 by clanstarling

[jcin617]

Are we (and the characters) still supposed to be in the dark about what happened (is happening) with the rest of the country?

​I can't tell if the characters know what's happened outside the walls, suspect what happened, or have no idea what happened.

 

Seems like the Arrival happened, LA's defenses were smacked down in about 8 hours, then greater LA was sealed off from the outside world but they've been a bit vague about the details around it (which is fine if it's one of the mysteries, but sometimes I'm not sure what we're supposed to know or what we're supposed to be in the dark about).   

[JasmineFlower]

There is a constant Nazi imagery in this, almost to the point of laziness to convey their new society. It's a lot to take when the storyline and the show's intent is not as fleshed out as it needs to be. It is also extremely vague on so many things, that's it hard to tell how urgent things are and what else is going on. The Nazi imagery makes things seem dire, so much else makes it seem like they would like to overtake, but aren't in a rush too. Like their lives in a holding pattern are not that bad if they don't run afoul of the alien government. They don't appear to be living in constant fear or hunger or violent actions. Is every US city like this? Is it a CA problem? An LA problem? What's outside the wall? Do we just not know or do the characters not know either? They talk about the son like he just needs to be found. Are people just homeless and alive outside of the wall or what?

 

And that was a rather small group being sent to "The Factory", not that anything good was happening to those poor people, but they keep mentioning "The Factory" as the most dire place ever, and while the shower scene had me scared for their lives, them coming out sterile seemed much less so. So, I wonder if they the characters in the Colony really know what happens there, beyond it sounding like people don't come back.Is it a labor camp? Are they about to be experimented on? Hope we get some answers soon because I think I'm only giving this one more episode for them to give me more.

 

Fantastic to see Action Jackson (Carl Weathers) though. To anyone who gets the reference - "Baby you got a stew going!"

[Netfoot]

Is every US city like this? Is it a CA problem? An LA problem? What's outside the wall? Do we just not know or do the characters not know either? They talk about the son like he just needs to be found. Are people just homeless and alive outside of the wall or what?

 

They don't know and we don't know.  In the pilot there was a comment made (by someone) about not knowing if there was anything left outside the wall.  

 

By deduction, if there are gates allowing the redhats in and out, there must be something outside or they would have no reason to go out.  Perhaps the rest of the world has been devastated.  Perhaps the rest of the world has been divided up by many more walls, into small areas exactly like LA.  Perhaps we shall find out as the season progresses.

[JasmineFlower]

They don't know and we don't know.  In the pilot there was a comment made (by someone) about not knowing if there was anything left outside the wall.  

 

By deduction, if there are gates allowing the redhats in and out, there must be something outside or they would have no reason to go out.  Perhaps the rest of the world has been devastated.  Perhaps the rest of the world has been divided up by many more walls, into small areas exactly like LA.  Perhaps we shall find out as the season progresses.

 

No, there is something outside of the wall in some places and they know at least something is there. But how much and where isn't known. Josh was caught trying to get to Santa Monica to find the son and asked what it was like and the guy he was with said it's similar to there. That was outside of the wall at least. So, they know something, they haven't said what.

 

But really, what I was saying, was that for me, there has not been nearly enough about this world that has been explained for it to feel like a cohesive, compelling show. It sounds like you are willing to wait for that to unfold. For me, there will have to be more explaining in this week's episode to pull me in or I'm likely to bail as it seems like a show in need of better writers to fully capture the world they were trying to create.

[Emily Thrace]

The show has said children are sent to the factory. It's hard to imagine much use for children. It's also hard to imagine an endless need for unskilled labor. Surely at some point they have enough of that. Even worse, having conscript labor raises questions of how to detect sabotage when it would be so easy to compromise a clean environment.

 

Really? Children have had jobs in manufacturing since its inception. If your typing on a Mac computer some of it parts may have been assembled with child labor.  Children's smaller hands have been put to use for generations sadly. Not to mention they require less food and space without really putting out less work than adult workers.

[Red Fields]

I want to like this but the Nazi imagery is so transparent and too much of the dialogue is hackneyed. I loves me some Sawyer (his hair looks kinda crappy here) but I can't stand Lori.

[AudienceofOne]

Second verse same as the first. I kind of liked what someone referred to as the "buddy cop" of the arrest and the hard-nosed boss in the police station or whatever that was. Humans will tend to re-establish normality even in the harshest situations. But I agree the Nazi imagery is tiresome. Considering the sheer volume of dictatorships, oppressive regimes, genocides and occupations that have and are occurring right now, constantly acting like the only reference we have is the Nazis is fucking annoying.