S02.E07: Heart-Shaped Box

[The Crazed Spruce]

The team gets tested when Dutch interrogates a lethal Level Six agent, while Johnny investigates Jelco's wall for Pawter.

[SimoneS]

I am so ticked off that stupid woman betrayed Johnny. She not only doomed herself and family, but Johnny as well. Hopefully, Pawter will be able to save him. I have come to like Johnny and Pawter working to save Old Town the best.

So Sabine likely will be back. She will be one of those characters who comes back again and again.

Edited August 13, 2016 by SimoneS

[ottoDbusdriver]

So, Dutch found a miniature Madison Cube Gardens on Leith  </Futurama>

Johnny -- why, oh, why did you try and take on Jelco on your own ?

Sabine's story was a little heartbreaking, and I'm pretty sure she's not dead after those techs in white reclaimed her body from the woods on Leith.

So what else does the wall around old town do ?

Edited August 13, 2016 by ottoDbusdriver

[AzureOwl]

Aha! I was right! Sabine was a Level 6. 

I'm so hoping those white robed dudes are able to fix Sabine. I like her.

[Snarkette]

And I was wrong. The Black Root are 6s too. And they have a plan. And so do the families with the walled cities. Looks like they're trapping 6s behind them, not just Westerlies. So to date we have, what, three separate war plans: build the walls, prepare for a scorched earth/qresh scenario, and preserve the culture and knowledge of Q'resh beyond their destruction.

And Pawter is a stupid, stupid girl who can't see past the end of her own nose. And her idiot mother killed herself without leaving letters of instructions. 

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

I'm too tired right now to put too much thought process into what I just watched, but here's what I *think* I picked up;

•  Sabine is a Level6; and Black Root, to boot - no real surprise there.
•  An effective Level6 starts out as an anti-social loner with mental/brain scars.
•  Sex with D'avin is the miracle cure for sociopaths with homicidal tendencies, and also have weird green goo stuff in them.
•  Dutch was indoctrinated by Khlyen to be perfect for the Level6 modification, but never given it because of Khlyen had a change of heart and wanted to protect her?
•  "Aleena" is a green-goo clone of Dutch - the one seen in the season premiere - and now off to hunt and interrogate/kill her?  *scratches head, foggy on that last bit*
•  The 'tech' used in "The Wall"s seems to be 'alien' in nature - or at least unknown to the scientist lady who helped make it - so I'm guessing it'll be a tie-in to last week's stuff about the invaders on San's home planet and whatnot.
•  "You're my brother, and I love you, but maybe you should think about holstering that thing.  You've got a bad track record with sex."  <---- (paraphrased) Line of the night.

They need to start tying all the storylines back together ASAP, because all this Johnny being separated from Dutch&D'avin stuff?  Not a super-fan. 

And also not a fan of not acknowledging Johnny 'going off grid, turning off his comm' and that it doesn't ping off of either of Dutch or D'avin's radar, before or after dealing with Sabine.  Especially after what all just happened, and Sabine saying that when she was back to being full-on L6, she'd kill Johnny & D'avin and not hesitate.  She's not the only Level6/Black Root out there, and Du+J were just out hunting for 'hidden' Level6's that were given the impression there were so many that they 'infested' Old Town, which just happened to be where Johnny was (or at least where he was before his comm was turned off).

Edited August 14, 2016 by iRarelyWatchTV36

[AzureOwl]

54 minutes ago, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

•  "Aleena" is a green-goo clone of Dutch - the one seen in the season premiere - and now off to hunt and interrogate/kill her?  *scratches head, foggy on that last bit*

More likely that Dutch is a clone of Aleena. The memories seen in the season premiere seem to belong to the time period when the green plasma was discovered in the Quad and the group who went on to become the Level 6s was first formed. 

If that's the case, Aleena must be as old as Khylen.

By the way, was it my imagination or was there blaxploitation music in the background while Dutch was fighting that Black Root fellow?

Edited August 13, 2016 by AzureOwl

[thuganomics85]

You see, John?!  This is what happens when you try and do your own thing, and not trust Dutch or D'Avin to hear you out and maybe back you up. You get your ass captured!  I get that there is something bad going on and it needs to be solved stat (not to mention the whole crushing on Pawter bit), but John really should not have gone at this solo.  I'm not too worried, since I'm sure he'll be rescued, but I can't wait to see how he tries to explain this to D'Avin and especially Dutch.

So, Sabine is not dead, because she was not only Level 6, but part of this Black Root group too.  Instead, by sexing D'Avin, she was turned back into her former self temporarily (preventing the plan of having D'Avin just seduce every Level 6 in the galaxy).  In the end, she helps, but Dutch does "put her down", but now she is being dragged off by these mysterious scientists/doctors, so I'm sure she'll be back.

Dutch gets a new box, and the target is Aleena, who she thinks is this other version of her, that D'Avin saw in those flashbacks/visions.  I have no idea what is going on here or whatever secrets Khylen is keeping from her.

I loved that D'Avin/Sabine's little vision quest/search for other Level 6s, just happened to require them being in some kind of tub, in order to get them down to their underwear.  I guess if you've got an attractive cast, you might as well taken advantage of it.  Speaking of which, Dutch/Hannah John-Kamen in that undercover outfit....

John geeking out over those glasses was the greatest.  Aaron Ashmore is delightful.

[ottoDbusdriver]

6 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Dutch gets a new box, and the target is Aleena, who she thinks is this other version of her, that D'Avin saw in those flashbacks/visions.  I have no idea what is going on here or whatever secrets Khylen is keeping from her.

My money is on Aleena still being alive for sure -- according to Alvis that Scarback slaughter on Arkyn took place about 200 years ago, and we found out tonight that Sabine was 89, so the green goo keeps a Level 6 pretty for a LONG TIME.

[sjohnson]

The shout out about how Dutch is too protective of the Jaqobis suffered from not being believable. The believable word is "possessive," I think. 

The plot thickens. It's about the density and rigidity of concrete by now. 

Moving on, Sabine's deep obsession with psychoanalyzing Dutch was kind of unmotivated. But I guess the amazing congruence between her instant insights and the angst the writers want was to be expected. 

Not as many one liners this episode thought. But I suppose the extra skin compensated?

[MissLucas]

Well, I have to give it to the writers: Sabin turned out to be a much more compelling character than I expected. I also really liked the actress and she had great chemistry with McFarlane in the scene where he turned her down because he wasn't really 'down on penis-roulette'. I also liked the scene where D'avin challenged Dutch and her murderous methods. All in all Sabin was a character used to illustrate some great character dynamics on Lucy. I hope we get to see her again.

Damn the company and its vague plans. If I got traitor-engineer right the wall is designed to sooner or later kill everyone inside? Which makes little sense as usual. Also not making much sense: why are there so many Level 6s in Oldtown?

But at least we know now more about the Black Root and Khlyen and some of his plans for Dutch.

I enjoyed the episode (especially the opening scene) but I think it's time that the separate plots of green-goo (Khlyen, the Black Root etc.) and lethal-wall (and whatever else the Nine are scheming) finally meet. There's obviously a connection.

[SimoneS]

If she is Aleena's clone, who was Khylen referring to when he told Dutch that her father sent him to protect her. I didn't think that he was lying. Has the show changed the story? Or was he referring to her creator as a father?

[Triskan]

Oh Johnny, Johnny, you're definitly in a hard place... 

The story is getting quite intricated and dense, and I'm loving it, although not sure I understand it all, but that's probably on purpose. The whole Sixes storyline is quite confusing but I think I managed to follow all the fantasy-science-tech stuff and it was pretty well thought.

I hope Sabine will be back ! Her story was indeed quite heartbreaking and I wish to see more of her (which is something I wouldnt have said a few episodes ago !)

As for the wall and the Oldtown arc, yeah, dark clouds on the horizon there as well ! 

I wonder if somehow the two arcs are not more connected that we may think now...

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

6 hours ago, Triskan said:

As for the wall and the Oldtown arc, yeah, dark clouds on the horizon there as well ! 

I wonder if somehow the two arcs are not more connected that we may think now...

Especially now that we know that there a lot of Level6's behind the Wall, for some wacky unknown reasons...

 

I may be alone in this, but while I found it somewhat 'cute' and intriguing at first, this continued obfuscation of just what the hells the actual relationships between Dutch/Johnny and Dutch/D'avin are - or what it is that they actually feel for each other - is just mostly growing tiresome now. 

I realize that we are supposed to understand that Dutch is very stunted emotionally and doesn't quite grasp things like the Jaqobis and everyone else because she was taught to "not feel anything", but I always feel like I'm riding this mental roller-coaster of thinking I'm getting it and then almost immediately realizing that I am not getting it at all when it comes to watching Dutch react & emote with both/either brothers.

In two of the previous 3 episodes, she seemed to be quite petty because of jealousy towards Johnny/Pawter.  In the last 3 episodes, she seemed more-than-discretely jealous of D'avin/Sabine.  All the while having her own 'bang buddy' time with Alvis.  Like I said over in the Dutch character thread, she's been all over the place this season and I feel like a pinball trying to keep up.  

I guess I have to blame the scripts/writers, because while I believe I'm supposed to be watching a tough fierce female being over-protective of a pair of brothers who are also her 'work' partners;  all I'm really seeing is an obsessively possessive woman who snarls and spits at other women who dare show any interest in her "property".

Edited August 14, 2016 by iRarelyWatchTV36

[MissLucas]

13 hours ago, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

I guess I have to blame the scripts/writers, because while I believe I'm supposed to be watching a tough fierce female being over-protective of a pair of brothers who are also her 'work' partners;  all I'm really seeing is an obsessively possessive woman who snarls and spits at other women who dare show any interest in her "property".

Yeah, they have to be more careful how they write her especially with regards to other female characters on the show. Even her relationship with Lucy is not that smooth and although I enjoyed their bickering back in season one now that it has become part of a somewhat annoying pattern it's less fun. I would be okay with it if the show made it clear that it's residual damage from her harem-upbringing. But more often than not it seems as if we have to view it as another awesome aspect of her character. Why else would everybody fall for Dutch - even the women she despises? I had to roll my eyes a bit when Sabin jumped on the Dutch love-train. Thank God for Turin!

Edited August 14, 2016 by MissLucas

[krimimimi]

6 minutes ago, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

I guess I have to blame the scripts/writers, because while I believe I'm supposed to be watching a tough fierce female being over-protective of a pair of brothers who are also her 'work' partners;  all I'm really seeing is an obsessively possessive woman who snarls and spits at other women who dare show any interest in her "property".

Honestly, that's what I see, too, but I assumed it was what they are going for. Some people are like that. Too stunted to have a meaningful relationship, but totally capable of being possessive or jealous, heck, even caring for people in much the same limited and egotistical way a three year old might. But that doesn't mean they don't have physical needs or desires. And I consider it even more true to type that such a character would seek to fulfill those needs outside his or her circle of "necessary" people, as with Dutch and Alvin, as opposed to her continuing to boink D'avin, which was liable to get messy.

 

So help me out here, guys. When Jelco busts Johnny, why exactly? Breaking and entering, sure, but he literally said show me the warrant, and Johnny actually has one for traitorous engineer lady. So he has a warrant to retrieve her, and there she was. (That he didn't know that before breaking in is beside the point. They can't prove it.). So if a warrant were sufficient to justify the B&E, as Jelco's question implies, then why isn't his? The snooping he accused Johnny of, Johnny never actually got around to doing, and just because traitorous engineer lady says he was gonna, doesn't make it so. On the contrary, she's been discredited on various fronts, and Johnny is a member of the RAC in good standing. So, huh?

[sjohnson]

^^^Good points, each and every one. The only answer I can devise is, Johnny is the science oracle and the nurturing one but for everything else he is a screwup who has to be rescued by Dutch, whose awesomeness is thereby validated. (Sciencing and nurturing aren't awesomeness points, so Johnny can have those.) Also, the whole point of the secrecy is Dutch angst over being betrayed. As far as I can see, not even the characters know why it has to be kept a secret. 

I'm not certain that the producers don't really mean us to see Dutch as overprotective, instead of possessive. When a writer or a reader invests in a character as ideal self/ideal love/both simultaneously, it can be astonishingly hard to be objective. 

Edited August 14, 2016 by sjohnson

[jelaine]

Quote

The snooping he accused Johnny of, Johnny never actually got around to doing, and just because traitorous engineer lady says he was gonna, doesn't make it so. On the contrary, she's been discredited on various fronts, and Johnny is a member of the RAC in good standing. So, huh?

The snooping was actually from earlier in the season, Wild, Wild Westerly, when Johnny broke into Jelco's office and took, I think it was the plans for the Wall and that's how they found out the Company was planning on putting Walls around all the towns on Westerly.

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

47 minutes ago, jelaine said:

The snooping was actually from earlier in the season, Wild, Wild Westerly, when Johnny broke into Jelco's office and took, I think it was the plans for the Wall and that's how they found out the Company was planning on putting Walls around all the towns on Westerly.

That was actually Pawter who purloined the plans, before rigging Jelco's heart-bomb and escaping.

[AzureOwl]

12 hours ago, MissLucas said:

Well, I have to give it to the writers: Sabin turned out to be a much more compelling character than I expected. I also really liked the actress and she had great chemistry with McFarlane in the scene where he turned her down because he wasn't really 'down on penis-roulette'.

Tori Anderson, who plays Sabine does seems to have the uncanny ability to go full-on puppy dog face on command (like when she was holding the other guy's severed head), but is also believable when she needs to be emotionless-scary.

Speaking of which, another clue pointing towards Sabine's survival is the fact that they even have that silver thingy as a dedicated Leve 6-killing weapon. If a plain old bullet to the head was enough to do the job, such a tool would be redundant.   

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

Something (else) I didn't quite like about this hour............   Don't mistake this for me being glad that Sabine was 'killed', but why would Dutch "give her a fighting chance" when Sabine was 100% up-front about the fact that when she regained her full no-conscience Level6 self, she would straight-up murder the Jaqobis' because it would hurt Dutch?  D'avin's feelings possibly being injured are more important than his & his brother's safety??

That's bordering on Johnny taking on Spring Hill & Jelco by himself levels of foolishness.

[tennisgurl]

Yeah...protective and possessive can be two sides of the same coin, Dutch. I wonder if the writers are accidentally writing her as a bit unhealthily possessive of the Jaqobi brothers, or if its accidental. Sadly, its probably accidental. 

That being said, I did like this episode, even if Johnny had to make some terrible life choices for the plot to work (come on Johnny, share with the group! I know your smarter than this!), and I liked the stuff with Sabine more than I expected to. Now that she isn't just playing Boring Love Interest, she is actually quite likable. I would not mind seeing her pop up again, since I figure she isn't really dead for real.   

There are so many plots and so many conspiracies and double crosses, they have got to working towards some way to tie all this crap together. They have to!

Dutch looked amazing in that undercover outfit. 

[ottoDbusdriver]

40 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

Dutch looked amazing in that undercover outfit. 

She really did.

[Uncle Benzene]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

Yeah...protective and possessive can be two sides of the same coin, Dutch. I wonder if the writers are accidentally writing her as a bit unhealthily possessive of the Jaqobi brothers, or if its accidental.

IMHO, that's all Khlyen. He made her in his image.

Quote

Dutch looked amazing in that undercover outfit. 

Ain't that the damn truth! As always. Mercy!

[tennisgurl]

9 minutes ago, Uncle Benzene said:

IMHO, that's all Khlyen. He made her in his image.

 Thats actually a really good and interesting point. While Dutch is clearly not as intense as Khlyen, there really is a parallel between them and how they treat the people in their lives. I think Dutch would be really disturbed if someone pointed out the similarities. 

Edited August 14, 2016 by tennisgurl

[jelaine]

17 hours ago, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

That was actually Pawter who purloined the plans, before rigging Jelco's heart-bomb and escaping.

Yeah. my bad.  Apologies.  I could have sworn Johnny had snooped around there too though.

[KaleyFirefly]

On 8/13/2016 at 11:54 PM, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

Something (else) I didn't quite like about this hour............   Don't mistake this for me being glad that Sabine was 'killed', but why would Dutch "give her a fighting chance" when Sabine was 100% up-front about the fact that when she regained her full no-conscience Level6 self, she would straight-up murder the Jaqobis' because it would hurt Dutch?  D'avin's feelings possibly being injured are more important than his & his brother's safety??

That's bordering on Johnny taking on Spring Hill & Jelco by himself levels of foolishness.

I wondered that too! After she straight out told Dutch "when I'm back to my old self I'll totally kill D'Avin and Johnny," (paraphrase), if I were Dutch I would have stuck that silver pike in Sabine's head, to make SURE she was dead. Letting her live was very out of character for Dutch.

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

3 hours ago, KaleyFirefly said:

I wondered that too! After she straight out told Dutch "when I'm back to my old self I'll totally kill D'Avin and Johnny," (paraphrase), if I were Dutch I would have stuck that silver pike in Sabine's head, to make SURE she was dead. Letting her live was very out of character for Dutch.

I soooo hope this is not where it's going - like really, really, really hope not - but it would make sense if find out later that she gave Sabine "a fighting chance" because killing her (with 0% chance of revival) would have emotionally hurt D'avin, and Dutch didn't want to put her 'twu wuv' through any more pain than he was already experiencing.

Edited August 18, 2016 by iRarelyWatchTV36

[MissLucas]

I don't think letting Sabine live had anything to do with D'Avin or Johnny - at least not directly. This episode revolved heavily around Dutch's state of mind. Is she still the ruthless killer Khlyen tried to mold or did she manage to evolve/change. During the confrontation with D'Avin it was clear that she was about to fall back into old patterns and he challenged her on that.

Quote

You want to go back to being Yala? Red Boxes and assassinations? You're better than that.

And then she got to green-goo-free Sabine and almost liked her. Sabine was honest with her until the very last moment. And it was clear that she had tried to help as much as she could. Under these circumstances outright killing her was very hard to do. By giving her a 'fighting chance' Dutch was acknowledging that she's no longer Yala. She's not without emotion anymore and more importantly not without hope (in this case hope that there's a way to cure Sabine one day).

Well that's my reading of that decision because I prefer to think of the Jaqobi brothers more as catalysts to help Dutch regaining her humanity than as pets she needs to protect and keep happy.

Also: that quoted line above is damn near to what Crichton said to Aeryn Sun when he tried to convince her to leave the Peacekeepers. (You can be more.)

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

This probably belongs in 2.6 ILL, but I'm going to put it here since all of the 'fallout' was covered in this episode.

I don't think D'avin's forcing the green goo out of Sabine was all him.  I think she was 'weakened' because she was experiencing an actual feeling just before she gooed-out.  D'avin asked her why she was crying, and it was because "I'm happy".  Her emotion + D'avin = exgoouination.

On re-watch this episode broke my heart a little bit, seeing Sabine be 'free' and then knowing she'd be back to L6-Black Root and all this emotional freedom was going to be killed off again, an unfeeling human drone basically.  And then her discussions with Dutch (& D'avin)...  Heart-Shaped Box was quite the apropos episode title for this one.

Edited August 27, 2016 by iRarelyWatchTV36