S02.E08: Stuff to Steal, People to Kill

[Wouter]

On 21-8-2016 at 0:09 AM, MissLucas said:

Well played show, well played. Things I loved (in that order!):

Two keeping the coat (seriously when I first saw evil Two I suffered from coat envy, then I cheered when our Two commandeered the thing and for the rest of the episode I was more interested in the fate of that coat than the blink drive).

Torri Higginson's alternative Commander Truffault being just a magnificently conniving as original Truffault (I think she enjoys playing that character immensely).

Four listening to not one but two evil little angels - I'm sure that conversation will have ramifications further down the line. Same goes for Six knowing the verbal shut-down command for the Android. Those are both details that may or may not tie into the whole predicted betrayal story.

Hearing that it was Two who gave the Android her 'flawed' programming. That should pave the way to some pretty intriguing dynamics.

Not knowing what happened to alternative Five. Maybe we will hear about her one day but I'm surprised that the show for once kept her side-lined.

Bringing back Jack Corso (I assume it's him in the Marauder and it's really Corso and not AU's version of One - dude just nuked the mining facility). I wonder why and how he pulled that move though. Last we saw him was on evil Raza unconscious. I wonder how and why he pulled that move since he did not have that much time to react to everything that was going on.

I normally hate alternative universe plots but that was really great - one of the better episodes this season.

Another great episode. S2 is a solid improvement on S1, quality-wise. Besides a strong script and nice acting performances, the CGI also is really showing off now. We are lucky that even shows on a budget can do this kind of effects, nowadays.

The show seems to be pushing Four as the potential traitor - he knows what the blink drive could do for him, and surprisingly it would seem that his brother sided with him in the AU (for a while, at least). Might give him ideas, though it could also be a red herring.

The escape of the FTL-Marauder did seem rather convenient, considering the captives were tied up. It would make some sense if we assume they managed to get loose; they would probably not want to face real Portia Lin after Corso tried to nuke her counterpart. It could also be Corso alone, for all we know that may depend on actors availability for future episodes.

On 21-8-2016 at 7:58 AM, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

Also - again according to JM - a couple questions left unanswered from the Pilot ep were answered in this episode; IE who performed the mind-wipe and why the ship dropped them out of the cryosleep.  My own deduction here, but included in the reveals, was we found out which who "he" was that Two&Four plotted to kill before getting to the mining colony.

Apparently JM is referring to the "digital evidence" of Varrick; he admitted to having sabotaged the engines and to have put a homing beacon in action. I initially coupled this with the events of the final episode of S1, but apparently the recording was made before they went into stasis, to go to the mining colony from the pilot episode. Accordingly, it seems this would confirm that Six performed the mindwipe, but that already seemed near-certain (and in the "main" DM universe he did use Five's program to do it).

So, the ship dropped them out of the cryosleep because the computers were programmed to do so in the case of an emergency. The emergency was caused by Varrick, using a computer virus to take out the engines. The ship could be tracked because of the subspace signal allowed others to track it. This was meant for the GA, but the mystery ship that attacked with missiles likely wasn't one of theirs (they would expect no resistance on the ship, and to find their infiltrator and lots of data).

Because the Android was programmed to wipe the data stores of the Raza if the situation was threatening enough, it would be at this point that the Raza lost most of its data. This does not explain why she ended up in the box, though, unless that was part of the protocol (wiping out her own datastores, too, while the box may have been meant as a kind of booby trap for unsuspecting trespassers). Since there is a "kill phrase" for the Android, the members of the crew (with intact memories) could shut her down without violence, if needed.

 

On 21-8-2016 at 6:43 PM, SimoneS said:

So basically he confirmed that it wasn't Five on the Marauder so it was most likely JC/One. If the Alt versions were the same, then shouldn't One have been good.  Also, if Five didn't stow away on the Raza, how did they get the drive?

The drive may have been recovered by Reynaud's thugs (with Emily being unable to board the Raza) and in the main universe, Reynaud is in league with commander Niemann from Ferris Corp. Since the AU Raza was doing Ferris' bidding, they would get the drive to perform attacks that Ferris wouldn't want to be implicated in (so no Ferris cruisers involved).

On 21-8-2016 at 7:26 PM, MissLucas said:

Yeah, if the AU characters are the same characters then Derek Moss should be a good guy who's not into nuking people (the nuke did take out the mining colony after all - the Marauder was just supposed to be a collateral damage/a victim of friendly fire).

And the more I think about it the more significant it seems that we never got to see AU Emily - especially considering how important Five was with regards to acquiring the blink drive. Also, one tiny detail that almost went unnoticed: AU Raza had not one but two blink-drives. Once Two gets rid of her tremors the Raza folks should really go after AU Marauder.

The bio of Derek Moss showed him to be a very hard businessman, "regularly firing the bottom 10% of his company" (try working at such a place, everybody constantly undercutting their colleagues to stay out of that 10%). I have always felt that this was not reflected in the character of One, post-wipe. So, maybe he was improved more than Portia was, or he was a figurehead unaware of the going-ons in the company. Having said that, gleefully firing nukes still sounds very much like Corso and not like CEO-Moss, who was dabbling in charity as well (and thus more nuanced or sophisticated in his evil ways).

AFAIK there was only one blink-drive on the AU-Raza, before our crew took it with them. The "extra" Marauder looked to be equipped with a normal FTL-drive, which is still startling enough as the normal Marauder is not FTL-capable (we were 99% certain of this, now it's been confirmed).

The reveal that Two altered Android's programming was interesting, and it rang very true to me. As a synthetic person, Two (and even Portia) would be in a position to empathise with the Android. They also have been close from the very first appearance of the Android (when Two was the one who shut her down, then woke her back up and started collaborating with her right away).

It was also nice that the AU-Android was not really an "evil" version; as a machine, can it really be held against her that she is loyal to evil Portia? I liked how the same desire to protect the crew, and the same favoritism (she protected Portia/Two very deliberately against the others) is reflected in her.

Lastly, I personally like it that we finally get confirmation that the Raza is equipped with missile launchers (and Ferris evidently gave them nukes in the AU, though in the regular universe the Raza has no ammo for the launchers). It's starting to look like an outright warship, more and more. Since Truffault and the rest of the Mikkei crew seemed to be shocked there was a second Raza, it also looks like the Raza is one-of-a-kind (at least as far as Mikkei knows). If there were a dozen of those zipping around the galaxy, the presence of another ship that looked exactly like the Raza wouldn't have convinced Truffault (it could just have been a sister ship with altered markings).

The Raza has a working blink drive know. That opens all kinds of possibilities, and may also motivate part of the crew to grab if for their own use.

[krimimimi]

On August 21, 2016 at 7:26 PM, MissLucas said:

Yeah, if the AU characters are the same characters then Derek Moss should be a good guy who's not into nuking people (the nuke did take out the mining colony after all - the Marauder was just supposed to be a collateral damage/a victim of friendly fire).

And the more I think about it the more significant it seems that we never got to see AU Emily - especially considering how important Five was with regards to acquiring the blink drive. Also, one tiny detail that almost went unnoticed: AU Raza had not one but two blink-drives. Once Two gets rid of her tremors the Raza folks should really go after AU Marauder.

Like @Wouter and @sjohnson said, we haven't really come to know Moss pre-wipe that made him One. 

I feel like this ep gave us more data points as to who Two, Three, and even Four and Six were. We've seen Two, Three and Four pre-wipe before (the season 2 ep where they reset), and we have enough history, old acquaintances and actually relevant (ie non-horse feeding) flashbacks for Six. I feel like we have almost none of that for One and little for Five, up to and including AU versions. Yeah, we got some version of AU Corso/Moss, but the fact we can't seem to tell which of the two of them it even was should tell us we didn't learn much (or at least: enough) from his presence. 

AU Raza didn't have two blink drives, just the one that the prime universe's Raza liberated. And the AU Marauder just had FTL capabilities, but not its own BD.

On August 21, 2016 at 7:50 PM, sjohnson said:

But I really don't see why little miss kill them all couldn't bond with the evil crew more or less as easily as with the number people, leaving their acquisition of the blink drive fairly simple. And leaving an unknown party to stow away on the FTL Marauder. Her superduper criminal hacking skills would quickly make her one of them, if she managed to survive long enough to show them off.

It doesn't seem like she bonded with the number folks pre-wipe though, and post wipe they are definitely different people. The problem either way is regardless of how useful she can be or how much they might be capable of liking her, they would have to not space her long enough to determine these things, which they didn't seem inclined to do in the prime universe, and I'd suspect even less so in the AU. Also, given Varrick has been shown to be a good guy of less than pure character, I could picture him going to bat for her only if someone else does (Moss, maybe), but not without someone else for "cover," because he's at risk of blowing his own cover. 

Speaking of why she didn't get spaced, did we ever see the actual vote on that? (I haven't rewatched season one, and it's been too long.) I feel like One and Five always assumed he'd have voted to save her, but I'm not as sure Moss (the guy actually doing the voting at the time) would have. I always suspected she was so sure Boone was going to space her, but his saying so in the flashback doesn't mean that's how he was going to actually vote. Or even that they voted at all, really. That just felt like one of those things show runners like to put a twist on - it doesn't happen until it actually does.

 

@Black Knight, I really like your take on the relationships between Two and One vs. Three, and particularly how her position vis a vis Six made the video evidence of his death harder for him to take. (I hadn't thought about it from his standpoint.) Also, I appreciate your POV that she is the new and improved One/ moral compass.

[MissLucas]

My bad, I had somehow thought AU marauder had a blink-drive too but you're all right - it's got just a poor measly FTL engine.

We did actually see the vote on Five's fate in episode 12 of season one. They did not exactly discuss airlocking her - Three claimed that he had just put her there to scare her. He actually suggested to sell her ('get something for her'), Two wanted her off the ship - it sounded as if she didn't care how.  One and Six wanted her to stay as an asset. The deciding vote was left to Four who somewhat surprising just simply welcomed her aboard.

Edited August 24, 2016 by MissLucas

[krimimimi]

43 minutes ago, MissLucas said:

We did actually see the vote on Five's fate in episode 12 of season one. They did not exactly discuss airlocking her - Three claimed that he had just put her there to scare her. He actually suggested to sell her ('get something for her'), Two wanted her off the ship - it sounded as if she didn't care how.  One and Six wanted her to stay as an asset. The deciding vote was left to Four who somewhat surprising just simply welcomed her aboard.

Thanks for that!