S01.E05: Paradise

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

While Hap zeroes in on a new test subject in Cuba, Homer and OA work to perfect their escape plan. Scott reaches his breaking point.

 

[millennium]

Oh my.

Bad interpretive dance as the key to escaping our physical dimension.

Ugh.

What next, Hap drops a mime into the one of the glass cages just for the sheer irony?

This show just asked too much of me while giving very little in return.

Even if we overlook the Isadora Duncan Revue ...  Come on, mad scientist builds a state of the art laboratory in an abandoned mine and routinely kills kids and jolts them back to life but he wasn't smart enough to equip the cells with HIDDEN MICROPHONES so he would know what the hell they were up to?

[numbnut]

On 12/19/2016 at 2:38 AM, millennium said:

he wasn't smart enough to equip the cells with HIDDEN MICROPHONES so he would know what the hell they were up to?

I was marveling at that too. I also missed the part about how they learned about the "freedom movements" while they were dead. I guess the dancing is an extension of that weird interpretive handshake in Sound of My Voice. LOL. Once again, a Marling project reels me in only to lose me around the midpoint. I'll still finish the series and I like the basic premise but, yeah, I'm not buying it.

Edited December 20, 2016 by numbnut

[millennium]

29 minutes ago, numbnut said:

I was marveling at that too. I also missed the part about how they learned about the "freedom movements" while they were dead. I guess the dancing is an extension of that weird interpretive handshake in Sound of My Voice. LOL. Once again, a Marling project reels me in only to lose me around the midpoint. I'll still finish the series and I like the basic premise but, yeah, I'm not buying it.

Until this series I had no inkling of who Brit Marling was, what she's done, etc.   

I would share my unvarnished opinion of her abilities but I don't wish to spoil.    My comments in the Episode 8 thread cover it adequately.

[PinkRibbons]

I kept waiting for a sudden dramatic reveal that Hap had audio wired in there, ngl.

[KaleyFirefly]

ugh this show. Kids being tortured. Way too depressing. Don't know if I'll finish it.

[theOAfc]

Im waiting for the episode 8 thread so i can comment. I have so many thoughts on this show . 

[Guest]

I'm enjoying this but I assume I'll be disappointed in the end, given the comments.  And the painful dancing.  

I too was baffled at Hap not monitoring audio down there.  He can pipe his live stream in Cuba to their cells but can't pipe the cell audio to his lab.  

And I know it's the form of exposition but why did Prairie need to spend like a week giving the high school entourage background info?  Just teach them the stupid dance already.  They've believed her since day 1, why go through the back story?  I would buy this angel dance of resurrection better if it had to be NDE survivors, not just anyone.  

And I guess it'll be explained but she knows Hap's real name, why not let the FBI find him from that?  Because it's funner to dance your cell mates free?  Can't they try their way while the FBI tries its own way?  Or maybe Hap's lair isn't on earth and she knows that.  Maybe his Cessna goes to another realm. 

I guess Hap is supposed to be in love with Prairie.  Odd way of showing it.  She says he's not insane but I'm not so sure.  

I kind of laughed at Hap knowing Renata would go with Homer, all from that one scene of her dancing on the rooftop with some men.  I would've liked to have seen poor Homer's lines that pulled that off.  Maybe she's just into guys who are too damaged to form sentences or use a fork.  

[formerlyfreedom]

1 hour ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

I kind of laughed at Hap knowing Renata would go with Homer, all from that one scene of her dancing on the rooftop with some men.  I would've liked to have seen poor Homer's lines that pulled that off.  Maybe she's just into guys who are too damaged to form sentences or use a fork.  

At first, I was skeptical about this, but wasn't there something mentioned in an earlier episode

Spoiler

about how one person who had an NDE could sense that in another? And that could be the pull or attraction? I could give it to them based on that.

I spoiler tagged that because I'm not sure at this point what episode it would have happened in (or even maybe I dreamed it?), so anyone else have input on that?

[Kiss my mutt]

I can't help but think that the actors doing those crazy dance moves had to break down laughing at the ridiculous of it. My husband and I cut up and do this dance because after seeing it for 20 minutes I don't think I'll ever forget it though I'd like to. 

I was glad that the plot finally started moving because I was starting to get mad!

[hincandenza]

On 12/27/2016 at 7:32 PM, Winston9-DT3 said:

I'm enjoying this but I assume I'll be disappointed in the end, given the comments.  And the painful dancing.  

I too was baffled at Hap not monitoring audio down there.  He can pipe his live stream in Cuba to their cells but can't pipe the cell audio to his lab.  

And I know it's the form of exposition but why did Prairie need to spend like a week giving the high school entourage background info?  Just teach them the stupid dance already.  They've believed her since day 1, why go through the back story?  I would buy this angel dance of resurrection better if it had to be NDE survivors, not just anyone.  

And I guess it'll be explained but she knows Hap's real name, why not let the FBI find him from that?  Because it's funner to dance your cell mates free?  Can't they try their way while the FBI tries its own way?  Or maybe Hap's lair isn't on earth and she knows that.  Maybe his Cessna goes to another realm. 

I guess Hap is supposed to be in love with Prairie.  Odd way of showing it.  She says he's not insane but I'm not so sure.  

I kind of laughed at Hap knowing Renata would go with Homer, all from that one scene of her dancing on the rooftop with some men.  I would've liked to have seen poor Homer's lines that pulled that off.  Maybe she's just into guys who are too damaged to form sentences or use a fork.  

This pretty much encapsulates my feelings.  I'm getting vibes from other quirky shows such as "Sense8" and "John From Cincinnati" (in particular how OA = Away = O (whole) and / \ (broken)), and 6 episodes in as I comment I'm worried about the home stretch.... which isn't promising as you say, from the comments by people who have finished.  But so far, I'm still enjoying it, even though it is much creepier than I'd have imagined.

There are definitely plotholes about Prairie's story or her reluctance to use the FBI, and truthfully there still has been nothing in the "real world" of the show where she's telling this story to the people in the attic, that has confirmed her increasingly fantastic tale.  We the "real" audience have seen things that suggest they are in touch with the supernatural, but those are just flashbacks from Prairie's narrating we're "imagining with our eyes closed" just like the high school group.  I agree the long drawn out process of storytelling seems like something they'd have pushed against days ago, but I guess the arbitrary limit is her one hour of walk time allowed per day.  As I've said before, that makes this show to me act as a meditation on the entire Netflix/media consumption culture, and observation I made in episode 1 with that odd placement of opening credits.

Still, only two episodes left; at worst, I wasted a few hours on an odd show that at least tried to be different (I struggled through season 1 of Sense8, and wasn't able to get 10 minutes into the Christmas special before I realized I couldn't take the clumsy dialogue and acting any more).  At best, it resonates with me more than other viewers here.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, hincandenza said:

OA = Away = O (whole) and / \ (broken))

That's interesting.  I had wondered about halfway through if OA had something to do with Omega/Alpha, as in ending/beginning, as in death/birth.  And I guess 'the alpha and the omega' is a phrase applied to God as well.  

I love the Netflix comments.  Is her limiting them to an hour a night a commentary about binge watching?  

[hincandenza]

4 minutes ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

That's interesting.  I had wondered about halfway through if OA had something to do with Omega/Alpha, as in ending/beginning, as in death/birth.  And I guess 'the alpha and the omega' is a phrase applied to God as well.  

I love the Netflix comments.  Is her limiting them to an hour a night a commentary about binge watching?  

Somehow I missed the Omega/Alpha thing, but yeah it definitely feels like this is the two creators way of crafting an ad hoc occult philosophy.  Which I personally find kind of fun, but then I have a soft spot for puzzles and ARGs.

As for the Netflix stuff... that's how I'm reading it, and it seems completely intentional.  I don't think it's solely about that, but the commentary on media consumption is increasingly obvious.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, hincandenza said:

she's telling this story to the people in the attic,

... about people in a basement.  And all the people are prisoners of something or other, looking to her for escape.  

I wonder what the significance of leaving the door open was supposed to be.  Maybe more commentary about our closed off, streaming society.  

[sadpanda]

I assumed OA stood for the Original Angel, since the angel woman in Prairie's NDE told her she was the original. And my memory is awful, but didn't the parents give her permission for an hour-long walk in one of the earlier episodes? 

[LeGrandElephant]

I found the last few episodes compelling and couldn't look away despite the plot holes, but this one, I hate so much that I'm here complaining about it before I've finished watching it. Its still going as I write, I'll wait till its actually done before I post. 

I keep yelling at Homer to warn the woman, to tell her that a crazy man is trying to kidnap her, to do something! I had a hard time believing that after all this work put towards escaping, he would blow this opportunity so badly, and would actually be complicit in helping to kidnap someone else. I know there have been cases where people have been kidnapped and ended up going along with the kidnapper to a degree that is surprising from the outside, but I think those cases involved a lot more psychological control that Hap hasn't been shown to do at all. 

And ok, there's the logic that if Hap doesn't get back, the others starve. But couldn't Homer still just run away without killing Hap and hide and then go to the authorities and try to get them to start searching for Hap?  I know that plan isn't foolproof, but its better than just not trying at all. 

The kidnapping aspect of this show is so incredibly disturbing. Its like all the super disturbing real-world kidnappings where someone was kidnapped off the street and held for years and years in horrible conditions with no way out. Its terrifying to think that that could happen to anyone and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Why am I voluntarily watching this? Its nightmare-inducing. I also read Room, but I didn't know this tiny creepy room kidnapping aspect would be part of the show when I started watching it. 

Big plot hole overall: Hap has them on CCTV but doesn't bother to watch them enough to have noticed that Prairie isn't blind anymore? And he didn't rig up those cells for sound? Oh well, the show wouldn't work at all if they thought he was listening to them all the time, I guess. 

Do we know what sickness Scott had? Why didn't he get knocked out by the gas? I was confused what happened with him there, why was Hap freaking out and saying oh shit and why was the machine beeping? I mean, clearly he died, but it seems like Hap knew way too soon that reviving him wasn't going to work. Also I agree with the post from a previous thread that this method of drowning with the villain-machine is a ridiculously over-complicated way to kill people over and over. 

I hate the idea that Homer and Prairie are somehow going to be able to vibrate their way through the walls by doing weird motions and hissing together (or, apparently, bring back the dead). 

Did anyone here ever read the Connie Willis novel Passage, (fiction) about doctors trying to study near death experiences? This show reminds me a bit of it, except the book didn't have any creepy kidnapping. 

Ok, now I've finished the episode and I'm going to read the thread and see if everyone else had the same complaints...

On 12/19/2016 at 4:38 AM, millennium said:

Come on, mad scientist builds a state of the art laboratory in an abandoned mine and routinely kills kids and jolts them back to life but he wasn't smart enough to equip the cells with HIDDEN MICROPHONES so he would know what the hell they were up to?

Yup. 

On 12/19/2016 at 4:38 AM, millennium said:

Bad interpretive dance as the key to escaping our physical dimension.

So bad. 

On 12/27/2016 at 9:32 PM, Winston9-DT3 said:

Or maybe Hap's lair isn't on earth and she knows that.

It seems like she was leading up to the idea that at some point they all moved to another dimension. If they're still in our dimension, then her plan is stupid and there's no reason not to at least try the FBI. 

On 12/27/2016 at 9:32 PM, Winston9-DT3 said:

I kind of laughed at Hap knowing Renata would go with Homer, all from that one scene of her dancing on the rooftop with some men.  I would've liked to have seen poor Homer's lines that pulled that off.  Maybe she's just into guys who are too damaged to form sentences or use a fork.  

In the original scene where she danced with men, it seemed like she liked confident men, not shivering stammering terrified ones. Not so plausible that that plan would work, but I still can't believe Homer didn't at least try to whisper something to her like "he's not my dad, he's a crazy man who's trying to kidnap you, run away!"

[LeGrandElephant]

Oh also - "He offered to set up a healing clinic with me, in exchange for your freedom.... maybe I should have said yes" - well yes DUH you should have said yes, and then you could have tried to turn the tables on him! These people are all idiots. 

[ghoulina]

On 1/24/2017 at 6:51 PM, LeGrandElephant said:

In the original scene where she danced with men, it seemed like she liked confident men, not shivering stammering terrified ones. Not so plausible that that plan would work, but I still can't believe Homer didn't at least try to whisper something to her like "he's not my dad, he's a crazy man who's trying to kidnap you, run away!"

I just finished this episode and I've been able to overlook a lot, but the kidnapping of Renata really bothered me. I still don't get how it could have happened. Did he fly on his private plane to Cuba or did they go commercial? Even so, did she agree to or did he force her? If he forced her, how? Did he drug her? How would he get her out of the busy hotel and through the busy streets, just slung over his back? Did he march her down the street at gunpoint? Or did she go willingly, under pretense? If so, why? One night with Homer and she couldn't leave his side? I just wish there was more of an explanation, because she just didn't seem like the type who would be conned by Hap. 

The dancing. Yea, no. 

[paramitch]

I liked this better than most people who posted here. I love the characters of the trapped cell members, as well as those in the current reality (OA's family, the kids and teacher in her group) and find their almost palpable hopelessness and loneliness really poignant and moving.

I'm also not finding as many logistical inconsistencies as most posters here. So far, most of it works for me:

• Hap hasn't wired the lab before now because they are lab rats to him. His interest has only been in the moments of death and awakening. Until now, he hasn't believed any other information was relevant. I also think listening to them constantly would lessen his determination to stay scientific and objective.
• On his kidnapping of Renata, Hap flew there in his private plane. We actually saw Homer and Hap on the plane on the way down to Cuba.
• Homer did attempt to warn Renata, but as we saw, Hap was steps away at that point, so he was trying to warn her without being specific (because he was miked).
• I didn't blame OA for refusing Hap's offer for a number of reasons -- (1) he says, "I'll take care of them, you won't have to worry about it," which I thought was pretty blatantly Hap-speak for "I'll get rid of them (cough) and no one will ever know," and (2) at this point, she's been a prisoner experiencing mental and physical abuse for literal years now. The people in the cells are all she has.
• I don't mind the movements -- the performers sold the moment to me, and made it compelling. And I got goosebumps when Homer and OA used the movements as a way to communicate distress, anger, and forgiveness -- and again in the morning, when we saw they'd been doing the movements all night, and the blood began to travel back into Scott's dead body and he revived.

I do find Hap's methods to be not just incredibly cruel (of course, the entire thing he's doing is horrifying and insane) but also scientifically inefficient -- I keep thinking about the cumulative damage on their bodies, lungs and brains. As Hap is apparently a former anesthesiologist or something, I don't understand why he doesn't choose a different method using medications/drugs.

The ending when Scott laughed out loud was actually more moving to me than when he came back to life. It was just such a strange thing to see him do.

The little symbols that end each episode remind me of the hidden symbols/images in "Fringe." Anyone else remember those?

I'm still in. I'm finding it pretty heavy viewing, but I'm invested in the characters and I'm interested in where it goes. I also give the show bonus points for telling me a truly unique story.

[ChromaKelly]

I'm still in too and really trying not to be bothered by the random stuff, but I have so many questions.

1. Do they only have one set of clothes? Does Hap wash them while they are being experimented on?

2. How could Homer have even been up for the night at the club and seducing Renata? wouldn't he be super pale and weak? I know they showed a bit of him feeling overwhelmed, but I couldn't help but compare his experience of finally being out to that of the mom and son in Room. 
 

3. Did they show any of the movements/dances in Prairie or Homer's NDEs? I remember the bird and the fish, but I don't recall bad dancing? And they both looked like they were doing the same thing? When Scott came to, he said he knows the third movement, so that would make me think all five of them have a unique dance to do.

4. I feel like I was more interested in Prairie's Nina backstory and trying to find her father than this OA stuff.

[knaankos]

I'm a little surprised to come on here and see pretty much nothing but complaints. Personally I thought the resurrection scene was beautiful and it worked. 

[Parker]

I really liked this episode and can't wait to see where they are going with this.