S04.E05: Nowhere Man

[cinles]

51 minutes ago, AllyB said:

Katie's jeans were very early-mid 90s. That's just how they looked back then, watch some early years of BH90210 and you'll see Brenda and Kelly walking about in very similar jeans. High waisted and kind of boxy or too baggy between waist and thighs. Worn with a big belt, stand out buckle and a horrible tight, boob squashing - crotch irritating body top. Even in the first series of Friends Rachel and Monica sometimes fall foul of them. It was another few years before waistlines dropped down to the hips.

What was the big significance of Gordon burning his journals? We only learned about them 2 minutes before and he's seemed perfectly chilled and happy all season. How was it supposed to be any big moment for him? And to have it intercut with the heavily telegraphed scenes of Donna figuring out Cam's game was weird because 'Cam and Donna's two halves of a whole thing' is the ongoing theme of the season while Gordon burning his journals came from left of field. It did give us a clue to the year though, as the journal Gordon was currently writing was dated (I think) Nov '95 - Mar '97.

(I initially thought it was Nov '93 - Mar '94 but I've watched it a few times and messed about with screen shots and I I think it's definitely 95-97, though that would make Hayley 16-18 and she definitely doesn't seem that old.)

'What was the big significance of Gordon burning his journals? We only learned about them 2 minutes before...'

We already knew about Gordon's journals. Wasn't that him writing how he felt that day and did he do anything odd, like getting lost in a parking garage? His illness really hadn't been addressed yet, except he can't drive. Since Katie brought them up, I think that's his way of saying he's tired of his illness defining him & telling the audience the status of his health.

[ganesh]

I get Donna being ticked about Bos bringing in someone from the outside to work on the coding, but dial it down. That's not leadership. She's made "enemies" that "want to bring her down?" Those are ravings. If you're so insecure about your position, that says more about you. Also it says a lot about your team and how they aren't good enough. They aren't going to be able to patent that if it's not their work.

But before that I was dying how she was squeezing everyone. 

I'm assuming her playing Pilgrim will mean a new life for it. 

[cinles]

1 hour ago, AllyB said:

Katie's jeans were very early-mid 90s. That's just how they looked back then, watch some early years of BH90210 and you'll see Brenda and Kelly walking about in very similar jeans. High waisted and kind of boxy or too baggy between waist and thighs. Worn with a big belt, stand out buckle and a horrible tight, boob squashing - crotch irritating body top. Even in the first series of Friends Rachel and Monica sometimes fall foul of them. It was another few years before waistlines dropped down to the hips.

What was the big significance of Gordon burning his journals? We only learned about them 2 minutes before and he's seemed perfectly chilled and happy all season. How was it supposed to be any big moment for him? And to have it intercut with the heavily telegraphed scenes of Donna figuring out Cam's game was weird because 'Cam and Donna's two halves of a whole thing' is the ongoing theme of the season while Gordon burning his journals came from left of field. It did give us a clue to the year though, as the journal Gordon was currently writing was dated (I think) Nov '95 - Mar '97.

(I initially thought it was Nov '93 - Mar '94 but I've watched it a few times and messed about with screen shots and I I think it's definitely 95-97, though that would make Hayley 16-18 and she definitely doesn't seem that old.)

That says 93-94.

On a completely different subject, does anyone know how to delete posts on this board? Update: You can't delete posts & if you quote someone, but delete your comments, you can't edit & add another comment. Sorry AllYB.

Edited September 17, 2017 by cinles

[ketose]

1 hour ago, AllyB said:

Katie's jeans were very early-mid 90s. That's just how they looked back then, watch some early years of BH90210 and you'll see Brenda and Kelly walking about in very similar jeans. High waisted and kind of boxy or too baggy between waist and thighs. Worn with a big belt, stand out buckle and a horrible tight, boob squashing - crotch irritating body top. Even in the first series of Friends Rachel and Monica sometimes fall foul of them. It was another few years before waistlines dropped down to the hips.

What was the big significance of Gordon burning his journals? We only learned about them 2 minutes before and he's seemed perfectly chilled and happy all season. How was it supposed to be any big moment for him? And to have it intercut with the heavily telegraphed scenes of Donna figuring out Cam's game was weird because 'Cam and Donna's two halves of a whole thing' is the ongoing theme of the season while Gordon burning his journals came from left of field. It did give us a clue to the year though, as the journal Gordon was currently writing was dated (I think) Nov '95 - Mar '97.

(I initially thought it was Nov '93 - Mar '94 but I've watched it a few times and messed about with screen shots and I I think it's definitely 95-97, though that would make Hayley 16-18 and she definitely doesn't seem that old.)

That's pretty clearly a 93 and a 94 to me.

Back when Gordon was first having problems, (mid 80s?) his doctor suggested keeping a record of his condition and / or decline. I think after he talked to Katie and realized there's no particular pattern, Gordon decided the diaries were just making him more aware that he was ill and decided to get rid of what was essentially was a useless reminder at this point. It sort of mirrors the idea that Joe can't be happy in the present because of the future. Gordon has trouble being happy in the present because of the past.

 

27 minutes ago, attica said:

They're watching the Robert Redford/River Phoenix/Mary McDonnell movie Sneakers. Techies with moxie pulling capers.

I can't tell if Toby Huss has lost actual weight or if they're just costuming him in bagger clothes. Effective, either way. It has a subliminal effect of making me worry for him.

Watching Lee Pace's eyes harden in the scene in the car was kind of chilling. I think we might be in store for the return of Bad Joe.

I thought that was Sneakers, but it was way too short a clip for me to recognize it.

Maybe Bad Joe will burn down Comet with him in the building.

[crashdown]

39 minutes ago, CanadaPhil said:

I was blown away by Kerry Bische's performanvce in that scene!!

She did not say a word and yet her sense of discovery and wonder was perfectly conveyed by her facial expressions and her eyes.

We, as the audience looking in are experiencing her range of emotions and it's just amazing.

Kudo's to Kerry! I have certainly not been a Donna fan of late, but those moments were just off the charts!

If any of you somehow missed that moment, you need to revisit the ending, put the damn phone down and just rewatch! ;)

It WAS amazing, so amazing that I could barely perceive the fact that Gordon was simultaneously burning his journals.  (I'm sure that was moving, too, but Donna playing Pilgrim just blew me away.)  Nobody could really *like* Donna right now, but I still sort of love her.  She's broken--the end of last season, when Cameron rejected her olive branch in the harshest way possible, turned her into someone who will always, always put work before even her most important relationships.  But the Pilgrim scene was incredible because some little cracks of vulnerability started to show through.  (And I'm sure Donna hated the fact that it was Cameron who made her feel those things.) It's funny with symbolism--I'm sure that the writers have a hard time figuring out whether something is so obvious that people are going to make fun of it, or so subtle that most aren't going to see it at all. But that game had the player SCALING AN INVISIBLE WALL THAT NOBODY ELSE COULD SEE.  It's one step from smashing an actual glass ceiling.  They're paying a lot of attention to Donna and Cameron, in between the Joe/Gordon bromance, and I appreciate that. 

[jwc]

Donna's behavior has made her the villain of the show.  Bos wanted the early out on Rover, to pay off his debt.  Then Bos gets Cameron to write the algorithm. Or Cameron does it to screw Joe and Gordon after they didn't listen to her.  Meanwhile, Donna is boosting a search engine play to shaft he daughter.  Not hiring four programmers and reverse engineer or figure out the algorithm is just dumb.  I do think the programming team at Rover overplayed their hand.  Donna knew something and the chick programmer was demanding that they get some respect.   So what is Donna going to do with the hot potato algorithm?  I wonder if Cameron will free source it or something.  But Donna is the villain, prim in her stylish outfits, making people squirm.  I wonder how her relationship with Diana will change with now.  The whole time at the dinner Bos was sitting there like a possum that snuck up on a porcupine in heat.  Or whatever folksy colloquialism Bos would use in that situation.

Gordon clearly stated Haley was 14 years old.  I think they shaved off a few years from the girls because they were 5 and 6 when they built the Giant in 1982.   I get why he was burning the journals though.  Let of the past.

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, jwc said:

Donna's behavior has made her the villain of the show.

Not to me. All four main characters have been reprehensible at one time or another. In some ways, it's Donna's turn. She's finally putting her ambition first, and a lot of people don't like it when women are ambitious. She's fighting that exhausting misogyny every day.

As for screwing over Haley, maybe. Comet and Rover are in direct competition, but I think for Haley the success is that she's not the weird loner anymore; she's now with a bunch of other weird loners. She's realizing she has a place in the world. 

[cinles]

13 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Not to me. All four main characters have been reprehensible at one time or another. In some ways, it's Donna's turn. She's finally putting her ambition first, and a lot of people don't like it when women are ambitious. She's fighting that exhausting misogyny every day.

As for screwing over Haley, maybe. Comet and Rover are in direct competition, but I think for Haley the success is that she's not the weird loner anymore; she's now with a bunch of other weird loners. She's realizing she has a place in the world. 

How is Donna 'fighting that exhausting misogyny every day'? 

[attica]

A theory: it's not no-where man, it's  now-here man. Gordon burning his useless journals, giving Joe the pep talk, etc.

[dubbel zout]

58 minutes ago, cinles said:

How is Donna 'fighting that exhausting misogyny every day'? 

She has to deal with people like Tripp/Chip/whatever the new partner's name is, who think just because she's a woman, she doesn't know what she's talking about, can be talked over (which I was glad the show didn't allow to happen too much), and a bunch of micro aggressions.

[cinles]

2 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

She has to deal with people like Tripp/Chip/whatever the new partner's name is, who think just because she's a woman, she doesn't know what she's talking about, can be talked over (which I was glad the show didn't allow to happen too much), and a bunch of micro aggressions.

I don't know about Donna, but Diane is definitely his senior. His behavior, while slappable is not because Donna is a woman. He's just a douche. Donna is working in an environment where she is in charge and it is quite the opposite of misogynistic.

[tennisgurl]

Donna isn't really wrong in being suspicious and angry that Bos and company went to an outside person to do their coding and lied about it, but she is seriously going about it the wrong way, from a leadership perspective. Instead of just asking about what happened, she got super passive aggressive, trying to "trap" them in a lie like its high school, not a business. Even before that, she has just been needlessly belligerent and snippy to her employees, even when she does not have to be. She seems to be trying so hard to be a "tough boss" that all her employees are lying and sneaking around to keep her happy, instead of having a dynamic where they can be honest about problems they're having. It just seems like a crappy work environment.

That being said, Donna figuring out Cameron's game when no one else could really was a touching moment. Her and Cameron might not be on good terms now, but they really get each other in ways that no one else does. Now, from a practical perspective, Cameron probably shouldn't put all her time and money into a game that only one person can apparently figure out, but from a story perspective, it works really well to remind us (and Donna) of their connection and bond. 

Not sure why Gordon burned all the journals. Moving on from the past? Not sure where exactly that came from, Gordon has been doing pretty well this season. Definitely as cheerful as we have seen him. 

Edited September 17, 2017 by tennisgurl

[ketose]

We're getting back to Cameron Howe, goddess of computer code. Good code is a matter of efficiency and thoroughness. That works great when you have a 64K memory location to cram an operating system into. For a search engine, though, it's more about heuristics, and that takes constant updating and changing, especially since no one knew how to properly build a search engine back then. I find it hard to believe she can type up an instruction set that figures out how people want to see search results. Plus, what the hell is the "waiting room"?

I kind of understand Donna, since it seems like Rover is pretty much frozen in place and their main coder doesn't even know what it does. What, are they going to look for another Cameron?

[riverheightsnancy]

6 hours ago, attica said:

They're watching the Robert Redford/River Phoenix/Mary McDonnell movie Sneakers. Techies with moxie pulling capers.

I can't tell if Toby Huss has lost actual weight or if they're just costuming him in bagger clothes. Effective, either way. It has a subliminal effect of making me worry for him.

Watching Lee Pace's eyes harden in the scene in the car was kind of chilling. I think we might be in store for the return of Bad Joe.

Yup, the movie was Sneakers. I love it too and I have watched it many/many times. I knew the minute I heard the "quote" with Elena Rishcoff (sp?). 

[ganesh]

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Donna isn't really wrong in being suspicious and angry that Bos and company went to an outside person to do their coding and lied about it, but she is seriously going about it the wrong way, from a leadership perspective. Instead of just asking about what happened, she got super passive aggressive, trying to "trap" them in a lie like its high school, not a business. Even before that, she has just been needlessly belligerent and snippy to her employees, even when she does not have to be. She seems to be trying so hard to be a "tough boss" that all her employees are lying and sneaking around to keep her happy, instead of having a dynamic where they can be honest about problems they're having. It just seems like a crappy work environment.

Donna is smart and knew that the breakthrough with the search engine was bogus. I think pressing the team about letting legal know about the patent was fair, but she knew that Bos was involved with the development, and she should have just leveled with him right away. I don't know that she was passive aggressive as much as she was letting on to everyone that she knew the deal, and giving them a chance to come clean. Going at Bos at the dinner in that manner I think wasn't the best way.

[cinles]

21 minutes ago, ganesh said:

Donna is smart and knew that the breakthrough with the search engine was bogus. I think pressing the team about letting legal know about the patent was fair, but she knew that Bos was involved with the development, and she should have just leveled with him right away. I don't know that she was passive aggressive as much as she was letting on to everyone that she knew the deal, and giving them a chance to come clean. Going at Bos at the dinner in that manner I think wasn't the best way.

I think when the end result is a heart attack, no it's not the best way. The thing about Cameron doing the coding is no one knew but Bos and Cecil - Cecil is the guy's name, right?

[scrb]

Other thing about search engines is that you need a lot of processing power.

One of Google's assets is a piece of hardware that can be racked into data centers and produce optimal processing power per cubic inch.  That design has never been revealed outside the company.

As traffic increases, Rover would need more bandwidth, or else stalling search results would turn people towards alternatives.

Before more software engineers, the company might need more bandwidth and data centers.

Also the idea of hiring business development people is real too.  There's no talk of monetizing the increased traffic yet.  Another part of Google's formula is Ad Sense, search terms driving advertising that is more likely to appeal to people searching for specific things.

Before "algorithmic search" took over -- well before Google took over -- portals were a big thing because not only did they want traffic, they wanted people to spend time on the site.  That's why Yahoo and others put up content like weather, stock quotes, casual games, chat software, etc.

[minamurray78]

1 hour ago, cinles said:

I think when the end result is a heart attack, no it's not the best way. The thing about Cameron doing the coding is no one knew but Bos and Cecil - Cecil is the guy's name, right?

What Donna wasn't aware of was Bos' money problems, which must have been worrying him really bad. Donna couldn't have known what kind of stress he was under.

At first I was under the impression everyone knew the code came from outside, but after their meeting in that room, I too agree just Bos and Cecil were in on it, although Cecil didn't know it was Cameron, he referred to the coder as a "him".

[cinles]

'Donna couldn't have known what kind of stress he was under.'

I never said Donna caused Bos's heart attack on purpose. It wouldn't matter whether he had a heart attack or not, the way Donna was acting wasn't productive and I said tongue in cheek, if the end result is a heart attack, you really weren't being productive. Donna had no idea the stress he was under, but he must have had some underlying issue that the stress aggravated.

[qtpye]

On Saturday, September 16, 2017 at 10:04 PM, CanadaPhil said:

Donna figures out Cameron' s game!!

hmmmmmm... interesting.

Who knew climbing butterflies could be a thing!

:D 

 

On Saturday, September 16, 2017 at 11:25 PM, CanadaPhil said:

The "confession" was really nothing more than Joe confiding to Gordon that he feels like he has lost his gift for "predicting the future" so to speak. 

It actually felt like everyone OTHER than Joe was actually confessing something tonight. 

PS: I wonder how Cam will feel when it turns out that the ONLY person able to solve her game was Donna.

PPS: Anytime I happen to play a game in future I am going to look for butterflies and see if I can climb them.

:D

 

On Sunday, September 17, 2017 at 11:22 AM, crashdown said:

I thought Donna playing Pilgrim was really, really beautiful--that was an incredibly moving scene for me.  I'm quite invested in the Donna/Cameron dynamic, in all of its fucked-up glory.  Much as I want them to, I just don't see this relationship healing in the five episodes that are left in the series. They've both done awful things to each other.  But I appreciate the Bechdel test pass: they didn't break up over a man, they broke up over their passion for their work, passion which went in different directions and forced them to choose.  They chose work over friendship--it's in character for both of them, sad as it makes me personally. But nonetheless, Donna loves Cameron, which is exactly why she hates her so much.  Moreover, Donna *gets* Cameron, and that's why she is the only one who could crack the Pilgrim puzzle.  At its core, I think Pilgrim depicts the journey of women navigating the very male world of tech in the 1990s.  It's both of their stories.

 

On Sunday, September 17, 2017 at 11:53 AM, CanadaPhil said:

I'm so glad someone else said that! 

:)

I was blown away by Kerry Bische's performanvce in that scene!!

She did not say a word and yet her sense of discovery and wonder was perfectly conveyed by her facial expressions and her eyes.

We, as the audience looking in are experiencing her range of emotions and it's just amazing.

Kudo's to Kerry! I have certainly not been a Donna fan of late, but those moments were just off the charts!

If any of you somehow missed that moment, you need to revisit the ending, put the damn phone down and just rewatch! ;)

I still am getting chills from the beauty of that scene.  Donna is the only one to figure out the secret of Pilgrim as the music crescendos to a it's rebel yell

These are two beautiful brilliant and frustratingly flawed women whose lives do not revolve around the men in their lives or their biological clocks.  It saddens me that is not more common in 2017.

[cinles]

'These are two beautiful brilliant and frustratingly flawed women whose lives do not revolve around the men in their lives or their biological clocks.  It saddens me that is not more common in 2017'.

Their lives sorta are entwined with men - I don't think they revolved around men, except in the context of being in a relationship/marriage. Biological clock? I don't think Donna wants more kids & Cameron has made it clear she doesn't want kids now. Are you saying women in 2017 'revolve around the men in their lives and/or their biological clock'? Really? More than 1994?

Edited September 23, 2017 by cinles

[Negritude]

On 9/17/2017 at 8:50 AM, cinles said:

I had posted that already, but how do you jump from Gordon humming that song to Haley, what, committing suicide?? When I read someone said they thought it was the song Donna sang, my first thought was that was a first sign Gordon & Donna were going to eventually get back together.  I don't know the lyrics to the song - do they talk about a teen girl committing suicide, because I can't believe Donna would sing a song like that to her child!!

Baby Mine is from the cartoon Dumbo...nothing to do with suicide or anything dark. Just a mother comforting her child lol.

[paramitch]

I absolutely love this season. It's just complex, funny, rich, and moving, and the actors are absolutely killing it.

On 9/17/2017 at 8:22 AM, crashdown said:

I thought Donna playing Pilgrim was really, really beautiful--that was an incredibly moving scene for me.  I'm quite invested in the Donna/Cameron dynamic, in all of its fucked-up glory.  Much as I want them to, I just don't see this relationship healing in the five episodes that are left in the series. They've both done awful things to each other.  But I appreciate the Bechdel test pass: they didn't break up over a man, they broke up over their passion for their work, passion which went in different directions and forced them to choose.  They chose work over friendship--it's in character for both of them, sad as it makes me personally. But nonetheless, Donna loves Cameron, which is exactly why she hates her so much.  Moreover, Donna *gets* Cameron, and that's why she is the only one who could crack the Pilgrim puzzle.  At its core, I think Pilgrim depicts the journey of women navigating the very male world of tech in the 1990s.  It's both of their stories.

Beautifully put. The scene of Donna playing Pilgrim and figuring out both its beauty and its strategy honestly had me in tears. It was a gorgeous scene in every way, and so moving. I love Donna and Cam as well, and hate that they will probably never reconnect or quite forgive each other. There's still so much love and admiration there, though.

 

On 9/17/2017 at 9:39 AM, crashdown said:

Nobody could really *like* Donna right now, but I still sort of love her.  She's broken--the end of last season, when Cameron rejected her olive branch in the harshest way possible, turned her into someone who will always, always put work before even her most important relationships.  But the Pilgrim scene was incredible because some little cracks of vulnerability started to show through.  (And I'm sure Donna hated the fact that it was Cameron who made her feel those things.) It's funny with symbolism--I'm sure that the writers have a hard time figuring out whether something is so obvious that people are going to make fun of it, or so subtle that most aren't going to see it at all. But that game had the player SCALING AN INVISIBLE WALL THAT NOBODY ELSE COULD SEE.  It's one step from smashing an actual glass ceiling.  They're paying a lot of attention to Donna and Cameron, in between the Joe/Gordon bromance, and I appreciate that. 

I love both relationships and how rich and believable they are -- I hate that Donna and Cam are at odds, but I still care about both of them (even if Donna's currently more than a little brittle and cold). But I love that. They aren't always likable but that's life -- they're complex people. And I love Joe and Gordon's friendship -- I always will. 

On 9/17/2017 at 0:38 PM, dubbel zout said:

Not to me. All four main characters have been reprehensible at one time or another. In some ways, it's Donna's turn. She's finally putting her ambition first, and a lot of people don't like it when women are ambitious. She's fighting that exhausting misogyny every day.

As for screwing over Haley, maybe. Comet and Rover are in direct competition, but I think for Haley the success is that she's not the weird loner anymore; she's now with a bunch of other weird loners. She's realizing she has a place in the world. 

I agree with everything you said here. Every major character in this show has had a moment of darkness or deceit. But I still care about them -- this season, more than ever.

And it's been lovely to watch Hayley blossom at Comet.

On 9/17/2017 at 1:13 PM, attica said:

A theory: it's not no-where man, it's  now-here man. Gordon burning his useless journals, giving Joe the pep talk, etc.

This totally takes me back to that Rich Hatem show "Miracles" from like 2003 or so. The pilot still gives me goosebumps to think about (Skeet Ulrich has a vision of the words "God is now here" then finds out everyone else is seeing "God is nowhere").

On 9/17/2017 at 2:06 PM, cinles said:

I don't know about Donna, but Diane is definitely his senior. His behavior, while slappable is not because Donna is a woman. He's just a douche. Donna is working in an environment where she is in charge and it is quite the opposite of misogynistic.

Donna is a woman in tech in the 1990s. It was incredibly misogynistic, and we've seen several moments where that was subtly reinforced this season -- the way the men have acted toward Donna in the board meetings and celebrations, versus toward each other. To me it's very palpable. Even with Diane at the head of the company, it's something both she and Donna must navigate constantly.

On 9/17/2017 at 3:12 PM, riverheightsnancy said:

Yup, the movie was Sneakers. I love it too and I have watched it many/many times. I knew the minute I heard the "quote" with Elena Rishcoff (sp?). 

I loved realizing that was the movie he loved. It's just such a great little caper.

On 9/22/2017 at 7:02 AM, qtpye said:

These are two beautiful brilliant and frustratingly flawed women whose lives do not revolve around the men in their lives or their biological clocks.  It saddens me that is not more common in 2017.

I agree. The writing, acting and characterization for both Cam and Donna this season has really moved me. Even though I have found them unlikable and difficult many times, I also still care about them and root for them. And they're portrayed so beautifully, and I love how smart, creative and richly painted they are as people.