OH…
I’m pretty sure that Bubble is the remnants of the “Blue” ai (Able?). I wonder if it’ll be able to regenerate itself? Kind of reminds me of that one part in the Dark Tower series with Blaine the Train.
Also, the dungeon dimensions are open. I suspect they’ll be running away from the abstractions through Caine’s empty husk next episode. Maybe Bubble will help them, or not.
Also, the dungeon dimensions are open.
Discworld reader spotted?
Yeah, Zooble’s line at the end sums it up well.
Some things I’m wondering about:
- What was the shape Caine (assuming the red dot is Caine) made at the end of the intro sequence?
- Why did Jax leave the cafe while Kinger was talking? It might have just been him getting freaked out by things getting to real, but I have a feeling he knows more that he’s letting on. Maybe he has some connection to the company too.
I’m certain the shape was the circus tent
That makes a lot of sense.
Why did Jax leave the cafe while Kinger was talking?
Him freaking out “it’s real” plus seeing the flashes before pressing the button last episode makes me think he’s running/hiding from something that happened in the real world. And now his facade is finally broken, it finally hit him that whatever that was really did happen
Scratch created the Caine with a known brain tumor. Gangle has a recurring motif of getting hit by a truck. I wonder if the primary purpose of the project that eventually became the Circus was to let dying people live on, with others like Kinger/Queenie able to “”“visit”“” as guests. Ragatha was physically abused by her mother, maybe she went a step too far? Not sure how Zooble or Pomni would fit into that idea
For Jax, he saw the flashes driving at night through a residential/wooded area. Maybe an animal jumped out and went through his windshield, badly injuring him, now he’s panicking realizing he’s truly dying? Or it was a person and he’s hiding from the consequences/trauma? (I dont think it would’ve been Gangle, that would be so incredibly fucked up if it was, to kill someone with your car and then follow them into the afterlife to keep torturing them…)
Wow, heavy hitting episode. I especially liked Caine’s “I AM”, nice reference there.
Not exactly sure yet who Pomni is. As some YouTube comments said: her fear sequence could hint that she is an AI as well. Her sequence didn’t reveal anything about her past like the other characters, but about the lost of sapience of AIs. Counterpoint to that is that Caine surely would treat her different if he knew that.
And Jax torture with the removal of the skin was seriously unsettling. And then they made merchandise out of that…
The thumbnail is a reference to an old polish picture: Stanczyk
Interestingly, Caine is in the position of the court jester, who in the original picture is the only rational person and seeing the incoming doom. That’s not how Caine behaved during the episode, so either it’s just a visual reference to Caine trying to entertain his guests or foreshadowing that something is coming.
her fear sequence could hint that she is an AI as well. Her sequence didn’t reveal anything about her past like the other characters, but about the lost of sapience of AIs
I was actually debating if Pomni was created by Caine or Bubble, either as a means to prove himself or to undermine Caine respectively.
As for the rest of them, I think it’s most likely that they are AI recreations of people from brain scans.
So in effect, none of them can ever leave.
Well yes, the question is still open on how they treat it: all copies like in SOMA or magical transported conscious like in many other soft SciFi works.
