from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/2015/12/fargo-recap-season-2-episode-9.html

Fargo S2 Ep 9: The Castle

Fargo Recap: The Massacre at Sioux Falls
By Brian Tallerico

Fargo
The Castle


Zahn McClarnon as Hanzee. Photo: Chris Large/FX

The penultimate episode of Fargo’s second season is filled with betrayals, death, very bad police work, and an alien encounter. Yes, aliens. I imagine this will be one of the most hotly debated TV episodes of the year — to some, the extraterrestrial deus ex machina may seem like a bit of convenient silliness.




I disagree for three reasons:

Noah Hawley and the Fargo team laid the groundwork with numerous references to space invaders, and the presence of aliens has been a part of the narrative since episode one. If Rye Gerhart didn’t get distracted by lights in the sky, we wouldn’t be here.
The show and film are both about the randomness of the universe, whether it’s Marge Gunderson stumbling upon the cabin in the film or Hanzee happening to find the Blumquist’s car in the shop. A UFO is just another bit of random luck.
This adds to the urban legend narrative of Fargo itself – the “based on a true story (but not really)” aspect of this universe, in which tall tales are passed down or written in books like The History of True Crime in the Mid West.

That’s the title of the book spine that opens “The Castle,” and it’s read by the one and only Martin Freeman, who played Lester Nygaard in the first season of Fargo. Freeman is an unseen narrator throughout the episode, which is an especially interesting choice. When creator Noah Hawley was recently asked about the show’s yet-to-be-filmed third season, he revealed that it would be set closer to the present day, but affirmed that Fargo can never actually take place in current times. The show is presented as a “true story” that needs to be told, and that story cannot be written if it’s still “current.” And so, Freeman literally reads this story from a book.

Much like the episode’s flashbacks do, let’s go through some quick catch-up: Peggy (Kirsten Dunst) and Ed (Jesse Plemons) were essentially just saved by Hanzee (Zahn McClarnon), who shot his boss Dodd (Jeffrey Donovan) in the head before asking for a haircut. As Lou (Patrick Wilson) and Hank (Ted Danson) descended on Uncle Grady’s cabin, Peggy stabbed Hanzee in the back. Bleeding and on the run, he makes it back to the Rushmore General Store, where he kills the owner and patches himself up. We hear more of Freeman’s amazing narration — I wish there had been more of it — and realize that Hanzee is the key to both this episode and the season. The decisions he makes during “The Massacre at Sioux Falls” have the greatest impact, even though history doesn’t remember him as anyone but “the Gerhart’s man.”

Back to the cabin, we realize that the number of alpha males is about to become a problem. Ed notes that his plan to ransom Dodd worked; Mike Milligan (Bokeem Woodbine) is coming to the Motor Motel the next morning. Perhaps sensing that this could be a headline-grabbing case, the local police captain (played with perfect smarm by Wayne Duvall) basically ushers Lou out of state. They can’t take Peggy and Ed into the precinct because they “got graft” and their incarceration would likely get back to the Kansas City mafia. So instead, they decide to use them — they’ll wire them up, then send them into the meeting with Mike. Sensing the shift in power, Ben (Keir O’Donnell) sides with South Dakota and helps push Lou, the smartest man in the room, out of the case. Wilson’s urgency is palpable as Lou runs back to urge the butcher and beautician to escape a motel deathtrap. He knows this is a really bad idea: “You’ve been lucky, but that luck’s gonna run out.”

We get a brief but heartbreaking scene with Betsy (Cristin Milioti) at home, as she struggles to open a can while “Sylvia’s Mother” plays on the soundtrack. We see Molly drawing, then we hear a glass shatter. Molly runs into the other room to find mom on the floor, just as Lou tries to call from a pay phone and gets no answer. While Dr. Hook sings, “I just want to tell her goodbye,” he can tell something is wrong.

Lou notices something else is wrong at the Rushmore General Store and spots Hanzee’s trail, including the dead store owner. He calls for the cavalry and is given an escort out of the state. He gets through to Ben and Hank’s car, but his warnings have little impact. He’s told to “take a seat on the bench.”

Hanzee is already watching the Motor Motel through a gun scope when the cops arrive, and then we get to one of season’s crucial moments. Hanzee tells Floyd (Jean Smart) that the Kansas City mafia has Dodd. Freeman’s narrator wonders, “At what point did he decide to finish the job?” If you think about it, he’s really playing along with Dodd’s lie that the Butcher of Luverne worked for the other side. He tells Floyd to send Bear (Angus Sampson) and a dozen men, saying he can’t “vouch for her safety.” Is he trying to warn her?

While the other cops go “undercover” with white T-shirts and Wrangler jeans, Ben is on Blumquist duty. As he watches TV, Peggy and Ed look like they’re planning something. Meanwhile, Lou hears that Constance was strangled at the Southnik; we hear Constance’s last words again. This time, they sound more poignant: “I tried. You heard.” Lou has to try too.

While Hank realizes the depth of Ben’s incompetence, the cops play poker and talk about pissing in the pool and inside the desk drawers of their superiors. A convoy rolls into town, and Lou actually spots Floyd with her Gerhart army. He jumps in his car and follows, then Floyd and Bear share a ominous exchange: “I miss them all.” “We’ll be together again, on high.”

In the climax of the episode — and arguably, the climax of the season — Bear and his men move to take the Motor Motel. Hank and Peggy can’t sleep, and that insomnia ends up saving them. Bear orders his men to various doors of the motel. They’ll bust in and look for Dodd, who isn’t even there. As the assault goes down, Peggy sees a shadow outside of her window. Hank takes down a Gerhart soldier while Bear, calling out for his brother, shoots the police captain. Ben handles two of them before Peggy knocks him out.

And then it all starts to collapse.

“They’re cops!” Floyd looks at Hanzee with regret, and they share a brief moment before he stabs her. He told her not to come. There’s a part of him that wanted to let her live, but it’s too late now. Bear sees that Floyd is dead, and runs in her direction before Lou shoots him in the head. It doesn’t kill him. He actually charges Lou, taking a few more shots before he tackles him to the ground. He’s beating on our favorite cop as Hanzee approaches, killing everyone he sees, Gerharts and cops alike. Everyone will die. Hanzee shoots Hank; he’s on a mission to find Ed and Peggy. Why? It could be because they saw him shoot Dodd, or it could be because they saw a moment of vulnerability. As Freeman’s narrator says, “He had shown his true self.”

When Lou is being strangled, all that foreshadowing about aliens finally pays off. The so-called “caretakers to the zoo” step in and save his life. This gives him a chance to grab a gun and shoot Bear in the head. (Again.) Hanzee sees the spaceship hovering in mid-air, and it gives him enough pause that Peggy and Ed escape. In a great bit of character detail, Ed is amazed by the UFO and Peggy is unfazed: “It’s just a flying saucer.”

Hanzee shoots at Ed and Peggy. The UFO takes off. Lou is about to chase when he hears Hank say, “Officer down.” Peggy and Ed are on the run with Hanzee in pursuit. Mike and a Kitchen brother pull up, see the chaos, and drive away. Lou and Hank share a tender scene in which Hank says he’ll be in a “suit of armor” for Sunday dinner, another reference to the first episode. As “Run Through the Jungle” plays on the soundtrack — a nod to The Big Lebowski — the sirens get louder and Lou heads after Hanzee, Peggy, and Ed.

Other Notes:

• Ben tells Lou that he’s less John Wayne and more Betty La Plage, a fictional actress who co-starred with Ronald Reagan in the film-within-the-show that opened the season: Massacre at Sioux Falls.
• The shooting of the owner and the camera angle that reveals oil cans next to the gas pump reminded me of this scene from The Jerk, which is still hilarious.
• Hawley has said that this season would integrate a bit of The Man Who Wasn’t There, which features a lead character who sees a UFO. If you think about it, that could’ve been the title of this week’s episode. The Gerharts and Mike descend on the Motor Motel to find Dodd, a man who wasn’t there.
• So, is the narrator actually Lester Nygaard? Or is Martin Freeman playing another character? I’d like to picture Lester sitting at home, reading The History of True Crime in the Midwest aloud to some book group.
• Is anyone else sad that there’s only one episode left? We’ll never see another withering stare from Jean Smart’s likely-to-be award-winning performance. I actually felt a bit of sadness when Floyd died. I’ll miss her.
• This great episode was directed by Adam Arkin, an actor who appeared briefly in this season as the man who told Mike that the Undertaker was coming. Arkin has directed episodes for a number of terrific TV shows, including Justified and The Americans. Good news: He also directed next week’s finale, “Palindrome.”

Miles Morales: Spider-Man #16-21: Ultimatum Saga

 From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Morales

ULTIMATUM

In a 2019-2020 storyline, Miles takes on the criminal identity of Ultimatum, and having acquired a costume equipped with the size-shifting technology of Giant-Man, returns to the Marvel-616 universe with the Ultimate Universe's Green Goblin as his henchman. He establishes a crime partnership with Fisk,^[80] and floods the area with a drug derived from Green Goblin's blood that mutates people into monstrous slaves called Goblinoids. He kidnaps the teenaged Miles and Aaron Davis, and reveals to them the existence of the multiverse. He plans to return Miles and his family to the Ultimate Universe with an interdimensional portal generator, after which he will be free to take over Brooklyn without interference. After the two abductees free themselves, they and their allies battle Ultimatum's forces.^[111]During the melee, Aaron induces an explosion that destroys the portal generator and sends the two villains back to the Ultimate Universe, but which kills himself in the process, a loss that devastates Miles.

from RogerEbert.com
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sound-of-metal-movie-review-2020

Sound of Metal

"***1/2"
Brian Tallerico November 20, 2020

The fragility of daily existence is captured empathetically and compassionately in Darius Marder’s excellent “Sound of Metal,” a film that should catapult Riz Ahmed to the top of any producer’s casting list. His work here is a model of restraint, a performance that goes for the effective low-key choices instead of the broad emotional ones every time and is all the more powerful by feeling more genuine. Films about life-changing events often play to the cheap seats, turning up the melodrama to tug at the heartstrings, but Marder and Ahmed have collaborated here on an incredibly refined character piece. It’s a movie that doesn’t just allow for silence but thrives in it, with Ahmed’s eyes and body language charting the arc of his character. He doesn't miss a beat.

The star of “The Night of” plays Ruben, a heavy metal drummer accompanist to his singer-girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke). Marder and his co-writer/brother Abraham (the script also has a story credit for Derek Cianfrance, who worked with Marder on “The Place Beyond the Pines”) waste no time getting to the meat of their story. Mere minutes after meeting Ruben and Lou, we’re watching the drummer realize that his hearing is drastically disappearing. This is not a mere ringing in the ears or minor hearing loss. At his first meeting with a doctor, he gets word after word wrong, and he’s told that he’s lost 80-90% of his hearing, and the rest will likely soon follow. With a few exceptions, Ahmed plays it subtle, conveying the quietness that often comes with fear and denial. He can play through it. He can get surgery. Everything will be fine. Let's go to the next show.

However, Lou knows there’s another problem to consider—Ruben is a recovering addict. He’s been clean for four years, but she knows that trauma often leads to relapse, and knows that Ruben needs focus or he will destroy himself. How many of us have pushed away our demons or even just our character flaws with activity and noise? We so often distract ourselves from our darkness through any means necessary. Imagine becoming an expert at something like drumming only to have it all ripped away, and then imagine not being able to use the standard crutches that you did so often in your life to make yourself feel better. “Sound of Metal” will be classified as a drama about deafness, but addiction is a notable part of this story, and just as accomplished.

Lou rushes Ruben to a facility run by a man named Joe (Paul Raci), who tells the drummer that this is not a place to fix him. It is a place to teach him how to live with deafness, not to correct it. In a sense, it is a different kind of rehab facility. The bulk of “Sound of Metal” takes place here, and again Ahmed achieves so much nuance with Ruben’s journey. He plays him mostly as an observer, watching deaf kids learn in a classroom or listening to Joe’s advice. Joe pulls even more distractions away from Ruben, forcing him to sit and write his thoughts and feelings. In many ways, “Sound of Metal” is a movie about a restless soul forced to find calm and peace.

The other star of “Sound of Metal” for most people will be the sound design. Marder regularly puts us in Ruben’s state, hearing muffled sounds or unintelligible conversations. In fact, it’s interesting to note when Marder traps viewers in Ruben’s auditory condition and when he allows us to escape it (the latter often happens only when Ruben could otherwise “hear” the conversation, such as in a speech-to-text program used by Joe). It’s also notable that Marder doesn’t use a manipulative score, allowing the silence to dominate. It’s a shame that most people will see this on Amazon Prime, as it’s not a film conducive to distractions. Put down the phone for this one. Let the quiet sink in. Or better yet, watch it with headphones. It's a film designed to envelop you, and not merely play in the background.

As much of a breakthrough as the sound design is here, it really is Riz Ahmed’s movie. It’s no surprise that he learned how to play drums in the six months before shooting and studied deafness. It just speaks to the depth or performance. There’s not a single scene or emotional beat that feels false. 

It’s another film that reminded me of Roger’s belief that movies are empathy machines, but I thought about it in a slightly different way here. It’s not just the elements of a story that make a movie an empathy machine, or even the intentions of a filmmaker. For it to really work, a performer needs to have that same empathy for his character. He needs to find a way to balance the unimaginable drama of something like going deaf with relatable humanity. One can see that empathy in every choice Ahmed makes in “Sound of Metal.” It’s inspiring.

Fantastic Four #20-24: Empyre

from Wikipedia.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre

FANTASTIC FOUR #20-24
EMPIRE

An elderly Kree named Colonel Kal-Torr recaps when the Kree and the Skrull fought each other near the corpse of the Fallen Celestial which he informs the Supreme Intelligence whose entry is noted and absorbed. A Skrull named General J'Bahzz talks to Empress R'Kill of his victories as both sides usher in the newborns of their race like Jo-Venn for the Kree and N'kalla for the Skrulls. In the present, Thing and Human Torch break up an argument between Jo-Venn and N'kalla as Franklin Richards and Valeria Richards are instructed to take the children to Earth. At the temple of the High Priests of Pama, the head monk informs his fellow monks that the trees are speaking about the upcoming Dark Harvest. At Alicia Masters' studio in Soho, Alicia is working on a sculpture of Sky as she informs Sky about her blindness. Alicia is contacted by the Fantastic Four. Valeria uses a transmitter to call for back-up to help them protect Jo-Venn and N'kalla as Sky flies Alicia to Valeria and Franklin. She makes contact with Spider-Man and Wolverine, but Wolverine misunderstands the situation and stabs N'kalla before realizing that she is an innocent child as the High Priests of Pama show up.^[14]

As the Fantastic Four are fighting the Cotati on the Alliance's command ship, Franklin scolds Wolverine for attacking a Skrull kid. As Alicia is unaware of how N'Kalla knows her, Wolverine grabs Jo-Venn before he can attack as Spider-Man's Spider-Senses go off. Skye meets Spider-Man who mentions that they are surrounded by danger. They are attacked by the Dark Harvest, the elite Priests of Pama who answer to the Cotati. Spider-Man, Wolverine and Sky fight the Dark Harvest while Alicia and Valeria work to heal N'Kalla. Jo-Venn's mind is scanned where the Dark Harvest finds information on the Omni-Wave Projector. As the Dark Harvest raids the apartment, they have a run-in with Hulk and Ghost Rider. This causes the Dark Harvest to retreat as they have the information they need. Spider-Man and Wolverine found that Hulk and Ghost Rider are actually Franklin and Valeria using Image Inducers. As Sky and N'Kalla are recuperating, Franklin is told by Wolverine that they can't get the X-Men to help as Krakoa's gates are plant-based as well as the fact that the real Hulk and Ghost Rider haven't shown up. Mister Fantastic contacts Franklin and Valeria where he learns what happened. Mister Fantastic supplies Spider-Man and Wolverine new costumes as they plan to free Jo-Venn.^[15]

The Kree and the Skrull are engaging the Cotati until Franklin Richards, Valeria Richards, Spider-Man and Wolverine arrive. As Spider-Man and Wolverine fight the Cotati, one of the Skrull soldiers directs Franklin and Valeria where the Dark Harvest went. Arriving at Alchemax, Franklin, Valeria, Spider-Man, and Wolverine learn from a security guard that the Dark Harvest stole something from them. As Spider-Man recaps about what befell Parker Industries, the High Priests of Pama contact Quoi to let them know that they have the Omni-Wave Projector and that the Kree and the Skrull are at each other's throats. The High Priests of Pama enter Jo-Venn's mind and learned the Kree and the Skrull's history with the Cotati. They plan to start a war without an end as a demonstration is done on some Kree and Skrull soldiers. At 4 Yancy Street, N'kalla senses this happening as Alicia as she finds out that N'kalla had switched places with Sky. Franklin, Valeria, Spider-Man, and Wolverine were informed of this. At the Temple of Pama, N'kalla poses as a disciple in order to free Jo-Vann only to be defeated by Oak and captured. With N'kalla as their prisoner, the Priests of Pama can now strengthen the Omni-Wave Projector. Just then, Franklin, Valeria, Spider-Man, and Wolverine arrive to fight the Priests of Pama and the Dark Harvest. Wolverine engages Oak in battle while Spider-Man webs up Creeping Vine. The Priests of Pama then activate the Omni-Wave Projector as the Kree and the Skrull start turning against each other. It has even reached Wakanda and the Kree/Skrull Alliance's flagship. Franklin and Valeria were able to get Jo-Vann and N'kalla to experience good memories which brings about the final chapter of the Kree-Skrull War. Quoi was not pleased with the results and starts turning them into trees. Franklin and Valeria free Jo-Vann and N'kalla. Jo-Vann and N'kalla express interest to go to the "Land of Diz-Nee" which Franklin mentioned earlier.^[16]

 from showsnob.com
https://showsnob.com/2020/02/15/the-stranger-season-1-episode-7-recap/

The Stranger S1 Ep 7

Netflix’s The Stranger season 1, episode 7 recap

by Bethany Lewis1 year ago

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Adam discovers the Stranger’s identity but still doesn’t understand how she’s connected to Corrine’s disappearance. Katz’s coverup gets found out.

Adam and the Stranger come face to face, but not for long. A chase ensues as the Stranger tries to escape and Adam pursues her. He begs for her help, trying to explain that his wife has gone missing. She looks confused and concerned but slips away before he can find her.

Elsewhere, Thomas is still hiding in the backseat of Katz’s car. Katz totally knows he’s there and suddenly stops the car and points a gun at him. As soon as he realizes it’s just Thomas he apologizes and puts the gun away. Thomas scared him, but he’s not going to hurt him.

Thomas explains that Olivia told him to hide, afraid that it might have been her mother coming to check up on her. Katz doesn’t understand why it should have been a problem if Thomas was visiting as a friend. There’s obviously a lot going on with Olivia’s life at home with her mom that Katz is unaware of. When Thomas tells him that he thinks Olivia is being poisoned, Katz takes that very seriously. He literally leaves Thomas by the side of the road and speeds back to save Olivia.

Ed brings a private investigator to help Adam look for Corrine. When Adam tells the whole story, Ed realizes that he was approached by the same Stranger who told Adam about Corrine’s fake pregnancy. Things are starting to add up, but who is this woman and why does she seem to be targeting this small, related group of people?Dante wakes up and tells his story and it has no connection to anything else that’s been going on. He and Daisy went out into the woods and he took his clothes off to go skinny dipping. Daisy stole his clothes and ran away as a joke. Before he could get back to the rave, he ran into Max, the weird car park attendant, who yelled at him for getting him into trouble. Dante got freaked out and ran away and just tripped and injured himself. So it was just a weird accident and the footage of Corrine on his computer was just because he has an innocent crush. What a red herring!

Adam tells Ed that he saw her yesterday at the hospital when he went to see Killane, so they decide to go through Killane’s belongings to see if they can make a connection between the two. They find a photo of Killane and the Stranger together when she was a young girl.

The Stranger goes to visit Killane in the hospital and it is revealed that she’s the child he had with his wife. Chrissy is her name and she hasn’t spoken to Killane in years.

from syfy.com
https://www.syfy.com/the-expanse/episodes/season/1/episode/9/critical-massleviathan-wakes

The Expanse S1 Ep 9: Critical Mass

Critical Mass/Leviathan Wakes

We begin … at the beginning. About seven weeks prior to Miller coming up with his conspiracy theory involving the Anubis and the Scopuli, to be more or less exact.
We're near Asteroid CA-2216862, where the Scopuli waits to intercept the Anubis. Julie Mao is on board, telling her OPA associates, Wan and Darren, that her father's weapon (!) is on board the Anubis, and they need to seize it to insure it's not something that will be used against Belters.

The OPA trio is surprised to find that the Anubis is not a simple science vessel but a stealth ship, one that easily overtakes the Scopuli. Wan and Darren are killed by the "scientists" on board whilst Julie is thrown into a padded room to be dealt with later.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Yep, we see the Anubis destroy the Canterbury, after which Julie escapes from her cell, only to find a completely abandoned ship. She makes her way to Engineering, coming into contact with some sort of blue glowing substance … and then screams in terror at what she sees in the reactor.

Julie leaves the Anubis on Chartered Belt Asteroid BA-834024112, takes the Anubis 1A shuttle to Eros Station and checks into the Blue Falcon Hotel under the name 'Lionel Polanski.' Her calls to Anderson Dawes go unanswered … and her body undergoes a grotesque and painful transformation, as whatever she came into contact with on the Anubis is slowly but most surely killing her.

Finally, a barely recognizable Julie crawls into the shower stall, succumbing to the last phase of her condition just as Miller, Holden, Naomi, Amos and Alex bust through the door …

A heartbroken Miller and the rest of the gang make their way back to the hotel lobby, where Sematimba meets them amongst the wreckage of the shoot-out. Sematimba tells them to get out and lay low while he tries to clean up the mess, though he's soon outranked once a sinister-looking fellow named Antony Dresden and his goons arrive, claiming they're looking for Julie Mao.

In Julie's room, Dresden takes samples from Julie's body, claiming that whatever happened to her isn't airborne … "but if it's wet, don't touch it … unless you want something wonderful to happen." Dresden says there's enough gunk in Julie's body for whatever he has planned and commands his associate Rutger to tell the crew to "prepare the injections."

Dresden contacts Julie's father, Jules-Pierre Mao, breaking the news about his daughter's death but assuring him that he has a viable sample of what he calls the "protomolecule" and that the injections are being prepared. A map of Eros Station labeled "Protomolecule Evolution: Phase 2" is on display, looking a lot like the blueprint for a terrorist attack. The heartbroken Mr. Mao tells Dresden to proceed as planned.

On the streets of Eros, Holden and the gang plan to get to the Rocinante as quickly as possible, though a sudden radiation breach causes all of the ships in the station to go on lockdown. Miller theorizes that this incident was no accident and scurries off to investigate, followed by Holden, who tells Naomi to take off without him if he's not back at the Rocinante in three hours.

The people of Eros are starting to receive injections from CPM cops, allegedly an Iodine supplement as protection from the radiation. Meanwhile, Miller's hot on the trail of Dresden, whom he recognizes from the recording from Phoebe Station. Blaming Dresden for Julie's death, Miller tries to gun him down in the street, though he's stopped by Holden. Miller attacks Holden as Dresden and his goons board Shuttle 6H to Hotebisu Station.

Miller and Holden are soon accosted by the CPM cops that were escorting Dresden, who tell them to get to the shelter. Miller shoots one of them and interrogates the other: Mikey Ko, one of the many members of the Greigas gang that suddenly disappeared from Ceres after being offered jobs by the CPM. In fact, CPM hired all the Ceres crews, mostly to set up cameras and science gear all over Eros.

Eros Station is quickly becoming a nightmare as transit pods are closed, comms have gone dark and shelters are full. As a riot breaks out, Miller and Holden use a wounded Mikey Ko as a way to gain access to a shelter … where they find dozens of Eros citizens, writhing in pain on the floor.

Just then, the room is hit with a megadose of hard radiation. Miller and Holden didn't get out in time, and now only have a couple of hours to live …!

Meanwhile, on Anchorage Island in the Yukon Archipelago, Chrisjen Avasarala visits Franklin DeGraaf's widowed husband, Craig. Craig will never forgive Chrisjen for betraying Frank, though he allows her some time alone in Frank's study in order to say goodbye. Chrisjen finds three sharpened pencils in Frank's desk, which are actually data drives; on one of them, she finds the plans for an Advanced Fusion Prototype, which looks a lot like the reactor on board the Anubis …

Just then, on Tycho Station, Fred Johnson sends a broadcast revealing the information found on the data cube he took from Lopez's uniform. It gives a detailed analysis of the attack against the Donnager, revealing that the attackers were advanced stealth fighters, built at the Bush Naval Shipyards … on Earth!



Back at the U.N. building, Admiral Souther tells Chrisjen that Johnson is lying, though she demands a full investigation into the fusion drives described in Franklin's data. Errinwright interrupts them, claiming that the stealth ships were indeed built at the Bush Naval Yards … but for private contractors, not the United Nations. Not only that, all the ships eventually made their way to Tycho Station over the past few years.

What private contractors, exactly? Chrisjen has an idea when Errinwright re-introduces her to his security advisor: Jules-Pierre Mao.

That night, Chrisjen tells her husband, Arjun, that he needs to go to Luna for a while, as it's not going to be safe for him on Earth much longer. It won't be for Chrisjen, either, as she suspects that Errinwright had Franklin killed BECAUSE Franklin figured out that said fusion drives were built on Earth BY Earth. She thinks her boss, Errinwright, is somehow connected to all the incidents that nearly pushed Earth/Mars/Belt to war (which we know was the setting up the Canterbury to be destroyed, and framing Mars). She begins to reevaluate her position in this increasingly dangerous situation.

Meanwhile, back at Eros Station, Sematimba has caught up with Amos, Alex and Naomi and taken them to the mech shafts, which Naomi says the OPA uses as smuggling routes to get to and from the docks (hmm!). After a series of frustrating dead ends, they eventually find the service ladder that takes them to the Rocinante. Sematimba wants to take off immediately, but Naomi refuses, saying she promised Holden three hours. Sematimba pulls a gun on her, but Amos shoots him in the back. "You say we wait, so we wait, boss," says Amos to a shocked Naomi.

As for Miller and Holden, they med themselves up to buy some time. Holden estimates they have a couple of hours before they start to melt from the inside out, so they've got to get to the Rocinante and its advanced medical facility before then. When a group of CPM thugs show up, Miller and Holden hide out in a video arcade and watch them set up a bunch of monitors, cameras and transmitters. What's going on?

After the CPM squad moves on, Miller and Holden see that the transit pods are back online. As they try to board one, they discover even more Eros citizens infected with the protomolecule. "They're spreading it deliberately, the whole goddamn station," growls Miller, realizing that 100,000 people dying from a bioweapon -- or whatever it is -- is a good way to start a war between Mars, Earth and the Belt.

Holden comes across Kenzo, whose wily ways have kept him alive through all this chaos. Kenzo tries to convince Holden to take him with him, but Holden's still sore about the treachery that almost got them killed in the lobby of the Blue Falcon — he sends Kenzo running as he empties his weapon in his direction, much to Miller's admiration and amusement.

Miller and Holden find an elevator that leads to the docks, though they have to go through a CPM squad to get to it. Donning the gear of two goons that Miller gunned down, they appeal to a group of CPM thugs that are being denied exodus from the station by Dresden's men … one of which happens to be Filat Kothari, the guy who harpooned Miller's partner, Havelock, to a wall back on Ceres. Miller's rabble rousing works and there's soon a full-on riot, during which Miller and Holden make it to the elevator … and Miller shoots Kothari in the head.

Miller and Holden make it to the Rocinante, where Miller is disturbed to see the body of his gunned-down friend, Sematimba. As Amos and Naomi administer treatment for their radiation poisoning, Alex detaches the gas hauler facade of the Rocinante, effectively rendering the clamps useless and allowing the ship to leave Eros Station … in hot pursuit of Dresden's craft.

The season ends with Kenzo wandering the rampaged streets of Eros, eventually coming across a space utterly transformed by the protomolecule. He stares in awe at the fantastical growth of fractals and nautilus spirals, thrumming with organic life. Kenzo is stalked by the protomolecule taking on a human shape before he's sucked into the ever-growing vortex …

What is this thing … and, more importantly, what is it becoming?

from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/article/snowpiercer-season-1-episode-3-recap-access-is-power.html

Snowpiercer S1 Ep 3: Access is Power

Snowpiercer Recap: It’s Only Doors Between Us
By Hillary Kelly


Photo: Justina Mintz/Justina Mintz / TNT

Snowpiercer began as a locked-room mystery: Who, of the 3,000 humans remaining on Earth, all jammed onto this one train, killed Sean Wise? Sure, Layton can try to sort out who the murderer might be by thinking about motive, but until now there’s been an underlying set of rules governing who could even be part of the suspect pool, considering just how restricted access is to certain parts of the train. Sean lived in third-class, and couldn’t freely roam the walnut-paneled corridors uptrain, so it made sense to start Layton’s investigations with the Thirdies who were his kin.

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But the tiny glass vial that’s passed hand to hand in this episode blows up that theory. Like any closed system, Snowpiercer has tiny exploitable holes that can be stretched and adjusted until finally an entire underground system of movement exists. That little vial, after all, essentially holds a key, an under-the-skin implant that allows its wearer to come and go freely throughout the train. Once that falls into a certain set of hands, the cruel, oppressive, capitalistic system keeping the Tailies penned into their own tiny, dark, cold gulag is one step closer to extinction. “It’s only doors between us,” Layton yells as he’s dragged from the Tail door at the end of the episode. Sure, it’s a cheesy romantic sentiment, but more importantly he’s reminding Josie and her crew of rebels that with that microchip in hand, they can now waltz right through them.

With the introduction of Fight Night, meant to provide a little distraction for passengers as everything goes to shit around them, we see what it looks like when the classes start to mix. The entertainment on offer is, of course, brute violence — why stage a cabaret when you can solicit two men to beat each other to smithereens? (How does one obtain tickets to such an event? That’s entirely unclear! Is money accepted on-board? Is it a lottery system? Tell me how Snowpiercer functions, dammit.)

For the first-class passengers like the Folgers, this is the equivalent of the opening scene in Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence, where upper crust families perch in their opera boxes, gold-handled binoculars trained on the rest of the audience instead of the performers — this is the voyeurism Olympics, not an artistic endeavor. The Folgers and other hoity-toits, for all their comic worth as the the most clueless white people one could ever dream up, are also paper-thin, an annoyance that comes to a head this episode when they pass excruciatingly lame lines back and forth and play strip poker in their dining car, as if by this point in the seven-year journey they all wouldn’t have slept with one another already. They’re also all strangely trusting in Mr. Wilford and his canned Churchill message that “by your steady hand we will ride out this hardship and outlive the ice.” It’s also entirely possible that the first-class passengers are drawn so flimsily because billionaires really are one-dimensional Scrooge McDucks greedily swimming in piles of gold! Up to you.

Fight Night is also a chance to mash a bunch of characters in a room together and see what gets spit out, a classic Gossip Girl trick. Leading up to it, Layton, whose little map of the train must have been seized by the jackboots, finally obtains another hint from Melanie about what information, exactly, the Snowpiercer staff already knows about the murder. Sean Wise, they tell him, was informing about the Kronole trade, a drug these dummies think was invented a couple weeks ago. According to Layton, it’s been in the Tail for two revolutions. The bit of intel he has for them is that the Breachman are a part of that trade — last episode we all watched Ossweiler the Midfielder get a blowjob for some Kronole, and now his bosses know about it.

There’s a problem with all this information sharing — of course, it’s a smart device to keep the narrative slowly building, to hand out little doses piecemeal while several other B-plots (the Tailies worry that they’ll be decoupled, the behind-schedule repair to the cracked train compartment and stress on the gine) simmer on the backburner. Except the logic system is all screwed up here. If Melanie is that desperate to have the murder solved, to move one of these massive problems off her plate, wouldn’t she just tell Layton everything she needed him to know for him to solve the case and then keep several trusted Breachman on him at a time? If Layton is such a threat, would he be able to just tell Roche “I lead this time” and then charge around the train? If literally everyone knows Layton is reporting directly to Roche and Melanie, would it matter if Layton showed up alone to question witnesses? This police procedural needs some Dick Wolf help, ASAP.

Layton does emerge with two valuable tips. The first is that Nikki is awake. She looks like a Walking Dead extra and she’s whispering that “it’s not like sleep” (meaning that the drawers are not as peaceful as they’re advertised), but she’s technically conscious. It turns out that Nikki can’t yet offer any pertinent facts for Layton, but the visit to Dr. Klimpt’s lair, and a look at Nikki’s black gums and pustuled face, does lead the detective to figure out that Kronole isn’t some entirely new concoction (or, like in the film, some kind of “industrial waste” converted into a street, er, train drug). It’s a derivative of the sedative administered to the Sleepers, traded out by Dr. Klimpt, he says, for supplies meant to keep them comfier in their suspended animation. “Mr. Wilford didn’t think of everything.” (Please do not fail to note that Dr. Klimpt is played by Happy Anderson, who also played Jerry Brudos, the shoe fetish serial killer (!!!) on Mindhunter.)

The second tip is from Zarah, who tells Layton that he should look for a janitor to find the link between Sean Wise’s death and the Kronole trade.

From there the episode gets a little chaotic. Nikki sneaks into the fight! Jennifer Connelly puts on a perfect red lip! As the prizefight descends into a ringside brawl, Layton manages a meeting with Terence — a head janitor who really has this whole mafia don posture down pat — who has big plans to overthrow the train’s hierarchy, too. “The train,” he somewhat helpfully points out, “is just a high rise laying on its side.” Which … is true. He passes along the news that he saw Sean the night he was killed, and that he was with a first class passenger, a man with a buzzcut — the same man who appears in the medical car as Snowpiercer’s limited electricity flickers on and off and kills Nikki. The same man who has been guarding the Folgers, whose eyes keep locking with L.J. Folger, the Wentworth Miller wannabe with one finger always on the trigger.

And Layton, that sly fox, has somehow boned his ex wife in an aquarium exhibit and declared his love for Josie with his tongue through the Tail door’s slot, meanwhile passing her the implantable ticket he scored in a trade with Terence. All in 48 hours. The engine will provide, indeed.