I swear with some of these series, I add them to my “to watch” list and completely forget what they’re about by the time I get around to actually watch them.
I started watching this series a month ago. I was in a very strange headspace at the time- it’d been a rough winter with one significant snowstorm and power outage (two different events) so I was paranoid about something else going wrong.
Luckily we had the Winter Olympics to help take my mind off things. I also had this series. While I didn’t binge it all in that first weekend, it gave me enough to think about to take me out of that vicious cycle. And if this series is good for one thing, it’s making you think.
There’ll most likely be tons of spoilers so be mindful of that going forward..,
The series begins in a laboratory, which receives a message from outer space they determine to be some sort of biological sequence. Then after lots of testing and experimenting, they spread it outside the lab to all of humanity.
The end result- humanity adopts a hive mind mentality and becomes a collective. Everyone suddenly has the same degree of knowledge of all things and share in each other’s experiences in real time. They also are peaceful and nonjudgmental and happy. Individuality has all but been extinguished but they don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing.
Then we have our heroine, Carol Struka. She’s a best selling author who’s become somewhat jaded about her success but continues to show up for her fans- including the Barnes and Noble signing where we first meet her and her agent/friend/wife Helen.
Yeah, sometimes I’m still so slow. I figured out soon enough that Carol is a lesbian but I didn’t pick up that Helen was her wife until the behind-the-scenes stuff I watched afterwards.
So this new virus spreads via chemtrails and infects everyone… except Carol and, she later finds out, a dozen or so people who are somehow immune and maintain their individuality.
The first episode has so much chaos and leaves you on the edge of your seat. But I spent a lot of time with one question I was dying to have answered and it was never made clear. Helen inexplicably dies at the same time the process is infecting everyone. I kept waiting for some sort of explanation, like her body rejected the change or something. While some fan theories haven’t ruled that out for future seasons, the most accepted theory was she fell backwards and cracked her head open. It just really bugged me a cause of death wasn’t flat out explained.
So Carol gets home and “The Others” reach out to explain things. They want to look after her and while reassuring her that her life is her own, they still want to fix things so she’ll join them.
In the midst of her grieving and burying Helen in her yard, The Others send a representative to check in on her. Zosia is a dead ringer for Carol’s character as she was originally conceived before she changed her pirate character to a man. Carol spends a lot of time early on refusing help and wanting to maintain her independence. Nothing exemplifies this more than her wanting to have the normal experience of shopping at Sprouts, her favorite grocery store. The shelves are completely barren because they no longer want to waste resources, but just for her, they completely restock the shelves in perfect unison. It’s super impressive but a little eerie.
Episode 2, she meets the English speaking people who’re immune to the change like her. Of course, she wants to rally them to fix things and they’re less than arguable. This is made worse when everyone learns that when Carol lashes out at The Others, they freeze and break into seizures. All 7 or so billion of them at the same time. The first time she does this, it kills millions of people.
Throughout the series, she butts heads with Lakshmi, whose son- probably 8 years old- had changed with everyone else so it puts his life at risk. Thanks to the hive mind, she’s always a phone call away from tearing her a new one. One of the other immune folks is kinda fascinating. He’s living the high life, hanging out in Vegas and mingling with all the women. When he and the immune folks meet Carol, they all hang out on Air Force One (which is brilliantly recreated by the set designers). But he’s very easygoing and makes some compelling points for why this is a good thing. Why he doesn’t jump at the chance to join them, I’m not sure. It never comes up but maybe he just enjoys maintaining his individuality. He cites how there’s no crime and more importantly, no prejudice. I don’t remember where he’s from originally, some African country. But that’s a very good point.
The series does hit a major speed bump though and things actually screech to a halt. It lasted a little too long for my liking.
Basically Carol oversteps in her search for answers. She figures out that they know how to reverse this whole thing but they refuse to give her answers. So much so it almost kills Zosia.
As a result, The Others evacuate New Mexico and Carol gets a voicemail whenever she tries to reach out of them. We hear it so many times that it’s just exhausting to hear the whole message repeated. They send her the items she requests via drone. She figures out during this time with more investigating that their diet is a Soylent Green situation except the people being consumed died of natural causes. The Others don’t kill or harm anything… even vegetation. So basically they are on track to die of starvation in a decade or so.
Carol finds some interesting ways to entertain herself in her isolation. While it’s on par with the comedic edge this series has, there’s just way too much screen time with zero dialogue.
The one thing that helps make it more digestible, if a little, is the series shifted to another of the immune individuals. One that Carol curses out from Air Force One and lives down in Paraguay. When the series still had dialogue, Carol made videos of her findings and sent them to the other immune people. He also gets one and is inspired to make a long perilous journey to meet her. Made more perilous by his absolute refusal to accept help from any of them.
It’s hard not to give the guy props. He’s very determined and self sufficient. Plus, each time he takes anything, he insists on paying for it, including his bills when his journey lands him in the hospital.
The final episode- so much happens when these two characters finally meet. By this time, Zosia comes back and she and Carol have been doing a lot hanging out. Thanks to technology, they overcome their language barrier. But Carol decides she’d rather get the girl than save the world.
For a while, things are peaceful and happy and life is good.
Unfortunately because this is Carol and it’s almost like it’s in her DNA to refuse to just be happy, she finds a significant flaw in this new relationship. The narrative of “your life is your own” shifts to “we’re going to convince you to join us”.
She returns and joins forces with her new friend to save the world. But we’re left with one unsolved mystery- what’s in the massive box that gets dropped off with her arrival? Considering she was given a live grenade because she asked for one, it could be something else along those lines… or it could be something completely different. We’ll have to wait at least a year to find out.
Speed bumps aside and Carol sometimes being hard to digest early on- her default setting is unpleasant and cynical- this was an interesting series to watch because it makes you think and it leaves a lot open to interpretation. Plus the man behind it also did Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, so anyone who enjoyed those series will get into this. I saw neither and I liked it. It just might be a better realized version of The Host where earth is taken over by peaceful aliens but there’s a resistance force who lobbies against them. I didn’t enjoy that Stephenie Meyer book as much as Twilight and it reads slooow at times but the whole concept is fascinating.
The idea of peaceful aliens taking over and possibly being the key to solving the flaws of humanity... it makes you think how great it would be. At the same time, it forces you to consider what things you're willing to sacrifice for it to happen. As of this point, no sacrifice seems to be worth any of it.
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