So there’s another Jon Hamm lesson. I thought that the whole Jon Hamm arc would have ended as soon as the wrap up from the last episode happened, but here we are with the best lesson. At first, I thought it was going to be a pandering lesson about how society spends to much time on the phone, but it turned into something poignant. The most alarming delusion of them all is the delusion that people don’t matter, or that you’re only dealing with people who may as well be non-existent. If you feel that you are the only right person, in a sea of fake people, does that make you somewhat fake? What I love about this is that it uses the example of social media so show how we can see people as through a prism, and no matter how hard we try, we will judge people with the most basic amount of knowledge that we know about them, to the point where we characterize people, where they are more a meme than they are a human being.
The rest of the episode isn’t bad either. David and Amy still aren’t sure about whether they should kill or help Farouk. Farouk has been completely evil all season, and should be stopped, but at the sake of the rest of the world? The scrupulous question as been on everyone’s tounge for the entire season, and now that we know that David may be the one who ends the world, who do we root for? This interesting quandary is about to come to a head now that our heroes and villains (or villains and heroes? Not sure.) know where the body is.
Before we get to that point though, Ptonomy is still in the digital tree world. He’s searching around in rooms filled with ones and zeros, trying to grasp where he is. He starts seeing memories, of this young man, with gifts, who we eventually find out is a young Fukuyama, and we understand that he’s actually inside of his head. While in his head, he sees that what ever was left of the Monk has been uploaded, and still knows where the body is. He cleverly uses this opportunity to control one of the Mustachioed Robot Ladies, so that he can tell David. This is such a great scene, so cleverly, and creatively done, but I also have a question (just one?), is Ptonomy dead? Like I feel like they could give him a robot body at this point and be fine, but is his body dead? He’s still hooked up to the tree, which can be argued as being a tree of life reference, but is his body too far gone?
Farouk also finds out where his body is, by visiting the driver of his body at a nursing home (information received by Future Syd). In a surprisingly peaceful scene where Farouk doesn’t forcefully get the information, but asks for it, and does something in return. This is a great scene as well, because we actually get to see some humanity from Farouk while still being a monster. He grants her peace and gets what he wants.
Now, the end goal can be seen, and we are very close to climax. David implants a plan into Clark, Cary, and Lenny’s head, so that he can enact a plan to find the body, and Farouk employs a rickshaw to take him straight to the body… which might take a while. What follows is a scene where David is walking the desert, Oliver and Farouk is driving it… its about as exciting as it sounds. There are some fine camera work, and interesting framing choices, but traveling the desert is still traveling the desert.
There are some other interesting bits, we see that Amy doesn’t necessarily trust David, even though she loves him. We see hints of Melanie and what she may have been up to all this time, and we see a plan go wrong because of her… or is it the Minotaur? We are so close to the end here, and even though this episode wasn’t as great as others, my excitement to see what happens is higher than ever. What’s going to happen now that Melanie seems to be under Farouk’s control? What happens now that everyone is on their way to the body? What kind of war for the future is about to be waged?
