Discuss the Current Episode

Personally, I thought that the episode was weak. If anything, comedy requires more control and discipline than drama, and the animators didn't do us any favors by being self-indulgent and sloppy in this episode.

The episode has its good points, all more or less marred, such as Dorothy's response to the phone call, which was a wonderful scene that could not quite be ruined by Dastun's grotesque overacting.

Oh, well.

Continuity error: Beck claims that he had a memory shocked into him -- that Roger was the Dominus of Big O. But he knew that all already. He saw Roger rescue Dorothy in Act 2.

When I first saw this episode, back during it original run on Adult Swim, I said to Pygmalion, "Things are about to get really scary if they felt they had to do something like THIS as comic relief!"

I was almost right. One more lesser episode intervenes before we have seven episodes of unbroken, heart-stopping tension.

That episode is EYEWITNESS.

I forgot to post last week, but let's watch EYEWITNESS and discuss on Saturday! Woo-hoo! Do Roger and Angel look great together, or what?

An uneven episode. Some good stuff, some bad.

BAD STUFF:

Dorothy whirred a few times in the first scenes, but not consistently. I wish the show's creators could make up their minds about whether the whirs all the time or not.

The whole scene of Dorothy commandeering a car to snap off the arrow was stupid. She could have sheared it off with a karate chop much more easily; we know how strong she is. It's as if the animators hadn't come down off whatever drugs they'd been taking when they did THE GREATEST VILLAIN.

The fan service scenes in this episode were all annoying. (The driver of the car getting a good look up Dorothy's skirt, Roger tossing his business card into receptionist's cleavage, and Norman's sidecar weaponry spreading Dorothy's legs.) It clashed with the tone of the show.

The big construction robot was poorly thought-out. It used rivets of reasonable size when armoring the side of Police Headquarters, but they were as big as hubcaps when it was shooting them at Norman. Rivets that size simply don't exist.

Roger passed that same brown car on the bridge AGAIN! I'm sure the driver has had a nervous breakdown by now.

GOOD STUFF:

All the interaction with Roger and Angel. Angel has already fallen for Roger but it's hard for her to be candid with him. He has similar trouble. So they dance around the issues and dip their toes in the water and more or less dare each other to be the first to come clean.

I particularly liked the implication that the one android and his friend were gay lovers, especially when the old man expressed the wish that Dastun and R. Freddie would be equally happy together.

MYSTERIOUS STUFF:

Who was running the construction robot?

Dorothy said, "He isn't working alone," maybe about Roger, maybe about the android. Either way, how did she know?

Who released the red balloon?

THEORY TIME:

The Union handed over Big Fau, knowing that some crucial parts are defective in some way. It's important to the Union that Big Fau not become fully operational, since it will make Alex too powerful and will also cause him to try to become a new god, which Vera thinks is her job (or something).

When Alan Gabriel discovered that there were androids running around loose in Paradigm, he (or someone in the Union) realized that the "irreplaceable" parts that were broken, missing, or sabotaged in Big Fau were in fact readily available in the skulls of androids. Hence the series of android killings.

At the moment, Alex has no idea that Big Fau is missing any parts, or that they can be cannibalized from androids, so he may actually be helping kill off the androids if Alan has given him a plausible cover story. Hard to say. Alex has every intention of betraying the Union, but so far he doesn't expect them to do anything to him.

quote:

Originally posted by A Clockwork Tomato It's as if the animators hadn't come down of whatever drugs they'd been taking when they did THE GREATEST VILLAIN.

This statement, my friend, made me laugh out loud.

quote:

I particularly liked the implication that the one android and his friend were gay lovers, especially when the old man expressed the wish that Dastun and R. Freddie would be equally happy together.

BWHAAAAAAAAAA!

The only thing I remember about that guy was how f'ed up his forehead was. I don't think I ever thought the man was a robosexual.

Anyway your theory sounds plauasible, especially since we don't need to work in any act 24-26 mumbo jumbo.

I was begining to lose faith in the second season, I was looking for somthing incredibly awesome to make up for the greatest villian which felt like such a deviation from what the show was about. (I mean is this the same show as Act 13?) But it was a "meh" episode.

Stripes is where its at.... I'll see you guys in a week.

This ep has it moments. More Paradigm City/NYC stuff like the killer android wearing a yankee cap. My favorite part would the part when Roger was about to say Dorothy is my.............. when Freddie cuts him off I wonder what Roger was going to say?

Eyewitness is one of my favorites of season 2, especially considering how it shifts to the serious threat toward Dorothy right after the comedy Greatest Villian episode.

This episode had good mystery, great character interaction and exciting action. The Dorothy/Roger/Norman interactions were good, and it was a nice study of Dastun as a cop and his interaction with Freddy. It was also nice to get a clarification of androids' place in Paradigm City society.

Question: What was the origin of the assassin android?

As far as I could tell, it was a plot by the Union to cause upheaval. Plus, they had some idea of the importance of androids. (Have we decided the Union had a hand in R.D?)

It's been such a while since I've seen these episodes, my memory is starting to fade! I'll have to refresh my memory when I get the Complete Collection II!!!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Schoolie Question: What was the origin of the assassin android?

The one in NEGOTIATION WITH THE DEAD was almost certainly something Wayneright left behind, along with Glinda, that was grabbed by Alex after Wayneright's death. R-D, too. The one in EYEWITNESS seemed more like R. Freddie and the androids that were killed, so it could have been one of the city's random androids that had been there forever.

quote:

As far as I could tell, it was a plot by the Union to cause upheaval.

I think it was the Union, but it's more that they recognized that Megadeus core memories and android core memories were interchangeable, and that the one they'd sabotaged in Big Fau might be replaced with one from an android. I think that, in reality, only certain androids were suitable, though--the ones, like Dorothy, who seem to attract Megadeuses. Or maybe not. Maybe Big Fau was originally powered by R. Freddie's brain.

R-D's babbling sounded like Alex Rosewater's religious drivel, but her maniacal love of killing was more like Alan Gabriel. I think they both had a hand in programming her. R-D was doing dirty work for Alex (killing off old guys who knew too much and would interfere with his plans for becoming a god). She wasn't helping the Union in any way. But the EYEWITNESS android was definitely doing the Union's dirty work. All the weird orders coming down from Paradigm H.Q. were perhaps Alan Gabriels's doing, with Alex in the dark.

Let's all watch STRIPES and discuss it starting Saturday night, 10/16.

STRIPES is the beginning of the seven-episode sleigh ride without a moment's break in the tension, and is full of many weird and unforgettable scenes in its own right, including this one:

quote:

Originally posted by A Clockwork Tomato Let's all watch STRIPES and discuss it starting Saturday night, 10/16. STRIPES is the beginning of the seven-episode sleigh ride without a moment's break in the tension, and is full of many weird and unforgettable scenes in its own right, including this one:

Screw saturday!

And your damn right about that 7 episode roller coaster.

Just when I was begining to think the second season was a total bust, BOOM stripes walks in the door. No more one episode stands with roger knocking somthing over with big o and going home.

He and the characters are forced to confront the past, and all the fun political stuff between the union (which finally comes out of the shadows) and rosewater. Finally we get some sense of tension and "movement" ( I don't know how to describe it) within the plot.

First that visit to gordon, kind of revisiting act 13. I love that alan laugh, just a taste of the crazy sh** they've got in store for him. Then the buildup of the angel + roger relationship. (Plus the blue bells? Anyone got any theories on that one?). They finally begin to confront roger with the dorothy question. "Do you like the android or not mr dominus!".

Then the fun robot happy-fun smash time stuff happens. The Union finally materializes and we meet Vera for the first time. It seems the union has a trick up theire sleeve and using discarded peices of the fau delivery robots they summon bonaparte the assasin robot. I guess assumming that they would be unable to activate fau without a core memory. (which is why they sent the android chrusher) So after a superlame assembly of bonaparte it proceeds to attack the city and Big o shows up, stuff happens, alan pervs out and licks his gun, and we get a good 'ol fashioned cliff hanger.

Great stuff.

"Act 20: Stripes, the episode everyone hates"

I'm still getting over the whole Act 20 instead of 26 thing. That was a BIG screwup.

Yes, "Stripes" will go down in Big O history for its notorious (an alleged mistaken) broadcast on Halloween weekend in place of the final episode.

That said, this is a terrific episode, with just as much tension as Act 13: R.D. This episode had a LOT, including the whole revealing of Vera, the Union, Angel, and Alan, not to mention Alan's sadistic attack of Dorothy, Angel and Roger's romantic tension, and Big O and Roger's fault against Bonaparte.

Wow, this did have a lot, now that I think of it!

That's a good observation that this episode begins the final 7-episode arc of the show. I never thought of it that way. But I've got to watch the next episode to feel some sort of closure - Stripes and The Third Big have to be watched together, in my book. The Third Big really packs a good second half of this mini-arc.

Its hard to gauge time in the show.

But since

20----->21 / 22 / 23----->24------>25------>26

And the time frame between act 21 and 23 doesn't seem that far apart, you can see how these final episodes all function as one big ending tale.

Stripes is my favorite episode. I love that Roger & angel were getting along very well in that episode. The worst part was that roger hesitated & didn't kiss angel. It was about to be 100% intense ,But it dropped....anyway, that episode was so cool.

A great ep now that the union makes their apperance, seeing Roger and Angel together on the beach with "Distance" playing in the background I thought the magic moment would happen but Roger stalls out and what does Dorothy do when Roger is away. Waits patiencly outside to wait for him isn't that cute. Is that the batmoblie in the garage? Alan licking his golden gun scary :o

A very good episode, certainly a turning point in the series. Every so often, you can find me walking down the streets of New York City humming "Flag".

I haven't been able to access Stripes to watch it, so I'm trying to remember where it ends and The Third Big picks up. Ah...I really think, if anything, these two eps should be covered together.

However, back to the issue about this being a turning point. First, the emergence of the Union. Kinda important.. (understatement). Next, we have another Roger-Dorothy Relationship confrontation thingy. That is to say, Roger being forced to consider on which level he considers Dorothy. This is an issue of identity with him, really. A battle of rational and "irrational" thought, if you will. To him, all rationality would point to a professional relationship with Dorothy. However, his "irrational" thoughts kill off the scene with Angel, and (this may be into The Third Big) eventually cause him to leave Big O mid-battle to rescue her.

This is a segway into the next point, which is the nature of Big O. Once again, as was seen in R-D with Big O, and Big Duo in "Enemy is Another Big!", we have Big O acting on his own (fighting without Roger). This forces the viewer (and Roger, etc) to wonder about how the Bigs really work. Do they have their own thoughts and memories, or are they slaves to their Dominae (I think that's the Plural) (Also, I believe something along the lines of this was stated in the series: "Do you control the megadeus, or does the megadeus control you?"). The inevitable conclusion would be that the Bigs do hold independence. How far that independence goes (and infringes upon the independence of the Dominus) is up for debate, but we can all agree that the Bigs do assert their own independence, and therefore are separate entities.

So, yeah, this is basically my points on The Third Big and Stripes... sorry about the mixture, but I really think these two eps are basically one ep (IE could be Stripes Scene 1 and Stripes Scene 2).

At the beginning of stripes, we hear the hummed Union song during a pan across the Wasteland that shows tire tracks ending at a parked car. A door opens and a figure gets out, presumably Vera.

When Roger goes to see Gordon, he passes Alex and Alan leaving. Alex has bluebells in his buttonhole.

When Gordon talks to Roger, he says for the first time something that he repeats again in Act 26: "If something doesn't exist here and now, it would be the same as if it had never existed, wouldn't you say?" In Act 26, he claims that if Angel throws away the memories of 40 years ago, then it's the same as if they had never existed. He's probably wrong about this.

The meeting leaves Roger shaken, and he tries to pull himself together at the Speakeasy. Where is Big Ear?

Angel shows up and is unusually nice to him, perhaps seeing his distress and realizing that this is not a good time to play her usual games with him. This works really well...

There are also some good panoramic pictures in this episode.



The magical levitation of the robot parts and their equally magical reassembly is a stupid lapse on the part of the animators. Presumably, by the time Roger blew holes in the Megadeuses and Alex had them hacked apart for their crucial parts, the remainder wouldn't be worth much, but here they all, brand spanking new.

The romantic beach scene is great. Roger imagines that he will get romantic with Angel, but when the time comes, he doesn't really want to. No one is more surprised than himself. Angel instantly diagnoses the problem and isn't very happy about it.

The parallelism of Angel and Dorothy both running towards the signing is a nice touch.

Alex beseeches Big Fau as if it were a god: "O covetous Big Fau, what more could you possible require? You even have a core memory to speak of!"

During the fight with Bonaparte, someone tells Roger: "you can't play god forever. You, dominus, with no idea who you are." Who is speaking?

Alan has one of Roger's watches. Where did he get it?

Another interesting use of parallelism -- Alan goes for Dorothy with his drill while Bonaparte goes for Big O with his.

Roger's fragmentary visions are hitting him more and more frequently, and are becoming more and more disabling. Where are they coming from? What do they portend?

Great cliffhanger at the end. I remember the agony of having to wait a week for Act 21!

I know that most of us saw the series so many times that we sort of burned out on watching it anymore. But I think that enough time has passed that it's rewarding to watch the "current episode" every week. You'll see stuff you've forgotten or that you've never seen before. This is especially true if you have the DVDs, which are a lot sharper than broadcast or satellite TV.

I know I am little late on this but in ep15 we see Dorothy walking by a nightengale (the mechanical bird in the cage) later we see Angel walking by a pair of nightengales. Could there be more Dorothy's out there?

Sorry I missed last week. Anyway, this week's virtual episode is Act 21: THE THIRD BIG -- which for practical purposes is the second half of the two-parter started in STRIPES, or maybe the second seventh of the seven-part Acts 20-26.

Watch it and discuss! (If you REALLY watch it, and don't just post from memory, I'll be you'll see new stuff! I know I did.)

Wow, I remember having to wait a whole week after the cliffhanger where Alan Gabriel shoots Dorothy in the arm and leg and then comes after her with the drill. That was hard to take!

Dorothy doesn't hit Alan until she asks for confirmation of his not-entirely-human status: "So you're the boogey man; neither man nor machine?"

Also, contrary to popular belief, Dorothy, doesn't smile when Roger picks her up or speaks to her, she smiles when Angel flees in shame. She's gloating over Angel's disgrace! She'll feel guilty about this later.

Bonaparte (the Megadeus made out of the pieces of Huey, Dewie, and Louie, as we used to call them), is powerful enough to destroy the city, but he doesn't make a lot of progress against Big O, even when Big O is shut down. The contrast is startling.

This is the episode where Vera first implies that she thinks the crucial memories are under the city, not in it, and the city can be destroyed without endangering the memories. She says, "The union shall retrieve the memories from the ashes, and then they shall become the rightful hiers to memory!"

Alex Rosewater refers to "This world that my father, Gordon Rosewater, created." While Gordon consistently denies having had anything to do with the Event of 40 years ago, Alex believes otherwise. I'm sure he's wrong.

Bonaparte's "stretchy neck attack" gets my vote for Lamest Giant Robot Attack Ever.

When Dastun gave Angel back her gun, he said something that also sums up Roger Smith's philosophy about the inexplicability of Paradigm: "All we can do is accept it and protect others. As soon as we have our doubts ..."

So what's the deal with Big Fau? He seems perfectly operational during the first part of the fight, then suddenly shuts Alex out and starts destroying the dome on his own. Finally, Big O manages to shut Big Fau down.

The state of Big Fau's core memory is not clear. In STRIPES, Alex claims that Big Fau has a core memory. In this episode, he says otherwise. I get the feeling that there's something wrong with Big Fau's core memory, but that it's sufficiently intact that, on a good day, Alex could believe that everything was okay.

Did Big Fau run amok because he was defective in some mechanical way, or because he's crazy? Roger called him a "monster." I think that Big Fau is a selfish, arrogant jerk, just like Alex. But there's something wrong with him, too; something broken. When he's fixed, he'll be a selfish arrogant jerk who functions perfectly.

Too bad Dastun and Angel didn't go off and get drunk together. They both had quite a few sorrows to drown.

Tonight's virtual episode is HYDRA (Act 22), which I know is one of everyone's favorites. Watch it again and discuss, starting tonight!