wpersonally I found the last several episodes of this series to be weak, flimsy, or bogged down by a morality system that seems so abnormal as to be alien.
this episode was strong almost all the way through, with great storytelling aspects gradually connecting each story until you piece together just what's happened. ideas like the person-blocking is mindnumbingly fascinating and painful and even explored to a tantalizing degree without overdoing it.
then the alien morality kicks in with an end that just completely sours the entire episode. the protagonist of the story has basically used his people skills and gotten into serious trouble, and now is using them to get out of trouble, helping police officials in extracting a confession out of a computer program copy of a killer who has not spoken to anyone in real life.
His reward is he doesn't serve jail time for his own incredibly minor crime, and is basically worse than death; he's blocked by everyone, as a result of being put on a "peeping tom" list only vaguely reminiscent of real life sex offender registries.
This is effectively a death sentence, as someone who is blocked by everyone basically cannot interact with anyone in any way. As such, they cannot hold a job and make money to pay rent or buy food or medicine or clothing, cannot communicate with emergency personnel in the event of a medical emergency, so he's essentially dead the moment he suffers a heart attack or a stroke or a blown appendix.
He's got a good face and is charismatic, he makes his living off talking to people and getting them to open up. Being unable to do that, he's on the streets, a perpetual outcast, blind, deaf, and mute, on top of having a special red glow marking him as a sexual predator with no explanation as to whether he's an insane violent serial rapist killer or just a guy who watched some people have sex. He's dead within a year, of illness or victim of violence.
to add on to the abnormal morality, the alien creature posing as a human decides to punish NOT the actual killer, but the computer copy of the killer to essentially an eternity of being trapped alive in a cabin with Christmas music playing nonstop.
The unusual fixation on this sort of alien sense of morality that keeps getting tacked on to the end of these episodes (like with "White Bear") becomes hugely distracting and detracting from the episode as a whole, like following up a fine meal with an unexplained vomit-filled balloon dropped onto your plate and exploding in your face. Sure, the food was good, but what was the point of the vomit bomb? What am I supposed to learn from this? Now the vomit part is all I will remember.
this episode was strong almost all the way through, with great storytelling aspects gradually connecting each story until you piece together just what's happened. ideas like the person-blocking is mindnumbingly fascinating and painful and even explored to a tantalizing degree without overdoing it.
then the alien morality kicks in with an end that just completely sours the entire episode. the protagonist of the story has basically used his people skills and gotten into serious trouble, and now is using them to get out of trouble, helping police officials in extracting a confession out of a computer program copy of a killer who has not spoken to anyone in real life.
His reward is he doesn't serve jail time for his own incredibly minor crime, and is basically worse than death; he's blocked by everyone, as a result of being put on a "peeping tom" list only vaguely reminiscent of real life sex offender registries.
This is effectively a death sentence, as someone who is blocked by everyone basically cannot interact with anyone in any way. As such, they cannot hold a job and make money to pay rent or buy food or medicine or clothing, cannot communicate with emergency personnel in the event of a medical emergency, so he's essentially dead the moment he suffers a heart attack or a stroke or a blown appendix.
He's got a good face and is charismatic, he makes his living off talking to people and getting them to open up. Being unable to do that, he's on the streets, a perpetual outcast, blind, deaf, and mute, on top of having a special red glow marking him as a sexual predator with no explanation as to whether he's an insane violent serial rapist killer or just a guy who watched some people have sex. He's dead within a year, of illness or victim of violence.
to add on to the abnormal morality, the alien creature posing as a human decides to punish NOT the actual killer, but the computer copy of the killer to essentially an eternity of being trapped alive in a cabin with Christmas music playing nonstop.
The unusual fixation on this sort of alien sense of morality that keeps getting tacked on to the end of these episodes (like with "White Bear") becomes hugely distracting and detracting from the episode as a whole, like following up a fine meal with an unexplained vomit-filled balloon dropped onto your plate and exploding in your face. Sure, the food was good, but what was the point of the vomit bomb? What am I supposed to learn from this? Now the vomit part is all I will remember.