For me this show just gets better and better the more abstract it gets, having just finished up to the quiz show episode, though I can imagine that would be grating for some of us.
Theres a scary idea of determinism here whereby even upon achieving self awareness and a soul a person still doesn't really have free will.
It is certainly interesting how much focus there is on this using the three seemingly distinct self-aware beings. Even in real life we are forever consciously, or subconsciously, seeking a tether in the form of a meaning to life or some important a role to fulfill, all despite our free will which should not necessitate one methinks.
Of all the chatacters I thought might die the first time I watched Iggy wasn't one of them
For me Iggy seemed to have a very supporting role so I can't say I was surprised with his passing first, tragic and confusing to the poor sod as it was. He never came across as the most important autoriev somehow and even his contracting the cogito virus felt like an inevitability, though like others I didn't think he had got it that early but rather after extended contact with Pino.
Look at how that backfired though, he was talking about keeping her safe at the exact same time she had a totally different autoreiv after her. Funny how the autoreivs get an idea into their head and they can't work it out logically to see that it's a bad course of action to follow, it seems everyone wants a piece of Re-i.
Yeah I watched this illogical discussion Iggy was having thinking, "uh dude you're giving out ideas about having to take action for your charge, who just so happens to have killed the charge of the one you're conversing with...huh, hey wait where are you going leaving her all locked up and unarmed... dude, dude?! Bah no harm done, he knows full well that Re-l is a badass." Or was that just the other half of his now dual persona that actively wanted to punish Re-l and make her suffer?
I loved how she excused this excuse not once, but twice this episode!
I wonder what she's reading, maybe it's "Do androids dream of Electric sheep?" Or perhaps the multi-printed award winning hit, "Vincent Law".
Multi-printed award winner, hahaha brilliant! Pino is just a legend as well heheh. And again, though I don't feel Pino has really demonstrated any jealous traits at all, this would otherwise have been another good mimic of that child-like personality with jealousy directed at the competition for the attention of the one you're closest to, and anger at the latter for daring to split their attention that way also. But yeah no, she just wanted to read her frigging book in peace.
Vincent struggles with identity crisis and it goes all John Malkovich.
That is certainly a good way to describe it!
That is indeed a perfect summary!
So in a really dark and twisted way Iggy's death is a resentment filled redemption for putting her in danger in the first place.
That's another good point and would make him more human than machine as if so then the genuine emotions he developed seriously messed with his computational ability for him to not be instantly aware of having just endangered Re-l.
But it's one of the very best dub performances I've ever heard.
Gosh, now I feel compelled to watch this episode again with the dub! But not as much asi want to binge all the remaining episodes heh.
Episode 14
An Among Us situation. Good thing Re-l figured out how to tell them a part.. unless they are not the real Vincent and Re-l. Dun Dun Dun.
Aha, wouldn't that be just a perfect Twilight zone episode heh. Reminds of a Star Trek TNG episode I watched as a kid where
Picard had a doppelanger and I couldn't for the life of me tell which one had survived in the end. I need to make time to re-watch that series again at some point...
Was the other proxy real? and if so how did it die?
I do love these types of episodes but yeah was left very much scratching my head that there was no overt show of this Proxy dying at the hands of our resident Proxy-terminator.
Yeah it's certainly an interesting one, and I hope we learn a bit more about how the cities and the proxies are tied together.
I'm now wondering if I misheard or misunderstood some statement from earlier that said a Proxy is essential for the survival of the Dome/it's residents, with the issues of decline in Romdo resulting directly from the apparent death of Monad (who I therefore presumed was stolen from Mosk to help create Romdo as the newest dome perhaps?), rather than Romdo's decline just a result of general wear & tear.
What is the name of this song? Cue opening credits. Brilliant.
That is the deservedly placed confidence in your opening credits' song. Brilliant touch indeed.
The way it manages to drop so much historical lore and world building in this zany quiz setting is pretty remarkable.
It certainly came across as the most innovative and entertaining way to perform a lore dump, akin to how Re:Creators did the most perfect recap episode I've ever watched.
I love when we first see Re-l and Pino in the spectator tubes that Re-l is visibly angry and Pino is just having a blast. It makes me laugh every time! And I really like the reuse of the Vincent eyes metaphor where they are closed for most of the epsiode while he is confused and doing badly but then start opening more and more in the final round as he pushes for victory and gets answers right.
Those two and their reactions were hilarious indeed, for me especially later with Pino being Pino and just copying the pixelated image exactly and Re-l just being the moody emo and not engaging - cracked me up. Vincent progressing gradually from conformist office worker hairstyle and respectfully sleepy look, to his damn-right-I'm-the-MC-here hairstyle and open-action-eyes delinquency was pretty cool, and if anything I'm surprised he didn't go full tilt ergo proxy mode by the end.
our recently departed host MCQ
I just get a big "KOREwa..DARAAYY??" in my head every time I think of Mr MCQ heheh. I second your love for this episode, I felt it was brilliant as well.
It's taken longer than they expected for the planet to recover so initial calculations may be incorrect and all of the systems/proxies have probably been operating for far longer than they were designed to, hence some of them going a bit crazy.
I took away that the awakening process had been initiated inappropriately early before the world is quite habitable again, maybe like you said because the Proxies are now losing it. Also interesting how the mention of the cogito virus sounded like it was meant as a fail-safe of some sort, presumably for the Proxies that were maybe meant to be more automated caretakers but have become more self-aware? (If they aren't immortalised & emotionally suppressed humans to begin with that is). Whereas I had previously been thinking the cogito virus was the autorievs' way of evolution and becoming self-aware.
Other things I forgot to mention about Episode 15.
Was the purpose of the game show not just an info dump but also to broadcast about proxies and the awakening to the rest of the world (assuming they had working tech to receive and watch the signals?). So as we were the viewers of it, so was everyone else who was capable of seeing it in the world.
Additionally was the game show host himself a proxy? It seems this was another proxy battle but one without direct fighting.
Yeah if I remember correctly he did mention about this being another way for Proxies to battle? Maybe he was the agent of truth or something..