Lodge 49: Circles

September 16, 2019 9:27 AM - Season 2, Episode 6

Liz attends Champ's housewarming party, and discovers that there's more happening at Orbis, while Dud finds Blaise, as Blaise found Jackie's story. "We're stuck in a circle, but the magic is just there, just beyond. Merrill knew."
posted by filthy light thief (8 comments total)

"When you've been erased from enough stories, you stop noticing."

This was a fooking AMAZING episode, elevating Jackie from "Larry's mom" to "a true explorer of alchemy and history." But that ending ... oof. Especially after the "peace through strength" talk.

"There will be so much peace, we'll get bored of it."
posted by filthy light thief at 9:32 AM on September 16, 2019 [3 favorites]

(Are these releasing early on AMC's website or app or summat?)
posted by Etrigan at 10:16 AM on September 16, 2019

(Are these releasing early on AMC's website or app or summat?)

(Eh, yup -- sorry!)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:19 PM on September 16, 2019

I assume flt is just having one of those above-the-maze moments.

All Schedules Vanish
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 2:28 AM on September 17, 2019

This episode was awesome. I've suspected for a while that Jackie Loomis getting the brush-off in previous episodes was unfair, and that she'd have an important role in the unfolding alchemical mystery, but the way it actually played out was far more satisfying than I'd imagined. (For viewers, at least. Her adventure in London aside, Jackie got a raw deal from every man she associated with.)

Once again, a Lodge gathering is interrupted/upstaged by a non-human organism, or part thereof, making an absurd and grisly appearance! Despite the removal of the tooth, however, Dud's leg is still gotta be infected. Get that shit looked at, man!

Orbis has never felt more like Yoyodyne, and the show as a whole has never felt quite as Pynchonian as it did during the Parabola Group exposition and the scenes set in Champ's new digs. Liz stumbling into what I assume was Antarctica was especially cool. I assumed it'd be because she scarfed a whole dope-filled lemon bar in one bite, but nope. Unless everyone was having a shared hallucination when she returned dusted with snow, but this show being what it is, it could be a combination of the two.

One of my favorite things about the episode was the transition between scenes, and the concomitant de-linearization of time. It was a way to look at things with new eyes, as Connie told Ernie.
posted by heteronym at 6:42 AM on September 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

This was one of the most amazing hours (-plus-a-little) of television I've ever seen. Just beautiful.

But maybe we could go one season without Blaise pulling something out of a human body?

Unless everyone was having a shared hallucination when she returned dusted with snow, but this show being what it is, it could be a combination of the two.

There's gotta be a walk-in freezer somewhere in that building.
posted by Etrigan at 7:33 AM on September 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

Liz falls through the floor of a mundane place and finds a mystical place.
Blaise and Dud fall through the floor of a mystical place and end up in a mundane place.
posted by ShooBoo at 9:59 PM on September 20, 2019 [4 favorites]

I am not the biggest fan of Scott but I felt for him at the end of this episode. He's been losing it lately and just really wanted 3 and a half minutes to sing his song to Connie and here come Dud and Blaise crashing through the ceiling and making the moment all about them.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 2:06 PM on September 22, 2019 [4 favorites]