Tales from the Loop: Control

April 19, 2020 5:42 AM - Season 1, Episode 5

In an effort to keep his family safe, a man makes an unusual choice.
posted by jazon (5 comments total)

This one was so painful to watch, and yet so understandable. I'm really glad they went back to Danny's family, and it seems the structure of the show is going to use Danny and Jakob's situation as the central spine. Again, a lot of tragedy to wallow in, and the only hope is just accepting how awful everything is, dealing with the little things and giving up on the big picture. According to my therapist, that's a healthy outlook to take, and yet the whole series makes me so sad.
posted by rikschell at 7:54 AM on April 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

I agree, this was painful to watch. Thank god it didn’t wind up where I thought it was going to.

First of all, this is the first episode that really builds upon a previous episode. Sure, “Stasis” went the way it did because of Jakob/Danny’s behavior, but this episode had the events of “Transpose” at it’s heart.

Second, I think this is the only time I’ve ever seen Dan Bakkedahl play a put-upon sad sack and not the Alpha asshole. It was great to see Lauren Weedman again too. They’re both amazing actors who only get character actor roles.

Third, this was the most thinly-veiled metaphor ever. If the Scrapper robot were replaced with a 9mm Glock, not a single beat or word of dialogue would have to change.

That said, I thought for sure Beth was going to die by the end—whether through misadventure from operating the Scrapper unsupervised, or from Ed making a terrible mistake. Very glad that was not the case.
posted by ejs at 11:29 PM on April 29, 2020

I liked it, but I think I would have liked it better if it...wasn’t...so...incredibly...slooooooow.
posted by snofoam at 7:42 PM on April 30, 2020

I know toxic masculinity is evergreen, but this was a very effective evocation of the 80s era variety, as I remember it.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 2:51 PM on May 3, 2020

This script was written by a high school kid who just learned about Symbolism, and who wants every line of dialogue to have Significant Meaning.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:16 PM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]