Glitch: Season Two (All Episodes)

December 4, 2017 7:47 AM - Season 2 (Full Season)

The Australian Broadcasting Company/Netflix show returns for season two, delivering several answers to the ongoing mystery of how the "risen" might have returned from the dead, even as many more questions arise.
posted by DirtyOldTown (20 comments total)

Two random thoughts to get things started:

1) I still have no idea why the show is called "Glitch."
2) The name of the evil corporation cracks me up... NOREGARD... NO REGARD.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:10 AM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm only three episodes in, but my inventory (which won't include everything) goes as follows:

QUESTIONS ANSWERED
1) We know who brought them back: Elishia.
2) We have a vague sense of why: John/William.
3) Will James ever tell Chris? A: Yes.

QUESTION POSSIBLY HALFWAY THROUGH BEING ANSWERED:
1) Who killed Kirstie? Looks like Vicky Carmichael is at least an accomplice.

QUESTIONS NOT ANSWERED:
1) WTF happened to Vic to make him turn into whatever it was that he became?
2) Why does the boundary exist? What is it?
3) How were they brought back?

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS RAISED:
1) What does Elishia mean when she says she came back and "was Elishia"? How did she come back? Who is she to John/William?
2) What is the deal with Beau's mom's boyfriend Phil and/or Sarah? I have this suspicion that whatever the evil force is opposing the risen is, it can activate people who have recently died as agents on its behalf. This is also possibly what happened to Vic.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:26 AM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

The farther I got into this season, the more I turned from regular-watching to hate-watching.

Sarah and Phil came back to life to kill the Risen, because the universe is opposed to people being brought back to life. Okay, the universe is kind of a hypocrite, but whatever.

But William and Elishia both came back to life previously for...no clear reason? Because they loved each other? If people missing people they loved is enough to bring people back to life, seems like this would happen quite a lot. (Season 3: Kalinda is back, looking for Paddy?)

So we know that people come back to life, sometimes just waking up after having died, but other times waking up in another recently-deceased person's body (re: "she came back and 'was Elishia'"). And the universe is okay with that, but we have nothing to explain why either of these scenarios normally happens. (I'd imagine many people could die and come back not even realizing it happened, depending on circumstance.) There's no indication, in these circumstances, that these people come back with newfound purpose.

But the universe is not okay with people intentionally bringing other people back to life. If you do that, the universe will revive other people dying nearby (my theory: the universe deliberately causes the death of nearby people, so it can revive them with their new purpose) to send them out to kill the artificially revived people. Vic and Phil seemed quite dedicated to their purpose, but Sarah was eventually able to resist hers. How strong is this impulse? Maybe it's not that strong, but Vic and Phil are just people who were already relatively more okay with, shall we say, capital punishment. Or maybe it's a very strong impulse and we were supposed to think Sarah is just SUCH A GOOD PERSON that she overcame it? Probably.

Risen mercenaries can read the memories of other Risen (natural or artificial, undead or re-dead), but artificially Risen people can't? (Nothing magical happened when William and Elishia kissed.) That seems kinda unfair.

Naturally risen people don't experience an invisible boundary and possibly can't regrow fingers, etc. People risen via stem-cell have considerable regrowth abilities, but can they, say, heal themselves from lethal wounds? Are all those gunshot wounds healing as quickly as William's fingers are growing back? I think this is not handled consistently.

James said everyone who rose came back because people were missing them. Uh, who missed Paddy?

DirtyOldTown, Elishia said they were in love (in their first life) but couldn't be together then and he had to leave for some reason (to go to Australia?). It seems like William has only lived one identity -- although he died and then revived. Has Elishia (or the "soul" that inhabits her or whatever) been living multiple lives/identities over the last 200 years, trying to find a way back to William? Or did she pop into a body just recently now that there's technology to revive him?

I'm really confused about Elishia's timeline, and who the person whose body she reclaimed was. Did she take over the body of someone who was already a stem-cell expert and then finish her research?

Here's the part that breaks the show for me: Regarding the whole stem-cell idea, it's ridiculous that they'd regrow into an adult person of the age they were when they died. The risen-by-science and risen-by-supernatural-reasons scenarios don't share enough explanation -- I wish they'd picked one rather than both. If it were all supernatural, Elishia could still have found a spell/prayer/whatever to bring William back, and there could still be an evil company wanting to research/harness this power.

tl;dr: This show is bad in a very Netflix Originals way.
posted by katieinshoes at 9:03 AM on December 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

Also, how does a person from hundreds of years ago waking up in Elishia's body acquire her expert level research ability for stem cells but not her attachment to the partner she casually abandoned?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:44 AM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, I am calling it now: Elishia will rise again before the end of the season.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:45 AM on December 4, 2017

Increasingly, this show reminds me of latter-era Lost. As it goes on, it largely skates past the points where we'd expect some answers and leaves steaming piles of new, lousier questions behind. And when we do get answers, I have a sneaking suspicion they will be quasi-mystical horseshit.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:54 AM on December 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

We finished the season last night. I feel like they did well by Kirstie's story, but the continuing harping on the James Kate thing isn;t just driving her nuts, it's bothering me too.

They got about 60% of the way to answering the questions on how people were brought back and who (or at least what) the opposing forces are, but it really is some malarkey.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:50 AM on December 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, they killed Paddy, who was maybe the most interesting character on the show.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:51 AM on December 5, 2017

The farther I got into this season, the more I turned from regular-watching to hate-watching.

Same. It flipped to hate at episode 4 for reasons I don't remember. There are plot holes you can drive a Land Rover through. This is extreme nitpicking but I don't even understand where Kirstie, Charlie and William got vaguely period-appropriate clothing or why they are wearing it. Do the writers think we won't be able to tell them apart?

If "repeating the experiment" required 50 gallon barrels and a bevy of DJ equipment to raise one person from the dead, where was all that stuff the first time? Elishia showed up in a car. Maybe William can ask her in Season 3.

This show wastes so much time on repetitive exposition (Kalinda and Paddy as just one example). The score is crap - the subtitles read [distant piercing noise] every time they were about to Remember Something. After we found out he was gay, Charlie's backstory got really boring. At least Maria didn't come back. God how I hated her.

And when we do get answers, I have a sneaking suspicion they will be quasi-mystical horseshit.

I was thinking that when Vic disintegrated, it resembled a smoke monster.

I liked season 1 and I really wanted to like this one, but I can't foresee watching a season 3 when there's so much better stuff out there. (Go watch Dark.)
posted by AFABulous at 3:47 PM on December 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Speaking of Lost, for a few episodes I thought the actress who plays Kate in this show was the same actress that played Kate in Lost.
posted by AFABulous at 3:51 PM on December 11, 2017

I am two episodes in and am really not impressed. I'm rapidly realizing that (a) I don't really care about any of these people and (b) the show is doing what I was afraid of at the end of season 1 - tease a bunch of answers, but not really answer anything - instead, use anything that feels like an answer to raise more questions.

Now that we have backstories for most of the returnees, they are just kind of bland background. And everyone new they introduce has to apparently be sinister, down to Kate's hookup. Blah.
posted by nubs at 7:48 AM on December 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I am beginning to think this show is about angels. This does not make me happy.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:54 PM on January 1, 2018

So, I haven't watched episode 6 yet, but here's my theory, which I hope is entirely incorrect:

- Elishia and William / John are angels or some other type of metaphysical beings that violated a "no coupling up" rule and inhabited human bodies in order to consummate their love. They have to keep moving from body to body since humans aren't immortal, and one of the side effects of this is lapses in memory. They end up merging with the host.

- Elishia's research into regeneration has the end goal of making a human host immortal, thereby allowing her and Jon / William to live out the rest of time on Earth.

- Vic / Phil / Sara are like Angel Cops or whatever that have been sent to stop these wayward lovers from causing havoc among the living. They are clearly conflicted about their purpose when they inhabit hosts with meaningful relationships, mostly parental.

- The rest of the risen were Risen in order to Make Things Right or Get Some Closure.

I will watch episode 6 tonight to see if these questions are answered.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:40 AM on January 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I actually thought they pulled it all out in the final episode, though I'd be perfectly good with this ending the series.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:34 PM on January 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

wow did we watch different shows?

I thought they explained the science as fictionally sufficient as they needed it to be. It was obvious in hindsight that Elishia knew exactly what she was doing when she showed up at the cemetery when she did. She didn't expect James to be there, who happened to be called by Beau (who was the one that raised Paddy, because he was longing for his dead father in Perth, and Paddy is probably the relative within that group of graves, or at all). She probably did the experiment earlier and came back when she figured it would take effect.

The supernatural stuff was explained enough to move the plot and give character background but give them something for season 3. If you can't take it, then leave it. Don't question why shit is unfair. That's just how the show is. Much like how life is, like giving you genes that make you question these things rather than just enjoy it.

I think there's much more to Elishia and John. She said she's reborn as Elishia, but clearly she's an entity that's lived multiple lives. And so is John. He was reborn as William when he drowned, but before that he was the same. She knows this and just needed to raise her true love again. Luckily she was reborn into the body of a scientist working on cellular regeneration via stem cells. We'll find out in season 3!

I was also bummed Paddy died. But I think the character ran his course. After successfully getting restitution for Beau's family, there's no further point in him sticking around, storywise. We probably won't see Beau's family in season 3 much, except for Phil. I was also expecting Kirstie to be gone somehow, because her story was resolved more or less, but the pregnant twist is interesting. I thought Charlie's story was really moving, not being able to deal with dying from TB while everyone else he knew died in the war. It's only boring if you don't care about the character. However, I feel like there's still more to his story, so we'll see.

I am beginning to think this show is about angels.

I like your angel theories, actually. I don't mind more shows about angels and such. But they seemed to lay that out and then stepped away just as quick when Phil raged at James asking if God sent him.

The score is crap - the subtitles read [distant piercing noise] every time they were about to Remember Something.

I think that was literally for the piercing noise that comes on just as the tune for those sequences reaches the peak. I didn't mind those since I like learning more about the characters and knowing a memory thing is about to happen is exciting.
posted by numaner at 11:15 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

I hope we get to see more of Beau and his family because as an American, I never see indigenous Australians onscreen.
posted by AFABulous at 9:16 AM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

have you seen Cleverman? it's actually pretty good, and Phil is also in it!
posted by numaner at 10:38 PM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I hope we get to see more of Beau and his family because as an Australian, I would like to see more Indigenous Australians on-screen. I should maybe give Cleverman another go, but what I did see of it, I didn't like much. I am pleased though that it exists, and has included so many great Indigenous Australian actors.

I think that if you are prepared to accept the premise that people come back from the dead, it's not terribly fair to say the explanation provided is implausible. I mean, the whole premise is implausible. Of course entire humans can't be regrown from stem cells. Of course memories can't be restored wholesale by a sound at a particular frequency. The whole point of shows like these is to exaggerate the bits of truth into something extreme, to say "what if this really implausible thing happened?" It's a way of exposing anxieties and fears (death, uncontrolled science, moral/spiritual consequences to messing around with the "natural order of things") and exploring them. I mean, Frankenstein hardly had believable science either and yet it has become a classic.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I hope that there is a third season. At the same time, if there isn't, I feel like things were wrapped up reasonably well. There was some great acting in there, and I am greatly enjoying seeing something set in such familiar surrounds. (I know you yanks reading this are not going to understand the thrill of seeing Elishia come back to life and stagger around Melbourne through the exact intersection next to where I worked for 13 years; or realise that the gardens that Sarah takes her daughter out to visit isn't actually in the country but is about 15 minutes down the road from where I live and has been the site of many picnics, birthday parties and idle strolls; or even the amusement from seeing the once-artists' colony, now wedding/festival/function venue Montsalvat posing as the home of rich people, but I am really getting a kick out of it.)

Anyway, a few details: clearly Vic's shallow grave was a plot device so that Phil wouldn't have to work too hard to dig him up with just his hands.

The whole white-Fitzgerald concession to the indigenous-Fitzgeralds seemed really super implausible to me. Especially after the matriarch was one of the ones who told her henchlings grandsons to go brutalise Paddy in the first place.

What was with Sarah's boobs? I feel like they deserve a separate cast entry all on their own. Other characters got to wear tops that did not leave half their cleavage hanging out. Perhaps it was because she was nursing? The nursing mums I have known didn't do that though... it just irritates me that those costuming decisions were made.

I'm pretty much okay with the explanation that it was people's need that brought back the other "risen" - Nico's brother brought him back presumably; Maria's husband brought her back; Beau brought Paddy back; Chris brought Kirstie back; James brought Kate back obviously. But Charlie? Who brought him back? The guy at the pub? I don't buy that.

Anyhow. I will keep my fingers crossed for S3.
posted by Athanassiel at 3:19 PM on February 22, 2018

I just finished episode 3, and I don’t know if they mean to be telegraphing “aliens” so loudly but it definitely feels like they are, especially with Elisha’s “humans float” thing.
posted by corb at 8:12 AM on March 28, 2019

Okay done now. Frustrations I see:

1. Why does Phil revive but not Sarah?
2. Why make Owen evil, or is it just so James and Kate can get together in the end?
3. Why make Kirstie pregnant? Literally what do we get from that?
4. What to do with Kirstie and Charlie now? Their story seems basically over.
posted by corb at 1:58 PM on March 28, 2019 [1 favorite]