Colony: The Big Empty
June 28, 2018 8:13 PM - Season 3, Episode 9 - Subscribe

Will and Bram help Broussard and Amy kidnap a high-ranking IGA officer.

+ Seattle Colony (Flashback)

* a courier picks up blood and tissue specimens ready for "prototyping", is sent to retrieve another sample
* the super-nano-chainmail is being played with at an Authority lab, is resistant to fly drone weaponry, courier picks it up
* (Broussard intercepts, as per last ep)


+ Seattle Colony

* Katie prepares to leave for work, Gracie asks for her bedroom door to be fully closeable
* Will wakes up off-cycle to "spend time with Gracie," Gracie is suspicious

* Broussard makes a friend over a game of cards at a bar, inebriates new friend and dispatches him by taxi, steals his work stuff including uniform

* Bram trades a work assignment to go downtown, using "his girlfriend" as an excuse

* Will checks into a hotel with Amy, insists on room 1821, uses sex kink as an excuse
* Will changes into wetwork cloths, Amy hides hers under a fluffy robe that she's wearing

* Alan announces to Kynes that he's overstaying for a few more days, Kynes is unimpressed, assigns a security detail to snoop on Alan
* Alan shakes his detail to go to his hotel room, Will is watching

* Amy pretends to be a sexy clutz walking past Alan, enlists his help with the door into her suite
* Will closes the door behind Alan, sucker punches him
* Amy makes a call to maintenance, B wheels up dressed as hotel staff
* Alan is trussled and stuffed into a cart
* Amy calls Bram sitting in a van downstairs in SCP uniform, Bram chats up one of Alan's detail, walks into hotel basement and passes WAmyB
* WAmyB decides on plan B, which is to do the interrogation in situ in the hotel

* Alan lies a little
* B wants "to talk," Alan jumps to the end - what happens then?
* B lies a little, but only a little "As long as you're talking, you're breathing."

* Bram keeps on eye on Alan's detail in the hotel lobby, detail is getting antsy

* Alan admits snooping on Kynes for the IGA, IGA needs labour, Seattle supplies a lot of it reliably
* B asks about Blake Island, Alan caves a little more quickly than he normally does - says its a spaceport
* B presses, Alan claims ignorance, Will looks on
* Amy plays Vanna White, B plays show and tell with his shreds, knows about bioweapon program
* Alan caves that:
- its a storage facility for "outliers"
- before contact, alogorithm sorted humans into different castes
- outliers are "special group with special privileges"
B: "Like not being attacked by drones. And getting abducted by the IGA and stuffed into freezers."
Alan: "Stasis chambers." actually.
- outliers used to be shipped into space, now left in storage; there are quotas
- currently probably 'hundreds of thousands' and with military backgrounds
Amy: "They're building an army."
B: "They have millions of drones, why do they need a human army, and what about the bioweapon?"
Alan: "I just told you. Outliers are the bioweapon. Literally, biological weapons."

* Amy asks Alan what the super-nano-chainmail is, Alan has no idea - but suspects its another of the RAP's gifts to Kynes
Alan: "All I can tell you is he has is own agenda, that's why the IGA wants to take him out."
B (to Will): "You buying this?"
Will: "Part of it is probably true. That's the problem, you never know which part."

* Alan's detail enlists Bram to watch the front door, to keep an eye out for Alan, Bram smartly surreptitiously relays the convo via his radio
* Alan pleads innocent mistake, B: "Lets go.", Alan pleads not to be left alone with Will
* Amy is softhearted, knows B's firstname is Eric, is swayed by B, tries to talk to Will about PTSD

* respectfully dressed BAmy leave through the front doors past Bram, more (professional) IGA show up

* Will plays storytime with Alan
- powerful proxy loses job, becomes camp commander, screws up again, needs an opportunity
- opportunity is missing RAP, this "loser, failure" pretends to help a family to escape the colony
- spends 6 months with family who leads him to missing RAP, betrays family to be an Authority hero, gets rewards
Alan: "You got it wrong."
Will, in Alan's face: "No alcohol on your breath, no bags under your eyes. You've just been sleeping like a baby."
* Alan tries squirming out, blames RAP for sending the signal to IGA forces
Will: "Naw. It was you."
* Alan's squirming and Will's righteous wrath form an escalating feedback loop
* Will is a couple of Newtons on the trigger away from blowing Alan's brains out with a pistol
* cooling off slightly, Will asks for a false confession, "Tell me you did it."
* Will clogs the loose toilet, fills it with dirty mop water
* Alan squirms some more "... 'Uncle Alan!' I loved that kid too! I buried him. I found his body and I didn't leave him until he had a place to rest."
* Will drowns Alan more than a little bit, but relents, cries

* Amy updates Bram via radio, Bram disobeys her recommendation to disengage, walks back into hotel
* Bram warns Will of search teams and the need to depart, looking at Alan "Why is he still alive? ... You'll never get the truth from him. Just finish it so we can go. --- you can't do it (implied: "can you."). You talked me into helping you, now when we finally have him, you can't pull the trigger? Let me do it."

* Will has misgivings, tells Bram to go, Bram regals Will with stories from Labour Camp
Bram: "He didn't have the balls to pull the trigger himself, just like you."
* Will has no idea that Bram has killed someone in cold blood and condescends, Bram begs to differ re: attack on the Green Zone
* Bram feels guilt that he vouched for Alan when leaving LA Bloc, If we left him on the side of the road like we should have, Charlie would still be alive. Give me the damned gun."
Will, to Alan: "Leave."
Bram: "We can't just let him go."
* Alan gets on his feet, edges away, leaves

* Alan makes his way to the hotel lobby, unfettered and cleanly if untidily dressed but damp and beat up
IGA pro: "Where the hell have you been?"
Alan: "Out.?"
* Alan plays it off as maso/sub sex thing with a woman, snarks his dignity back a little, walks away alone

* BAmy return to Amy HQ, debriefs each other
Amy: "There's a difference between being damaged and being suicidal." (ed: I thought she was an urologist, not a psychiatrist)
* Amy is concerned about operational security risks qua emotion/history of B and the Bowmans
Amy: "That's exactly the problem. You wouldn't put up with that shit from me. You can make your own decisions, but I am done with that guy."
B: "Aight."


* Katie is putting Gracie to bed, Gracie asks after Bram, Katie blames work
Gracie: "I think he has a girlfriend.", reveals Bram's non-characteristic behaviour
* Katie sees the front door ajar, grabs a vase for a club, descends stairs, finds Will crying, sits on the floor across from him, starts crying herself
posted by porpoise (4 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I'm remaining pretty firmly in love with the show. Plausible human interactions and complex non-telegraphed inner lives.

Bram's... weird, but I think he might end up being a sleeper "favourite character" if they continue running with this inner turmoil.

Sympathizing with Katie being sidelined this season - she (the character) knows it too.

Amy has been a breath of fresh (literally) air, breaking up the stereotype of "resistance fighters" tropes. Doesn't hurt that she is painfully physically attractive.

Alan Snyder - continues to be a great character; the writing is solid and the acting does it more than justice. Despite (or because of the treatment of) an amazing villain, I want much more Helena too.

--

I'm kind of annoyed by the bioweapon (weapon against biologicals) and bioweapon (weapons that happen to be biological) - but that's ok. I don't like some percentage of puns either. But the writers had better be prepared or this could fall flat on its face.

The phone thing several episodes ago - tracking residents is really uneven.

Alan got assigned Kyne's people as security - if he's a snoop (and a massive hero) for the IGA, how is there no IGA bodyguard (either personal, or far-away like sniper teams or undercover watchers)? At least show them failing or Kynes pretending not to notice them.

The logistics of food production and distribution is highly unsatisfying, but what show actually does?
posted by porpoise at 8:33 PM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Finally got caught up this week, and I loved this one too. In particular:

* I'm glad Amy isn't up for Will's erratic behavior. Honestly, the only part of that that bothers me is that Broussard is, but I guess even he has to crack under the pressure somewhat, and Will's about the only fellow operative he still knows who's alive.

* Bram being useful was new and exciting. I liked his Red Hand confession, and hope that'll come up later.

* Snyder was brilliant, per the usual. I agree that more Helena would be nice too. I'm interested in what's up with Kynes, (and it's fun to see Wayne Brady play a big bad), but I miss seeing the 'big picture' IGA politicking too.

* The bioweapon thing feels a little lame to me too, but that may be because it reminds me of Skyline, which was a terrible, no good movie.
posted by mordax at 9:25 AM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yeah, B being ok with Will - I think you nailed it - Will is the only person B can implicitly trust re: being really hard on Amy and her motivations/ background/ being-compromised.

Holloway (Will) and Jacobson (Alan) - I never would have expected anything of this caliber. Alan after being let go... wow.

So "Outliers" - ok, in one of the cold opens, there was that one random last-person-left after an assault who ended up podded - there were lots of other random resistance fighter types and the assault team didn't seem to pick and choose but rather indiscriminately killed.

If Will, Katie (?), and B are Outliers, why isn't there any efforts to pod them? Especially when the Kyne's scan correctly identifies Will Bowman.

Then again, there are about 22 million veterans in the United States so "hundreds of thousands" is a relatively small fraction of that and maybe they aren't weren't in such a rush.

Intrigued how the writers are going to spin bio-on-bio fight makes sense, again, given that fly drones can attack and down Enemy fighters just fine.

The low-score refugees being bussed to "Portland" - I'm assuming that they are being Holocausted.
posted by porpoise at 12:51 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


Holloway (Will) and Jacobson (Alan) - I never would have expected anything of this caliber. Alan after being let go... wow.

Right? Those guys are all really bringing it. It's great to watch.

Intrigued how the writers are going to spin bio-on-bio fight makes sense, again, given that fly drones can attack and down Enemy fighters just fine.

Mm. I assume what they want is conscious soldiers with the ability to adapt and improvise. The one constant we've seen in Outliers so far is that they're really *smart*, and we've heard repeatedly that the RAPs don't actually have a large population anymore. Like... drones are great, but drones are predictable, while human pilots could pull off better upsets against their unnamed enemy.

The low-score refugees being bussed to "Portland" - I'm assuming that they are being Holocausted.

No question in my mind about that, yeah.
posted by mordax at 2:12 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


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