Summary: Victoria wakes up in a room and remembers nothing, not even her own name. She goes outside and is chased by terrorizing people while others film her and watch. She meets a girl named Jem who tells her that the world has been taken over by technology and that everyone just watches now. Their goal is to reach a transmitter called White Bear to find safety. When they reach there, Victoria fights for her life, but discovers that it was all a play. She is in fact a criminal and is forced to go through this tortuous play every day as penance for her role in the murder of a 6 year old girl, where she filmed the entire thing.
The Good: Wow. This was something else entirely. I have never seen a TV episode like this one, making this one of the most unique television experiences I have ever had. I have never been this confused, stunned or disturbed by an episode of TV since that episode of Game of Thrones (if you have seen the show, you know the one). This episode has to be one of the most uniquely powerful pieces of art I have seen. It's hard to think about where to start, so I'll just start at the beginning. We open the episode completely confused and disoriented along with Victoria, whose name we don't even know at this point. There is lots of intriguing mystery and we genuinely don't know what has happened as we try to piece together who this character is, where she is, and what is going on. It's a genuinely confusing experience, and one which sucks you in right away and allows you to sympathize with the characters since we can completely understand what she is going through; after all we are currently experiencing the exact same thing. The early parts of the episode are crafted really well in how they give us answers without answering much at all. The answers feel credible, but not quite right, and it makes me crave more for an answer. To distract me from the answers though, the episode builds tension brilliantly within the mystery, and it ends up becoming a sort of horror thriller, and a damn good one at that. Fear of the unknown is the worst kind of fear, and this episode capitalizes on that to make for some uncomfortably tense viewing. Then in comes the twist. I have to say I was expecting some kind of big twist, but what we got completely annihilated my expectations and genuinely stunned me. It turns out that everything that happened was just a well-orchestrated play designed to punish our main character who was responsible for the horrific murder of a 6 year old girl which she filmed on camera. The reveal is socking and very well done, as it gives us a satisfying answer about these mysterious flashes Victoria had been having, while also serving as a horrific twist to inform us that Victoria is far from a good person. It's deeply uncomfortable to see this, as Victoria screams and suffers as she realizes that she has done something awful and is now living a life of punishment for a crime which she didn't even know she committed. It's brutal and devastating and allows us to still sympathize with this murderer due to the sheer brutality of the situation she is in. This concept is incredible though, and it takes a really creative mind to come up with something so brilliant. To face up for her terrible crime, she is essentially being shown how it felt to be the little girl she killed every single day, where something awful happens to her as people just stand around filming her. And then this all culminates in the final 30 or so minutes of her day, which is the only time where she actually ahs to face what she has done and watch as hundreds of people boo her and throw stuff at her. And of course the irony in all of this is that all of the people who are contributing to this are essentially just becoming what she was: a watcher relishing in the suffering of another human being. It's really powerful storytelling which is not only a thought-provoking examination of justice, but also a look at the hypocrisy of being a human being and the disgusting things we do to get our revenge on other people who have done bad things. One of the most interesting parts of this episode was the fact that the White Bear Justice Park is profiting from Victoria's suffering. Instead of just punishing her in a jail cell, they cause her endless suffering every single day and make money off of it, all the while acting incredibly cheerful about what they do, going as far as to tell their audience to "have fun" at the park. This is a really sick and twisted justice system, which seems to not even care about the unjust elements it has. Lastly, as I was watching the episode I was noticing a lot of flaws and I was ready to put this down as the weakest episode. For example, the same hunters tracking down Victoria felt ridiculous, the amount of close calls were just dumb, Damien dying in such dramatic fashion was ridiculous, and Baxter having no clear motives was dumb. I was thinking about how this sloppy writing just felt like an average film, but the twist at the end surprisingly revealed that it was all supposed to be an average film. There were so many clichés because it was all a play, and with that one reveal, the episode went from one of the worst written, to the very best written episode of the entire show, and that removes almost every problem I had with the show. The Bad: So apparently the people here have the technology to just erase memories. Why don't they just wipe people memories? Surely they shouldn't feel the need for such excessive punishment when they can just wipe memories and have people essentially start anew. The episode had one somewhat major flaw in its main character. She was annoying at times which affected my ability to sympathize with her, and also made her endless screaming feel almost tiresome and too depressing. This episode's character writing isn't as good as other episodes, and it certainly doesn't pack as real of an emotional punch as something like "Be Right Back". As much as I want to give this a really high score for its outstanding writing and twist, I don't feel that it has deep enough emotion to justify that. The shock isn't exactly subtle and it is hammered in repeatedly, and while that doesn't bother me too much, it hurts this episode's chances of being truly ascendant as a TV episode. The Unknown: Is this system of punishment just? I was going to raise a point about wasting money on this park, but apparently it's self-sustaining and likely makes more money than it uses, so there is no money concern here. But is it really okay to put somebody through so much endless suffering? Are there other facilities like this in the world for other criminals? Or is it just for Victoria? Best Moment: The reveal of the twist was spectacular, and everything that followed was just stunning and devastating television. Fantastic stuff. Character of the Episode: Victoria. Conclusion: This was one hell of an experience. I can comfortably say that this was one of the most devastating episodes of television I have ever seen, but it's hard to rank it amongst the best episodes ever, so scoring is really tough. I suppose the best way to describe the episode, is that it's one of the best experiences out there and is something you absolutely should watch, but as an episode of TV, it doesn't hold up as one of the best ever. Still, this episode is a tremendous accomplishment and will go down as another huge success for the show. Score: 79
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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