Summary: Bella, Clarke and Tony go to a warehouse looking for something. They find a "dog" which kills Tony and Clarke and then chases Bella who tries to get away. Using her wits, Bella is able to kill the dog but she has trackers thrown into her which will send more dogs her way. She kills herself.
The Good: This is the most unique episode so far and it's not only because of the black and white filter. The episode is very simplistic, short and mostly dialogue-free making it an experience which feels extremely different from what we are used to. Since the show has reused some ideas in a few episodes, it's good to see them continuing to be creative. While season 3 felt pretty familiar at times, season 4 has so far done a great job providing new and different content even if the quality isn't quite as good as before (see: The Bad). The black and white filter was really good. This episode was gruesome and dreary and that filter added a lot of that feel. The brutal deaths of Clarke and Tony were less gory in this state, but they felt more powerful and brutal. The colouring certainly gave the deaths a more eerie feeling. The rest of the episode was also certainly benefitted by the colour palette. With the world feeling so empty and abandoned, the episode needed to give off a dull and creepy atmosphere which the filter appropriately added. There were very few characters in this episode, with only 1 surviving more than 10 minutes. That gave the episode a tough task of making us care about a shallow character and a robot enough to outlast an entire episode. Thankfully the episode did a great job of giving us basic characterization. We were able to attach ourselves to Bella on some level mostly due to some stellar acting and well-timed emotional outbursts. The other half was creating a viable antagonist and I think they did an outstanding job. The robot "dogs" were horrifyingly real, creepy and downright vicious. The idea of their existence felt plausible, especially seeing how much humanity has wished for autonomous beings and the episode used the dog as a villain to explore the fear of having our own creations cause our own destruction. I really liked that the show gave us an idea of how the "dogs" worked. There were a ton of nice camera shots which showed us the vision of a dog, allowing us to understand how they worked. The episode also did a stellar job of introducing the many abilities the dogs had including the guns, ability to work electronics and the trackers. I really liked that they had a lot of depth to them and seeing Bella attempt to combat these many abilities was very enjoyable and tense. This could have been a great idea for a horror thriller considering how scary and complex the dogs were. I liked the ending until the final few seconds (see: The Bad). Bella overcoming the dog was awesome and exciting to behold. But the moment of triumph was too brief as the dog had injected her with numerous trackers which ended up making escape impossible. Her decision to kill herself was bleak but also fascinating. There are so many theories I can make for why she did it. Perhaps she realized there was no point in living in a world with dogs since it's only a matter of time before they take over. The Bad: There did feel like a notable lack of substance though. The world was woefully underdeveloped and I wish I could have known more about the current state of humanity so I could understand the stakes a little better. I spent a lot of the episode coming up with questions and it was disappointing to get answers for none of them. Instead all we got was a compact horror story. The emotional investment was low on this episode too. There weren't any shockingly powerful moments and there wasn't anything to properly care about. This episode was essentially just non-stop fear for 38 minutes with no other purpose. While I think it worked to some degree to make us fear our own technology, I wish it had decided to be more than it ended up being. The final reveal of the teddy bears was bad. It's impossible to buy that these 3 people risked and lost their lives to get a dying child a teddy bear. Bad storytelling. The Unknown: What were the dogs created for initially? Did they watch over the warehouses as guards? Or perhaps they were meant to be actual household dogs which did odd jobs before they went rogue. How did the dogs go rogue? What flaw in the design caused them all to destroy humanity? Were they hacked, similarly to the bees from "Hated in the Nation"? Where are the humans now? How many are still alive? How do they survive from the dogs? Are they able to fight back at all? Where do the dogs stay? There are clearly a lot of them, so the question is where do they go? And what are their motives now that they are rogue? Best Moment: Bella killing the dog was a great moment of satisfaction, even if it was brief. It also called back nicely tot he other 2 deaths which were also caused by a close range gunshot. Character of the Episode: Bella. Conclusion: This was a solid and easy to enjoy episode but it felt shallow which hurts its score. It's still a good episode though and certainly one of the most unique episodes in the show. Score: 63
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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