Channel 4’s Electric Dreams
Season 1, Episode 2: “Impossible Planet”
Directed & Written by David Farr
* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “The Hood Maker” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “The Commuter” – click here
We see a group of people with visors on watching the “Hermagon aurora.” A man named Brian Norton (Jack Reynor) narrates, as everybody witnessing the spectacle oohs, aahs. We’re on a space ship, deep in the midst of space in some distant star system. There’s also Ed Andrews (Benedict Wong), who watches the “rats in a sewer” enjoying the trip. They’re space tourism agents, essentially, for Astral Dreams.
Someone shows up knocking incessantly on the door. An old deaf lady named Irma Louise Gordon (Geraldine Chaplin). She wants to go to Earth. She’s 342 years old, from a planet called Rega-2. And she has a lot of money to offer, a cash transaction. The reason the lads don’t initially want to go is because a while back a solar fire brutalised the planet, it’s said to no longer be inhabited.
So, why go, Irma Louise? Can Ed and Brian even get there safely?
Brian gets talking to Barbara (Georgina Campbell), she mentions a transfer. Then he gets a video message from Linus Primo (Justin Butcher), denying him a transfer. He’s applied fifth times. Rejected. Now, Barbara isn’t happy with being there so long. She’s disappointed in his lack of social status, it seems. Ah, though things change with technology, it’s all still the same. Money’s the bottom line.
This prompts Brian to consider the old lady’s offer more seriously, and they’re on the way now. Irma Louise has a drink, talks about her own grandmother, who lived to 279, whose own father lived in Carolina on Earth, a “logger.” She told Irma Louise about a place where her grandparents skinny dipped together, a place she always wanted to see – “Elk River Falls.” Where she wants to go.
Brian finds out from Ms. Gordon’s robotic friend RB29 (Malik Ibheis; voiced by Christopher Staines) that she is actually going to die in a couple months, a heart condition. Afterwards, they use a bit of technology to actually talk without RB29 communicating between them. He talks about Barbara a little, though he seems a bit apprehensive; he second guesses himself when his words are coming up Ms. Gordon’s little screen. He begins questioning the divergent desires between him and his girlfriend. Reoccurring is an image of the spokes of a red bicycle, spinning and spinning, he’s seen this a couple times now.
RB29 is sneaking around, too. I don’t trust him. Neither should you. Or Ed, or Brian. He’s up to something, I’m just not sure what as of yet. They’re getting closer to Earth, and the closer they get the less I trust the robot. Although I guess he’s only looking out for Ms. Gordon’s interests, worried that these guys are scamming.
Ed: “I mean, me, I‘m trash, got no illusions. You, you got class.”
Brian feels bad because he and Ed are con artists, that they sell “predigested happiness” to people. Now they’re ripping off an old woman so they can do what they want for the rest of their lives. This starts putting the two lads at odds, Ed certainly doesn’t like the way his friend is talking.
They’re supposedly about to orbit Earth. Brian gets closer with Irma Louise, who gives him a kiss for being so gentlemanly. She shows him a picture of her grandparents – he looks exactly like her grandfather, Bill Gordon. Eerie. Like fate, across space and time.
Later on Brian calls Barbara, wondering if she dreams of him. He says he doesn’t dream of her, not anymore. He’s beginning to reevaluate his life, and all due to meeting Ms. Gordon. Things start going awry for Astral Dreams when she knows Mars is red, not green like what they see outside the ship. RB29 steps in to let her know about an event that broke Saturn from its rings, turned Mars green. Then Brian tells her Earth isn’t the same as it was once. They can’t even get too close to the planet. Nothing’s the same, not like she’d imagined, anyway. Not from what she’d heard, the memories of her grandmother.
Brian decides they’ll land, they’ll try and take Ms. Gordon to Carolina.
But it’s a rough journey. They fly through a terrible storm, the ship rumbling as space debris flies past at ultra high speed. The old woman holds on for all her life is worth. Brian has flashes of the bike, a couple riding it together.
Then a crash landing. Everybody’s okay, but things are messed up.
At odds with Ed again, Brian agrees to take the old woman out onto Earth, so as to get her money’s worth, to fulfil her dream. One condition: under the suit he wears the clothes of her grandfather. While RB29 and Ed stay behind, the other two head into the “toxic, sterile” environment. Then Ed discovers the robot’s done some nasty business, shagging with the oxygen tanks, leaving Brian and Irma Louise out there to breathe in the atmosphere.
When they take their helmets off, they’re in another place. Back on Earth. There, with the red bicycle; it’s name, Dream Weaver. Irma Louise is young like her grandmother. Brian in the clothes of ole Bill Gordon. They skinny dip together below the falls in a paradise. Or is it merely illusion within death?
I enjoyed the first episode; this one was even better! Love these inspired episodes, love the themes. It’s so enjoyable to see Dick’s writing out there more, plus such great actors and actresses involved.
“The Commuter” is next.
Summer, 1997. Anish (Karan Soni) arrives at Room 104 in the motel. He got a call from a literary agency, he’s excited. He calls his mother Divya (Poorna Jagannathan) and leaves a message to call him back. He’s taking his time at the motel to work on the book, readying himself for the big pitch at his meeting.
Anish goes about trying to explain to Divya how to do everything, starting with opening the laptop and turning it on. It’s hilarious from our perspective, in 2017, watching him go through the agonising process of it all with her, as she laughs about all sorts of things from the double meaning of “windows” to even the working title of his book, Gently Through the Current.
This sends them into a huge argument, he yells at her. “I just want you to be somebody,” she yells back. Divya says he’s “just like her” out of nowhere. He doesn’t understand. She immediately tells him not to worry, apologising, offering to take the laptop to get it restored.
This prompts him to use his imagination. He lies in bed, seeing his words written across the ceiling. In a way, cutting himself off from technology, as well as off from the rest of the life he thought he knew, is a way for him to get back to himself, to the art of writing, using his mind. Somehow, the revelation of that phone call changed his life, for the better.
I loved this episode. Best Room 104 yet! Amazing, just a strange way to bring out these themes, and it’s totally unique. Mark Duplass with some fascinating work.
Daniel (Jay Duplass) gets a message from Diane (Jennifer Lafleur) asking him not to text or call anymore. “You‘re a child and you‘re a broken person,” she says. They can’t be married anymore because of it. The guy’s attempts at throwing an empty chip bag in the garbage are almost like a microcosm of his own life, it seems. Failure all but hangs from his face.
So Daniel wakes up still in his motel bed, no message on his phone from Diane. It’s clear that Patrick died, they were best friends for years and years. He talks as if Patrick can hear him, asking him to hang out and hoping he’ll get some advice. He’s in a bad place, needing that old, close buddy again.
That night, the old Patrick (Frank Ashmore) arrives to tell Daniel: “We can‘t be friends anymore.” This is the last time they’ll see one another, he’s going away. He sees the brutally painful limbo his friend’s been caught in, all these years. Ignoring the rest of his life because of what happened.
Beautiful episode. Love the mix of themes and stories on Room 104.
We start in the Northern Territories, shot in my beautiful home province of Newfoundland and Labrador. On a snowy hilltop is Declan Harp (Jason Momoa), bloodied, injured. Someone comes upon him, an old friend, Jean-Marc Rivard (Paul Fauteux). He sends the man further north in a boat after tending to him a little.
In disputed territory, a group of Natives run through the forest. Alongside them is Michael Smyth (Landon Liboiron) and Sokanon (Jessica Matten). Everything’s been changing, none of them knowing where Harp has ended up yet. Michael’s headed to Montreal on trading business, fur to sell.
In Fort James, Cpt. Chesterfield has Benton removed as Governor. He asks a Captain Gray to take him into custody. They’ve ousted him, implicating him for the murders he committed. Of course the old man cries foul, but it doesn’t look like things are going to go well for him. All’s proper under the HBC charter. Chesterfield is left as Governor for the time being.
Grace isn’t pleased with the man stomped to death outside her bar. She asks Chesterfield why the place isn’t safer. She makes a bold suggestion: drop the bounty for Harp, she’ll marry the new Governor. A “united front” in their little fort. If the bounty’s gone, the influx of people will slow a bit, at least the really dangerous ones. But, poor Grace. I wouldn’t want to be married to that dude.
Sokanon is discovering she may have to leave Harp behind, as her people suffer while he’s lost someplace else. The men of her tribe hate seeing their girls, raped by white men, while they sit back and do nothing. They want to take action. And further north, Declan slowly readies himself to try getting back, to help in the fight.
It’s a brand new day. Elliot (Rami Malek) wants to undo his part in the “downfall of human civilisation.” Today, he’s headed up to the inner sanctum of Evil Corp. He’s found a “way to hit undo.” Angela (Portia Doubleday) was able to land him a job. He’s working from the inside out. He wonders if he’s able to keep Evil Corp in check, so long as they’re a “necessary evil” he can control. He’s growing up, medicating, partaking in the realm of “2D emotions” everyone else was living in around him.
But it’s not all roses. His loneliness, his mental illness won’t just go away. He spends the night weeping, alone, stuck in a void. The drugs can’t fix everything, and he’s struggling. He still sees Krista Gordon (Gloria Reuben) for therapy. Yet he forgets his own birthday. He’s fractured, wondering if the disappearance of Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) is what’s done this to him, even if things are relatively better. He tells Krista about a time with Darlene (Carly Chaikin) when they were younger, their love of Home Alone; also the day dad pushed him out a window, breaking his arm. Krista is shocked, she’s never heard of this before.
Out on the pier, Darlene meets with Elliot. She wants to stay close, he pushes her farther. He believes she’s his “trigger.” Although he loves her, he knows the brings on his illness worse when they’re together. She claims to be leaving, going upstate. They reminisce about Kevin McCallister the snowman, the one they made that day dad pushed him from the window. And then he realises he needs her around, no matter about any emotional triggers.
This episode shocked me with Joanna’s death, and even more than that it was a crazy ride the whole way through, so much poised to happen/already happening. Things are ramping up for a very serious, exciting Season 3.
Clive Barker is one of the most unique horror writers in literature, his perspectives and the way he understands the horror of people just as well as he does that of demonic spirits and other monsters are what make his brand of scary so visceral, even if it’s just his words on the page. He holds power as a writer, in his ability to cut to the core of humanity, no matter how deep into the supernatural he winds up going in any given story.
This is like something ripped from a Freudian nightmare. Frank (Sean Chapman) is a man interested solely in hedonism, living his life in pursuit of the flesh. To a hideous degree. So much so, he becomes the personification not only of the sex drive in man, but also the death drive; speeding headlong into death, self-destruction, all via lust. This journey into the heart of pleasure leads him only to the terror of death, a violent and painful corporeal reckoning. This calls to mind la petite mort – the little death – which links the concept of the orgasm to death, a loss of consciousness, a brief, little death, as it were. Frank experiences much more; a real death, a big death.
Margot (Amy Forsyth) and Jules (Aisha Dee) drive away from the No-End House, seemingly free from its haunting horrors. They’re out again. However, they’ve got no idea that John (John Carroll Lynch) escaped with them. On top of it all, the house was feeding on their memories, they barely have any left.
Knowing the truth doesn’t set Margot free, she’s weighed down by it. She doesn’t want to keep carrying the burden of knowing. Jules talks about the previous summer, after John’s death. She hated seeing Margot “getting attacked by a beast” mentally, in brutal pain; she admits to running away from it, her friend. Meanwhile, just outside, dad is lurking, and he’s very, very hungry. Ravenous, in fact.
Seth tells Margot the only sure way to get John back into the No-End House is if she leads him. Fuck that. Neither she or Jules is willing to go back there. It could mean getting trapped inside, all over again. If the house disappears for another year, dad is left in the real world, and who knows what’ll happen then. So, they might have to “kill him.” A cruel twist of fate: losing your dad to suicide, then having to kill him, too. We also hear more of Seth, discussing his life back at the house; those people caged in the suburb were his family, he couldn’t hurt them and he locked them away for protection.
John starts feeding off Margot’s memories again, as Seth grabs him off her. But this only leads dad to nearly jamming his finger through the guy’s head. Finally, Margot pleads with him, agreeing to go back to No-End House with him. And poor ole mom, she has no idea what’s been going on, waking up from being knocked out by her formerly living husband.
A favourite of mine, this episode really digs into all the disturbing memory stuff. Can’t wait for the finale. Not sure how it’ll end. But that’s what makes Channel Zero so damn good! “The Hollow Girl” is next.
Grace (Sarah Gadon) and the other women in prison witness the whipping of a woman while they eat breakfast. Normal day at Kingston Penitentiary. Soon, she’s taken up to the house, to talk with Dr. Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft). He’s busy still having daydreams about her, falling for his patient.
People at the local church seem to have their ideas about Mr. Kinnear, one woman (Margaret Atwood) calls it “an outrage” having him there. They don’t stay, either, after Nancy wants to leave rather than be stared at the whole time. Grace talks about church, how people act as if being there is the only God is with them; elsewhere they do what they want, dropping the act. But God “cannot be caged in as men can.”
On her birthday, Grace was given the afternoon free by Nancy. She went for a walk by herself, enjoying a beautiful day, picking flowers; time to herself, for herself. A rare occurrence in the life of any woman in the 1800s. Jamie shows up, asking to be her sweetheart. She lets him down fairly easy. And from afar watches Mr. Kinnear, he asks her what they were doing in the orchard together, as if suspicious, or jealous. Then, as expected, Nancy is right back to being herself, weird and passive aggressive. Plus McDermott acting jealous to boot like an angry idiot.
And we’re always left wondering, is Grace telling the truth? Is she telling any of us the truth? One of the reasons I love the miniseries is how they capture the truth v. lies theme that Atwood’s book tackled so well. Grace is a dichotomy, you can never tell for sure what she’s thinking, if she’s lying or being truthful.
Five years ago. Dawn (Paula Brancati), Peter (Lovell Adams-Gray) and the rest of the friends are carefully enacting their calculated plan to get revenge on Talvinder (Melinda Shankar). The poor soon-to-be dead girl is none the wiser, either. The rest of them with their cold, evil faces lying just beneath the exterior. They take her out to that spot in the woods with the lit torches. They’ve got her “on trial.”
Wren (Sebastian Pigott) is heading back to the cabin, after killing Mark, and Judith (Leslie Hope) is pleading with him not to do anything else terrible. He’s bent on revenge. They let him take the fall for Talvinder’s disappearance. All she asks is that Keira is left alive. Other than that she tells him: “They‘re all yours.”
Judith has worse problems. She continually hears Wren in her head, commanding her: “Kill them!” She speaks to herself as herself, and also as him. We jump back five years. Wren a.k.a Owen leaves his cabin at Camp Motega, and in slips Dawn to drop a piece of Tal’s jewellery into his things. A frame job. That’s nasty.
What will Peter choose? Life? Death? He puts the noose around his neck and steps from the ledge over the shrine, hanging himself as Judith watches, flashing to images of her son slowly dying. But another surprise, as well – up the river, Dawn is still alive, on shore, and two hunters find her there bleeding profusely.
Fantastic season! God damn. I wish I didn’t fly through it, but such is the age of Netflix. Plus, it was even better than Season 1, which I was big time digging right from the get go. Honestly this season had even better writing. Not to mention the twists were even bigger, wilder. And the gore went up a big notch, from an already grim first season.
Five years ago. Talvinder (Melinda Shankar) and Dawn (Paula Brancati) are close. Talking together about the future, what it’ll be like fully entering adulthood, how they should move in together.
Suspicions are high, Keira wonders if it was Dawn who could be the killer, even if Peter isn’t convinced. Jump back to five years prior. Dawn and the other counsellors teach kids to do all kinds of stuff, like archery. She was particularly close to one dude, Ryan. This is also when we see Owen talking to Tal, pressing her to go out with him, being creepy.
Go back five years. Dawn wants Tal to talk her up to Ryan. The trusted friend goes to him, trying to work her magic. He asks if Dawn ever mentions him. She gives him a generic answer, not talking Dawn up whatsoever. Tal’s doing what she does, acting deviously behind the backs of the people who seem to like her; she lies about Dawn’s stepfather, making it out to look like she was molested. God damn, girl! Nothing to get killed over, not even close, but lord, she was a piece of work.
Peter goes back to the cabin, more information now, but when Dawn lets him inside Mark runs at him, knocking him out. After that Keira is pissed. She believes maybe Mark is the killer now. Yet there’s a piece of Andi’s hair in Peter’s pocket. So strange, so creepy.
