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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:I mean, if I was running a secret evil lab I'd probably mop my own floors but my bony fealty posted:Or maybe put a lock on the hatch or any number of things Well the thing was the lab wasn't evil, the pollution numbers they were falsifying were evil. The skeleton ice cave was completely incidental to the evil. The cave was only a problem because they murdered someone in it and then left the murder weapons there. It feels like there was a draft of the script where the cave itself was the problem, like it was an ancient burial ground or something that would both horrify the locals and get the mine shut down because of cultural preservation laws or something. That would have been a lot cleaner than "we're doing research in a secret skeleton ice cave... Which is fine, except we're also telling people to make Pollution so our research goes faster." Like in the final version of the story, why is the cave hidden in a secret hatch at all?
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Feb 21, 2024 04:22
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Did somebody get the make/model of that drill that was apparently so fragile that a lady swinging a club could destroy it for two years? Or was it like a kitbashed ryobi drill press and they just avoided going down there for a couple years since they shanked Annie K with a drillbit that many times like she was waiting in the lunch line? I mean not like it mattered, their main job was to falsify EPA reports and live in some kind of nerd paradise, maintaining that facility with that many staff the yearly budget must have been tremendous, I think the cost of a drill was not the limiting factor here.
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Feb 21, 2024 04:27
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covidstomper58 posted:Did somebody get the make/model of that drill that was apparently so fragile that a lady swinging a club could destroy it for two years? It would be very funny if it was just the mine tricking these idiot nerds into falsifying their EPA numbers, and they gave them a Theranos box where you put some ice in and every few months it says "You are 1% closer to discovering the Miraculous Microorganism."
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Feb 21, 2024 04:30
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Ithle01 posted:The actions of the scientists at Tsalal make more sense if you imagine the research station as akin to a medieval monastery in the middle of nowhere and remember that medieval monks were well known for being batshit crazy. I mean… there are actually quite a lot of arctic and Antarctic other remote research bases in reality and I don’t think the people staffing them tend to be crazy or maladjusted or homicidal. Or like the poster above talking about “well, maybe there’s a reason women wouldn’t want to be part of an Arctic crew including males!” Despite the fact that mixed gender Arctic bases have been a thing since the 1950s.
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Feb 21, 2024 04:46
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When that multiple amputee scientist woke up in the hospital and called Navarro by her first name and said her mother says hello and she was waiting for her, I guess that was Annie K possessing his body temporarily, or he was just such a creeper that he knew the names of officials in town and that was just the kind of thing he posted regularly?
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Feb 21, 2024 04:52
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holy moly
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Feb 21, 2024 04:58
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counterfeitsaint posted:It did really feel like they started with "What if a bunch of oppressed middle aged indigenous ladies had a super badass scene where they violently murder some pudgy white nerd men, but like, it's good murder and everyone cheers" and worked their way backwards from there. It was a good scene! Probably the best one in the show.
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Feb 21, 2024 05:23
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I dunno the vigilante scene felt a little overboard cruel. Like how could the indigenous women know that every scientist was complicit in the murder of Annie K? They only saw the stab wound and loosely tied the murder to at least one scientist, but how could they know for certain it was all of them being complicit? It'd sure suck to send someone who had no idea if it even happened out naked on the ice sheet to get swept up by a malevolent guardian spirit. If they established the scientist characters more maybe it'd feel cathartic. Like maybe make a couple of them have speaking parts and have lines where they're dicks/flippant about the whole situation. I dunno. Felt empty.
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Feb 21, 2024 06:06
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Jesus christ, that was revolting. What were they going for? Irredeemable in every sense of the word
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Feb 21, 2024 06:33
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CHaKKaWaKka posted:the most reasonable explanation for what happened. Shut Up and Detect: Gaiden
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Feb 21, 2024 06:35
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Doltos posted:I dunno the vigilante scene felt a little overboard cruel. Like how could the indigenous women know that every scientist was complicit in the murder of Annie K? They only saw the stab wound and loosely tied the murder to at least one scientist, but how could they know for certain it was all of them being complicit? It'd sure suck to send someone who had no idea if it even happened out naked on the ice sheet to get swept up by a malevolent guardian spirit. Remember that scene that establishes that one science as an unrepentant rear end in a top hat by *checks notes* making a sandwich and facetiming with his family back in Spain, who love and miss him? Yeah, gently caress him, I hope he's one of the ones that clawed their eyes out before dying in agony! gently caress ya, empowerment! Glad his kids don't have a dad anymore.
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Feb 21, 2024 06:57
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The opening of the show, where it’s a murder mystery at a quirky science station playing Ferris Bueller, is not in communication with the end of the show where the scientists brutally murder someone and cut out their tongue.
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Feb 21, 2024 06:59
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Golden Bee posted:The opening of the show, where it’s a murder mystery at a quirky science station playing Ferris Bueller, is not in communication with the end of the show where the scientists brutally murder someone and cut out their tongue. But the scientists have a trolly problem where they are drowning 100 people in chemical sludge to save a billion I guess and it makes them stabby evil too
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Feb 21, 2024 07:04
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covidstomper58 posted:When that multiple amputee scientist woke up in the hospital and called Navarro by her first name and said her mother says hello and she was waiting for her, I guess that was Annie K possessing his body temporarily, or he was just such a creeper that he knew the names of officials in town and that was just the kind of thing he posted regularly? I think one crucial problem with the supernatural elements is that the show starts by laying out a clear and pretty traditional mission statement early on that there are 1) ghosts who act as spiritual messengers of truth from beyond the grave, 2) ghosts who linger on because they miss us, and 3) ghosts who want to torment us so we join them in death. But then it continually muddies that clarity about the motives and powers of the supernatural forces - partly because we only see the truth-seeking ghosts get involved with the investigation immediately after the victim of the original crime has got justice and not years earlier when it would have been useful, partly because the show flirts with the idea that the ghosts are out to get Navarro but ultimately treats her visions as a pathway to greater self-knowledge, partly because there's this unclear but very involved relationship going on between all these ghosts and the cosmic-horror deity out on the ice which gets its own set of rules, abilities and motives. The possession scene is the crux of all that confusion, because logically it cannot be Annie K or Travis or the ice-goddess or Holden doing the possession; the entity seems to be purely malevolent in the 3) sense and shows no interest in pointing out to Navarro that she's standing in front of Annie K's killer or helping her discover her true name. So is this Wheeler's ghost? Is there another supernatural faction working against our heroes? Does it just not show up ever again? Can the other ghosts possess human bodies on the verge of death or is this just a wasted one-time opportunity?
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Feb 21, 2024 09:42
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right arm posted:it works in fargo because it is well written unlike night country. simple as
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Feb 21, 2024 12:18
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Chairman Capone posted:I mean… there are actually quite a lot of arctic and Antarctic other remote research bases in reality and I don’t think the people staffing them tend to be crazy or maladjusted or homicidal. Oh I'm aware. I know two scientists who've spent time in remote science stations and both were women. I'm saying this specific station works better if you imagine that it's inhabited by medieval monks and Tuttle corp hires people who are talented but also severely messed up. Of course, the show doesn't really do this because it has its own story it wants to tell so we get a weird disconnect between what's shown in the first episode and the last episode. This sort of poo poo keeps happening and that's probably why this season kind of sucked.
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Feb 21, 2024 12:42
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counterfeitsaint posted:Remember that scene that establishes that one science as an unrepentant rear end in a top hat by *checks notes* making a sandwich and facetiming with his family back in Spain, who love and miss him? Yeah, gently caress him, I hope he's one of the ones that clawed their eyes out before dying in agony! gently caress ya, empowerment! Glad his kids don't have a dad anymore. The scientists were encouraging and aiding the poisoning of the earth and water, in addition to collectively brutally murdering a girl. Yeah, gently caress them. There are a lot of problems with this show but "the scientists weren't assholes!" isn't one of them. Not to mention that a show depicting something doesn't mean you're expected to say "gently caress yeah, empowerment" when you watch it. Golden Bee posted:The opening of the show, where it’s a murder mystery at a quirky science station playing Ferris Bueller, is not in communication with the end of the show where the scientists brutally murder someone and cut out their tongue. ??? the opening of the show leads to the scientists frozen together in a nightmarish tableau that starts screaming as its limbs break off. Again there is so much to complain about that you don't need to make up stuff like this.
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Feb 21, 2024 13:20
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Ithle01 posted:Oh I'm aware. I know two scientists who've spent time in remote science stations and both were women. I'm saying this specific station works better if you imagine that it's inhabited by medieval monks and Tuttle corp hires people who are talented but also severely messed up. Of course, the show doesn't really do this because it has its own story it wants to tell so we get a weird disconnect between what's shown in the first episode and the last episode. This sort of poo poo keeps happening and that's probably why this season kind of sucked. Now I'm imagining a show that's like a modern The Name of the Rose set in an arctic research station where a mysterious murder happens. Could be more interesting than this one!
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Feb 21, 2024 13:38
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:I mean, if I was running a secret evil lab I'd probably mop my own floors but They probably did lol but just that one room with the secret trapdoor. Otherwise the floor would be full of water, ice, old haunted bones and super bacteria from the million times a day these guys go up and down from their secret icefort and the kitchen or whatever it was. Cleaning detectives instantly deduced what happened to Annie but never wondered why that one room was always spotless and just kept cleaning it anyway, wasting all that soap. Think about the environment ladies geez. 
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Feb 21, 2024 13:45
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Panzeh posted:I think that bit's actually quite important to S1- because it needed to show Rust wasn't a perfect detective, that he'd miss something like that because he's so far up his own rear end on occult and conspiracy stuff. Marty being able to catch it was something important. no, my point isn't that the clue was too obvious, just the opposite. since when do painters get paint on either ear, much less both, such that the girl would remember a green-eared guy chasing her? after so much painstaking, plausible work building the case, like mapping the disappearances of children against the locations of Tuttle charter schools, 'green ears? maybe the guy painted the house green and got paint on his ears?' is ludicrous
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Feb 21, 2024 14:45
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Cassian of Imola posted:no, my point isn't that the clue was too obvious, just the opposite. since when do painters get paint on either ear, much less both, such that the girl would remember a green-eared guy chasing her? after so much painstaking, plausible work building the case, like mapping the disappearances of children against the locations of Tuttle charter schools, 'green ears? maybe the guy painted the house green and got paint on his ears?' is ludicrous And then they get lucky that the old lady who owned the house is alive and remembers exactly who painted it decades ago lol It's definitely the weakest part of the procedural aspect of S1, the idea is to show how Rust built up this huge amount of evidence over the years but missed one critical clue Marty spots, but it's very hammy and rushed.
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Feb 21, 2024 14:50
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my bony fealty posted:And then they get lucky that the old lady who owned the house is alive and remembers exactly who painted it decades ago lol Yeah it's excusable but mainly weird because it feels like a dumb explanation you'd introduce in a later season when you realized you didn't have a good answer to a mystery you'd already committed to. Odd that they didn't just rewrite it to be less specifically contrived.
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Feb 21, 2024 15:21
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covidstomper58 posted:When that multiple amputee scientist woke up in the hospital and called Navarro by her first name and said her mother says hello and she was waiting for her, I guess that was Annie K possessing his body temporarily, or he was just such a creeper that he knew the names of officials in town and that was just the kind of thing he posted regularly? It was the ice ghost (the ghosts all have a group chat apparently) because the show wants you to know the ice ghost is real and it also lets the viewer believe the cleaning ladies didn't just decide to execute 10 dudes one night.
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Feb 21, 2024 15:51
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I don't think any of the symbols in this season (or maybe even other seasons) have a defined, reliable meaning. Like the spiral is completely detached from anything in the previous seasons (1&3) and it seems like sometimes it's just there for the audience to project their own meaning into. In the last episode, the orange peel wasn't even noticed by Danvers and the dragon skeleton wasn't meaningful. Maybe I missed something, but the scientists didn't seem interested in the dinosaur dragon, they were after some ancient ice microbes that would 'save humanity.' The polar bear only had some fleeting association to Danver's kid through the stuffed animal, nothing especially ominous. The neatly piled clothes were a mystery, for most of the season, but it seemed to have different meanings from the context for the scientists and Navarro's sister. I feel like there's other examples of this in S4, but I'm not thinking of them right now. Also, somewhat unrelated, any of the ghost stuff seems easily attributable to drug use and/or psychological stress from experiencing constant night for prolonged periods of time. Cithen fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Feb 21, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2024 17:00
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Cithen posted:I don't think any of the symbols in this season (or maybe even other seasons) have a defined, reliable meaning. Like the spiral is completely detached from anything in the previous seasons (1&3) and it seems like sometimes it's just there for the audience to project their own meaning into. In the last episode, the orange peel wasn't even noticed by Danvers and the dragon skeleton wasn't meaningful. Maybe I missed something, but the scientists didn't seem interested in the dinosaur dragon, they were after some ancient ice microbes that would 'save humanity.' The polar bear only had some fleeting association to Danver's kid through the stuffed animal, nothing especially ominous. The neatly piled clothes were a mystery, for most of the season, but it seemed to have different meanings from the context for the scientists and Navarro's sister. I feel like there's other examples of this in S4, but I'm not thinking of them right now. I think the spirals are an indication of forces at work that the characters don't understand and aren't fully aware of; Even if the characters don't see it, we the viewers do and it shows there's more going on than the surface level murder story. But you're right that the show doesn't focus on it much or do much with it. This feels like a script that got heavily reworked and the spiral/bones/entire ice cave in general feels half-baked and almost vestigial. The polar bear is fine, though. It's a metaphor for Danvers' grief that's constantly with her and looming over her. I don't think it needs to be more than that.
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Feb 21, 2024 17:13
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"It's magical realism"
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Feb 21, 2024 17:16
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Bip Roberts posted:"It's magical realism" Lol love that excuse for shittiness and nonsensical plot holes Is it magical realism when the ice caves are appx 100 feet away from the research station
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Feb 21, 2024 18:01
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Gonna be honest, there wasn't enough good in this season for me to even be curious about what the original script was. I think the show runner got a huge gimme with being able to claim a bunch of suits messed up the script, because the bones of the story seem pretty dire to me as well.
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Feb 21, 2024 18:11
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and 100 feet in the other direction is open water
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Feb 21, 2024 18:14
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What if the pollution was ghosts and it's like in ghostbusters when they released way too many ghosts
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Feb 21, 2024 18:17
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College Rockout posted:and 100 feet in the other direction is open water Lol forgot about that. Everything is either miles and miles away requiring you to drive through solitary snowy darkness, or like 100 feet from wherever you're standing, including 200 foot deep water.
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Feb 21, 2024 18:19
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mrmcd posted:Lol forgot about that. Everything is either miles and miles away requiring you to drive through solitary snowy darkness, or like 100 feet from wherever you're standing, including 200 foot deep water. In theory I don't hate this. I could see a version of this show that treats the long-night versions of Ennis and its surrounding areas as unknowable. Kind of like the bayou in season one, where there's just all sorts of poo poo you'd absolutely never find unless you were looking for it or tripped over it. Not saying that was the intent (it wasn't), but there's a way to do it that adds to the mystery and foreboding nature of things.
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Feb 21, 2024 18:42
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Tender Bender posted:The scientists were encouraging and aiding the poisoning of the earth and water, in addition to collectively brutally murdering a girl. Yeah, gently caress them. That's not the point you completely missed it. It's not that they were assholes, it's how the hell did the cleaning ladies know they were all assholes? How did they know they were complicit in poisoning the water? Was there a big white board that said Water Poisoning Plan? How did they know every scientist was complicit in the murder? It's beyond the realm of possibility that only one scientist killed Annie K? Simultaneously everything that happened was a story told by an unreliable witness. We don't know if the cleaning ladies just pointed guns and shoved them out into the ice. We don't know that everyone jumped on top of Annie K and helped kill her. One side of the story is presented by people who just did passionate vigilante justice and the other side was a crazy person who was trying to distance himself from the crime. How are either reliable? If we go by what we see we have to assume that the cleaning ladies only found the weapon and that was it.
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Feb 21, 2024 18:44
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Maybe those women were in the Murder, She Wrote Club (Alaskan Division).
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Feb 21, 2024 18:50
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It did have the true murder she wrote vibe where no one is actually that sad about the killings.
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Feb 21, 2024 18:55
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Tender Bender posted:Yeah it's excusable but mainly weird because it feels like a dumb explanation you'd introduce in a later season when you realized you didn't have a good answer to a mystery you'd already committed to. Odd that they didn't just rewrite it to be less specifically contrived. It think it's excusable because it's one sort-of weak plot point in an otherwise very solid story. You could point to any one aspect of Night Country and say that is just as weak and contrived (if you squint) but the problem is that every aspect if Night Country is weak and contrived.
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Feb 21, 2024 19:03
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counterfeitsaint posted:It think it's excusable because it's one sort-of weak plot point in an otherwise very solid story. It doesn't ruin the season by any reasonable stretch, not at all, but it's also not a sort-of weak plot point. It's insanely bad. It is a plot point that fell through time from Night Country and landed in January 2014.
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Feb 21, 2024 19:38
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Doltos posted:It's not that they were assholes, it's how the hell did the cleaning ladies know they were all assholes? How did they know they were complicit in poisoning the water? Was there a big white board that said Water Poisoning Plan? How did they know every scientist was complicit in the murder? It's beyond the realm of possibility that only one scientist killed Annie K? It would have been pretty clear from the police report, which the women had access to, that multiple people were involved in Annie's murder. The secret base is pretty damning in and of itself, since it'd contain evidence that the scientists were at least actively involved in the poisoning of the water supply and would be up for vigilante justice on that basis alone. I imagine that the women read copies of the reports and worked out what all of that meant, and if they couldn't understand the technical jargon would have ways of finding that out. They had a lead and were motivated to work out what it meant. Doltos posted:Simultaneously everything that happened was a story told by an unreliable witness. We don't know if the cleaning ladies just pointed guns and shoved them out into the ice. We don't know that everyone jumped on top of Annie K and helped kill her. The story that Clark tells Navarro and Danvers is different to what we see -- he insists that he didn't kill Annie, but we see that he did -- which to me makes it pretty clear that what we see depicted on screen is the truth regardless of what he says.
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Feb 21, 2024 19:38
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It’s a circular problem, because there’s no part of fabricating pollution data or drilling for ice that requires a secret hatch instead of an elevator. In fact, bringing heavy equipment down the hatch seems like a huge pain in the rear end. Having an evidence dungeon is contrived. Regardless, viewers are willing to believe that people who commit weird crimes get off on it and want a “ ha ha ha I did it and got away with it” room. Why the gently caress do the scientists who commit a crime of passion have that room.
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Feb 21, 2024 19:47
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Open Source Idiom posted:It would have been pretty clear from the police report, which the women had access to, that multiple people were involved in Annie's murder. The secret base is pretty damning in and of itself, since it'd contain evidence that the scientists were at least actively involved in the poisoning of the water supply and would be up for vigilante justice on that basis alone. I imagine that the women read copies of the reports and worked out what all of that meant, and if they couldn't understand the technical jargon would have ways of finding that out. They had a lead and were motivated to work out what it meant. What? The idea that Annie was killed by multiple people was never brought up in the show until the very end. The show followed the women who wrote that report and they were looking for one individual throughout.
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Feb 21, 2024 19:59
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