We enter our second episode of this 13 week miniseries still armed with a relatively scant amount of useful information. There are however, just enough insights to tantalize in to us wanting to find out a bit more about these individuals and their predicament. In last weeks closing scene, as the camera pulled out from the town, we find that our Hotelies are in a ghost town that is in an impossibly desolate surrounding. Even if they can escape the town, there is little chance they can get back to civilization. The pan out gives us no clue as to just where on earth (if indeed they are on earth) they might be.
Janet (Daisy Betts) Persons Unknown
Credit: NBC
Last week Janet was left with a fortune cookie that indicated if she killed her neighbor she could go free. This fortune foreshadows a choice Janet will need to make by the end of this episode and will reveal just what type of individual she may be.
The opening scene begins with the gates on windows opening automatically. I believe we are being shown that much of what we see in this town is a red herring. These windows were never designed to keep our guests in, as they have already moved freely about the town. It would seem that layers upon layers of deception have been purposely built into this town, but for what? The next deception to be tackled by the Hotelies is the implants. One by one, these implants are removed by Moira as the prisoners are intensely watched by their captors. The penalty for such a brazen move? Nothing. It’s almost as if the captors wanted them to remove these tracking devices. The removal of the device gives our gang promise that they will now be able to escape the ghost town. While Joe and Graham play a rousing round of ashtray toss, Janet re-reads her fortune and makes her move to escape. As she scrambles forward, she is stopped cold by an invisible microwave fence.
This is a big clue that we are dealing with some extremely advanced technology here. This may also reveal that the old style bubble camera covers positioned everywhere are just a deliberate ruse to fool our hostages. They are being presented with easily recognizable technology and items that fill their daily life, but it’s entirely possible the ones who have captured them possess technology well beyond what these individuals can comprehend. We also learn that reason there was no punishment for removal of the tracking devices is because they were meaningless. Just as meaningless as the microwave pulse fence will turn out to be.
I should have worn more sun block
Janet’s face is burned pretty well from her escape attempt. As she soothes her injuries, we are shown that any damage done to the town somehow gets mysteriously fixed as if none of it occurred. Joe curiously swings by her room to assist with her injuries (like when she had the sliver in her finger) and earns more of her trust. Back in our favorite Chinese restaurant, our gang begins to plot out a strategy for escape. I am not sure why they just openly discuss their plans when they know they are being watched and listened to. During the discussion, it’s made known that Tori is the daughter of the former head of the CIA and believes she has been brought here because of her father. While this could be true, it gives us no reason as to why all the others are there with her. Charlie and his car salesman buddy then come up with the most cogent idea of the night; put the beat down on the night manager until he tells them what he knows.
We next get a quick flash over to ace reporter Renbe who is still on the trail of missing mom (Janet’s) story. For some reason he is ditching his way cool “headless homeless people” investigation for the investigation of a mundane disappearance of a woman he does not even know. We have to question why this seems so important to him.
Back in ghost town, Sergeant McNair is kicking out some of his best pantomime moves while Bill and Charlie throw back a few while plotting the detainment and interrogation of the night manager. Tori’s master plan is to investigate the local dress store for some new outfits, Moira tags along and we find that not only is she allegedly a psychiatrist, she seems to have a bit of an affinity for Tori.
These scene then shifts to Janet and Joe having a discussion about belief in God which is interesting given last week’s key’s being placed in the Bible. While Joe is a believer, he indicates he is not going to wait for divine intervention to get him out of this predicament.
We next get another glimpse of creepy grandma who throws out a big clue to all watching when she chastises her granddaughter for losing some puzzle pieces. She states that “a jigsaw puzzle is not very good if it’s missing pieces”. Everything we are seeing is pieces of a puzzle and some major pieces are missing. We will need those missing pieces in order to put together what the heck is going on here.
Back at the hotel, the night manager probably seals his fate with Bill and Charlie’s when he informs everyone they will be eating again at the Chinese restaurant. Even if he did not know anything, two days in a row at the Shanghai surprise would cause any normal person to lose it. As everyone heads up to their rooms, two of our guests find carefully placed items on the desk. Tori finds a glass jar with a butterfly cocoon on it. Moira just happens on by with a suspiciously weird amount of knowledge about the cocoon and type of butterfly that will emerge. At first Tori suspects Moira put it there, but accepts her denial and decides its just shenanigans from her father. Tori is under the impression that the cocoon in the jar is a cruel metaphor. Just like the cocoon trapped in a jar she is going to be trapped in this town until she changes he ways.
While in her room, Janet finds a revolver along with a revised fortune outlining specifically that if she kills Joe she can go free. As she makes sure the gun is loaded, she runs down the lobby to investigate screams from the night manager. Bill and Charlie have apparently made good on their plan to extract information form this guy. As they march him (already well beaten) toward the microwave fence, he eerily reminded me of LOST’s Benjamin Linus. Like Linus did in LOST, our hotel manager claims he is just like the rest of the Hotelies and that he knows absolutely nothing. Before they can push him into the fence, Charlie and Bill are subdued by the others. The hotel manager then makes a break for it, suffering no effects as he runs through the microwave fence, while Charlie’s who is chasing after him gets toasted by it. Clearly the night manager is in league somehow with the captors.
The storm is coming.
An odd electrical storm makes its way into town while Tori has a flashback memory about her father. She apparently knows something she should not know about him and indicates he will pay for it, before she is escorted away from him. Moira drops back by her room to show her that the butterfly has now exited the cocoon.
Flashing back to our intrepid reporter, Renbe finds out from his buddy Gomez that Janet has had some horrible thing happen to her when she was a juvenile and that her ex husband was a real piece of work who left her while she was pregnant. As he exits the bar with the file, Edick (still sporting that member’s only jacket) shows up and takes the file from him at gunpoint. We now get confirmation that he is working for someone who does not have Janet’s best interest. Is it her ex husband? Is it her mother, or some force beyond either of these?
The not so great escape
The storm finally hits town as we find the Hotelies back in our favorite Chinese restaurant where again Moira is talking too much and asking way too many questions. As the gang discusses Tori’s find in her room, an all too carefully placed lightning bolt takes out the microwave emitters giving our prisoners another chance to escape. The plan? Get into the unoccupied van left in the street by the restaurant workers and simply drive away. Seems simple enough. Moira runs into the restaurant screaming like a banshee to create a ruckus, while Bill hotwires the van. They all pile in grabbing Charlie along the way and hightail it out.
As they easily go past the microwave fence they find themselves heading toward a mysterious intense light. Janet’s insists they move forward, and as they drive through the light they find that they haven end up right back in the ghost town. As previously noted, the gated windows, tracking transmitters, and microwave fence were all red herrings. None of these were things were keeping the Hotelies trapped that in town. However, the use of these by the captors is psychologically important in making the Hotelies realize that escape is not even an option.
Fly be free
As with the cocoon in the jar, are they all there to change and once they become better people they can leave? Moira likely tries to illustrate this to Tori when she releases the butterfly. However, the poor insect does not go free and mercilessly gets fried by the microwave emitter. Now the metaphorical lesson becomes much more sinister. Even changing as a person will not allow for escape, as that is not the goal of this place. Moira now reveals she is not a psychologist but rather a psychiatric patient, which I do not buy for a second. This lady knows way too much and we should trust her less than the used car salesman at this point.
In her room Janet (after a static laden phone conversation with her daughter) makes a decision to take out Joe. However, as we all probably already deduced she just cannot kill him. Is it because of the connections and trust he has created, has he done this purposely as some sort of sick experiment? Is Joe part of this? After blasting up the camera, Janet barks out a threat to her captors and leaves. However, as the damaged camera is automatically replaced by a new one, I get the distinct feeling they are unimpressed and will move forward with their plan for her and the rest of the Hotelies.
Thoughts
Ok, has anyone one noticed that everything looks sort of old? I cannot recall seeing a cell phone in use in either the Ghost Town or in the outside world. All the phones in both worlds appear to be pretty old. Are we dealing with time travel? Perhaps this is an alternate universe situation. This all reminds me of the movie Dark City where we find that everyone is unknowingly trapped on a starship designed to look exactly like a specific place on Earth. The Aliens put their human hostages to sleep every night, completely changing their surroundings in order to experiment on them. Those trapped are completely unaware of what is happening. Although we do have some technology being utilized, which seems to be beyond normal everyday stuff, Alien involvement as some suggest just seems way too easy. Is this like Shutter Island and are they all in a mental intuition? Has Janet suffered a mental breakdown and refuses to see herself as a patient? Are all the rest patients, with the only one knowing that she actually is a patient is Moira? These are just some of my initial thoughts that I hope will start to coalesce toward a more unified theory as more clues become available.
The opening scene begins with the gates on windows opening automatically. I believe we are being shown that much of what we see in this town is a red herring. These windows were never designed to keep our guests in, as they have already moved freely about the town. It would seem that layers upon layers of deception have been purposely built into this town, but for what? The next deception to be tackled by the Hotelies is the implants. One by one, these implants are removed by Moira as the prisoners are intensely watched by their captors. The penalty for such a brazen move? Nothing. It’s almost as if the captors wanted them to remove these tracking devices. The removal of the device gives our gang promise that they will now be able to escape the ghost town. While Joe and Graham play a rousing round of ashtray toss, Janet re-reads her fortune and makes her move to escape. As she scrambles forward, she is stopped cold by an invisible microwave fence.
This is a big clue that we are dealing with some extremely advanced technology here. This may also reveal that the old style bubble camera covers positioned everywhere are just a deliberate ruse to fool our hostages. They are being presented with easily recognizable technology and items that fill their daily life, but it’s entirely possible the ones who have captured them possess technology well beyond what these individuals can comprehend. We also learn that reason there was no punishment for removal of the tracking devices is because they were meaningless. Just as meaningless as the microwave pulse fence will turn out to be.
I should have worn more sun block
Janet’s face is burned pretty well from her escape attempt. As she soothes her injuries, we are shown that any damage done to the town somehow gets mysteriously fixed as if none of it occurred. Joe curiously swings by her room to assist with her injuries (like when she had the sliver in her finger) and earns more of her trust. Back in our favorite Chinese restaurant, our gang begins to plot out a strategy for escape. I am not sure why they just openly discuss their plans when they know they are being watched and listened to. During the discussion, it’s made known that Tori is the daughter of the former head of the CIA and believes she has been brought here because of her father. While this could be true, it gives us no reason as to why all the others are there with her. Charlie and his car salesman buddy then come up with the most cogent idea of the night; put the beat down on the night manager until he tells them what he knows.
We next get a quick flash over to ace reporter Renbe who is still on the trail of missing mom (Janet’s) story. For some reason he is ditching his way cool “headless homeless people” investigation for the investigation of a mundane disappearance of a woman he does not even know. We have to question why this seems so important to him.
Back in ghost town, Sergeant McNair is kicking out some of his best pantomime moves while Bill and Charlie throw back a few while plotting the detainment and interrogation of the night manager. Tori’s master plan is to investigate the local dress store for some new outfits, Moira tags along and we find that not only is she allegedly a psychiatrist, she seems to have a bit of an affinity for Tori.
These scene then shifts to Janet and Joe having a discussion about belief in God which is interesting given last week’s key’s being placed in the Bible. While Joe is a believer, he indicates he is not going to wait for divine intervention to get him out of this predicament.
We next get another glimpse of creepy grandma who throws out a big clue to all watching when she chastises her granddaughter for losing some puzzle pieces. She states that “a jigsaw puzzle is not very good if it’s missing pieces”. Everything we are seeing is pieces of a puzzle and some major pieces are missing. We will need those missing pieces in order to put together what the heck is going on here.
Back at the hotel, the night manager probably seals his fate with Bill and Charlie’s when he informs everyone they will be eating again at the Chinese restaurant. Even if he did not know anything, two days in a row at the Shanghai surprise would cause any normal person to lose it. As everyone heads up to their rooms, two of our guests find carefully placed items on the desk. Tori finds a glass jar with a butterfly cocoon on it. Moira just happens on by with a suspiciously weird amount of knowledge about the cocoon and type of butterfly that will emerge. At first Tori suspects Moira put it there, but accepts her denial and decides its just shenanigans from her father. Tori is under the impression that the cocoon in the jar is a cruel metaphor. Just like the cocoon trapped in a jar she is going to be trapped in this town until she changes he ways.
While in her room, Janet finds a revolver along with a revised fortune outlining specifically that if she kills Joe she can go free. As she makes sure the gun is loaded, she runs down the lobby to investigate screams from the night manager. Bill and Charlie have apparently made good on their plan to extract information form this guy. As they march him (already well beaten) toward the microwave fence, he eerily reminded me of LOST’s Benjamin Linus. Like Linus did in LOST, our hotel manager claims he is just like the rest of the Hotelies and that he knows absolutely nothing. Before they can push him into the fence, Charlie and Bill are subdued by the others. The hotel manager then makes a break for it, suffering no effects as he runs through the microwave fence, while Charlie’s who is chasing after him gets toasted by it. Clearly the night manager is in league somehow with the captors.
The storm is coming.
An odd electrical storm makes its way into town while Tori has a flashback memory about her father. She apparently knows something she should not know about him and indicates he will pay for it, before she is escorted away from him. Moira drops back by her room to show her that the butterfly has now exited the cocoon.
Flashing back to our intrepid reporter, Renbe finds out from his buddy Gomez that Janet has had some horrible thing happen to her when she was a juvenile and that her ex husband was a real piece of work who left her while she was pregnant. As he exits the bar with the file, Edick (still sporting that member’s only jacket) shows up and takes the file from him at gunpoint. We now get confirmation that he is working for someone who does not have Janet’s best interest. Is it her ex husband? Is it her mother, or some force beyond either of these?
The not so great escape
The storm finally hits town as we find the Hotelies back in our favorite Chinese restaurant where again Moira is talking too much and asking way too many questions. As the gang discusses Tori’s find in her room, an all too carefully placed lightning bolt takes out the microwave emitters giving our prisoners another chance to escape. The plan? Get into the unoccupied van left in the street by the restaurant workers and simply drive away. Seems simple enough. Moira runs into the restaurant screaming like a banshee to create a ruckus, while Bill hotwires the van. They all pile in grabbing Charlie along the way and hightail it out.
As they easily go past the microwave fence they find themselves heading toward a mysterious intense light. Janet’s insists they move forward, and as they drive through the light they find that they haven end up right back in the ghost town. As previously noted, the gated windows, tracking transmitters, and microwave fence were all red herrings. None of these were things were keeping the Hotelies trapped that in town. However, the use of these by the captors is psychologically important in making the Hotelies realize that escape is not even an option.
Fly be free
As with the cocoon in the jar, are they all there to change and once they become better people they can leave? Moira likely tries to illustrate this to Tori when she releases the butterfly. However, the poor insect does not go free and mercilessly gets fried by the microwave emitter. Now the metaphorical lesson becomes much more sinister. Even changing as a person will not allow for escape, as that is not the goal of this place. Moira now reveals she is not a psychologist but rather a psychiatric patient, which I do not buy for a second. This lady knows way too much and we should trust her less than the used car salesman at this point.
In her room Janet (after a static laden phone conversation with her daughter) makes a decision to take out Joe. However, as we all probably already deduced she just cannot kill him. Is it because of the connections and trust he has created, has he done this purposely as some sort of sick experiment? Is Joe part of this? After blasting up the camera, Janet barks out a threat to her captors and leaves. However, as the damaged camera is automatically replaced by a new one, I get the distinct feeling they are unimpressed and will move forward with their plan for her and the rest of the Hotelies.
Thoughts
Ok, has anyone one noticed that everything looks sort of old? I cannot recall seeing a cell phone in use in either the Ghost Town or in the outside world. All the phones in both worlds appear to be pretty old. Are we dealing with time travel? Perhaps this is an alternate universe situation. This all reminds me of the movie Dark City where we find that everyone is unknowingly trapped on a starship designed to look exactly like a specific place on Earth. The Aliens put their human hostages to sleep every night, completely changing their surroundings in order to experiment on them. Those trapped are completely unaware of what is happening. Although we do have some technology being utilized, which seems to be beyond normal everyday stuff, Alien involvement as some suggest just seems way too easy. Is this like Shutter Island and are they all in a mental intuition? Has Janet suffered a mental breakdown and refuses to see herself as a patient? Are all the rest patients, with the only one knowing that she actually is a patient is Moira? These are just some of my initial thoughts that I hope will start to coalesce toward a more unified theory as more clues become available.
