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Featured Replies

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On 10/22/2025 at 9:23 AM, Scary Stranger said:

So, aliens or the matrix?

My money is on alien hive mind given the title. Vince Gilligan does the Borg, but with less violently forced assimilation. Either way this looks great.

10 hours ago, Radical Larry said:

It crashed AppleTV. Still need to finish episode 2, but this has been solid. 

Same. I went into it knowing absolutely nothing about the show, other than it was Gilligan and Seehorn teaming up again. 

Was not expecting anything like this. 

Looks too sci-fi for me but I’ll give it a shot because it’s them. 

1 hour ago, irishtexan said:

Good?

Excellent, so far 

Vince Gilligan back to doing sci-fi X-Files shit? 1000% in. Loved the first episode.

Not reading the thread because I've only seen the first episode, but holy shit that may be the best season 1 episode 1 television program I have ever seen. It was almost like a standalone movie.

 

Loved episode 1. Been theorizing on the ultimate end game all day. Engaged 

Y'all watch episode 2 ASAP. I think it was better than ep 1. Really gets into the ramifications of this new world. And ...

Spoiler

I love the intro scene with the new character seamlessly going from digging up bodies in the Middle East to helping this woman in New Mexico. Classic Vince Gilligan way to introduce a new character.

 

Edited by HornOnTheBayou

  • Author
14 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

Y'all watch episode 2 ASAP. I think it was better than ep 1. Really gets into the ramifications of this new world. And ...

  Hide contents

I love the intro scene with the new character seamlessly going from digging up bodies in the Middle East to helping this woman in New Mexico. Classic Vince Gilligan way to introduce a new character.

 

Was going to post the same as far as the character intros and style. It's great. Reminded me of BB.

First two eps have been excellent. Except for her having a landline. I chuckled at that. But obviously they needed it for the plot.

Small unimportant item but the chyrons on the TV when she is speaking to the official made me laugh more than it should have during a pretty solemn part of the episode. 

1 hour ago, Dr. Teeth said:

Small unimportant item but the chyrons on the TV when she is speaking to the official made me laugh more than it should have during a pretty solemn part of the episode. 

Lol seriously. YOUR LIFE IS YOUR OWN.

Amazing show so far. Excited to see where it goes.

Spoiler

Koumba represents the Surly collective, although Nicole might take the chance to really do some serious shit if she were in that situation.

 

Do people not realize that Vince Gilligan spent 7 or 8 years writing and directing/producing for X-Files?

 

Lab scenes bothered me as a bio lab worker but thry had to get from a to b somehow. 
 

Spoiler

As always, I appreciate when writers respect the audience enough not to explicitly spell out everything no matter how obvious.  The example I’m thinking of is the opening scene of ep 2 which was mentioned above, in which there is no dialog because there doesn’t need to be spoken words any longer between members of the collective.  

I do wonder if there is an ending in mind.  I’m also having trouble reconciling the bit about taking over slowly at first, with the countdown clock being where it is. 

I loved the bit about the under secretary being the only guy "intact," wearing a suit.  Lulz.  

2 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

I loved the bit about the under secretary being the only guy "intact," wearing a suit.  Lulz.  

I'm guessing that due to the military doing something and trying to fight the takeover, a bunch of the administration were being flown somewhere and crashed. Maybe tied to all of those aircraft she saw flying that night.

Edited by atomheartbevo

I'm guessing that due to the military doing something and trying to fight the takeover, a bunch of the administration were being flown somewhere and crashed. Maybe tied to all of those aircraft she saw flying that night.

I thought the contrails were an allusion to their drastic measures to seed the rest of the population

yeah ^that was my assumption as well... they were doing what current wackadoodles think they're doing lol

I assumed it was bombing run to level the base where the outbreak began, but it was obviously too late.

This is a good show. I smoked a bowl and watched the first episode and took a nap. Talk about some crazy dreams. 

I’m not sure if they will stick with her being a total asshole for the whole show, that might get old, but I’m definitely in. 

This is a good show. I smoked a bowl and watched the first episode and took a nap. Talk about some crazy dreams. 
I’m not sure if they will stick with her being a total asshole for the whole show, that might get old, but I’m definitely in. 

I think that’s the point of her character.

She can’t be happy. So some love-in take over that basically is saying be happy, is gonna drive her to end their take-over.

I think…

How many of y’all are like… damn Mr. Diabaté is living the dream. 😄

5 hours ago, Speedtrucker said:

I thought the contrails were an allusion to their drastic measures to seed the rest of the population

4 hours ago, aggie08 said:

I assumed it was bombing run to level the base where the outbreak began, but it was obviously too late.

The outbreak probably began in Maryland (they showed the real-life US Army installation), but the Very Large Array (the radio telescopes that got the original signal) is just a few hours away from Albuquerque.

But it's Vince Gilligan. Could be either explanation.

Edited by atomheartbevo

Just starting the pilot.  Lulz at speculative historical romance literature.

Wow, the pilot was great.  I think it seemed a little more twilight zone than x-files but definitely gave that classic sci-fi feeling.

So we pick up an alien transmission of the genome for a virus and immediately synthesize it and start testing it on animals in a lab?  Yeah that seems about right.

Only problem with this show was I made the mistake of watching the first few episodes the day after they came out.

So now I have to wait.

Mr Bean Waiting GIF by MOODMAN

1 hour ago, YChang said:

How many of y’all are like… damn Mr. Diabaté is living the dream. 😄

For the first few weeks, I'd have some hot ass fishing guides . . .

 



So when she was flying over to meet everyone, I joked to my wife that I’d be flying in a B2 stealth or F14 or some badass jet!!! Not a dang regular plane….

She said that’s dumb.

Then we see Diabate (sp?) roll in on Air Force One and I just laughed so damn loud, my wife said of course someone actually did that.




 

Through Episode 1.

My best guess.

Spoiler

The alien hive mind needs 100% participation to accomplish their mission.

I can’t work out yet why Carol and the other 11 didn’t catch the virus, but some people were immune to Covid, the Spanish Flu and other worldwide viruses. Nature is funny.

I also can’t work out why the virus killed humans including Helen in some numbers. If the aliens are trying to Borg the Earth, is killing so many humans effective? 
 

Interesting show to think about. 

 

15 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Through Episode 1.

My best guess.

  Reveal hidden contents

The alien hive mind needs 100% participation to accomplish their mission.

I can’t work out yet why Carol and the other 11 didn’t catch the virus, but some people were immune to Covid, the Spanish Flu and other worldwide viruses. Nature is funny.

I also can’t work out why the virus killed humans including Helen in some numbers. If the aliens are trying to Borg the Earth, is killing so many humans effective? 
 

Interesting show to think about. 

 

 

I honestly don't believe this should be spoilered, but just in case:

Spoiler

That jibes pretty well with my theory. Whatever the alien civilization's purpose, they need a highly docile and cooperative human population on Earth. But to your other point, they don't really care about the well-being of individual humans as long as the mission is achieved. And since humans are now all connected, as I assume the aliens themselves are, they might not actually believe in the concept of death the same way we do.

Well, I take that back, because many of us believe in life after death, so maybe that's similar to how these aliens conceive of it. But, regardless, I really don't think that's what this is all about. They need us for something.

 

Through Episode 1.
My best guess.
Spoiler

The alien hive mind needs 100% participation to accomplish their mission.
I can’t work out yet why Carol and the other 11 didn’t catch the virus, but some people were immune to Covid, the Spanish Flu and other worldwide viruses. Nature is funny.
I also can’t work out why the virus killed humans including Helen in some numbers. If the aliens are trying to Borg the Earth, is killing so many humans effective? 
 
Interesting show to think about. 

 



 
I think the deaths are often a combination of poor timing.

Like Helen, I think her death was because she fell backwards and hit her head really hard.

I’d imagine there were a lot of casualties because of accidents they couldn’t control during the take over. Additional casualties when the military response.

I mean if Carol’s tantrum killed 11million the first time, I’d imagine a 4 month take over would have some high death rates


 

1 hour ago, Speedtrucker said:

 

 

 

  Hide contents

 
I think the deaths are often a combination of poor timing.

Like Helen, I think her death was because she fell backwards and hit her head really hard.

I’d imagine there were a lot of casualties because of accidents they couldn’t control during the take over. Additional casualties when the military response.

I mean if Carol’s tantrum killed 11million the first time, I’d imagine a 4 month take over would have some high death rates

 

 

Spoiler

Maybe on Helen, but she wasn’t bleeding and Carol performed CPR on her. I’m not ruling out an internal bleeding injury, but I have a theory that some of the mass casualties were from people rejecting the virus and their bodies shut down.

That said Pirate Lady did say Helen joined them before her death. Helen kind of breathed and looked at Carol before she was gone.
 

But I’ll stick with my theory. If people can be immune to the virus, it can also kill uncooperative hosts. They didn’t explain how the neighbor died, but they were presumably in bed as the kids were in pajamas. 
 

 

1 hour ago, bolverk said:

 

I honestly don't believe this should be spoilered, but just in case:

  Hide contents

That jibes pretty well with my theory. Whatever the alien civilization's purpose, they need a highly docile and cooperative human population on Earth. But to your other point, they don't really care about the well-being of individual humans as long as the mission is achieved. And since humans are now all connected, as I assume the aliens themselves are, they might not actually believe in the concept of death the same way we do.

Well, I take that back, because many of us believe in life after death, so maybe that's similar to how these aliens conceive of it. But, regardless, I really don't think that's what this is all about. They need us for something.

 

 

Spoiler

My theory: First, Gilligan made sure that we knew that the hive mind can't kill.  Like it's ingrained to the point they try not to kill bugs by accident. He beat us over the head with it. Same with causing harm. They opened up zoos, etc., even though it was dangerous. Just an insane respect for life. It really stuck out to me that we had a little scene explaining to the audience that they can't kill, with examples from fishing all the way down to stepping on ants. And we also see them going through a lot of trouble of taking care of the dead who died from the various accidents.

They also very specifically mentioned that they can't protect the uninfected from each other, presumably because that would involve them taking physical action against the uninfected that might be trying to harm the other uninfected. If they took action to protect one of them, it goes against their whole "do no physical harm" mantra since ostensibly they could hurt the aggressor.

If you are taking over planets from far away, and maybe you're physically weaker than the species of the planets you are taking over (maybe gravity is an issue since earth's gravity maybe higher so your species is not as physically strong), or there is something else going on that leaves you vulnerable (maybe you can't ship many of your species to these planets for some reason, so numbers are a problem), you not only need a docile civilization, you need a civilization that does not kill living creatures. You hard code that shit into the hive mind.

And when it's hard-coded into the hive mind and you show up, you don't have to worry about being killed when they see you. They will welcome you with open arms, especially if you can tap into the hive mind.

And then you have these 12 people who can kill other living beings, and our favorite guy made it clear he'd be happy to kill whatever he wants to eat as long as they prepare it. That's a problem if you are a weaker species (even if you are technologically superior). What if these 12 (that they know about) reproduce and their offspring are uninfected, or what if they somehow start breaking out people from the hive mind. Or what if they find out about the aliens showing up and get weapons and go after them - nobody will oppose them.

Could be wrong, could have been a scene meant to say "they've solved war and violence and other world problems."

 

Edited by atomheartbevo

13 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

  Hide contents

My theory: First, Gilligan made sure that we knew that the hive mind can't kill.  Like it's ingrained to the point they try not to kill bugs by accident. He beat us over the head with it. Same with causing harm. They opened up zoos, etc., even though it was dangerous. Just an insane respect for life. It really stuck out to me that we had a little scene explaining to the audience that they can't kill, with examples from fishing all the way down to stepping on ants. And we also see them going through a lot of trouble of taking care of the dead who died from the various accidents.

They also very specifically mentioned that they can't protect the uninfected from each other, presumably because that would involve them taking physical action against the uninfected that might be trying to harm the other uninfected. If they took action to protect one of them, it goes against their whole "do no physical harm" mantra since ostensibly they could hurt the aggressor.

If you are taking over planets from far away, and maybe you're physically weaker than the species of the planets you are taking over (maybe gravity is an issue since earth's gravity maybe higher so your species is not as physically strong), or there is something else going on that leaves you vulnerable (maybe you can't ship many of your species to these planets for some reason, so numbers are a problem), you not only need a docile civilization, you need a civilization that does not kill living creatures. You hard code that shit into the hive mind.

And when it's hard-coded into the hive mind and you show up, you don't have to worry about being killed when they see you. They will welcome you with open arms, especially if you can tap into the hive mind.

And then you have these 12 people who can kill other living beings, and our favorite guy made it clear he'd be happy to kill whatever he wants to eat as long as they prepare it. That's a problem if you are a weaker species (even if you are technologically superior). What if these 12 (that they know about) reproduce and their offspring are uninfected, or what if they somehow start breaking out people from the hive mind. Or what if they find out about the aliens showing up and get weapons and go after them - nobody will oppose them.

Could be wrong, could have been a scene meant to say "they've solved war and violence and other world problems."

 

This is very much along the lines that I've been thinking.

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