Ah, the mystery deepens. Things are getting freaky in the city of Amnesia, and every new episode just raises more questions. Or specific to this episode, our protagonist. It didn't really occur to me until now, but we don't know much about Roger do we? We know he quit the police a while ago and became a Negotiator, but he's still an enigma for the most part. There's more I want to talk about, but I'll come back to Roger's secret past.
I'm still fuzzy on what a negotiator is. Before I thought it was an illegal profession in some way, but if so why is Paradigm Group hiring Roger? According to him, they basically own and run the city, so I don't see why they'd need some criminal to do work for them. I was wrong about that then, hopefully this gets clarified. Anyway, Roger goes to Paradigm HQ for a new job. There's this really cool subway-car elevator thing there I love the design of, it's strange but fits into the setting perfectly. While there, Roger runs into Angel again.
I knew she'd be back. She's working for them under another fake name but doesn't do much this episode. Mostly be a secretive spy babe and flirt with Roger. The Group has hired Roger to go find a missing reporter who used to work for them. Apparently, he's written a manuscript that could cause them trouble. You know, Roger says he would never take a job from the Group, but this is the second time he's done it. Some consistency Negotiator?
One of the themes running through this episode is Roger's lack of introspection. Both Dorothy and Dastun (the police captain) bring this up to him, but he kind of brushes them off. But Schwarzwald, the episode's villain confronts him with it too. I like this, the show acknowledges that we only have a surface understanding of Roger by this point and makes it the point of the episode to dig into him more. This leads Roger into going down into the subways to investigate and he has... a panic attack? I'm not sure. See the deeper he goes under the city, the newer the walls become and he eventually reaches a point where ghosts, or hallucinations appear. This leads Roger to be overwhelmed with fear and faint where he dreams of his mother. And from the way he recognizes her, something bad happened to her.
I'm guessing something similar happened to Schwarzwald. He gets a great introduction, first just as crazy philosophical voice-over to footage of ruined subways before his first physical appearance trying to burn Roger alive. Great look too, with ripped trenchcoat and burned skin under bandages. Anyway, he was the reporter who went digging into the event 40 years ago and probably found something because he is goddamn nuts. Dorothy wakes up Roger from his shock-induced nap and they find him in a giant model city. With his own giant robot!
Said giant robot is a prototype Big O that causes Dorothy to freeze up psychologically. Nice character duality there, same thing that happened to Roger happens to her and they help each other out of it. Brings the two together and strengthens their relationship. We can see this in the scene at the end on the balcony where Roger acknowledges there's more to Dorothy than her programming. Good character stuff. Also, Schwarzwald confirms that megadeuses, (megadeities?) were more common before the event. The way he talks, it sounds like everyone had one. Along with the fact that deeper underground = newer, I think Paradigm City was built over something. Maybe even before 40 years ago. Just speculation, but I think they knew the event was going to happen and built Paradigm City for after it happened. And nobody goes into the subway because subconsciously they'll know it will trigger Memories. And we've seen what Memories do to people, just look at Scwarzwald. More questions, but each one brings me to closer to understanding. Let's see what Episode 5 provides to the bigger picture.
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