The Big O Showtime: Negotiation with the Dead

Now this feels more like a traditional second season opener. We get reacquainted with our characters and the central premise of the show, follow up on dangling threads from the finale and introduce a new villain and conflict. And we get answers! Hosannah in the highest, we get answers!

Okay, so do you remember that old film star who was murdering Paradigm's founders? No? Read this. One of the survivors, Roscoe Fitzgerald, hires Roger to negotiate with the assassin who believes is after him now. But not the film star, he wants him to negotiate with Red Destiny. The Dorothy clone who was murdering people in the finale. Which leads to the reveal. Those people Red Destiny killed were believed to have Memories from before the Event, Memories they shouldn't have because they're too young. It was hinted that these Memories were implanted in children by Rosewater the Elder, including Roger, but Fitzgerald confirms it. But these weren't just any Memories, they were the Memories of the city founders.

I'm attempting to be adorable. Is it working?

Fitzgerald also calls the founders the film star killed "alter egos" implying their Memories are their true selves. Given the whole actor metaphor brought up last episode, this got me thinking. I said Memories exposed people to their fictional nature and drove them mad from the revelation. I took that on a meta level, but what if it's literal? What if Paradigm City is actually a huge performance piece and everyone is subconsciously playing a scripted role without even knowing it? Maybe Paradigm's founders knew they too would be affected by whatever the amnesia event was, so took measures to ensure their Memories would survive. That way, the knowledge of their fictional nature would be preserved in case of emergency. This is beginning to sound a lot like Dark City, and this show was already a lot like Dark City. 

Hit crazy speculation time early, but more after the jump,


Roger takes the case and asks the question we all did in the finale, who activated Red Destiny? Because if she had activated on her own, why did she go after those specific people? The only clue Roger has to go off of is Red Destiny's resemblance to Dorothy, so they decide to check out Waynewright's mansion. Remember Waynewright? He was the roboticist who built Dorothy after he found Memories way back in the first episode. Given that Dorothy looks just like Waynewright's daughter, and Red Destiny looks just like Dorothy it seems a logical connection to make. So they head off to the mansion but in the words of Admiral Ackbar, it's a trap.

Big O has a gatling gun fist now.
Because punching things wasn't enough.

There's a killer robot waiting for them, but thankfully Angel arrives to save them. The only evidence they find is a broken disc with a list of all the founders and those implanted with their Memories. Only one pair remains with implanted Memories but Fitzgerald isn't on the list. Because he still has his Memories. That's when another megadeus shows up. We'll get to that but first I want to focus on that remaining pair. We know one of them is Roger, that was set up back in the finale, but I think the other one is Angel. They established back in Episode 7 that she has issues with her memories and she was the only character in Season 1 who was explicitly an actor (of sorts) fitting with my crazy theories above. It would also explain why Rosewater the younger kept her close, seeing how he's the one hunting down all these Memories. Not sure what's going to happen now that she's fired.

To the Patrick Nagel exhibit!

While Roger and Big O take care of the megadeus, Dorothy and Angel confront Fitzgerald about his Memories. Why does he still have them? Because he's actually a robot! Yes, he's a robot copy of Fitzgerald with a disc of the original's Memories. Presumably he was built before the Event. Anyway, whoever activated Red Destiny sent this megadeus to kill him and I think it's Rosewater. He's the one who's been hunting down pre-Event Memories. Plus, his new pinstriped minion shows up to kill Fitzgerald and steal the disc of Memories. Angel calls him Alan Gabriel (doesn't that sound like an 80s New Wave musician?) and I'm assuming he's her replacement because he works for Rosewater and is hunting down Memories. That was her job and she wasn't very good at it.

One last thing before we go, The seeds of a possible conflict are sown this episode. Upon seeing Big O engage the megadeus, Dastun complains that the military police can never take a megadeus down on their own. They always need Big O to deal with them. Dastun is Roger's Commissioner Gordon, his one friend on the police, so a rift in their friendship could cause some interesting drama. Will we see this developed? Who knows, but we're starting to get some kind of revelation and God willing that'll continue.