Reign of Winter
Episode 3 of Pantheon starts with Chanda stuck in an infinite loop of work. He doesn’t remember any of this of course, and he also receives a call from his mother too, which incentivizes him to work harder. He manages to write 80 pages in 12 seconds but in reality, it’s been 12 days for him. That shady businessman we saw before, is actually the head of India’s largest telecom empire, and his name is Ajit. He’s clearly stolen this tech and smiles evilly as he sees his plan come together. However, midway through his work day, a strange entity continues slips through the walls and haunts Chanda. However, this apparition seems be more of the “Casper” variety, acting like a friendly ghost. It grabs Chanda, and turns him toward the monitor, where footage of Chanda’s brain surgery is shown off in all its gnarly glory. These spirits happen to be those poor souls from the slums who had similar experiments done to them. Meanwhile, Maddie and David end up playing Reign of Winter together. The game has come a long way, and now has full VR integration. Although Maddie has embraced the idea of her father returning, Ellen is far less accepting of David and she’s not even sure if he really exists. David ends up causing a strange shockwave inside the game, destroying another party of gamers. This also gets across to Logorhythms too, but as they cant track the source right now (the program isn’t finished, apparently) they decide to send it across to the lab for analysis. Maddie decides to “parent trap” David and Ellen, wanting them to talk through their problems. And that, of course, does not work. When Maddie tries to set up a dinner date for the pair, Ellen rejects the idea. It doesn’t help that she’s involved with Gabe. While visiting him that night, a jealous David starts messing about with the electrics to ruin their date. Ellen finally embraces the idea of talking to David, and she does so by connecting with him in VR. She tells him to let her move on and not interfere with her new life. David admits that he loves her and Maddie, and this love is what he is. It’s also the reason he’s still moving. “I can’t be your wife. But we can keep talking. And maybe, we can both keep moving.” Ellen concedes. It’s a really mature and smart way to round out these two characters, and of course Maddie is upset that they’re not getting back together after all. Caspian continues to look into Uploaded Intelligence (UI), believing that Halstrom and Logorhythms have been at this since 2001. His “mum” Renee tries to dissuade him away but she’s clearly rattled. Now, it turns out Renee and Halstrom were actually sexually involved with one another in the past. Caspian is incredibly smart, as we know, and he writes a script to search for redacted locations on Google Earth, including cached images. Cross-referencing this with Logorhythm’s donations to Ocean Fund, it leads him on the right path. In fact, he notices images of the construction of their base. Despite the engineers changing the pictures on Caspian’s computer, it’s not enough to dissuade him. However, the big moment that Cary and Renee have been planning for takes place. Cary buys a hammer and prepares to smash it into Renee’s arm but he can’t do it. Instead, she does it herself and when Caspian shows, he beats Cary up to a pulp. Cary leaves the house, and drives up the road, heading for the debrief. The “inflection point” is on schedule but it’s clear that it’s affecting him, as Cary admits to his boss, Pope, that he’s going to miss the kid. While he pulls over by the side of the road and cries, Caspian takes a chance with Hannah and kisses her in the parking lot. As for Ajit, he takes to the stage at a conference to discuss his work, with Pope rejecting an offer to join together. The final scene cuts us back to Chanda one more time, as he’s shown himself going about his work day, stuck in this digital hell. But with a newfound knowledge of what’s happening, what does this mean for the future?
The Episode Review
Pantheon returns with another good episode, this time combining the stories of our three protagonists in an interesting manner. The mature way David Kim and Ellen’s relationship is explored, juxtaposed against Maddie’s innocence and belief they can just patch up their differences and get together again, is a really nice way of showing there is no quick fix when it comes to problems in marriages. And of course, Ellen has moved on and that only complicates matters further. Meanwhile, Chanda’s repeated day is a digital hell, forced to work on some sort of program for Ajit, who happens to be in charge of India’s top telecoms company. Finally we have Caspian. His storyline is – at the moment at least – the most intriguing and it’s unclear exactly what he’s being prepped for. Whatever it is, it’s bound to be big.
