There was a lot of new detail this week, not all of it convincing. The recent episodes have become a little farfetched, even more than the ‘X-Files’ were. I would prefer they stayed locked in reality.
Kurt Mendel watches, what I assume were, pornographic videos, with what I also assume contained subliminal messages (was that why we heard the clicks?) and a Babylonian symbol. He is brainwashed? (More later on this) into visiting the town of Lost Hills, Texas pop.77.
Just to add here, that I think Kurt is a sad case, phoning Angela when his woman went home. He has really gone down in my estimation.
Firstly, I didn’t understand Kurt’s compulsion. It didn’t seem like brainwashing. He didn’t believe without question, in fact he had a philosophical argument with Chuck, and changed his allegiance when Chuck won. If the Sentient had control of him, I doubt that a rational argument would break him free of the control, and if he really believed, the clues were all there for him to work out himself (the Babylonian symbol, the Chaldean’s Hotel, the machine of precious metals.)
Historical Background to Chaldeans
That brings me to my second grudge. None of that is even in the bible. It certainly has nothing to do with 'Genesis', and the 'Tower of Babylon.' Chuck admitted to making some of it up.
It reminded me of a story that someone in my family used to tell. In the days before television, people would get entertained by walking in the park, listening to the various speakers on platforms at each corner (Communists, Fascists, Catholics, Protestants, Votes for Women.) Someone they knew, who was particularly adept at debating, would listen to a speaker for a while, and then move along and use all of their best arguments against one of the others. He would come back every week and pick on a different speaker, he had no particular religious or political bias, just liked to beat them all.
So even if it were in the bible, Chuck did pretty well, to read the whole bible in that afternoon, and then to pick out all the salient points he required to convince Kurt. Plus make all the historical connections that aren't in the Bible. And this before he had even seen the 'weather machine' or the town. He is one clever man, most impressive!
Is this supposed to mean that Sentients have visited Earth before, in biblical times? Are we going to open the 'Ark of the Covenant' next? Was the 'Tower of Babel' a similar machine? I don't know where this is going, but it would mean that Dr. Chandra didn't create them.
And my third problem, I asked in another thread “Were the Sentients purely code?†Now they seem to be able to take physical form. How can that be? I’m going to continue this discussion
here
Meanwhile, the weather is different. In the previous timeline it was raining all week, now there is a drought. Sarah discovers the usual weather is centred on Lost Hills.
Firstly, we cannot even suggest a way of doing this, let alone build a machine. If the Sentients can do this, there is no telling what else they can do.
Secondly, why is the timeline different? This suggests that the machine was not built last time around. Why not?
Paige tells a shrink about Chuck. When she gets a phone call about her mother having a heart attack, Chuck knows that it is later discovered to be acid reflux and asks her to trust him. But the call to let her know it isn’t a heart attack comes quite late. Paige now believes Chuck and Neil are from the future, but I think Chuck took quite a risk here. He bet everything on the timeline staying the same (when it frequently does not) and didn’t even have all his facts about the timing of the phone call correct.
Angela remembers that this is the time when her father made a hit and run while drunk driving to see his mistress. She was forced to cover for him, but never discovered the victim, even after searching hospital admissions. This time she decides to drive him, and discovers that it was a horse that he hit. She raves at her dad about decisions he hasn’t even decided to make yet, so I assume that he now thinks she is nuts.
