Episode 9
2:15 – “If you want to be free of suffering, you should believe in God.” – Yeeeeeeeeeeeep. Either live in the divided pain of the real world, or join the sea of free information
2:47 – “A strange craft…” Wait, aliens? ALIENS??? [RES ignored duplicate image]
4:40 – Seriously, aliens, you guys. You guys, aliens. [RES ignored duplicate image]
5:54 – “Named as a member of this secret organization blah blah” This episode is doing SERIOUS DAMAGE to my thesis
7:27 – “If a being is remembered, that proves it’s part of a record” – how can I even articulate how lines support my interpretation of how identity works on the Wired when they just introduced ALIENS? [RES ignored duplicate image]
9:16 – Oshit the chip’s got the Knights symbol shit gonna get craaaaay
10:02 – Why am I watching a slideshow about dolphins WHAT IS THIS SHOW DOING
11:17 – The funny thing is, I find the interwoven stuff where Lain’s actively trying to fight her way out from Lain of the Wired’s shadow fascinating. That disconnect between very good thriller and very clumsy philosophical lecture is coming up again
12:28 – “I don’t know if there are other Lains in there… but I’m the only one with a body in the real world.” Yesss, Lain. Fight it! Fight!
12:58 – Hm. They say the other Lain has only appeared in the club, but what about Lain in the intersection? What about Lain in the sky? Were all those just in our Lain’s head?
15:51 – “Fighting to make the only truth there is into reality.” Because it’s not like there’s any way to manipulate information or “truth” on the internet. So yeah, nice try, Seele
17:13 – It is kind of weird to hear them discussing the internet as something that had to be painstakingly constructed one breakthrough at a time. It feels pretty goddamn indestructible and ever-present to me right now…
19:00 – Finally a little information about Lain’s backstory. So it looks like the G-Men did indeed set up this situation to basically quarantine her – why her “father” destroyed that quarantine by introducing the Wired into her life, I can’t say
And Done
So is that the Wired remnant of the guy who was attempting to add some kind of singularity protocol to the 7th generation?
Anyway. This episode had a ton of exposition that I frankly could have done without – the show itself has explained basically everything that is relevant to either Lain’s story or the themes, and it’s not like talking about the history of the internet makes the sci-fi elements of this show any more tangible. I honestly don’t know what value any of that history lesson really provided… personally, I’m far more interested in Lain’s process of defining her own personality almost in opposition to Lain of the Wired, as well as the actual experiment that resulted in Lain being who she is. Also, they brought up aliens, and then an alien appeared in her room, and then they never mentioned it again. Weird.
That said, the stuff that was actually relevant to the story in this episode was great, as were the two previous ones – I’m very impressed with how well they’re maintaining a coherent thriller storyline despite the ambiguity of everything we’re being shown. And I actually like Lain as a character now, whereas I felt she was more of a prop working in service of the ideas earlier on. So I’m excited to see this one through.