Hey everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m excited to be returning to The Big O, and once again exploring the world of Paradigm with Roger and his companions. Episode four actually shed at least a glimmer of light on some of this show’s core mysteries, as Roger’s search for a missing author led him to first encounter the mysterious Schwartzwald, and then ultimately discover both an ancient cityscape and a half-formed Megadeus in the bowels of Paradigm’s subway system. With even the subway system itself having long fallen into disrepair, it is clear that just as Paradigm’s residents are building new lives on a bed of buried memories, so too is the city itself constructed on the forgotten bones of an older world. Questions of memory and identity are baked into the core of The Big O, and whether this episode continues to tug at the threads of those mysteries, or simply offers another stylish and exciting neo-noir adventure, I’m happy to dive back into this excellent production. Let’s see what Paradigm holds in store!
Episode 5
I still don’t really get this opening song. They certainly achieved the effect of sounding like an early Queen or The Kinks song, but that style of music seems like an odd fit for The Big O’s dramatic tone
I think I see what my issue is. While the actual show The Big O is ninety percent slow-burning detective work, ten percent robot punching, this opening acts as if the whole show is robot punching, which feels discordant
Wonderful opening shots, as we see the fraying top of a structure with gargoyles on each side, all in shadow and obscured by mist, as a great horn sounds off in the distance. I’m reminded of The Lighthouse’s style of horror, and its terrific use of a persistent fog horn in its sound design
That shot is followed by another evocative shot, of street lights fading into an overwhelming black mass. Strong use of negative space here, with only the slight ovular shapes of the lights breaking the darkness
A high-ranking military police officer is being transported to headquarters, and sneering at the poor and impoverished citizens along the way
“Just keep going along the river.” “But sir, the fog…” That, followed by an immediate cut to a doll floating in the river with arm outstretched, tells me we’re getting something of a horror episode this time? The Big O generally contains at least a dash of horror in its cityscapes and monsters, and it certainly has the control of tone necessary to pull horror off, so I’m excited
“You don’t believe in those rumors, do you?” The Big O’s script is frankly a bit more clumsy than its keen visual storytelling, at least in translation
A bizarre glowing beast emerges out of the fog, and then somehow appears before them once again when they turn to flee. This show has wonderful creature designs; they often feel significantly less human in their design than other giant robots, in keeping with their more kaiju-style dramatic purpose
“Bring Back My Ghost”
“When someone comes to me wearing an expensive suit, they tend to have an attitude to match. And lawyers are the worst.” I figured this was just Roger’s internal monologue, and was amused to hear his guest actually respond to this extremely blunt description
Mr. Frasier, apparently. Some nice symmetrical layouts for this confrontation, though at this point I’ve come to expect a degree of elegance in basically all of this show’s layouts. It’s an elegant show!
He’s actually acting in service of his mother, Melissa Frasier, who’s celebrating her 75th birthday, and seems to control the city’s leading law firm. I wonder if she’ll have more insights on the old city
The incredibly tall, narrow windows of Roger’s apartment create a sense of congruity between it and the city; he’s surrounded by towers that rise to the heavens whether he’s inside or out
Hah, I love the design of the dome he’s leaving, with a tower embedded in it that leans to the right, as if it’s a clock’s hand
He visits “East Town,” which seems to be the city’s wealthy district. Noting the “perpetual sunshine” here makes for a clear contrast between the light as wealth and safety, versus the darkness as poverty and danger
Oh man, I absolutely love this shot aiming down at his car, where the dome’s ceiling is reflected on his windshield, making it look like the dome is a cage that’s been fitted down over him
Roger took this job because he “values women and the elderly.” Sure, Roger
Melissa’s son Bonnie apparently joined the military police. Melissa herself has contracted an illness which has made her blind, but also able to “sense” other things. Perhaps a thematic dovetail there, in that Melissa is now blind to the distinction between light and darkness in this city
And now Rick, the son who actually recruited Roger, is telling him that Bonnie is already gone
More neat use of reflections, as Roger’s car captures the tranquility of this dome and reflects it in black. He literally reflects the darkness under the surface
Melissa goes on about Bonnie’s “sense of justice,” making it seem likely that Rick killed him to shut him up
Interesting. There were riots a year ago, when the government was attempting more land buyouts in order to expand the domes. Further emphasizing the class-based nature of this conflict, with the domes standing in for the usual process of buyouts and gentrification
The death of the young officer Bonnie apparently brought peace
Roger checks in with his usual contact, who informs him at least three high-ranking military police officers, who are essentially Paradigm’s enforcers, were all taken by the fog
The looming city blocks and lonely lights along the riverside are such naturally effective horror tools. And the fog works so well with the discordant angles of the city – lights and shapes emerge from the fog at strange and inexplicable angles, implying a darker world within
“We old folks have to teach you that the sun will never rise over this city again.” Once again, sunlight tied to honesty and prosperity
Looks like Bonnie himself has been the one assassinating the military police officers who were initially responsible for silencing him
Bonnie claims he’s a ghost, but then gets smacked in the face with a gun, so
Unsurprisingly, Bonnie is conveyed through almost total shadow, with even a sort of hand-like shadow obscuring his face. Having been cast out of the light of this city for his attempts to embody genuine justice, he now lashes out from the shadows
Major Dastun actually does a very brave job of attempting to fight the ghost with his men, but you kinda need a Megadeus to fight a Megadeus. It’s a weird quirk of this show’s narrative design; merging detective drama with giant robot battles means that at a certain point, the scale of your drama is going to shift in a way that might not feel totally organic, and at the very least will result in forces like the police feeling pretty damn ineffectual
Oh, wonderful. This battle exemplifies this episode’s consistent clashes of light and darkness, and even calls back to the very first shots of street lights in the darkness. The Big O is represented as a darker shadow against the grey of the fog, with only the whites of its piercing eyes able to genuinely cut through the darkness
Another great use of the darkness here, where we can only see the Megadeus in short bursts of light, whenever it’s lit by the fires of explosions striking against its surface
Unsurprisingly, the “ghost” was actually a projection on the fog by another Megadeus
With his task complete and identity discovered, Bonnie at last appears outside of shadow, vulnerable and tired
It seems Bonnie was actually working in service of some other force – he was saved by a Megadeus, and subsequently implanted with the knowledge to operate it. And if there’s a force here that can create memories, perhaps that’s the same force that stole them away
And in the end, Bonnie and Rick embrace without hesitation. The two halves in each of them – Rick’s “sunlit wealth” and darker role in the city, against Bonnie’s sincere moral perspective and vengeful path
And Done
That episode was terrific! In terms of episodic vignettes, this was likely the most tightly written story so far, with a thematic emphasis on light and darkness that was naturally, beautifully illustrated through the show’s fantastic cinematography. Using light and dark as metaphors for good and evil, or truth and deception, is obviously a familiar tactic, but this episode was able to not just visually realize its contrasts in a variety of interesting ways, but also question and complicate its own moral perspective. Rather than using the initial binary of light and darkness to define what is actually good and evil, the show treated them as an alluring but ultimately simplistic view of morality, with much of what is good in Paradigm resigned to the darkness, and much of what is evil hiding in the light. A standout episode for The Big O, and perhaps the strongest demonstration yet of its intelligent, aesthetically thrilling fusion of visual and narrative design.
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