"Episode 1.03"

"It always goes back to the duck."
What Walter says about the duck/rabbit optical illusion drawing describes how the para-science elements of this show will consistently be reminiscent of topics in the X-Files, the vanguard of this genre of TV. As for the X-Files, its "duck" was "Night Stalker", so it's interesting to see how the SciFi genre is evolving here. This episode again springboards off of familiar science into the fetid pool of more creepy fringe science. At first I thought that the topic was going to be either about the spiritualist practice of "auto writing" (in this case auto drawing), or remote viewing. But it turned out to be an interesting concept of its own concerning iridium tainted blood and secret frequencies received in someone's brain. Note: Iridium is a "very hard, brittle...silvery-white metal of the platinum family...the second densest element and is the most corrosion-resistant metal."(Wiki) It also seems to have some radioactive properties, so whether or not Roy's body could actually withstand prolonged exposure (not to mention replication) of the iridium in his blood is a question.

Unfortunately, even though I've been a follower of the outre' science covered on the Art Bell Show for a long time, I am not familiar with the subject of "ghost frequencies". I haven't done a search on it either, or had time to read any of the other discussions on this ep as yet. Sounds plausible to me I suppose, in light of the story that Lucille Ball was receiving transmissions from the Japanese off-shore during WW2, via her dental work, heheh. I also have no idea if an instantaneously hardening aerosol-based gel that entrapped the bus riders is possible either, although something like that would be very helpful in my old lab for mounting cross-section samples!

Here are a few things that I was thinking about while viewing this ep:

* Peter gets some new layers concerning the guy who was following him. And I think that it's pretty clear that Walter knows that Pete wasn't telling the truth about that.

* I really don't get Nina yet. She's polite and helpful, most likely because she's a part of whatever Boyles' group is all about, but she's also playing it coy about most of the things she discusses with Boyles and Dunham. Not sure if she's on the side of right or wrong, but it's too soon to know that about MD as well.

* It was too unbelievable that they just walked into and out of the old Bishop house like they did, without even any snoopy neighbors noticing.

* If Dunham knows that Boyles and Nina are working together to solve The Pattern problem, why did he tell her that he was giving the disk to the NSA? Unless Nina/MD is a part of a branch of the NSA as well.

* Abrams gives us another person getting whacked by a bus again!

* I also find it hard to believe that you can drill into someones skull and brain like that as if you were just picking their teeth with a toothpick. But there is a bizarre practice called trepanation, where small holes are routinely drilled into the head for treating certain health problems. Believe it, or not.

This was another good episode, giving us more clues to inch toward getting the overall picture of what is going on with The Pattern, Walter's past (poor Roy), and Massive Dynamic. Including the final scene where we are again shown that MD is busy downloading and interpreting the data from Scott's dead head, which also begs the question of whether or not he was working for MD or someone else. Does anyone else have any ideas? :-)