Reverie
“Blue is the Coldest Color” (Episode 104)
June 20, 2018
Alright, as you sit down to read this I know that you are aware that this recap comes a week late but if you are reading this you probably lead a very busy life as well and needed to make sure when you caught up, you got all the details. Nevertheless the recap is here – all 6 billion words of it. Each episode of Reverie is coming with new twists and turns, more reasons for the Reverie program and what it can do.
In episode 3 we got to see how the program can bring out things that the users have suppressed. We also learn about how the program is able to help others overcome things. During episode 4, we will see more of this. So with that spoilers ahead and we are on our way.
Apertus.
This episode begins exactly where episode 3 leaves off — Mara standing in her sister’s home to only realize she isn’t actually there. She’s in the middle of the road and headlights are headed straight for her. Luckily, someone is there to push her out of the way before she is hit. Mara is very freaked out, she isn’t sure if where she is now — is this real or is it a derealization. The gentleman who saves her asks if she is alright and uses her name when asking; Mara is even more confused as to how this man knows her name. The man is Oliver Hill (Jon Fletcher) and we will learn more about him soon, he asks Mara to get something to eat with him.
Now at a diner we learn that Oliver Hill started Onira Tech, Mara tries to correct him saying Alexis Barrett started Onira Tech. Well apparently OT started as a duo and something changed before Mara was brought in. Alexis was the computer and Oliver was the brain when creating Reverie. While Oliver is talking, Mara is noticing behavioral things about him. –From what I can tell she is wondering what his deal is and why did he need to find her…Mara, me too girl, me too.– We have now learned that Oliver was the original person that worked in the Reverie 2.0 program.
Oliver is there to warn Mara. She’s in danger. –What kind of danger!?!– He knows that the derealizations get worse, trying to figure out what is real and what isn’t. He warns her that the medication that Paul has given Mara isn’t going to help, it’s just going to get worse. Mara can’t handle what Oliver is telling her and gets up to leave. Only before Oliver can stop her and ask if she has ever heard of him. Onira Tech is pretending that Oliver never existed because then they don’t have to deal with what has been saying is wrong with the program. They can continue to work with it.
–Who is concerned? I’m concerned, why ignore the problems? This could be horrible. What if someone were to get stuck in a derealization and never get out. Oh the questions I have right now–
Now at Onira Tech there is a security change, everyone needs new security cards. Onira Tech has been robbed and found out that a BCI, tablet, and injector have gone missing. –Concerning–
In a home we see a man we haven’t been introduced to before. He’s about to start up his Reverie tablet when there is a knock at the door. A little boy, Quincy, is there to deliver a package, which holds a baseball card. The man (Glenn (David Rogers)) gives Quincy the baseball card. Through conversations with Quincy’s mom we can assume that Glenn doesn’t go outdoors.
Back inside Glenn enters Reverie, he begins in the library where all Reverie’s begin and on the other side of the door and he is hit with a blast of sunlight. He blocks his eyes, and as a truck is backing up to the building he is standing outside of he yells defeatedly.
We return to Onira Tech to find Mara doing research in her office. She searching for more information about Oliver Hill. Mara asks Dylan about Oliver Hill and he doesn’t share any valuable information to help Mara. Before she can return to her computer search, Paul and Charlie storm into her office, there is an unregistered BCI in the Reverie program. They have found their thief and now they need Mara to go in and ID the person so they can find him.
There is hesitation before saying Apertus.
In the library Mara counts the doors, there are 4 of them, Glenn has been busy. She tries different doors in hopes of finding the user. The first two doors she doesn’t find him, but the third she has more luck. Mara finds Glenn stealing a key card from the security guard. Glenn thinks that Mara is one of the Avatars that he created in his Reverie. She tells him that he needs to return the thousands of dollars of equipment he has stolen from Onira Tech, before she can say more, Glenn says exitus.
Mara immediately goes to Paul’s office where he is in hope that she got the information they needed. She believes she does. With the help of Dylan they work to narrow down the company that Glenn was inside of when Mara found him. Turns out they were at a pharmaceutical companies warehouse, still confused as to why Glenn would be there. One of the BCI techs sold the stolen BCI on a dark Reverie website. Mara asks what Charlie means by “dark Reverie” and Paul goes on to explain.
Onira Tech created rules for the Reverie program that there are only so many things the avatars are able to do. There are users who believe inside the virtual program there shouldn’t be any sort limits to what they can do. –Limits are made for a reason. Just saying without them, VR or not, it all could be a disaster.– Mara tries to understand what she was just told which includes having to go back into the Reverie to gather more information.
Mara is pissed so she follows Charlie out of Paul’s office and begins interrogating him. She doesn’t understand why the information they now have isn’t being shared with the police. Mara wants to know if there is a secret that Charlie is keeping, she finds out everything after they happen (derealizations and other side effects) and wants to know if there is anything else he isn’t telling her. –AND THEN…HOLD THE PHONE…– Mara asks Charlie about Oliver Hill.
Charlie immediately wants to know how she knows that name. Mara explains her derealization the night before, you can tell that Charlie is concerned and pissed. She explains that Oliver was there to save her life because she woke up in the middle of the road. –The first question Charlie asks is that Oliver was following Mara…well you know Charlie you should probably be asking if she is alright. Just saying…–
“You haven’t been taking medication, so you’ve been encouraging the derealization?” Lexi is asking Mara, now in her office. Lexi wants Mara to get back on the medication regimen, this is why the episode from the night before happened. Mara pushes back and questions Lexi because of what Oliver told her at the diner.
–Cue eye roll and an annoyed Lexi.– —-Also step off Lexi, I’m still on your team but if roles were reversed you would have the same questions.–
Mara drills Lexi and Charlie about Oliver, she wants answers about why he isn’t there anymore. Of course Charlie comes to the defense of Onira Tech, he apparently wasn’t stable even before he began testing Reverie. Mara isn’t fully buying it. She asks them about the release of Reverie 2.0 to the public, in which Charlie responds that they wouldn’t be releasing it for years and brings up that Oliver is trying to manipulate her.
“I’m fine, he’s dangerous…that’s it?” Mara asks. To which Charlie responds yes, and then questions who is being manipulated and she exits. Lexi can tell that Mara doesn’t believe it, Charlie reminds Lexi that they aren’t sharing the whole truth with Mara. “Tell her the truth and she’ll believe us.” –Yes, Lexi and Charlie let’s share the truth so we can all be in the same circle. Secrets don’t make or keep friends.–
–I would just like to note that Lexi seems pretty affected by this conversation. There must be something more here than what the information we have been given. I wonder how long it will be before we get answer.–
Mara is working on her computer in her office, you can see her frustration. Charlie walks and starts a conversation with “How long have we known each other…” –sounds like it’s time for a heart to heart.– Charlie throws at Mara on whether he would put her life in jeopardy and if she trusts him. Mara has a hard time believing all of this is all to be expected. What she went through the night before with the derealization and waking up in the street was a lot for her to handle. She says she trusts Charlie but, I’m not sure if I believe her. –I don’t trust him.–
In the meantime Mara has found Glenn the thief. With using a fountain Mara saw in the Reverie and the help of Dylan they were able to find the apartment complex where Glenn lives. Before they get to the door Quincy and his Mom stop Charlie and Mara. Quincy’s Mom gives Mara and Charlie and Mara some tips about Mara about some of Glenn’s compulsions in order to be able to talk with him.
When they knock on his door Glenn threatens to call the police, Mara bites back. Glenn won’t talk to Charlie but he will talk to Mara. In the first few seconds of Mara being in his apartment we quickly learn that Glenn is obsessive compulsive — everything is just so. To connect with Glenn, Mara does what she does best and uses a story from her childhood to find common ground. Mara tries to ask Glenn about his interest with MRL — the company from his Reverie — but before she can make any headway Charlie knocks on the window. This causes Glenn to go into a tizzy and grab his Reverie tablet and go all apertus and just like a sack of potatoes, Glenn falls to the floor. Charlie has Glenn moved to Onira Tech so they can monitor him.
Lexi thinks just by bringing Glenn to Onira Tech when he comes out of the Reverie they’ll be able to turn him over to the police. Mara disagrees, not with his compulsions he’ll never survive. “You’ll reap what you sow,” is Lexi’s response. –Lexi has been in a bad mood since Oliver Hill’s name was brought into the picture and it’s only getting worse.–
Mara goes to talk to Paul about Glenn and other things. Mara knows she needs to get Glenn out but she’s hesitant. Paul questions her if it has to do with what Oliver Hill told her about continuously going into the program. Mara is questioning whether she will go crazy or not. Paul, being Mara’s friend, breaks the rules and shows Mara data from Lexi, Paul, and Mara’s time in 2.0 and outside of 2.0 then he show’s Mara Oliver’s scans which look to what any normal person can gather are a little bit off the charts. Oliver’s baseline is spikey and during 2.0 it’s all over the place. Paul goes on to explain that the program doesn’t create issues — it finds them and uncovers them for the user. Mara is having a hard time believing Paul, she has an information overload happening. –No one blames you Mara.–
After a lightbulb moment Mara knows what Glenn is doing in his Reverie. Apertus. Glenn is trying to go outside and face the sunlight, he can’t do it and closes the door into the Reverie Library. Mara is waiting for him, she states that he isn’t trying to steal something for himself but for Quincy and asks why. Glenn explains to her that in normal speak Quincy’s lungs suck and doctors don’t know why and MRL has a clinical trial that could potentially help him. Due to a lottery system, Quincy wasn’t pick and could die without it. The only thing Glenn has to be able to do is be able to go outside but that is too much for him even in the Reverie.
“Then Glenn, it’s time to leave…” Mara replies. Glenn goes onto explain his life, that the only thing he has he sees through a window. He talks about watching Quincy and his mom everyday through the window, watching Quincy grow up. He watched their lives through diagnosis and Quincy becoming sicker, they are the best part of his life and he won’t just watch him die. Mara is sympathetic to the situation and may have a solution. Exitus. Storming into Charlie’s office Mara is ready to come up with a plan to get Glenn out of his Reverie but she won’t be able to do it alone. Onira Tech is going to have to help Glenn rob MRL.
Charlie meets with Monica Shaw who is looking for information on the thief but Charlie comes with another angle. He goes on to tell her about the dark Reverie sites and that Glenn has a lot of knowledge of them and is able to help gain the access they need to shut them down. Charlie explains that they will need Monica Shaw’s help to pull off the robbery.
In the meantime Mara is in the Reverie with Glenn going over the game plan for how this is all going to go down. What time she needs to pick him up, where they need to be, and when. Glenn has it meticulously planned out. They go threw the exact execution of the heist and Mara helps him through the areas where he will struggle. –sunlight, blue tiles in the building, etc.– Mara explains to Glenn that his brain isn’t right in thinking that the sunlight is wrong and bad — he needs to override it. All his brain needs is a distraction, she picks up a dice and hands it to him telling him to focus on rolling the dice between his fingers not the sunlight. He makes great progress but can’t make it all the way across the parking lot. She gives him another solution to try, “think about Quincy.” Sounds easy enough, you can even see a glimmer of hope for Glenn. –We will have to wait and see if this works or not.–
DUN DUN DUN.
Charlie is walking up to a man who is opening his apartment and has his back to us. –We know who it is, cause like duh.– “Oliver.” Oliver tries to make conversation seems innocent at first and then he turns the table. Charlie isn’t having it, things must have gotten pretty ugly during the fall out stages of Oliver leaving the company. Charlie is also upset because of what Oliver shared with Mara and the struggles he has put her through. In Oliver’s mind he is just trying to save her. –Is he tho? Is it too late? Is he wrong? How will this end?– Charlie wants to know what Oliver wants, Oliver wants back into the company. To Charlie there is no world where Oliver will ever be in the company, Oliver isn’t okay with this answer. He says it will be different this time. Charlie isn’t having it. Charlie tells Oliver to take care of himself (his meds) and to stay away from everyone at Onira Tech. You can see Oliver is not happy with this. –Last frame of Oliver you see him with a mischievous grin on his face. He’s planning … something, but we don’t know what or how long we have to wait. This show has so many twists that I want to answers to, forever on the line waiting for all the answers.–
It’s 5:30 am and Mara is outside Glenn’s apartment complex waiting for him, he walks up and gets in the bronco. After asking him if he is for certain he wants to do this she hands him a dice. Now in a parking ramp Mara asks him if he is okay, he’s not but she reassures him he can do this. As an added piece of help Mara gives Glenn an earwig so they can be in communication. In he goes. With the help of the earwig Mara is able to help talk him through the his obstacles.
He’s got the guards badge and he is able to get the medicine. Last obstacle getting out of the building and beating the sunlight. –YOU’VE GOT THIS GLENN– Staring at the dice he walk out of the building and down the steps, the further he gets you can tell he wants to turn and run into the building. The we see flashes of Quincy and his mom and he can do this, one foot after the other. He does it he climbs into the bronco where Mara is waiting. Charlie walks up to the passenger window. –Ruh-roh– He doesn’t know whats wrong. –Well Glenn you weren’t actually going to get away with this but, there is a catch.–
Back in the parking ramp Glenn and Mara meet with Monica Shaw and the CEO of MRL. Mara explains what she had set up with MRL — that they were going to use the Reverie program to show how someone can use the program to breach their security and then actually test their plan. The CEO is shocked that Glenn was able to get passed every single one of their security measures. Instead of paying Monica Shaw for the experiment, she told him of another way that he could pay them for the service.
Next thing we know, Quincy’s Mom is at Glenn’s door and he is telling her that because of the success he had, MRL is giving Quincy a spot in the trial. She leaps into Glenn’s arms and hugs him, she hugs her back. She wants to go tell Quincy and Glenn offers to go with her. With the dice in hand he heads out the door with her. Glenn has made it one step closer into tricking his brain.
Change of scene we are now seeing a vehicle with the security guard from early on in the episode pulling up to Oliver Hill who is going by Alex. The security guard is confirming the amount of money “Alex” wants for a BCI, he ask him what he even wants it for. “To live out my fantasies, get the girl that got away,” is the last thing Alex/Oliver says before we see Lexi waiting for Mara.
–Is this why Lexi got so upset that any mention of Oliver, was there more to it than just business partners?–
Mara enters her office, Lexi is there to assure Mara of her job well done. Lexi just starts word vomiting to Mara about the first time she met Oliver. They connected over the brain and Lexi’s idea for Reverie and how together they could create things. “We fit,” Lexi says. Mara calls Lexi on it that they were in love. Lexi goes on to explain that Oliver was unstable but aside from that, he was another person he was funny and relatable and he accepted Lexi and understood. Of course that could only last for so long before things got worse for Oliver. Lexi tells Mara about how Oliver was trying to blame to program for his problems, when Lexi didn’t agree with him that night he tried to set her house on fire.
Mara is shocked to hear this and moves to be closer to Lexi in the room. Mara asks if they had him arrested. They didn’t they just tried to bury it by firing him, paying him off, and shutting down his BCI. Mara tries to encourage that this wasn’t her fault. Lexi doesn’t want to be known as the girl who got sucked into this, she would never let this be what defines her — Reverie is too important. Lexi knows that all of the investors and higher ups in Onira Tech are waiting for her to screw up so they can find someone else. Before she leaves Lexi asks Mara to pretend this never happened and of course, Mara plays along.
Exitus.
All my feelings and some other things:
With each episode so far we have seen a new way that the Reverie program can be used. Just how many are there? I’m sure there are more. I enjoyed this episode because I believe the way Glenn used it would help so many. A) if this were actually a thing and B) if Glenn hadn’t stolen it. Being able to overcome a challenge he has been fighting with probably most of his life is amazing. The way he went about it not so much. Not to mention he only fought these things because he wanted to help his neighbor who was sick. Who doesn’t love part of Glenn’s story, oh and the fact that he is in love with Quincy’s mom.
Alright, now that that is out of the way, onto bigger things that came to light in this episode. Oliver Hill and all the cobwebs of Onira Tech secrets. With any big new gadget or company I feel like there is usually a fall out between those who started it up, this is the case with Oliver and Lexi. At the beginning of the episode I wasn’t expecting Oliver and Lexi to have been in a relationship but totally made sense to why Lexi was the way she was when the end of the episode came around. I wish Charlie would have been upfront with Mara when her issues with the derealizations came about, she had the right to know about Oliver from the beginning. But what do I know, I guess it’s good that she knows now.
I’m not sure if I will ever be comfortable with the presence of Monica Shaw. She may be an investor and Onira Tech may have needed the Department of Defense to help fund the technology but I firmly believe Monica Shaw is up to no good when it comes to the program. I also feel the need whenever I am talking about her she demands me to use her entire name, Monica Shaw. I can see the goods and the bads of a program like Reverie and I’m not sure this is something the D.O.D should have it’s hands on.
Now I haven’t fully talked about this during my feelings but I would like to touch on the amazing acting that takes place on Reverie. Each of the actors brings a different piece to the puzzle and balances each other so well.
- Sarah Shahi (Mara) bring empathy and charisma, she’s able to relate to anyone she has met on the show. The dialect Sarah uses helps viewers connect with her; most of the time I’m watching her, I want to sit down with her and have a conversation.
- Jessica Lu (Alexis/Lexi) brings some rigidness but she also brings a level of genius to the table. She also has a hard time relating to people so she’s pretty rough around the edges. Therefore, she carries herself in way that makes her unapproachable. From Twitter interactions, Jessica has spoken of how getting into character as Lexi can be hard. I am here to say that you are doing an amazing job as Lexi and I can’t wait to see more.
I will touch on everyone a bit as we continue through the season. I love Sarah and Jessica in their roles as Mara and Alexis. Off screen they are friends– each week Jessica goes over to Sarah’s to hang out with her family and live Tweet. I love that. On screen they are slowly becoming friends, each week they are peeling away each others layers and becoming closer. I can’t wait to see more of this development.