#dangerously typing

As viewers, we like to individualise Zosia. It's difficult for us to remember that, at this point, that individual is simply a vessel of the hivemind like everyone else is. Even Carol keeps turning to her when talking to the hive at the dinner, even though she could easily address someone closer to her. So imagine how difficult it is for the other immune to remember that their loved ones are not their loved ones, when the hive is so good at maintaining a semblance of normality.

Everything is so carefully crafted to manipulate them. Look at Laxmi's mother and husband -- two hive vessels! -- talking to each other. Otgonbayar's daughter and Xiu Mei's husband having normal conversations with them. Ravi grinning at his nuggets and chips like any 9-year-old would (the food choices are a deliberate part of the show, of course), reacting to Laxmi's smiles and encouragement. Kusimayu positioned between her aunt and cousin, under her aunt's maternal gaze, to encourage her desire to join them.

For us humans, it is near impossible not to fall for this. To not cling to the illusion, the hope, despite knowing the reality. Our brains have a hard time grasping the concept of consciousness as it is, and we're not wired to see individuals and think of them as one being! The loved ones are behaving exactly like themselves. Maybe there's a bit of uncanny valley there, but for the most part the act is entirely convincing. So the other survivors' reactions are not only understandable, they're inevitable, and it doesn't really have to do with their cultures.

As parents, Laxmi and Otgonbayar would believe absolutely anything if it means holding onto the idea that their children are still alive. Xiu Mei can't bear to consider herself a widow when her husband is right there laughing with her. Kusimayu is a frightened teenager who just wants to be with her family.

Just like Carol, they have lost everything and everyone to the joining, but unlike her, they have been given the horribly cruel and devastatingly kind illusion that they haven't.

Manousos values rules and the old way of life, the physical and the material. He leaves money and apologies for people who don't exist anymore, but he doesn't want to acknowledge the hive's existence. He is resilient and stubborn to a fault, and that's what makes him human. He won't let them do anything for him. Carol says she's independent but she doesn't care when they give her things, because that's not surrendering to her like it is to Manousos. Her humanity lies in her art, and her grief, and her love.

So while there's a clear dichotomy in Manousos siphoning gas to retain his car, his material possession, the proof of his journey, while Carol keeps switching cars whenever she wants... Manousos setting his car on fire so they can't have that part of the world, his part of the world, while Carol waits for the voicemail to finish before she orders Gatorade... Manousos struggling to survive in the wilderness while Carol has a lavish dinner... it's just there to show that they both have their own battles to fight. Carol is trying her hardest to stay connected to her memories of Helen, to art, to herself, when she has been given anything she wants but deprived of everything that gives meaning to her life. And Manousos is doing his best to stay independent, to trust himself and his hope, because that's all he has, and everything they want to give him comes at the cost of his sense of self.

So Manousos, beaten by the physical environment, has no choice but to succumb and accept physical help. Accept that he wasn't good enough to make it. That he's never going to be able to save the world. What does it matter if they help him? They've won, they're here, and he can't do anything about it. It's not his world anymore.

Carol, starved of human connection, launches into the arms of the next best thing -- the human mask of the completely inhuman entity who tortured her; who stole Helen's life, and is now stealing hers.

The vampire has been invited over the threshold and is now draining the blood that keeps them alive, that makes them who they are.

Her relationship with Helen has mostly been communicated through showing us their moments of physical intimacy and deep connection -- Helen taking her hand in the car, handing her gum, sharing her cigarettes, making her snuggle up against her in the ice hotel. She also really cared about how her fans received her. That was evident from the ice hotel scene, and obviously reinforced in ep 4. It's always been important to her that they accepted her. She was especially disdainful of online praise, and I think because it was easier for her to tell herself they didn't actually mean it, they wouldn't say it if they weren't anonymous, etc., than when she was actually meeting real people, seeing their passion, and having that personal connection with them, however fleeting.

I've seen comparisons of the collective of fans to the hive, and I think they're very different. One was a diverse group of humans -- a suicidal woman who poured all her pain and love into crochet hats, a man who made replica swords and hyperfixated on pirate history, a woman who was so attached to one of the characters she directly told Carol she wouldn't continue reading if he was dead -- who were united by their love of Carol's work. People her art made happy, whose adoration she knows she earned even if she disparages herself. Human connection. The other is a non-human entity who loves her with an empty, unjustified love, who will continue to love her regardless of what she does, and thus whose love is meaningless.

Who is another human collective who's closer to the fans? Not the hive, the other survivors. All that remains of humanity. That's another group whose opinion Carol cares about. She could easily have met with them all on Zoom instead of flying to another country. But she wanted to see them, get to know them as real people. So while she's doing her best to get physical media delivered to them and driving an entire day to meet the closest one to her, they're all shunning her and seeing each other from behind screens. At first she assumes they're all flying -- because don't they yearn for connection like she does? -- but no, it's all online. Convenient. Artificial.

Except for the one person her message connects to. Yes, she talks to him from a screen, but she made the effort to film herself, and package the memory card for him. She didn't just email him. He then prepares to make a dangerous journey just to meet her in the flesh, taking a English-learning CD with him so they can attempt to understand each other without an intermediary of any kind, a barrier between their connection. (It's also worth noting that she was the only one who directly reached out to him on the phone herself, and made that first effort to speak his language, which sparked that organic and human exchange of insults that proved to him that she was real!)

It's no coincidence we got this shot when Carol was still reeling from the hive's intrusion in her life, stopping her from connecting to her own grief:

And then this one when Koumba was contemplating Carol's loneliness and then maybe starting to understand his own:

Carol's unedited videos provide a stark contrast to the hive's green-screened and graphic-filled videos, too. The latter is sanitised, flawless, emotionless, while the former is raw and 'dramatic' and human.

But... what he sees in that Carol Sturka isn't a stranger. She's still the woman he risked life and limb to reach, except now he's able to interact with her, hear her attempt to communicate with him in his language, and see her as she truly is, instead of being stuck staring at a sanitised version of her on a screen, hidden behind subtitles and a script. He sees her humanity. He sees her drinking, he sees the grave in her yard, and he knows that she's clinging to Zosia like a raft because he's watching her drown.

Manousos and what he represents -- the substantial, the real, the human -- is slowly replaced by the intangible, ephemeral, ever-shifting reflection of Zosia's legs on the water's surface.

We then get this shot of her in the water, in a blue bathing suit, while Carol sits to the side in a yellow/warm-toned dress.

Zosia's not beckoning Carol into the water just yet. There's still a separation between them. Carol raises her head to look at her with a slight smile, but then goes back to reading. Zosia doesn't acknowledge Carol at all.

Next, there's this.

This moment in particular feels the most dream-like of the whole montage. They're walking on the shore together. Carol closes her eyes, and the second she does, Zosia turns her back on her. Carol feels present and happy, and she's started to see Zosia as the key for that (hence Zosia wearing yellow). But the reality that Carol is oblivious/asleep to is that Zosia is distant, faceless, and carries the scars from the fight Carol has forgotten as prominently as she wears the yellow.

She opens her eyes to see the reality of Zosia walking away from her. And once again, she's alone.

Zosia doesn't look back; Carol has to chase after her.

Here they are, the pirate lady leading the walk off the deep yellow sand and into the big blue sea.

After that, they're in the water together.

...so of course Carol is fully blue in the next scene.

When they walk, she's the one taking the lead because Zosia no longer has to. But they're never side by side. Zosia is still distant.

While Carol seems to take a deep breath, looks up, looks down, and finally lets herself grin, Zosia retains the same detached smile as she looks straight ahead the entire time.

The only change in her is when Carol turns to face her with that grin and she reciprocates. It's so very different from Carol's holidays with Helen. There's no friction, which is why there are no real sparks there either, despite what Carol might be telling herself.

But why is Zosia wearing red? Why depart from the colour scheme? Well, uh.

(Typically, when you put a character in red and stick a fire behind them, there's something specific you're trying to convey.)

After everything Carol goes through, it's only human for her to cave to the devil's temptations. She comes so close to unwittingly selling her soul for moments of genuine happiness and the illusion of love. But in the end, she still has that one streak of yellow on her sweater, and that's enough.

Her voice was hoarse with need.

Beside Lucasia, Madame Asclepius looked from one patient to the other with growing curiosity. But Raban merely frowned. When her lover finally spoke, his words pierced Lucasia's battered heart.

"I'm sorry, madame. Have you mistaken me for someone you know...?"

Here's the thing. The hive isn't evil -- it truly sees Carol as someone it needs to save. And that's the problem.

Helen never tried to save Carol. Her love helped Carol save herself.

Helen agreed that Carol's books weren't the art she wanted to make -- that she could have made if she wasn't so scared of letting everyone see her -- and what a damn shame that was. But she also reminded her how much those books meant to all those fans who travelled to see her. To all those individuals, with all their different experiences, who came together to send Carol off with so much fanfare, because of how deeply her work had touched their lives.

Helen never tried to deny that the hotel made of ice was cold; that Carol was stressed over the book's ranking; that the cold made her feel like she had to pee. She acknowledged all of it, snuggled up to her, and told her to shut up and look at the sky. The moment was cold and uncomfortable, but Helen found the beauty in it, and made it theirs -- a beauty and a warmth that never would have been as special without the cold.

And then the hive comes along and kills her, and takes her memories, and thinks it knows Carol, understands her, the way Helen did. So it tries to show her; tries to save her in such a deeply personal way.

But Helen never tried to save Carol, and she wouldn't have in this situation. She would have let her grieve. She would have known better than to offer her a solution, a cure, a bandage to slap over her gaping wounds and expect it to contain them. Helen would have known better than to give Carol a grenade.

Gone is that understanding that only they could have shared. Gone is the amused voice telling her off for lighting her own cigarette first, the encouraging squeeze of a hand in the dark and the silence, the head on her shoulder keeping her on a bed made of ice as all the colours of the aurora wash over her. Gone is Raban, and in his place is someone who does remember Lucasia, in all the ways she has ever been remembered, but cannot love her like she needs to be loved.

helen 2.0, new and improved

get yourself a better wife who loves your writing and takes you somewhere that keeps you nice and warm instead of making you sit on a bed made of ice 👍