It’s my first time watching a new episode on the release day, and it’s been in my head for a while. Horror series are not my preference, but when it comes to robots, I try to watch them.1 In the year of the pandemic, and then the latter years, this is now become one of the series that I anticipate, and it sure is interesting.
Here are some thoughts that can be put in like tens of Reddit posts and YouTube comments, which I have decided to put here as a blog post. I will discuss about the episode itself, and other related topics regarding the series itself, and my preferences regarding entertainment media as a whole. When I read this again in the next 2-3 years, I may be embarassed, but promise I will still cherrish it.
Current episode
This section covers what I learned and think of the current episode. For the note, I’m discussing about Home, the fifth episode of Murder Drones, viewable on YouTube.
Cyn: a literal living doll
Whatever she is and when she’s not being weirdly adorable, she is disgusting and disturbing to the extreme. —Someone on TV Tropes
Now it is settled that that little girl right there on 1x02 is Cyn, which name has been mentioned since 1x01. But what matters most is the horror effect that she emits.
It is kind of something that looks innocent, but you should get the bad feeling from her. Just imagine: You have this robot with these creepy movements, with the very robotic, monotonous voice2. You know that you don’t want to be close to her, or something life-threatening will happen to you in the next 10 minutes3 or something. Along with the fact that she is supposed to be just a dead body (aka just an object), which then can be argued is “posessed” (by the AbsoluteSolver?), and looked like a child, it is literally a living, haunted doll. I won’t be surprised if Annabelle is set as an inspiration/reference.4
All of that, with suspense is built along the duration, from the monolouge to the parents, to the peak when she “asserted her dominance”, I think they did a good job executing the horror aspect of it.
Also, did you notice that her eyes is yellow? You can argue that it may be the tint, but her eyes looked yellower than the rest of the drones. Why are the residents didn’t notice the red flags?
What is the AbsoluteSolver?
What is it? Like, what is this “superpower” that she had, along with some number of drones? Is it even the same thing?
Someone thought that the AbSol5 is a healing program that makes the DDs self-sustainable; having their bodies repaired by itself, until it is impossible anymore, where it… tries to rebuild himselves/herselves by being some sort of monster form dubbed “Eldritch”6? It is certain that it isn’t the case, as AbSol (may) have been observed since the days of Cyn, that sort of…, able to morph into that “eldritch” form, and then infect all the drones (do now they have the AbSol?), and literally able to assert her dominance, apart from the cool superpowers such as having telekenesis. Yeah, I’m still not sure what it is.
And how does the red-eyed Russian and the purple-eyed emo got these powers? Are there differences of power between them, along with Cyn? From their parents? How does their parents get them? Or what? It seems that the answer to this can be found in the next episodes, hopefully.
A trial of Disassembly Drones
It has been raised by few armchair theorist that whatever happened on the basement seemed to be a trial of making disassembly drones. While I see some resemblance, I’m still not sure how this could happen. Who worked on these? I read that it is a work of Tessa, which may have some merit, but again, I’m still not sure.
Back to the past, but how?
The concept of going to the past as part of the investigation seemed interesting. Last time, our butler didn’t know anything of what’s going on, accusing the bird on destroying him. Reaching the end of the episode, it seems both DDs have a “revelation”, knowing that the bird is Uzi, and asking her to “get out of my head”. It’s a nice touch, a indication of succcess, hopefully.
I assumed it’s because of whatever “hacking” is done with the DDs, but I’m not sure how it works. Does the AbSol really grant her such ultimate powers, to the point you can just read anyone minds (and change them at their whim)?7 Or, is it just general hacking technique using cables and such?8 The former may make sense, but I’m not sure.
Meta
This section covers what I learned and think when watching this ongoing series, albeit I also want to cover these topics more generally.
The feeling of an anticipation of an episode
Before being hooked from these kind of entertainment, I usually play games and watch YouTube videos. Going to theathers is something I have done, but it is for the sake of “oh, this movie is popular, I should watch it to keep myself updated”. I even got a friend who likes Spider-Man and then get hyped into the latest Spiderverse movie, and also didn’t expect that there is a large enough following of Jet Lag: The Game. I’m not that kind of people who will plunge some cash to watch them, or have a television channel who have a series that I like and have new episodes from time to time9, and, boy, do I miss them.
Nowadays, I finally had that kind of experience, albeit a little bit to late, obtained from watching series such as Formula 1, to YouTube series such as… this. The feeling that you can now hop into various forums of the internet, and then talk about them with like-minded individuals, is something that people take for granted, but a relatively new to me. I may sounded like a child talking about it, but I hope you can pardon my shortcomings! I am grateful that I can at least have this feeling for once.
”The answer is left as an exercise to the reader”
Here’s one pet peeve that I got from watching Murder Drones.
Most part of the plot have these feeling that they are left for the reader to fill in with their theory. I’m not sure if it is a trope of horror movies, but I don’t fond on them. Sure, this will spark some discussion, but I really wish for a straight answer of most things, if not anything. It’s not even about building a hype by leaving people wondering what happens next, as a simple cliffhanger is enough for me to being hyped. I think being this ambiguous just introduces confusion that annoys people into not coming back.
For example, Meta Runner, the previous series from the same production house, is good enough. It has a pretty clear plot, with a nice cliffhanger to keep people hooked from one episode to the other. For a nice comparison, Murder Drones episodes always pulls me to rewatch the same scenes with the player being slowed down/paused just so you don’t miss the scattered hints, whereas I can enjoy Meta Runner (along with other videos, and even SMG4) with only a single viewing.
For me, I think it is an annoyance, having to think about it for a while to grasp the storyline. But, again, this is just a preference, but it is a thought. If anyone reads this, I wanted to know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Comedy in favour of horror?
Even though it has horror components, I have learned that this series doesn’t necessarily wants you to be “scared” on some parts. You can even read on their website that it is a “emblematic of Glitch Productions’ dark, but comedic storytelling”. I have noticed this since the pilot. Even so, I saw multiple people (and even a video essay) complaining in regards to the horror being toned down in favor of the comedy.
To me, horror media doesn’t necessarily one of my favorites, but with tone down this can be something that I can enjoy. Granted this is just my interest, but anyone who expect such thriller should lower their expectations.
Takeaways
Somehow I sucked on doing takeaways, so let’s do it simple.
Anticipating a new episode is something new for me, and I’m grateful for have it for once. Sounds trivial, especially for a series that is oriented to teenagers, but it’s something for me.
I like the episode, and possibly the series. One thing that nags me that it somehow builds anticipation in some kind of sneaky (probably unethical but that’s the entertainment landscape) way, by leaving many open questions for internet discussions to follow.
PS. Posting this post takes courage. I really didn’t want to be seen that I am addicted to this series, and writing about it still makes me flich for an occasion. That’s why I tried to distract myself, avoiding mentioning character names and such. Can’t deny that at least I’m enjoying it.
PS2. I also watched both Oppenheimer and Barbie on the release day, 19 July 2023. I don’t have much thoughts but rest assured that both of the movies are enjoyable. You should watch it.
Footnotes
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It’s because of WALL-E that I get hoocked into these movies such as sci-fi and robots. Still not liking Star Wars, though. ↩
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Compared to the other drones, which, in a perspective of a writer, is advanced enough to have human-like speech. ↩
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It wasn’t on minute 10, but you get the point. ↩
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I actually can’t compare because I don’t watch Annabelle, so it is just a thought. ↩
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I will call it AbsoluteSolver as AbSol because I like it that way. ↩
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I guess after killing multiple WDs, J didn’t come back, until Tessa just bring a new J with her, so that wasn’t hold that much water. ↩
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Come to think about it, along with the overarching abilities that the AbSol had, it may be make sense. pls nerf? ↩
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The DDs have errors on their screens. Anyone who knows about breaking systems knows that there will be side effects when doing so. ↩
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The channels on my local TV only does reruns of old series. There are some series (read: sinetron) for the grownups but obviously is not what I like. ↩