SDS9 – S5E10: "Rapture" (Patreon)

This episode was recorded on February 9, 2025.

We recap "Rapture," where we discuss mental health, bodily autonomy, secret information, and organizing.

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Transcript

[Note: Transcripts are autogenerated and may contain errors.]

This is Southpaw Deep Space Nine Season 5. We are your hosts, Scott and Sam. On this stardate, February 9, 2025, we are discussing “Rapture.” Just from the title, you could tell it's going to be a religious episode. So Scott, can you tell us about this episode?

I will. And I do want to say that I will talk about some mental health stuff in this episode. So just giving you an aside.

Hmm. That's interesting because we didn't discuss this beforehand, but I had some of those reads too, but I'm curious to hear what you bring up.

Yeah. I prefer to, you know, to give a little fourth wall. I prefer for you and I to do as little, um, preamble as possible. And I started off last episode saying secret cities are pretty cool, right?

Yes.

Like hidden cities. And they can be, but also people use them for really foul things as well. And there is sometimes mental health stuff that goes into the ideas of hidden cities and hidden ideas. We'll talk about that a little bit later. Ben? Kira and Jadzia are checking out a 20,000-year-old painting.

It's the lost Bajoran city of Bahala, and no one knows if it was real or it was lost or what have you. 20,000 years is a lot of years. The only proof that it ever even existed is this painting. Jadzia is a little underwhelmed. Kira and Ben are whelmed.

They were to Young Justice, and they are in awe of this incredible thing. Ben pulled some strings because, as we know, he's the emissary to the prophets, the space beings that most Bajorans revere in their faith. The different types of Bajoran faith, we're slowly learning a little bit of it,

but it still seems that they have a universal faith for the most part. Ben sees a Bantaka spire in the painting, and he believes this might hold some information, some schematics, some ideas of the city. But there's missing info, and he gets a little drawn in.

And he is like, wait, well, there's two sides of this that he can't see. Figuring out the location is going to be hard. So he's just letting Bajoran deputies scan it. They put it to analyze. Kira recalls a prophecy. Only someone touched by the prophets can find the city. And Jezi's like, no pressure whatsoever.

But again, we're talking about predetermination, manifest destiny, people being special, and Ben starts getting really into it. And he studies the painting and he does that thing, enhance, enhance, which we can't do really, but you can in the future. And he just tries to,

and he tries to figure out some stuff and he finds some faint markings that are reflected in a waterfall in the painting. So he does this 3D model of the painting and the spires and puts it in the holosuite and just hangs out there for hours until it's very late.

By the time it's closing time for the bar, and Quark is like, you should get out of here or hang out in more fun stuff. And he's trying to save the data. He gets a plasma blast. Quark calls the space paramedics and laments that Ben should have just gone to a pleasure maze. In the infirmary,

Quark gets chided, which is a word I use a lot here, by Odo for negligence, and he gets arrested, even though it was an accident, but there's a minor technical difficulty, and right now the holosuites are not up to code. The sensors are

blighted as we know rom was the main you know engineer for quarks and now he is working with o'brien no damage has been done to ben but his synapses are overloaded um there's like some weird synaptic activity diagnosed with post neural shock syndrome he is warned that there's going to be you know, powerful stimuli.

He's going to feel intense for a bit. And he's given three days of restrictive duty. And back in the Cisco house, Jake makes like some special food that Ben feels really happy about. And I think it was called leaked. I don't remember. Um, Jake points out that Cassidy Yates,

who's like Ben's kind of partner or girlfriend who was arrested for helping the McKee a few months ago, is coming back. Ben seems a little distracted. Ben finds out that Bajor is going to sign on to the Federation and they've been accepted and progress. Because remember,

it's now been five years that they've been here post-occupation by the Cardassians and a lot of the idea of this was that the Federation was almost acting as an NGO to get Bajor to be part of it. And Ben finds out that that's happening, but he's just transfixed. He's hyper-focused, perseverating, if you will. They have a party.

Kira notes that many years ago she'd be against this, but because she knows Ben, she believes him, and she's a resistance fighter all of a sudden wanting to join the Space United Nations. But where's Ben? Kira finds Ben. He's motionless, focused in the holosuite. And Kira snaps him out of it.

And Ben is frustrated because it seems that he was having a vision or maybe a hallucination. I don't know. He was in Bahala. He could smell the scents. He could taste the world. He could feel the incense warming. He had a patempha. which in the Bajoran faith is a sacred vision, and he is content.

I'm going to use a word. He's almost manic, and he sees the future and everything, and he's just feeling a lot. Kai Wen, who is the religious leader of Bajor, is coming because... of all that's going on with the signing.

And he's going to, he was just going to meditate on the spire and try to find the secret city. Kaiwen comes and she's passive aggressive and she's ready to celebrate the signing. As she's like, Oh, it is five years now, post-occupation. Not everyone is ready for this. Kiwin just says that she will go about the prophet's will,

but she tends to go with the prophet's will that benefits her. Ben just keeps on pondering the cube. Cassidy comes to see Ben. He's in a trance, heightened, dynamic mental situation, and kisses Cassidy passionately. Cassidy... Wasn't sure if he would be happy to see her considering how they left off. He is very happy and then invites her,

you know, a little erratically to go to Bajor to go through some cliffs and caves, a little hike date, if you will. And they find a wall. And Ben melts the rock of the wall with a phaser. opens up, there's a cavern, and inside, wouldn't you know it, the long-lost ruins of Bahala, complete with that Bantaka Spire.

On Deep Space Nine, Kira, Odo, Worf, they argue over how they're going to house the brass for the signing ceremony. Kira is distracted, because all she can think about is Bahala and that It's a very prophetic thing. It's an emissarial thing. It's powerful. And now Kai Wen wants to speak to Kira. Kai Wen is actually...

embarrassed for ever doubting ben because she's been antagonist and antagonist to him in the past and doubting his emissary ability hopes for forgiveness she believes now that ben is the emissary and because how else would this happen you know because if we go back to the beginning of the episode there's a you know

this idea that only someone that knows the prophets would find Baha'u'llah. Kira and Kai-Win have a tete-a-tete, soldier versus priest. Kira insults Kai-Win. Kai-Win insults Kira. They're both like, again, it's very low level, it's passive, it's It's a war, though. They're both very good syntactic tacticians, syntactics, you know?

And she points out that she suffered in the occupation, too. You know, her faith was suppressed. She was in a camp, and points out in something that I think was really interesting from Kai Wen, who's not always a character that we like, is that there's no real monopoly on grief, and we're not having...

a contest on who suffered better or worse. They just are going to celebrate this Federation thing because if the emissary says this is good and he found Baha'u'llah, you know, cult of personality, When we get to the ruins, Admiral Watley, who showed up earlier, he's very skeptical, dubious, frustrated with Ben,

and is very concerned at the idea that he found the ruins in a vision, that he was correct about discovery via spirituality or And he's just not vibing and points out that Ben has been neglecting his duties, focusing more on the ruins and then this very big finding.

So he orders a brain exam and Ben starts having these really bad headaches. So Ben agrees to meet Watley in the morning at the infirmary. but would you be surprised to find out that he is not going to the infirmary in the morning? Ben is just walking around the promenade.

He's engaged and really being enjoyed company with the Bajorans who are talking to him with glee, delight, and candor. Ben is having almost this telepathic action and his head is hurt and his brain reassures a woman that her harvest is going to be okay.

He tells a volition man that he's got to chill out and he gets shaken and tells Admiral Watley that his son forgives him. I don't know what he did to his son, but that must be something because this stuns Watts and Bashir is also a little less shooketh because he's going into the idea that, well,

this is just what prophets do, emissaries do. In the infirmary, Ben then has this vision of Cardassia getting a cloud of locusts as Ben sees a future of Bahala, sort of like doing a Moses sort of thing in the Abrahamic faith. But Ben's neural activity is not good.

And it's possible that something in his brain is giving him visions. However, for him, these visions are coming true where, let's be real, that's not something that often, that's usually not what happens. Bashir is upset that Ben didn't tell him about the headaches. Ben needs to have a brain operation.

Unfortunately, if he were to do that, he would lose his vision, and he's going to choose death. He believes that the visions are of utmost importance. He's on to something. He's almost there. And then, you know, Visions versus, I believe he's having an episode. In the real world,

this looks very much like a manic episode and a mental health crisis and states that he has to do this. And Cassidy and Jake are there. He's begging Ben not to die over this. And Cassidy says, Ben, look at Jake and decide if you're ready for death. And again, this is very consistent with a mental health episode.

Not an episode of a TV show, an episode of a human. Kaiwen will help Ben with this quest that Ben is doing to figure out everything. In Ops, Jadzia, Miles, Kira, and Worf have a debate about this. faith and folly and, you know, they all have different views. Jadzia, Chadzia is totally against it,

even though I'm very surprised because I feel like someone who's lived several lives and some of the lives were spiritual would get it. Miles thinks that it's a waste, and Worf, while not Bajoran, understands the importance of faith and duty and thinks Ben's move to do this is commendable, and Kira clearly supports it.

In one of the temples, Kai Wen prays with the orb of prophecy present, and Ben is having really intense headaches and is yelling and screaming and struggling. Even Kai Wen, who, again, is a very opportunistic character, asks Ben to wait for the signing before putting the effort and energy to work with an orb.

But Ben needs to know and is allowing the orb to orb. The wardroom fills with dignitaries. The time is ticking. It's almost an hour past the start. Ben is not here. Kai Nguyen is certain that he would want to be here, but she just lets Admiral Watley begin, and he starts a speech. But Ben bursts in.

Bajor must not join the Federation. They are not ready to do this. The locusts and the vision bring ruin if it doesn't. The locusts were bad for Bajor, and then he collapses. At the infirmary, he is dying. And we get into a thing of bodily autonomy. You see, Sisko basically requested that his...

wishes are that he will do this even if he dies he is you know if he his most is basically like no medical interventions that would get in the way of this but Jake intervenes and it's like no I'm not going to respect his bodily autonomy because I don't want him to die.

And Bashir operates knowing that the visions will go away. And Kiwin and Kira argue about how they wish Jake had chosen the vision and faith over health. But Either way, Bajor will not sign the Federation papers. They're going to take their time. They take what Ben, the emissary, says very seriously.

And Kaiwen is feeling that she's totally having a paradigm shift. wakes up and is aghast and disappointed, Watley asks Ben to reconsider his vision, stating Bajor should not join the Federation. And Ben is sure that Bajor will one day join the Federation, but right now he believes that they are not ready.

And he is asked if he states this as captain or as emissary. And the answer is yes. Ben comes back to his house to see his family making jambalaya. Cassidy connects the family by connecting his hand to her hand to Jake's hand and accepts him without invalidating his experience.

So this episode had a lot. I probably won't be able to touch on everything, but good thing you gave us a recap so we know all the moving parts. Now, in my watch through, and this was my first, this episode was confusing and weird for me.

So I am assuming this will make more sense as the season progresses. I talked about it in the last episode where I could tell the last episode, The Ascent, wasn't going to be that mythological or that important as far as plot-wise, maybe character-wise and what you know about the characters, but as far as plot,

maybe not that important. Whereas this one felt like a lot of this stuff is probably going to matter. So maybe I'll feel one way about it now, but have a different feeling about this episode later on in the season as I see how this fits into a bigger puzzle.

But like the last episode, this episode also added more nuance and layers to the characters. In this case, Kai Wen comes to mind, who, like you mentioned, we see as an opportunist and manipulator. But she also has made her sacrifices and gone through her own oppression.

The Ben and Cassidy story, though, felt weak to me the first time around, and it still does. There are many times the show is patriarchal and fails miserably at the Bechdel test. For those of you who don't know, the Bechdel test is a way to evaluate how women are represented in media and if

they only exist in service of male characters or as a prop. That happens a lot on this show as well. And Cassidy Yates, at least so far, exists in service of Ben. So out of curiosity, I looked up Bechtel Tess and Cassidy Yates and other people have brought this up as well.

Cassidy Yates through and through is a character that's all about stand by your man, even if it doesn't make sense. The main conflict of this episode, though, was Ben's role as a Federation officer and his role as an emissary to the Bajorans. Then there's the conflict of what's good for the Federation isn't necessarily good for the Bajorans.

And in this episode, he sided with the Bajorans. So this episode explored that overlap of religion and politics and the allure of being a prophet, which almost cost Sisko his life. Cisco's role on DS9 is also unclear in this episode. Is he emissary or is he an officer? And can both coexist or are they incompatible?

This episode, more than any previous episode, really raised this question. And I think because you had Federation higher-ups in opposition to Cisco's role as emissary. So this episode made that conflict explicit. we as the audience have inside information where we know even through prior episodes, Cisco can actually speak to these celestial beings in the wormhole.

But for others who are in the show, who are in that audience, it's like, how can I go with your decisions based on your quote unquote visions?

Right. And, and for this, like I have, In particularly the importance of this episode, I have some thoughts from Herbert McCabe's Class Struggle and Christian Love, and a little bit of Walter Rodney Decolonial Marxism, because I feel like some of his writings about pan-African revolutions have some merit in

Bajoran situation and I feel like again there is a lot of radical spirituality in the Bajorans so while there are a lot of Bajorans who are leftist they are deeply spiritual so you know Again, I don't believe the Bajoran spirituality to necessarily be any Abraham religion,

but Father Herbert McCabe argues that true Christian love isn't about passive charity, but about actively dismantling oppressive systems. So you see that intersection with Kai Wen and Kira, especially when they have that discussion about class struggle and oppression. Yeah, other Star Trek shows aren't going to be talking about Marxist-influenced Dominican priests. Just saying.

Just saying. If you didn't know, not everybody's talking about it. So in this episode, we can assume, and we also saw, lots of people are questioning Cisco's decision-making and probably, something you raised earlier, his mental health right now. If the show never made clear that Cisco was actually in communication with celestial beings,

we might just think he's just QAnon. What this episode made me think about is how in real life, and you alluded to this as well, things don't work out like this. And what I thought about was how Westerners, and I'm speaking about Westerners because I don't know the context of every other region,

but the context I do know here is Westerners, not all of them, but Westerners, regardless of where they are in the political spectrum, can and often do just believe things so easily rather than proportioning their beliefs to the evidence.

I've met people in my life that have told me about religious visions they've had and about finding secret places and about ideas about the future and the government. Again, most of those people would be considered mentally ill or in the throes of an episode,

or some of these people would be unhoused people on the train or people that could be at a hospital. I know we're going deep on this show sometimes. So many years ago, and this kind of study would be considered incredibly unethical this time, there was a mental health clinician in Ypsilanti who,

in a hospital with a few mental health wards, if you will, were three different people that claimed to be Christ. So he believed that if he had all three of them together in the same room, then obviously that they would all accept that they were not Christ and would calm down.

Now, it has the totally opposite idea, and it just pushes their belief even further. So this episode is sometimes a little dangerous because usually when people are having these ideas they might be having an episode that's why i just wanted to give a little precursor at the beginning because there are moments when

it really feels like ben is in the throes of a manic episode but also like having some schizoaffective moments as well and again In this instance, he was right. But in most instances, if you run into someone that's going to tell you about a secret city,

or they're talking about the ice walls at the end of the earth, or what have you, you take it with a grain of salt. And they're usually deeply troubled people. But I would argue that Ben is a deeply troubled person, but not because he's having hallucinations.

And there's something that you mentioned and I mentioned about how we as an audience are privy to information. And you talked about how sometimes people tend to fixate on having secret information or insider information as well, right? And feeling like having insider or secret information makes powerless people feel powerful. It is power, right? So that's the allure.

Which is why radicals are also susceptible. What made them radicals is they felt powerless. And so because they are susceptible, this is why I care about this, because this is my community. And especially right now, I already gave people the date. Trump is in office and we've gone through so many years of crisis now.

There are so many people right now in radical spaces who are like the character of the Joker where they just want to burn it all down. And too many people just believe everything they say about every organizing effort because people think not believing it means you're not being radical. You're not being care informed.

But how is opposing every organizing effort a radical thing to do?

It's not. And let me tell you, you need to know the difference between your opponents and your enemies. No, I like that. Yeah, no, I learned that a while ago because sometimes I'll be frustrated with some of my progressive homies and I'm like, you might be my opponent, but you are not my enemy.

Like training partners in the gym, right?

Also because I can talk to neoliberals and work with them. I can talk to, I mean, now, right now I'm talking to people that probably wouldn't talk to me because they're like, wait, this is weird, dude. Isn't this weird, dude? And I'm like, yeah, it's weird, dude. Just to talk about the current times,

when New York City has hospitals that are going to stop doing gender-affirming care because of fear of government kickback, That's scary. So talking about wanting to burn this shit down right now is kind of really privileged because ICE is going into schools, dude. It's not okay what's happening. And we can hold that the establishment Democrats have...

really disillusioned a lot of people and did a lot of moves that made people uncomfortable. But this second, this second Trump presidency is, is concerning to me.

Yeah.

Especially health practitioner. Cause like, If all these funds get taken out, it's not going to have the effect you're going to have. Also, food prices haven't gone down since all of this. Tariffs, good luck getting a tomato in six months if you think that taxing food and taxing things is good.

There will be no citrus industry in Florida if you don't allow immigrants to work. It's just like you're knocking off your nose to spite your face and you watch Mark Zuckerberg on a Joe Rogan podcast and all of a sudden think he's a cool dude because he does MMA.

And it's like, dude, why are we rooting for the billionaires? I'm sorry. I know I'm going off a little off topic.

No, what you're speaking about is urgent. It's all hands on deck.

Right, and we have to not lose the vision.

Yeah, because if it literally is all hands on deck, you can't be like, no, no, no, not all hands on deck. Let's stop all organizing right now. Let's stop everything to figure out first before we even start organizing. Let's see who belongs there first.

Or maybe the best way to avoid not having to work with people I don't like at all is to just stop organizing altogether. Because yeah, that will actually guarantee that you won't work with people by just removing the apparatus where you work with people, right? Right. Or like, if it's so important for you about like, oh,

I'm only going to organize with these kind of people, not with those kind of people, right? So stop what you're doing right now until we can figure this out. It's like we don't have that time to figure things out, right? I think that's what you're speaking to. All these things are happening right now.

So it's like all hands on deck. It literally means you can't be choosy. It's just like everybody right now, right?

Yeah, and we're not going to obfuscate and we're going to be stern about boundaries but be forgiving and we got to work. I'm sure you've seen The Eric Andre Show. He has a bit like a year and a half ago where he's like, do you ever fear that unregulated capitalism causes democratic institutions to deteriorate into oligopoly imperialism,

exasperating support of counter-revolutionary wars and various forms of economic and cultural exploitation? Yeah. And it just worries me when art is that on the money.

And I like to just point out that that throwaway scene that was from a long time ago went viral and popular because of me. I posted that on the Southpaw Instagram and I think it got like 50 million or 80 million views or whatever. And that's how it started circulating. Awesome. Again, parallel thinking.

You and I, we saw the same thing. We're like, hey, this needs a highlighter. This is kind of on the nose. Art is on the nose on this one.

So what we're saying is, imagine Bajor all of a sudden is on the precipice and is being promised something by going to the Federation, and they don't know what's going to happen. There are connections between imperialism and underdevelopment. Now, America isn't an underdeveloped country, but I'm just very concerned. Lead Walter Rodney. That's all I got to say.

Sorry.

There's something else that troubles me because it's not just about like a general feeling that people have. Like in this climate of believe everything, people who constantly attack all organizing are going to gain a lot of clout because anything they say becomes truth.

And that's why I want to talk about this because it reminds me of this episode. But what this episode looks like in real life, which is very different from the fictionalized version. And it's a very pointed topic I want to bring up because it is very specific to, I feel like, what's happening now.

Because I'm watching this happen right now, even with people I know, and it really scares me. The first Trump presidency radicalized a lot of people and galvanized them as leftists. But eight years later, after crisis after crisis, people are burned out, angry and turning on themselves. They're no longer just opposing liberals or the right,

but just opposing everything with nothing as an alternative. And when everyone is ready to believe, you believe whoever is loudest and talks the most. And they won't call themselves a charismatic figure you need to listen to. They'll call themselves an anti-authoritarian. I was just talking to somebody right before this who was talking about some

organizing they were doing in their local area. And somebody in the group was like, we're not going to start anything until we make sure that there's no tankies in this group. there's a lot of those type of people right now.

Yeah. There's even like people who I used to follow on Instagram who I thought were pretty rad, but like, then they like got really against like people on the left who like they felt were trying to sabotage Kamala Harris, like Kamala Harris didn't sabotage herself or that, or that you could have seen that, you know,

I think like, say what you will about Joe Biden but that was sort of just elder abuse like that man is not has questionable mental acuity and maybe being so hubristic to assume that no one was going to notice and then run someone with four months to go I don't

think it's my fault for being like huh I don't know about all this because like you know I don't know. I don't really like that. And I don't, even though like, you know, people vote how they vote, I really didn't want Donald Trump to be president.

Yeah. And there's so many variations of this. There's so many angles that this can come from, but it is just about like, stop everything, right? Stop all the presses. We're not going to print anything. We're not going to do anything right now until we can figure this all out.

And it's like, we don't have that kind of time, right? And so these kind of figures, they won't necessarily be a fed. Sometimes they're just somebody going through something and we're getting sucked into their chaos. There's sometimes some people I know who are very much acting like this online and I have privy to some information about them.

And I know they're just going through some stuff and they're just taking it out by... Basically trying to burn down every organizing effort. So sometimes people just get sucked into that. Maybe because all of us are going through stuff right now. We feel terrible right now. We feel despair. We're burned out.

But in the case of this show, right? Fortunately for us viewers of DS9, the writing lets us in on the visions. And we know Cisco is not just making things up. We know this from previous episodes. We know this from the very first episode. So we're lucky in that way.

But what about people who do make things up in real life? What do we do as radicals when we feel that pressure to believe and listen to everything they say? I don't know. Like the series, our commentary, right? What we're talking about right now also has loss of grace.

Maybe as we progress in this series, we'll be in a different place in the world. SDS-9 is also a time capsule. So I don't know. I don't know what things will be like. I remember just... Not long ago, somebody was telling me something about some group. And what they said sounded so outlandish.

And I said, how do you know? And they go, what do you mean? And it's like the idea of like, how do I know? Like, where am I getting this from? You know, like somebody even asking that or them even asking themselves that, right? It's just like, didn't even occur to them because you just, they heard it.

They believe it. That's it. You don't need any proof. It's like people aren't asking people, how do you know stuff? It's like one thing if it's lived experience, but a lot of what is being shared is not a lived experience, right? It's just something they heard from somebody who heard from somebody who might be even misremembering it,

right? It's just a lot of telephone, but it's enough to just make everybody very suspicious now of every group, every organizing effort, organizing in general. There's just a lot of suspicion, ill will, mistrust of organizing in general, base building, power building. So if we don't have collective power, right? I don't know how we get anything done.

Everybody's like, right now, hey, we got to do what Korea did. And it's like, man, Korea not only protested in the snow, the politicians not only jumped over fences and fought with cops to go and do a vote, but it was ultimately the work stoppages that made everything happen, right? Whereas here...

there's not even a consensus on what type of left we are. Over there, there's more of a consensus. It's like, oh, it's understood. It's about stopping work. Collective power is like, make them listen by stopping work. Make them listen by not paying rent. You got to make them listen somehow.

You got to have some kind of power to make them listen. It's not about asking them to listen. You got to make them listen. Whereas here, there's no consensus on if that's the right thing we ought to do, if we should organize around work or even build power to make them listen.

So that's another difference is there's no consensus here. At this point, I don't even care what it is. It's like, okay, pick something. Let's just all rally around that. So that's the difficulty and that's why it's not so easy like, hey, do what Korea did because Korea is in a different context. There is more of a

broad but loose consensus there about what the left is whereas there is no consensus here about what the left is everybody's version of the left is very different everybody is like a different ideology or like people don't even get along so that's where we are right now as we record this maybe at the end of the

season for season five we'll be in a different place But something you mentioned earlier about Kai Wen, right? And the texture. That was another interesting aspect for me while I was watching this. To see Sisko and Kai Wen working together as spiritual leaders. And also Kai Wen caring about Sisko in her own way.

But also giving Kai Wen that character, that moment, right? For the writers to write something where they give that character lines and a moment to check Kira. I thought that was very bold, where it's like, Kira just was stunned and didn't have anything to say. It reminds me of elder reactionaries who might be black or brown,

where you assume because they're reactionary, they had it easy. And then the elder has to check you and let you know they suffer more than you know. Sometimes even old head revolutionaries become reactionaries or liberals. Now, we might no longer politically agree with them, but that doesn't mean they didn't suffer. That doesn't erase their past.

You can question their beliefs, but you can't question their past struggles. So that's what that scene parallel for me. Like a young leftist questioning an old head just because they're now a Democrat or a Republican. You could question their beliefs, but that doesn't mean they didn't go through some stuff either.

And that's the other mistake people make about lived experience. Just because you had a lived experience that was based around oppression does not automatically mean you become a radical or stay a radical. If that was the case, there's nothing to fight. We'd all be radicals because the people who have faced some kind of hardship,

the poor people far outnumber the rich people, right? And yet a lot of poor people are also reactionaries. A lot of Unfortunately, right, like marginalized people can be reactionary. Trump is wildly popular. Like even where I live, I saw unhoused people, right, people of color with Trump shirts, you know, unhoused people being like arrested by cops.

And it's like, yeah, maybe they just found a shirt they needed to wear. But it's like, you know, I consider unhoused people my neighbors and I know some of them. And it's like I've heard them say Trump slogans before. So it's like, yeah. Just because you have a lived experience doesn't mean we all interpret that lived

experience the same way. Because why? Because if you feel powerless, you will seek power. Whether it's just like believing you have insider information or Or it's like, oh, this person makes me feel powerful because they seem powerful, right? So I think, again, going back to the show, right? It's all about grays.

And in real life, we turn things too often black and white and make it so simple. It's like, you don't need to think about it. Lived experience will radicalize us all. Then it's like a matter of a couple of generations, then we should all be radicalized. But that's not the reality, right?

The reality is far more gray and complicated. And so people want to avoid complicated and replace that with a simpler reality. But that reality isn't actually reality, right? That's the fiction. So this episode packed a lot in and felt important. And they actually got a lot done in a very short amount of time.

I'm surprised they didn't turn this into a two-parter. So Scott, what did you think?

Oh man, this is a 4.5. it's so good. Um, and rewatching it in this new context is just something else. And yeah, I just, I love this episode.

You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of like the first of like a franchise, like, you know, cinematic universe. And like the first episode is the one that kind of built the world and you don't fully understand this world yet, but it needs to place those

railroads and railroad tracks down for the other stuff that makes sense and it felt like that was this episode to kind of like set the table for the rest of the season or I don't know maybe set stuff up for like later seasons that's what it felt like

so it felt like this is going to be important that's what I felt like watching it

totally and also just like one more thing like bodily autonomy as you know I'm always vague about what I do obviously because like you know, you got to be careful sometimes in these spaces, but there's this really interesting thing where Jake doesn't respect his dad's wishes.

But I also say it's very important that if you really care and depending on the state you're in, you know, make sure that you have, if you're, if you have any illnesses or you're over the age of like 40 or Have a MOLST, which could be called different things in different states,

but basically method of life-sustaining treatment of what you want. Two, a method of life-sustaining treatment is just like, do you want to be intubated? Do you want CPR? Do you know what I'm saying?

So is it more thorough than an advanced directive? Yeah.

Yeah, they're connected to each other. They're both about decision-making. And in this episode, the bodily autonomy was not respected. That's all. I just think it's important to talk about bodily autonomy.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we've talked about this a lot. Doing something wrong for the greater good is kind of a recurring ethical theme that comes up. And it's one of those things where it's like the show portrayed that as like what was happening was wrong, but it was like wrong for the right reason.

And you can't disconnect that from the fact that it's a father son relationship. If it was anyone else, Ben might've felt one way, but since it was his son, it's like, okay, I can forgive you because you're more important than that, right? So there's a lot of those kind of scenarios in this show so far,

which is like doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. And it's like me as a viewer, as a radical viewer, I don't often even agree that it was for the right reason. And I think this one is like you're pointing out something we need to at least like point out

And, you know, let people feel however they're going to feel about it. It's not like clear cut either.

No. And it's not going to.

Yeah. Why would the show all of a sudden stop being gray, right? So, Scott, can you tell us about the next episode?

Yeah. Kira's past comes back to honor.

Until then...