VisionQuest: Firewall

"Personally, I like a few laughs. You, maybe not so much."

VisionQuest follows up an exciting cliffhanger in which Vision surrenders total control of himself to his greatest enemy in order to save his son.

I was not prepared for that follow-up to be My Dinner with Ultron.

I was a little surprised, when I looked at IMDb, to see that this episode had the lowest score for the season thus far. Not by much, and still a respectable score, but still. I was surprised, because I really loved this one.

Still and all, when you look at it, not a lot actually happens in this episode. They instead choose to go for lengthy character enriching dialog scenes that allow them to also dump a hell of a lot of exposition on the way. And that's fair. To quote the late Dame Diana Rigg from The Great Muppet Caper, 'It's plot exposition, darling. It has to go somewhere.'

So, let's start with what actually happens in this episode and then move on to why I loved it.

The sum total of events that actually occur in this episode are:

— Ultron tricks Thomas into getting kidnapped by Paladin.

— Ultron uses Thomas' kidnap to force Vision into lowering the firewalls around himself so that Ultron can escape out into the digital world. Ostensibly to find Jocasta.

— Vision gives in and does that.

— Fallout begins to ensue.

You could script a solid hour of action adventure out of that plot rundown, but they very deliberately don't here, opting instead for a series of thoughtful conversations that gradually reveal background information, character details, and a playful exploration of layered realities and perception.

An exploration of emotional themes as expressed by semiotic televisual language? Yeah, they had me at hello on this one.

I know I've mentioned this about a thousand times before, but it's important for this discussion. Semiotics, and I apologize in advance for this incredible oversimplification, is the way that visual cues are used in performed media in order to convey information or subtext. To cite one popular example, if you want the audience to see a character as cocky and overconfident, you show them eating an apple. That's why they had Chris Pine's Kirk eating one during his Kobayashi Maru test in the 2009 Star Trek film.

And, speaking strictly for the US although it's true for most places that have television, we're so immersed in TV and film using semiotic cues to tell us things that we're generally completely unaware that they're even happening. Be honest, did you know about the apple thing?

Which is why it was so delightful watching an entire episode of VisionQuest being devoted to a playful romp through what the reality of visualization even means or matters. While also filling in large pieces of the story-puzzle as it did.

The basic framework of the show is a visualization of five (plus Vision) 'people' who in reality exist as nothing more than binary code. Their artificial personalities are their own, but the image of, just for example, Emily Hampshire, doesn't actually exist anywhere. It's just a convention to visualize a group of AIs communicating with one another. They handwave it away as Vision's method of visualizing their interactions, but it's really for the sake of the viewer.

And so, taking that as the starting point, we begin this episode with our gang of five locked in a metaphorical strongroom with no way to get information from the outside. In reality they're all just code that's been firewalled into one space, but it's the visual metaphor of them locked into a room that's important.

That's layer one of the illusion.

Then our heroes figure out a way to combine Ultron's short-term memory with the fact that we now live in a world where literally every single thing you ever say or do is recorded by something nearby you and start to project themselves into Ultron's recent memories in order to catch up with what he's up to. Which allows them to witness a lot of exposition regarding Thomas and Ultron's relative character beats at one another in black and white while our 'real' (illusion layer one) characters watch and get caught up.

Then they realize that the pile of old TV Guides (do the young people today have any idea what TV Guide is?) is actually a log of conversations between Paladin and Ultron which fill in a bit more of the backstory. and we get another substrata of illusion layer one watching illusion layer two.

This is why they leaned into the visual metaphor of 'watching' Ultron's recent antic by popping in a VHS tape. It's entirely so that they can then, a few minutes later, do the exact same thing by popping an old TV Guide into a VCR. 'What's the difference?' the show is saying. 'They're both outdated modes of conveying information being used in a setting where we already know that everything we're seeing is just a visual metaphor.' The fact that putting a TV Guide into a VHS player would accomplish nothing beyond damaging both the player and the guide is completely meaningless. They're acknowledging the visual conceit while simultaneously daring us as the audience to protest at it. And I love that.

And then, just to top it off, we find a hidden, encrypted, third layer of illusion buried inside the merest second of the second layer of illusion in which Ultron and Jocasta flirt hard, and we find out what both of them actually want. And this is accomplished using the visual metaphor of a VCR's vertical hold slipping, which I can't begin to imagine means anything to anyone under 40 at this point, but I loved that they went all in with it.

Layer, under layer, under layer of a reality that we'd kind of forgotten by this point was already a virtual reality 'underneath' the 'real' world.

I loved this episode.

Bits and Pieces:

— The pedant in me is obligated to point out that a firewall is actually a physical structure in a building that prevents the spread of fire. Yes, I know that the IT folks coopted it, but it belongs to the fire service. That said, I did really enjoy the visual of the actual wall of fire.

— I was a huge fan of both Schitt's Creek and 12 Monkeys, so anything that Emily Hampshire does makes me jump up and down and clap.

— Hooray for Lisa showing up on the plane full of animals.

— I knew that Madripoor was an island from the Marvel comics, but I was confusing it with Krakoa, where the X-Men live. Or maybe lived. I've been out of the loop.

— I really thought that the 'original synth' was the original Human Torch, whom Marvel bought the rights to a hundred years or so ago and who made a brief cameo in the first Captain America movie. I'm still hoping to be proved right on that one.

— I wish they'd stayed with the imagery of James Spader with the pirate ship wheel up in his room as the visual metaphor for him taking control, because it was such a cool image. But I get why they didn't.

— Did Orla Brady and Todd Stashwick ever share any scenes on Picard? I don't recall. I don't think so.

— I love the way the windows are shaped like the replacement for Vision's Mindstone. Particularly the way they incorporated it into the hourglass icon while things were processing. Honestly, it feels like I'm trying to force a bad joke, but the visuals on VisionQuest have been exemplary.

— F.R.I.D.A.Y. has jumped into the infostream to follow Ultron. I hope and trust that that's not the last we're going to see of her.

— 'I need to be de-fragged' is how I'm always going to request hugs from now on.

— I really loved the way they used DUM-e and U as the props and settings coordinators in the reconstructed memories.

— 'Pretending you're free rather than just unwanted' is a line that punched me in the face and will stay with me for a very long time.

Quotes:

Vision: "Looks like he took Thomas... for a pint?"

Ultron: "Use your words, Thomas."
Thomas: "You're a monster."
Ultron: "Oh, that."

Ultron: "From disdain to dyspepsia in four seconds flat."

Ultron: "I find the human race to be an incurable disease that doesn't even have the kindness to kill you."

Thomas: "But you. There's no hope for you."
Ultron: "You're a real son of a witch."

Paladin: "Are you writing just to bust my balls?"
Ultron: "Oh, they're well and truly busted."

E.D.I.T.H. "Ughh. It’s like watching Hannibal Lecter swipe right."

Ultron: "If a guy can’t score in Paris then romance is truly dead."

Ultron: "Ah. Trust. The adopted child of need and hope."

A really fantastic episode that didn't have a lot that it needed to accomplish and so instead played with visual tropes, layers of reality, and the fundamental problems of perception. I loved this one with my entire heart.

Five out of five layers of reality.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, retired firefighter, and roughly 78% water. You can find more of his work at the 42nd Vizsla. If you'd like to see his raw notes for this and other reviews, you can find them at What Was Mikey Thinking.

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