1x06, "Endgames"

[Cal]

Liked this one a lot.  Peeking around inside Reyes' head is always interesting: I loved his little analysis of the team dynamics and subsets.  But Sol has been Sir Not Appearing In This Episode for two fortnights now...more Sol soon please? 

And it's always interesting to see new theories on what a beta is, what a gamma is, and what's the difference between them.  Reyes' is rather abstract, but interesting, and it offers a nice new possibility: some gammas may be people who try to fight off/control the Anomaly but, for whatever reason, can't.

The trend of gammas trying to stop themselves is an interesting one, and more interesting in this case, with Schumacher trying so hard not to give in that he never actually seems to have used his anomalous ability.

Loved the easter eggs.  A little of Brady can go a long way, I'm finding, but I like his interactions with Worth, and the whole taking-care-of-Chaz thing.

[CJ]

Now I've read it twice and had time to think.  So I hopefully won't sound like a complete gibbering idiot. 

Lots of squeeful moments in this one!  The ongoing Brady/Chaz (and yes, I used the slash deliberately!  hah!) bits, with Brady taking care of Chaz while still making it look like that's not what he's doing.  (And even though Chaz knows that's what he's doing, it still makes it easier for him to deal with it.)  The "I'll drive" "no!" bit repeating.  I bet that one happens -all- the time! 

The "dark Chaz" conversation about killed me.  I got into X-Men just before the Dark Phoenix saga.  (The first one.  And yes, I am still pissed at them for bringing her back and spoiling the power of her death and its aftermath.)  I love Chaz thinking like that, and Brady's comment about him reading too many comics. 

Reyes' thoughts about team dynamics and subgroups and how Chaz and Hafs have let Daphs into what he thought was a "Betas Only" club. 

The Brady/Worth (ooh, there's that slash again!) easter egg - suitably gruesome, even when I was expecting something a lot like it.  Also amusing that they're staking out Lovecraft's grave. 

Brady thinking about how people peg Chaz as gay and himself as not, when the reverse is true. 

Lots of interesting stuff, too.  More of interest on the differences between betas and gammas.  And on how some gammas seem to fight it more than others, and some are more successful at doing so.  Has anyone said how many gammas they've documented thus far?  I wonder what the numbers are like on the ones who try to fight it off in some way, and the ones who seem to embrace it. 

Reyes seems to be a naturally obsessive type.  But what got him so fixated on the anomaly?  I can see that he'd want to keep as many alive as possible to learn more about it, but it strikes me that there may be more to it than that.  We know why Worth and Brady are there - history with the anomaly.  Hafs and Chaz are obvious.  Todd may not have had any experience with the anomaly before joining the WTF, but he's so into the weirdness factor that it's a natural fit.  (Unless he does have a past experience that hasn't come to light yet.  With him, anything's really possible.)  Lau's had -something- happen, personally.  Though I don't get the feeling that it's necessarily anomaly-related.  We saw Faulkner's intro in the early extras - I suspect her joining has to do with a combination of fascination with something so extraordinary, and a natural desire to make the world her kids live in safer.  So what's Reyes' angle?  What hooked him on the anomaly?  I'm betting there's something personal there, too.

Amazing stuff, as always!

[mocknot]

Well, I only just got a chance to read this, so I'm still in the squeeing and flailing stage, but this was another great episode . Much love for the character development, and at this point it's a toss-up between whether trying to figure out the characters or the anomaly is more fun.

[yatima]

Also, I second almost everybody on the Reyes and the Chaz/Brady (now there's a slashy ship for you that like it...  what happened in that hotel room when the camera was off?)

Chaz ruined a pony for him.

[Emma Bull]

*aspirates liquid*

Maybe he used too many monkeys.

[Elizabeth Bear]

But this mountain is covered with wolves.

[AntoniaTiger]

You would have the Brady/Chaz driving gag turn up the day after I watched Gunsmith Cats.

[MadGastronomer]

Also, I second almost everybody on the Reyes and the Chaz/Brady (now there's a slashy ship for you that like it...  what happened in that hotel room when the camera was off?)

Chaz ruined a pony for him.

Must... not... aspirate... ginger beer...

And now my mind is totally taken up with trying to figure out what that is a blues metaphor for.  I think I need to go back to thinking about how the Dalai Lama thinks everybody should wear rubbers.

[etherjammer]

I own an iPhone (which is what I understand Chaz's AOP to be), and I assure you that while internet connection without WiFi is a bit slow, it is absolutely possible.

Oh, heavens - I didn't mean that internet access on phones designed for it was poor.   Just that cell phones tend to demonstrate Zawinski's Law ("a given application will expand until it can read email"), and that on the majority of Adorable Overhyped Phones, access to the internet seems to have been slapped on at the last minute with a "hey, we should probably have this feature" attitude.  It hadn't even occurred to me that Chaz's phone might be anything more sophisticated than a Chocolate, which is very decidedly a cell phone first and anything else a very distant second.

This is, incidentally, probably because I've never having even seen an iPhone in person (although the chef who hosted my wedding "rehearsal dinner" was late to the party because he was in line for one!), and because the people I know who own things like Blackberries and Treos get kind of offended if you call them "phones".

[MadGastronomer]

Oh, I didn't take it as an insult at all.  I just assumed that either you didn't know Chaz had an iPhone (it came up on his LJ) or you didn't know that they handled internet reasonably well or both.

[Elizabeth Bear]

Oh, I didn't take it as an insult at all.  I just assumed that either you didn't know Chaz had an iPhone (it came up on his LJ) or you didn't know that they handled internet reasonably well or both.

You can tell Chaz has an iPhone because his mobile LJ comments r nt rtn lk ths....

[greywalker]

"Back on our heads" made me chuckle.  The Rilke at the end made me choke up.  That's one of my favorite quotations.  It's the first one in my quote book.

[iblori58]

Verdamnt Firefox beta. I had to go into source code to find the easter eggs

A very non-efficient, non-geeky, memory-intensive way to find the easter eggs I stumbled on is to copy the entire episode (CTRL-A, CTRL-C) and paste it into a Word document... the links show up as blue.  Ctrl-click takes you right to them...

I love the episodes, thoroughly enjoy the interaction between writers and readers.  I salute you.

[Emma Bull]

Thank you for the salute--and indeed, thank you all! I love reading the comments here. My favorite thing about this form of storytelling is the near-instant feedback. I thought I was fine with delayed gratification, but I'm getting soooo spoiled by having you guys reading and reacting. Neat stuff!

[etherjammer]

Oh, I didn't take it as an insult at all.  I just assumed that either you didn't know Chaz had an iPhone (it came up on his LJ) or you didn't know that they handled internet reasonably well or both.

Oh, good.   I had missed that he had an iPhone, yeah.