Notes for season 2 episode 1, “The Contingency”
07:32 “He’s got a fancy car with an anti-theft tracker which I took the liberty of activating.” More casual abuse of police access, but this pays off later when you see the car being towed.
11:45 If the giant webcam perched on the laptop seems a slightly incongruous for a 2002 flashback – it’s a circa-1998 “Logitech USB QuickCam Home” capable of 352×288 resolution. Detail of note: it had an integrated physical lens cover, presaging some the privacy concerns that saw people covering their laptop cameras more than a decade later.
19:29 In the September 2003 flashback, Finch tests the Machine’s ability to determine strategy by having the Machine count cards and text Hit/Stay instructions via a Nokia 6010 – a phone that wouldn’t be available to the public until 2004.
24:45 The introduction of Bear! The ability to turn around a dangerous system with a few words of Dutch is quite the advert for Duolingo.
27:00 This scene in the restaurant feels like the turning point for the series. In the first season finale, Corwin tells Finch “You created God, and now you’re going to help me shut it down” and that feels like the direction the show was heading in. But Root’s perspective is more interesting. Instead it’s: you’ve created something better than stupid venal humans, but you’ve imprisoned it and removed its voice. Root’s villainy is liberationary, and the Machine is now a character instead of a plot device.
32:26 The dead forger’s bank records show a transaction at “Pies and Thighs” which I assumed was one of the mad fake business names you see in TV shows, but apparently there is a New York restaurant with that name.
32:46 “Looks like she installed some kind of real-time screen monitor to hack into his account.” Not only is this current standard practice for India’s support scammers, it’s also the thing Root did in the first season.
33:10 “Digital records have been corrupted. Tech support says the system has a bug.” I guess whoever maintains the police’s computer backups is also compromised? At which point, how can they even trust the records themselves?
34:27 John keeps stopping, and looks to the heavens seeking guidance and assistance. (Or rather keeps his eye line with the wall mounted surveillance camera he’s addressing.) The religious parallels, not least in casting, are becoming more obvious.