Halt and Catch Fire, the AMC show on Netflix, has had a long run but is now coming to an end with its eighth episode. The final season will bring closure to some of the biggest cliffhangers in the series’ history while also telling new stories about characters that have been sidelined throughout most of it’s run. Halt And Catch Will Be Coming To A Close This Summer On FX.,
The “nbc chicago fire” is a television show that has been on the air since 2012. The “Last Man Season 1 Episode 8- Ready. Aim. Fire.” Recap, aired on November 10th, 2018 and was watched by 2.5 million people in the United States alone.
Episode 8 concentrates completely on the PriceMax Amazon narrative, with flashbacks to Roxanne’s beginnings and how she came to work with the ladies from the domestic violence shelter. Sam continues to struggle with Hero and the rest of the gang in the current day until things reach a head. Nora tries to persuade Roxanne that she and Mack belong with the Amazons, despite the fact that none of them has had any abusive or traumatic encounters with males.
Nora was forced to shoot a rifle by Ted Campbell. (He was her supervisor and the President of the United States.) She was unable to refuse.) That would have been difficult for me to overcome as someone who has had horrible encounters with weapons. What more did he force her into that she never completely comprehended since she’d been living in survival mode her whole life? Nora was numb to most of her sentiments and sleepwalking through her life prior to The Event, according to evidence.
Recap
The episode opens with a flashback to “what happened to Kate,” the injured lady Hero was instructed to rescue in episode 4 when the Amazons first came. When we saw Kate in the present, she was too badly injured for Hero to assist, so Roxanne shot her to death.
We discover why Roxanne made sure Kate couldn’t spout any tall stories during the show.
Kate is standing in a field, drenched, trying to flee the PriceMax in the opening scene. Roxanne keeps Kate at gunpoint while claiming they’re still friends and pressuring her to do what she wants. Kate is terrified by Roxanne and refuses to return to the shop with her. Before fleeing in the other way, she vows not to tell anybody what she knows. Roxanne shoots her in the back and dashes back inside PriceMax, saying that they’re being pursued.
We’re back in the current day after the opening credits, and it’s time for some target practice with the Amazons. Several of the vehicles in the parking lot must have been supplying ammunition, given the quantity of ammo squandered in this event. Roxanne lets the ladies experience the power of shooting their guns before giving them an inspirational lecture about the power of their bodies, which they are now free to use to their full potential without the tyranny of males.
As usual, Sam stands on the sidelines, pondering disapprovingly. Sam is constantly in a corner someplace disapproving of anything these ladies are doing, whether it’s learning to defend themselves, examining their prior experiences with males, or overcoming their taught disdain for their own bodies.
Hero is a skilled shooter who is in the first line of defense. She urges Sam to take a turn when it’s time for the following group. He declines, claiming that he’s “simply not a gun man” to Hero and Roxanne. Roxanne inquires as to what he accomplished in the previous realm. He worked in theater as a performance artist. Roxanne replies it sounds like fun, then points her gun towards the mannequins in the row. She emphasizes that in the new world, people must learn to defend themselves rather than rely on others to do it. Sam recognizes the danger and takes his turn with the weapon.
Campbell’s target shooting scenario and this one are quite similar. Campbell had Nora shoot the rifle as a litmus test to see whether she was a true Republican worthy of being on his team and not a liar. Roxanne, on the other hand, is teaching these women how to overcome trauma and fear, as well as how to protect themselves. It’s also a litmus test to determine if Sam will obey her or continue to question her authority. Sam isn’t being a jerk, but he is causing strife in the group.
Nicole (Sidney Meyer) and Nora are inside, watching the youngsters compete in shopping cart races. Nicole assumes Roxanne has already informed Nora that she would not be able to join the group and asks her where she and Mack will go after they depart. Nora runs outside, inquiring as to why Roxanne would do such a thing to a 12-year-old child. Roxanne maintains an infuriatingly calm demeanor as she informs Nora that the gang (meaning Roxanne) dislikes her and that they had planned to expel her as soon as Mack’s leg healed. Nora, she claims, “simply doesn’t fit in.” Roxanne, on the other hand, is certain that she will find something else, someplace else. Nora is certain they won’t find something better after wandering for weeks seeking for anything other than the camps.
Backtrack to Roxanne breaking through the door of the domestic violence shelter and claiming to be a cop. Residents of the refuge huddle beneath the sofa, armed with bats and other weapons. Roxanne informs them that there is an active shooter in the area, and that they should leave. She leads them to the PriceMax, saying that she discovered it by chance and started guarding its supplies. She also reveals that she spent 11 years as a murder investigator. Kate is swiftly identified as the group’s leader.
Roxanne is now the leader of one of her anti-man support groups. First, she shares a personal anecdote about warning a colleague named Jenna that some of the males they worked with were making derogatory comments about her. Jenna warned Roxanne to keep away from her, accusing her of being envious of the attention she was receiving. “Perhaps she simply didn’t like you,” Sam muses to Hero.
Perhaps she didn’t, just as he doesn’t care about Roxanne. She isn’t especially endearing. That doesn’t rule out the possibility that the males used sexist remarks at work. It also doesn’t make it appropriate for Sam to make fun of her when she’s in charge of a meeting, as Jenna and her male colleagues did.
Roxanne confronts Sam about his remark. He looks down and doesn’t respond, leaving Hero to absorb the brunt of the criticism. Roxanne informs Hero that it is her time to testify and that she will not be excused. Hero takes a seat in the group’s middle. Roxanne inquires about her relatives. Roxanne inquires whether Hero has siblings or if they should discuss Sam after Hero reveals her father respected her mother.
Yorick is chosen by Hero, who informs the group that he is a decent guy, while she is a handful, and hence her parents are harsher on her. The Amazons press her to claim that she became difficult as a result of her parents’ sexism, despite the fact that her parents must have been more lenient with Yorick.
When Hero refuses to accept the bait, Roxanne shifts tactics, implying that Yorick let her parents torture her without speaking out. Roxanne leans up close to Sam as they chat about how Yorick’s life would have been simpler if he had been a boy. She speculates that he was content to sit back and watch Hero suffer because it made his life appear better in contrast. Roxanne almost sits on Sam’s lap as she inquires about his thoughts.
That’s precisely what Sam does to Hero. We haven’t seen enough of Yorick and Hero together to know whether he did the same thing, but repeating patterns is typical, thus Hero’s connection with her male closest friend might be similar to her relationship with her younger brother. Both Beth and Sam have a lot in common with Hero and Yorick, although Beth is more of a combination of Jennifer and Hero. Perhaps Sam is a cross between Yorick and their father. Yorick isn’t normally as possessive, nasty, or critical as Sam, but we’re not seeing him at his best right now.
Roxanne, on the other hand, is deliberately attempting to split Sam and Hero apart, instantly seeing a flaw in their connection and attempting to drive a wedge between them. But she’s doing it in a manner that absolves her of any blame—she was referring to Yorick, not Sam!
Roxanne is likely to have gone through the rest of the group in the same manner, severing intimate ties and expelling anybody who refuses to submit to her control techniques or displays leadership potential. She’ll be the Amazons’ principal emotional resource once she’s finished. The remainder of their relationships will be shattered, leaving them emotionally unable to break free from her. Kate, Sam, and Nora will be expelled if they see through her or refuse to fall under her influence.
Hero doesn’t want to betray Sam or Yorick, but no one has ever given her acceptance or this type of “release” from her parents’ self-loathing. And, as I’ve often said, Sam does indeed treat her poorly. I believe Yorick mostly reiterated their parents’ opinions toward Hero in the dialogue we saw in episode 1, while she did the same to him.
Nora spots Sam outdoors and attempts to persuade him to accompany Hero to Washington. She is familiar with the trip and may serve as their guide. After that, Hero may be able to get them inside the Pentagon. It seems to Nora to be a perfect approach. It bothers Sam as well, since it’s always been his goal. But he won’t tell Nora since she worked for a Republican government and particularly on a measure banning transgender athletes. Sam treats her the same way he does everyone else. He tells her that he simply doesn’t trust her and goes away when she becomes frantic and attempts to convince him that the expense is little in comparison to the major challenges they are facing today. Nora warns that the PriceMax won’t always be a secure sanctuary. Even goods at a huge box shop will eventually run out.
Sam realizes it’s time to act decisively. When he discovers Hero alone, he proposes they leave the Amazons and go to Smith Mountain Lake. They could form their own artists’ colony in one of the enormous summer homes, which would be accessible solely to those who don’t like firearms. It’s almost the same thing Hero requested him to do when they discovered the domestic violence refuge vacant and undamaged, but he wouldn’t consider it at the time. She’s supposed to accept his offer without hesitation now that he’s made it his idea, according to his rules.
Seriously, he ignored Hero’s suggestion, then waited a time, altered the notion, and presented it as his own, like a stereotype of a male who exploits women’s abilities. Hero doesn’t directly confront him about his change of heart about living in a rural retreat now that it’s his idea, but it’s possible that it contributes to her rage in this moment.
Hero doesn’t always agree with Sam’s wishes, and he doesn’t always agree with her, but there are times when they both draw their punches in conflicts because they are both worried that being honest would drive the other away. In certain situations, Hero, like Sam, does not always employ healthy methods to handle the problem. We’ve seen him become forceful and/or passive aggressive, and we’ve seen her do things behind his back (such removing the vehicle battery or addressing her problems with Mike’s family before leaving NY) or ignore his legitimate worries, both in NY and with the Amazons.
Sam has finally reached his breaking point.
She tells him she isn’t opposed to learning how to operate a firearm. He backs down on his anti-gun position, but informs her that the actual problem is that the Amazons aren’t “them,” in the sense that they don’t match his vision of who he wants himself to be, and hence Hero to be. They are not artists, look to be working-class, wear PriceMax clothing, and live in a rural rather than urban setting. To put it another way, they aren’t trendy and awake enough for Sam to consider them. And, as we’ve seen from the start, he believes he is superior to Hero and that she should obey him rather than think for herself. Hero, on the other hand, had a working-class job and lived in a working-class area with a working-class lover. She isn’t as much of a hipster snob as Sam is.
(Perhaps Sam is a snob in self-defense, or perhaps he would be a snob anyway, but it doesn’t alter the fact that he has elitist ideas.) Hero and Yorick both attended prestigious private schools from birth through college, yet they both aspire to break out from their privileged upbringings. Hero does a better job at putting it behind than Yorick, maybe because her employment requires her to interact with a wide range of individuals. Illness and injury have a way of bringing everyone down to the same level. Addiction is the same way.)
Joining the Amazons may or may not be a mistake, but Hero has the right to make her own judgments. She has to sort out certain difficulties, which she can’t do with Sam smothering her passive-aggressively. She has almost as much in common with the Amazon ladies as she does with Sam.
Hero informs Sam that she is exhausted and does not want to quarrel. He yells.
“Because being in a cult is f**king stressful,” Sam explains.
In addition to surviving the virus and dealing with her personal troubles, I’m sure what’s tiring is navigating between him and the cult, which at this point seems like she’s being ripped in two. Sam, on the other hand, just sees the bit that concerns him.
Hero advises him to take a break from her.
“You know what?” Sam says. While you’re at it, you may as well join the NRA.”
Hero points out that they are in a secure location with all they need to live, and he wonders why he is attempting to destroy it. He expresses his dissatisfaction with his surroundings. She claims he’s uneasy since he’s not even attempting to blend in.
“They keep talking about how bad males are,” Sam says.
Hero informs him that he is popular with everyone. She’s incorrect, but it’s true that he’s not even attempting to persuade them.
“So, which is it?” Sam asks. They like me because I’m not actually a guy, or because I am a serial murderer or rapist? It’s f**king perplexing, to be honest. Kelsey is all over me one second and then she can’t look at me the next.”
Kelsey was called away from him by the others, who told her she wasn’t permitted to speak to him. She was covered with bruises the following day from the late-night enforcement session. How conceited and oblivious is he? The ladies have all treated him like a “genuine” guy, even directing their resentments at males onto him, with the exception of a handful of remarks when they first met.
But it’s possible he’s having a hard time accepting the fact that he wouldn’t be living right now if he were a biological man, and that he’ll suffer long-term challenges as a result of his gender identity. When he left the other trans guys behind, he also left behind the only other individuals who could understand the many flavors of survivor’s guilt and post-Event life that he was going through. Pretending there’s a miraculous cure to his problem, like traveling to the Pentagon, isn’t going to help. At the Pentagon, there will also be a lot of weaponry.
The Amazons are recovering the whole gamut of human thinking and conduct as women, from wearing pink to firing guns—even wearing pink while shooting weapons. Sam considers himself a man and an artist, not a “gun guy,” so he understands their desire to remake themselves now that they are free of the patriarchy, as well as the everyday danger of violence put on them by the violent males in their life. Instead, he staunchly upholds gender norms, particularly when it comes to male-female relationships.
So, absolutely, these women, including Sam, are antagonistic to males who impose gender norms, and they don’t feel the need to spare male emotions about it.
That’s the portion Hero isn’t interested in talking about since she knows Sam won’t listen. Instead, she concentrates on Kelsey making a play for him, something he had overlooked until now, when he could use it to his advantage. Of course, he behaves as though her answer is silly, despite the fact that he deliberately employed words that exaggerated what transpired between him and Kelsey in order to make Hero jealous. He attempts to persuade her to hate Roxanne once again, but she instructs him to focus on the Amazons’ good aspects, using Kelsey as an entrance point if necessary. However, she shouts the final bit.
Sam is taken aback by Hero’s “overreaction.” Hero sneers that she prefers him to be with Kelsey, whom she believes is an excellent fit for him: kind and a bit bumbling. (Hero is unjust to Kelsey, but true in his assessment of the kind he should seek.) He wants a Barbie, not a sophisticated real lady, thus she should have added “cheap plastic blonde” to the description.)
Sam has been offered the opportunity to strike: “It’s a win-win situation for me.” So, what’s next? What about you? I’m clever enough to see that the moment I get you to myself, the clock begins ticking, and it’ll only be a matter of time until I’m sent out with the rest of them.”
“What about the rest of them?” Hero asks. Simply state that you don’t want me because you believe I’m a jerk.”
“I don’t believe so,” Sam says. Yes, you do. “I am not the voice in your brain,” says the narrator.
Except, only a few episodes ago, he told her she’s a tramp who would only harm him in the end, and he physically came on to her, then rejected her. He’s spent a lot of time perfecting his backhanded tone with her, which I’m sure is quite similar to Jennifer’s tone with her kid. So, yeah, he sounds a lot like the voice in her brain that tells her she’ll never measure up to his, her own, or her mother’s expectations.
Sam hopes Hero will feel as though she needs someone in her life to take the place of her mother as a purported stabilizing figure who reins in her worst impulses by condemning her rebellious tendency. Because Hero has challenges and makes poor decisions, her relationships do not work out. Sam hinted that she is a maneater who takes advantage of guys and discards them. In actuality, he has just as many or more problems as she does, and he has a personal interest in her self-hatred in order to keep her from leaving him.
It’s her right to have a dozen guys in a year and have brief relationships with each of them. It’s also her right if she doesn’t want to be with Sam, no matter how much he wants her—and it seems that she doesn’t truly want to be with him. She tries it on occasion since he wants it so badly and she cares for him. She wants to be attracted to him that way since it seems to be an easy answer to both of their relationship difficulties, but they both know she isn’t.
That is the real reason for Sam’s animosity for her. And if he can’t deal with her decisions, he should stay away from her.
I’m not even going to talk about how he treats her like a possession.
Sam attempts to draw Hero back in now that he’s broken her down. He tells her she’s his family when she wonders why he didn’t travel to Vermont with the other trans males. He claims that she is the only person he has left and urges her to accompany him. Hero puts his hand over his face and assures him that they can cooperate with the Amazons as long as they have each other.
This isn’t the response he was expecting. At this stage in the debate, she’s meant to be repentant. He takes a step back and tells her she doesn’t have him and never has.
“If you loved me as much as I love you, you would keep a single vow,” Sam says. But you won’t be able to. And I’m a complete moron for thinking you…”
Roxanne has had enough and interrupts him. She was doing him a favor, since he’d already said some horrible things, and he was going to say something so heinous that even Hero, who was accustomed to abuse, wouldn’t accept him back. In any case, he has a disagreement with Roxanne, which escalates into a fight between the three of them. Roxanne will not allow Sam to continue to mistreat Hero in this manner. Sam is told to apologize, but Hero isn’t sorry for anything. He informs them they’re all screwed up, and Hero is well aware of this.
They acknowledge they’re screwed up. Hero feels the same way. That is precisely the objective. They’re figuring out how a male-dominated culture has screwed up their lives. It might take some time. It has the potential to get nasty. We’re forced to believe Sam meant all he said about Hero since he doesn’t address it.
Because some people don’t understand, I’ll tell it again: Hero owes Sam no romantic love. It’s unfortunate that their relationship has been tainted by their differing emotional levels, but that’s what’s occurring. He inspires her with genuine friendship, while she inspires him with unrequited passionate love. He believes that if he waits long enough or pushes her hard enough, her emotions will develop into passionate love. Her life would be simpler if her sentiments shifted from loving friendship to passionate love, so she tries to make that happen on occasion, but it hasn’t succeeded despite years of trying.
Realistically, it means it will never happen, but if the program gets more seasons, the writers may try a different approach. I hope they don’t bring the characters together without both sides growing, beginning with Sam letting go of his preoccupation with who he believes Hero should be in order to accept who she is.
Sam believes that women should fall in love, or at the very least enter into an obedient relationship, with anyone the guy wants them, therefore he believes he is entitled to her adoration. But, since he considers himself to be a “good man,” he has limited himself to passive aggressive attacks on her and denies that he is attempting to persuade her to do anything. The attacks are getting more direct now that he understands she’s drifting away from him, yet they represent long-held resentments.
Hero apologizes to Roxanne for him and assures her that they are both weary and that she is OK. Roxanne chooses to terminate the scenario at that point. Sam rushes out on his own.
He wakes up in the middle of the night, packs his belongings, and departs from the PriceMax without saying goodbye to Hero. Roxanne manages to catch him in the act. She claims she was aware he was stealing. He claims he just brought what he needed to get by for a few days. She gives him permission to depart. He attempts to explain that Hero is a decent guy as he walks out the door, but… Roxanne interrupts him and informs him that Hero is no longer his issue. They’ll look after her.
Let’s go back to Roxanne’s genesis narrative now that Sam is out of the way. Roxanne pulls a corpse outside and places it among a mound of bodies on a tarp in the PriceMax parking lot in a flashback to the early days following the Event. She splatters lighter fluid all over the corpses before lighting a match to someone’s wrist. Despite her best efforts, they do not catch fire.
She comes up to a neighboring police vehicle that has a deceased male policeman inside. A horse emerges at the side of the parking lot as she peeks into the vehicle at the cop’s corpse. When Roxanne approaches, the horse backs up. She follows it all the way back to the shelter, where the other future Amazons are enjoying their supper outdoors. They welcome the horse as if he were an old friend. Roxanne keeps an eye on things but keeps a low profile.
Hero sits on Sam’s bed in the present, lamenting his loss. Roxanne assures her that she is free to go. Roxanne isn’t deceived by Hero’s pretense that she was merely cleaning up. She informs Hero that, despite the fact that Sam had departed without notice, he had been making arrangements for some time. Hero is remorseful for promising Sam that they will remain together. Roxanne comforts her as she sobs and tells her that it was Sam who abandoned her, not the other way around.
Roxanne discusses how her spouse abandoned her and claims that guys aren’t excellent at sticking around for the long haul. She then leads Hero outdoors, where the Amazons are gathered around a massive campfire, clad in pink and purple. They inform Hero that this is a “F**k ‘Em” gathering. It’ll be a “We’re Better Off Without Them” get-together. The Amazons think their bodies are temples, but they own those temples and may have parties in them whenever they choose. Roxanne tosses a bottle of Viagra into the flames, then tells Hero to toss the remembrance of Sam she’s clutching (his hat?) into the fire as well. Hero thinks for a while, then shouts and tosses it in. The other Amazons applaud and toss in their own items. To the tune of Raury’s God’s Whisper, the wild revels commence.
Mack dances with some of the Amazons to Tones and I’s Dance Monkey as the night winds down. Nora sits alone, smoking and contemplating. She pulls Mack away from the other ladies and advises them to leave the PriceMax, stating that they would be better off back home, in one of the camps outside DC. Mack sees through the deceit and refuses to go. Nora is being forced to go, she assumes, since the Amazons dislike her. Mack complains that her father would let her remain, and then they return to the party.
Nora tried to make it seem like she made the decision to leave in order to save Mack’s emotions, but it backfired. She enabled Roxanne to put a chasm between them without even trying by not giving Mack the whole truth, including that Roxanne won’t let Mack stay and that the other Amazons won’t go against Roxanne’s judgments because they’re terrified of her.
The Amazons pass out just inside the structure after the festivities, allowing the fire to burn. Nora is the only one who hasn’t fallen asleep yet. She walks past the sleeping ladies, resentfully glaring at them. She hovers over Roxanne, getting right up in her face, maybe planning what she’ll do to the other lady. She does not, however, touch Roxanne. Instead, she returns outside with her drink to stare at the fire.
The fire, which is surrounded by a container of lighter fluid. When you think at it from Nora’s perspective, the Amazons were asking for problems from the start.
She creates a combustible track from the fire to the structure, then kicks some embers into it. Nora can’t believe she’s done something so risky, yet she doesn’t put out the fire.
The structure catches fire. Nora manages to get everyone outdoors, but there’s no way to put out the fire once it’s started.
Roxanne places the dead in the police vehicle in another flashback, then makes the car drive itself into a nearby river. The water is shallow, just covering the vehicle halfway and leaving the corpses exposed. Roxanne becomes enraged and attempts to submerge the vehicle the rest of the way, but it refuses to move.
Roxanne wore a brown vest in the first two scenes. She takes it off after this. She then seems to be sleeping on the ground, listening in on the ladies at the refuge. She then returns to the shop to wipe up the blood on the floor. She cleans up what she can’t clean up, which is quite a bit. She arranges the sitting locations that we’ve seen in previous sequences. She returns outside and places the Pricemax trucks in a protective circle in front of the doors to make a perimeter.
She gets dressed in pants, a button-up shirt, and a jacket, returns to the shelter, and discharges her pistol a few times. She then enters the shelter and informs them that she is a police officer investigating the gunshots. We’ve arrived at the start of the flashback from earlier in the show, when Roxanne first met the ladies from the shelter.
Sam comes upon an abandoned elementary school and decides to play the piano in one of the rooms. Mrs Blackwell, the school principle, discovers him. She is keeping the school running because she hopes it will reopen in the future. She commends Sam’s performance and requests that he continue.
The Amazons dispute over who was supposed to put out the fire before they went to bed while they rescue what they can from the burned-out structure. Roxanne attempts to calm them down by saying that no one is to blame, but they ignore her and continue to argue. Others debate whether they should return to the shelter or travel to a camp.
Nora takes a seat next to Hero and begins to speak about her mother. They were never friends. Nora left home at the age of 17 and never returned. Her mother passed away not long after that. Hero pauses what is going to become an encouraging narrative to inquire about Nora’s motivation for telling her this. Nora claims that she understands Jennifer’s toughness, but that she has forgiven her daughter. They’ll be able to go to the Pentagon tonight… Hero tells her flatly that this isn’t going to happen.
Nobody ever asks Hero whether she has forgiven her mother or if she wants to see her again. They just want to utilize Hero to get access to the Pentagon for free. Yorick, on the other hand, went with 355 instead of Hero when she discovered him. Jennifer allowed him to remain at the Pentagon for less than a day before dispatching him based on the word of a secret operative she had never met. There’s a reason none of her children rushed to her side, expecting her to protect them—they knew she wouldn’t. Nora should have known better; her Republican pals would have been even less hospitable. Regina is now considering using the military to mow down the hungry, angry people gathering outside.
Short flashback to Roxanne at the PriceMax after the Event, watching Law & Order on her laptop. Someone switches off the lights.
Nora slips beyond the cordon to conceal stolen items in a fully full rucksack by the river. She’s already loaded it with food and a rifle. A vulture flies past on some wreckage, indicating the presence of corpses and repeating the omen that alerted Nora it was time to alter direction before she and Mack left their home in DC. Nora follows the riverside, heeding the warning, until she comes to the police vehicle with corpses inside. She dips her toes in the water and examines the inside of the vehicle. Next to the cop’s body is a clothing with a name tag. Nora triumphantly removes the name tag and returns her gaze to PriceMax.
Return to the immediate aftermath of the Event. Roxanne walks around PriceMax, cleaning up the looters’ devastation. Suddenly, a young lady rushes in, seeking for a hiding spot, followed by another young women with a shotgun. Roxanne crouches down and watches as the two ladies shoot each other.
She timidly investigates the corpses that are bleeding out on the floor after they’re both down, grabbing their pistols for herself. She clearly has no experience with weapons and is not a police officer, as she says. Roxanne instructs herself to shoot by practicing on the next several looters—the corpses she was attempting to burn in previous memories. She’ll be well on her way to building the confident character we’ve met today by the time she’s through.
Nora discovers Roxanne searching among the PriceMax’s charred remnants. Roxanne has a communication issue, she claims, and she used to work in politics. Nora won’t let Roxanne blow her off, which is certainly a first for Nora with a supervisor or authority person. Nora continues, stating that utilizing men’s hate to unify the Amazons was a good start, but it wasn’t going to work long term now that the men are dead and no longer a danger. The majority of the women stayed because of the PriceMax’s safety and resources, not because of Roxanne’s own abilities. Nora’s talents as a handler are needed by Roxanne since she has strong intuition, but she isn’t pulling off her disguise as effectively as she believes she is. Nora brings out the tag she retrieved from the police vehicle, and Roxanne pretends she has no idea what Nora is talking about.
“The only thing that can keep you safe out there is numbers,” Nora says. You don’t need the structure. You’ll need personnel. But you’ll need more than “guys stink” to retain them.
“I’m curious, what do you hope to gain out of this?” Roxanne says.
“From now on, I’ll be in the inner circle,” Nora says. I’ll have a look at things when you’ve ran them by me. And I’d want to have some advantages. Mack and I are the first to eat.”
“That’s not how we do things,” Roxanne says.
“Well, if there isn’t enough for everyone, you’ll make sure there is plenty for us,” Nora says. Everything is first come, first served for us. And you’re never going to mention my spouse or my kid again. It’s all up to you. You have the option of going out and telling them the truth about who you are. You can either go out and be the thing you’ve always wanted to be, or you can go out and be the thing you’ve always wanted to be.”
Prior to the Event, Roxanne, a PriceMax assistant manager, waits in the manager’s office as he chastises her for overstepping her authority. Terry is enraged because Roxanne sought to terminate an employee for many incidents of sexual harassment, which Terry does not consider to be serious transgressions. With Roxanne watching, he summons Travis, the offending employee, to his office and threatens to reduce his hours until he ceases his disrespectful conduct.
Roxanne claims that one of the female workers, Jenna, has been physically harassed by Travis. Terry dismisses her, claiming that Jenna enjoys the attention and that Roxanne’s tense demeanor is the true issue. Perhaps she should take a few additional weeks off after her cancer treatments to recover. She tells him she won’t be able to. Since her husband’s departure, she has no other option than to pay her expenses. Then he accuses her of stealing a boxed set of Law and Order Season 10 DVDs, which is grounds for termination. Roxanne explains that he found it in the bargain bin, in a torn wrapper. He doesn’t seem to mind; he’s just putting her on notice.
Roxanne resents males since her husband abandoned her to cope with her illness on her own, taking his health insurance with him and leaving her a working poor woman with medical expenses she’d never be able to pay. The PriceMax was plagued with sexism and sexual harassment, as this incident illustrates. When she sought to bring it up with her employer, she was humiliated and chastised, and she was told that even though she was officially an assistant manager, the male staff would be treated with more respect. He would have dismissed her sooner or later if he hadn’t died of the plague.
Terry advised her to open her own business if she didn’t like his judgments, and destiny soon provided her with the opportunity to do so. And he’s probably just one of the guys who trained her how to be a power-hungry, abusive leader.
In the back of one of the vehicles, Kelsey scans Hero’s palm and notes that her “will” line is larger than her “logic” line. Hero isn’t taken aback. Kelsey takes a break from reading to retort that she isn’t stupid in response to Hero’s snide remark about Sam. Hero acknowledges that she made a mistake when she said that. Kelsey reminds her that until she gives them a chance, she would never get to know them. Hero concurs. They return to their reading. Kelsey finds the Hero’s Ring of Solomon, a symbol that she will help others for the greater good. Hero doesn’t recognize herself in that description, but Kelsey does.
That sounds just like Hero’s job as an EMT. Since the Event, she’s continued to cure the wounded individuals she’s encountered, even when it put her in risk.
Roxanne interrupts them, requesting to speak to the group; she and Nora must have reached an agreement. As she talks, she gets into the rear of the vehicle to be over the others.
“What occurred here is a tragedy,” Roxanne says. You’re all aware that I had cancer a few years ago. One of my tits was taken. My health insurance, life savings, and a group of sporadic friends were all lost. My spouse left me after a few months of therapy because he couldn’t stand the heat any longer. F**k him, he wasn’t a prize, but that didn’t make me happy. Right then, I could have given up. You know, thrown in the towel? In this f**king society, what good is a broke 45-year-old lady with one breast and no man? Do you know who the Amazons are? [“Do you mean Wonder Woman?”] The originals, from Greek mythology, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, God’s daughters, warrior women. On the banks of a river, a city of women lives. They also established their own set of rules. They never backed down when others f**ked with them, especially when males f**ked with them. They were assassins and conquerors. One of their tits was cut off so that their arrows would shoot straighter. That was something I discovered following my cancer diagnosis. When I was getting back on my feet, I was looking at all the elements of my life and trying to find out what they were all for. Instead of giving up, I remembered them. There are still a lot of ladies out there who believe they’ve lost something. However, such is not the case with us. We rejoice in the lack of dread. We are the embodiment of it. This is our chance to seize what is rightfully ours, to be bold. Allow the rest of them to hide. That’s all they’ve been taught. However, such is not the case with us. Daughters of the Amazons, we are warrior women, and this is our world today! Yeah!”
Cheers erupt from the Amazons. Roxanne’s PriceMax name tag is hidden by Nora. For the time being.
Commentary
Karena Evans directed this episode, which was written by Coleman Herbert. Catherine Lutes’ cinematography, Melissa Lawson Cheung’s film editing, and Lauren Stephens’ sound editing are also noteworthy. Alexandra Schaller designed the set, while Herds Stefánsdóttir composed the soundtrack.
The tales of Roxanne and Hero are emblematic of the Amazon’s stories. We were spared depictions of continuing physical abuse in the program, but we did see Mike turn aggressive with Hero, and we watched both Mike and Sam manipulate and dominate her. Roxanne had been used and abused by multiple men in various aspects of her life, leaving her with nothing: her health was gone, she was destitute, her job was on the line, which meant she would have been threatened with eviction sooner or later, her friends had left with her husband in the divorce, and her work friends had also taken the men’s side. Instead of staying with her, the other ladies in her life followed the power. Of course, now that she has the opportunity, she wants to accumulate a great power for herself. She murdered several ladies to get vengeance on those who abandoned her, and now she’s starting a new family. She will, however, ensure that none of them have the opportunity to betray her. Nora has to be cautious.
Star During the production of season 10 of Law & Order: SVU, Mariska Hargitay was hurt while doing a stunt and had a partly collapsed lung. She returned to work, but the injury required surgery, and she missed one episode of the season’s production. Not only is Roxanne channeling Hargitay and her character, Detective Olivia Benson, to construct her cop/cult leader identity, but she’s also fascinated with season 10 since Hargitay/Benson underwent breast surgery on one side that season, which coincides with Roxanne’s mastectomy.
Kate discovered the corpses and Roxanne’s name tag in the police vehicle. She attempted to flee since she recognized Roxanne wouldn’t risk her telling the truth to the others, and Roxanne murdered her to ensure she didn’t.
Nora had already altered the game by burning down the PriceMax by the time she discovered the corpses. Roxanne lacked the foresight to adjust her cop/cult leader act on the fly while still figuring out how to feed and shelter the Amazons. Nora is her imagemaker, but she is probably unaware of how much she relies on her. Because she was teaching hatred rather than survival skills beyond firing firearms, her time was always going to expire when the supplies ran out. While the Amazons must learn to fend for themselves in the new world, Roxanne is trapped in the old.
Nora assisted Roxanne in updating her message, but it still doesn’t seem complete. Nora got closer to acting for herself and being herself in this episode, rather than attempting to be whatever she needed to be to fit in. Roxanne is continuing enacting her vengeance dream in the imaginary persona she established for herself after the Event. That means she must keep the other ladies at arm’s length and under strict supervision, which they are already resenting. Roxanne will continue to live in terror as long as she is living a lie, and her warrior lady message will be empty. The other Amazons will find it out eventually.
Nora or Sam never consider that the Pentagon will run out of resources and collapse in the same way that the PriceMax did, only worse. The federal government will not be able to make additional packaged food if it runs out. Anyone within the Pentagon will be under siege, with hostile masses outside posing as an invading army, waiting for the people inside to starve to death so they can take over the structure like they did the White House. The throng around the building have already placed the individuals inside under a low-level siege, preventing them from freely entering and exiting. (Or maybe the Feds started subterranean hydroponic farming and I missed it; if so, why aren’t they helping the rest of the nation produce their own food?)
I’m starting to wonder whether Sam, Beth, and Christine are all Culper Ring spies, implanted in Hero, Yorick, and Jennifer’s lives to watch and lead them as the operation neared, then given fresh orders at different stages after the Event. However, that seems to be paranoid. Plus, it’s already been done on Orphan Black.
As Nora described it, the bald eagle on Roxanne’s shoulder is a representation of what she so badly wants to be.
FX on Hulu provided the images.
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