(2022)

Why this?

Adult animation is a complicated genre of television. It is packed to the brim with enough content that no person on earth has enough free time to watch it all. One of my favorite shows of all time is Bojack Horseman.

Bojack gave us fabulous animation as well as PLOT! Not even just any old plot, plot that changed lives babe. Since Bojack Horseman ended, I have been searching for a program that gave me a similar feeling. I searched and searched and came across Pantheon.

IMDB describes Pantheon as, ” A young woman starts to get messages from an unknown number that claims to be her deceased father. Trying to uncover the truth, she stumbles upon a larger conspiracy involving the singularity.”

I’m sat. And I was sat! For the entirety of this show. This show deals with the concept of Uploaded Intelligence. If a person dies, their brain is decimated with lasers so that their mind can be uploaded to the internet. Woah?

I love TV shows that make me question the world or wonder about what could happen in the future and this show gave me both. So strap in bitches, we’re blogging.

Premise

Pantheon’s main character is 14 year old Maddie Kim. Maddie’s father, David Kim, had just died and she is getting bullied at school. Maddie starts receiving messages made up of entirely emojis. She is curious about the sender but then things change drastically. All of her bullies get hacked with some believing the culprit of the hack to be Maddie herself.

Maddie isn’t the hacker but she now knows who is, her super dead dad, David Kim. This launches the central plot of the show.

Prior to his death, David Kim was a brilliant engineer who was known for his hacking, programming, and general computer skills. He spent his life advancing systems at Logorythms, the company where he worked.

Logorythms is a huge tech company started by the legendary but uber dead Stephen Holstrom. Stephen Holstrom was every scary tech billionaire rolled up into one. Stephen’s life mission was to crack uploaded intelligence. Unfortunately, he died before he could see that dream to fruition.

When David Kim got sick and knew he didn’t have much time left with his family, he elected to go through with the experimental uploading procedure. This procedure violently destroyed his brain with lasers and uploaded his mind to be used as “Uploaded Intelligence”, or, UI.

David’s wife, Ellen, and daughter, Maddie, were told that the procedure failed. David was dead and the upload failed meaning he sacrificed his life for nothing. This was false. The upload had been successful and David’s uploaded intelligence was locked within Logorythms systems, unable to escape.

David’s imprisoned UI became a slave to Logorythms. He became a human computer, stuck within a time loop and forced to continuously code. Hoping to encourage David’s UI to keep working, Logorythms placed a photo of his family within his virtual prison, big mistake.

This photo gave David’s UI inspiration to escape and find his way back to his family, thus, weird emoji texts.

Ellen realizes Logorythms is pulling a #martywolf and being big fat liars so she starts negotiating to get whatever they have left of David. Maddie also realizes this and starts asking the right questions.

She starts chatting online with another angsty teen about how wack Logorythms is. Before mystery teen and Maddie are able to exchange information, they are cut off. Maddie is instructed to go to the mall to meet what could be a normal stranger but is more likely an axe murderer.

Who is waiting for her at the mall is neither. We then meet Cody Lowell. Cody’s wife, Laurie, was uploaded as well. Laurie Lowell was a cut throat investment manager until she died in a car accident. Before her death, Laurie prioritized her job over Cody. Now, Cody will do anything to help her UI. Even if that means meeting teenage girls at the mall like a freak.

Laurie and Cody put together a plan to break David out of the Logorythms online prison. Laurie feeds Cody stock information, thus, racking up stacks. Cody uses this money and follows Laurie’s instructions to build a server farm that can contain Laurie and David’s uploaded intelligence.

Im gagged. Im on the edge of my seat. HUH! Laurie / Cody gives Maddie a bracelet that will help her break her dad out of E-Jail but she has to physically enter the Logorythms campus.

Maddie scores an invite by guilt tripping her grieving mother to bring her along to a meeting at Logorythms. Ellen’s intentions for the meeting are to have Logorythms delete whatever scraps of code they have of David but that won’t be happening with her menace of a daughter (I love her though).

Maddie pulls some high tech shit and Laurie Lowell launches an attack on Logorythms systems. The market is crashing! The president is on the phone! What the fuck is big business going to do now!

Just kidding because Maddie and Laurie are fully pulling off a hostage situation. They want David and they will stop bankrupting the company as soon as they get him.

Obviously they succeed and Maddie+Ellen skip on home to plug him in. I watched this show like every second was a gift and I’m still not clear on the logic here. How Im supposed to believe that this 14 year old girl has the necessary equipment to access these files? I have to buy a new adaptor every single time I need to access a SD card but SURE.

The way the UI is displayed in the show is apart of why it is so fun to watch. All of the uploaded people basically hang out in a fantasy video game that Maddie and her dad used to play together. All of the UI vs mean humans vs meaner UI battles happen in this video game landscape.

Again, we do not know how this teenage girl uploaded her father into a fantasy video game via her 2006 looking computer but moving past that!

At this point, I’m throwing up. HUH? This sequence of events is just the jumping off point for this show. You have absolutely no idea where it is going to go / already fucking went!

While all of this has been happening, another character was introduced.

The character I completely skipped over was Caspian Keyes. We meet Caspian in Episode 1 when he’s living his little cool-nerd life in California. His dad is an abusive dickhead and his mom is someone he must protect. Caspian is excellent at computers and highly intelligent despite being raised in a seemingly horror house.

Things seem super off though. While around Caspian, his parents are insane. His father is violent and scary whilst his mother is weak and fragile. When Caspian leaves, the dynamic drastically changes. Caspian’s mother is kind of a bitch and Caspian’s father is guilt-ridden over the abuse Caspian has experienced.

Caspian starts looking into Logorythms after chatting online with Maddie but he is more connected to the company than he knows. HOW?

OH DUH!? I’m so dumb. That is because Caspian’s parents aren’t his parents but in fact Logorythms employees. This is the kind of plot twist I dream about.

Remember how I mentioned super scary Stephen Holstrom? He is important here. Why?

Oh! Because Caspian is actually a clone of Stephen Holstrom created to finally crack uploaded intelligence. His entire life was actually a shot-for-shot remake of Stephens life.

Those employee parents? Systematically had Caspian recreate every experience Stephen ever had. Abusive daddy? For sure! Weak mama? Yup! Emotional scars? Check!

Caspian even eventually discovers that his new girl friend is an actor as well! Girly was going to get a fat check complete with bonuses for every “sexual encounter” she engaged in with Caspian.

Maddie and Caspian start to plot and scheme to take down Logorythms. David and Laurie are now free but issues are still prevalent with uploaded intelligence. The more energy uploaded people use, the more they glitch, like the Sims 4. The first season focuses on Maddie, Caspian, David, Laurie, Ellen, Cody and crew trying to save people that have been uploaded from ceasing to exist.

Maddie is motivated by wanting to save her dad and exposing the truth about Logorythms.

Caspian fights to find his identity outside of being a clone as well as find the “cure” for individuals that had been uploaded.

David discovers what being uploaded means for humanity and does everything in his power to keep, not only his family safe, but the world.

Laurie becomes laser focused on taking down the systems even losing herself and becoming a mini villian when she gets too deep.

Ellen and Cody both lost their spouses but handle it in different ways. Cody would do anything for Laurie because she never gave him the opportunity whilst she was alive. Ellen eventually accepts David’s UI in some capacities but believes the man she loved is gone.

Logorythms employees (Fake mom, CEO, ETC) stop at nothing to make sure Stephen Holstrom’s dream comes true.

The only person in the show that is motivated entirely by personal gain is Stephen Holstrom (+ the other tech billionaires) and I like that! Nobody is fighting to “Win”, they are all fighting for each other!

Are you gagged? Im gagged. The show also explores themes that were relatable to what is going on in the world right now! The effects of AI / data centers on the environment! How dependent we are on technology! The meaning of literal death and what happens when we learn how to cheat it!

If you read about Walt Disney in that freezer and thought, weird but is there a picture? You would eat this show up.

Rating: 8.9/10 SD ADAPTERS

Issues: The cross compatibility of every device in this show drives me insane. Now I’m looking at that picture and realizing Miss Maddie fully has an ETHERNET port but was able to access her dad via THAT laptop. Nonsense.

Why I loved it: I think this show is the best example of Pantheism in entertainment yet. It is two complete seasons of excellent television with an ending that made me toss and freaking turn.

What is next: For TV reviews I am thinking either Common Side Effects or another show within that realm. For movie reviews I just saw the housemaid and am ready to not shut up about it!

XOXO

rowsroyce

RowsRoyce