(Few things have delighted me more than guessing right about what Sahjhan was up to, after all.)

Hee. I remember those e-mails. We both came up with similar ideas. Except I only called the part about Sahjhan's punishing Angel for something he hadn't done yet, not writing the prophecy himself.

Note to self: watch Tivo'd Inside eps during the daylight.

Heh. I just watched it right now, at noon, with lunch. I wonder what it would have been like had I watched it last night.

"Twisted Oliver." Awesome.

*snort*

Anyone care to do a recap?

Sex sex sex murder murder sex.

"I still think you were full of it saying that 'surviving' an S&M session makes you stronger. But take my word for it, surviving real-life abduction and abuse really does."

That is definitely lurktastic.

Oh, and I didn't get the hair-chopping until I realized the killer was trying to make them look more like Club Guy.

Ooooh. I didn't get that either. Thanks. But was there really a reason to save that hair, then?

I don't know which I love more, all the spicey, analytical brains on display, or the fact that there's a show that's really engaging them.

Seriously. I saw all these posts, and then I come here and discover they're actually about the episode. Not, say, space clams in dirigibles.

Okay, so. I just watched Batman Begins last night (which is why I missed The Inside ), and the word of the movie was "fear." For this episode, the word was "control," and I had a similar reaction: even though it felt heavy-handed at times (like, how many times can we get everyone to use the word "control," huh?), I still really liked the way the characters explored the concept. I've recently discovered that one of my pet themes, in addition to identity issues, is power struggles, so it was interesting to see some analysis of S&M relationships. I don't think I'd ever actually heard that it was the submissives who have the power, but the explanation makes sense. It's this weird duality there. You sacrifice all the power but the very highest.

You know, I really liked Paul last week, but suddenly I don't anymore. Due to the extreme judginess. And I know some people like that he's aware of it, and it may be that I am also judgy but self-aware about it, but I feel like he was a bit...oppressive with it. Not really giving the people he was judging the benefit of the doubt. Like Rebecca said, he didn't know what made them like that. We'll see how I like him next week.

I was the network. I thought it was obvious the doorman was the killer, so I spent the episode waiting for that twist. And then...oops, another one. Although I'm getting a little tired of the device where the scene is set up to look like one person is getting shot but in fact the person shoots himself. Because I've seen it FIFTY BAZILLION TIMES. I mean, if that's what needs to happen, fine, but just stop pretending to trick me. Show it to me straight. Show me his eyes.

Rebecca was stronger in this episode, I agree, and I liked that she had a very visceral reaction to being handcuffed, with yellow-tinted flashbacks to her own abduction, and that she didn't have that during the reenactment, because she expected it and was in more of a safe space.

And the "Who sent the text message?" issue? Fucking sweet.

I'm not sure that I am superduperhooked just yet. I'm liking what I'm seeing, and the mysteries are different from what I've seen before, so that's cool, and I really want to know Web's deal. But I'm definitely continuing to watch.

I don't think Rebecca was ever saying someone else was in control, just that Strong wasn't.

Ah. I'll buy that for a dollar.

I haven't seen the first episode yet (stupid car) and so all these mentions of gory just make no sense at all. Squick or creepy? Oh sure.

I liked it ok. I'm decidedly lukewarm on all new shows for a few episodes at least (unless I've been taunted into watching them by diabolical whitefont) and that's a little less true here. I see potential for me to like it lots.

The butt genie, Jebuslug, "Home"... these are a few of my more nightmare-making things, thank you very much!

maybe people delinate between pictures seen on TV and scenes played. The pictures seem less real than the "action".

The pictures were actually way creepier to me than the scenes with the, say, body on the slab, for some reason.

I finally realized why the first ep creeped me out so much. It was the fact that he attacked her/kidnapped her from her apartment.

Yeah that hit a huge button for me because I was attacked in my home. From the front though, the guy came out of a lit bathroom into my dark hallway and jumped me. I had had some amazing self defense training, though, and what I learned kicked in immediately and I was able to fight him off. I'm always on alert when walking down the street, getting in my car, and in my house. But I'm not scared usually because I've got the skills. (And, Vortex, if you are ever at all interested the self defense class I took is offered in DC. I'm always happy to pimp it. It seriously changed my life and may have saved it.)

I did have to look behind the door last night after I came back from walking my dog just in case there was somebody there waiting to leap on me! Why last night instead of after the first ep, who knows?

So you think they're reacting to the content, in terms of what they're talking about? I think you might be right, but it's imprecise to call that gore.

This exactly. I remember when Pulp Fiction and Braveheart were both out at the same time. People were disgusted by all the gore in PF, but the gore in Braveheart didn't ping them. For me, Braveheart had significantly more gore on screen than did PF, but PF was more intense content-wise leading to a sense of more gore.

The Inside is disturbing on a psychological level with the implied, but not graphically shown, things that happen. Seeing Brandt's face right after the rape scene tore me up. He had lost control, been violated, and he had this dead look of giving up in his eye that chilled me. Gore? No. Disturbing? Hells yeah.

The butt genie, Jebuslug, "Home"... these are a few of my more nightmare-making things, thank you very much!

Incestuous mothers who use boards to slide
Genies that travel the world up backsides
Slugs that are Jesus and live in your spine
These some things of the squick-making kiiiiiind!

I need to go throw up.

Hey Evander Holyfield got kicked off Dancing with the Stars. What reason is there to watch now? Really.

So either it's out goring CSI or it's got less ghastly details. Can it be both, emprically?

Perception of gore is a completely subjective thing. I don't think there's any "empirically" about it.

[To be honest, nothing so far has looked real enough to squick me. I don't viscerally react to gore if I can tell it's latex.]

Yeah, I saw some of the same "gore for gore's sake blah blah" over at TWoP. I expect them to hate the show, they hated Angel, Firefly and Wonderfalls, too, but I don't usually expect them to go so herd group-think with stuff that's, frankly, not there.