Unless it's just wrong.

Personally, it engenders a wee bit of rage in me, but I have issues with the administration and its ability to respond to crises. I suspect I'd get over it eventually.

I... don't get it. I feel unpolitically knowledgable.

So, not crafts (but definitely some sort of procrastination), thanks to Kristen, I managed to read the script of the first episode of "The Inside". I wrote down some stuff while reading, to unentangle my thought, and I thought I'd share. It's like Watch-and-Post, without the watching, and putting all the posts together, so less of the posting. That's why it's so messy. But, well, here goes:

The victim being one of the members of the team, without them even knowing it, at first - this is up close and personal, it's about them, at least as much as it is about the cases, about what the cases do to them. And they hardly ever know it (other than Web, who from the very first few seconds seem to be the one who knows everything). That's a physical (and, I guess, pretty striking) way of saying this, but I do hope it's right, and it's about the inside of the people's heads and souls. And I've already used the word "inside" without thinking, silly me.

It wasn't a surprise, in a way, that the victim was the missing team member. I already knew that the show was about a new member in an existing team, so a former one must have died. But for me it was like pointing a finger to what I babbled about in the former paragraph. And I liked that (hey, I like when I'm being helped to know what to think, OK?).

I like Paul, from the start. He seems to be the one actually trying to be nice and honest, from the very first minute. I already hear Danny in AB's voice, just from reading his words - it just fits so perfectly. I even imagine his face, and now I wonder if the face I imagine, the expressions and gestures, are similar in any way to the ones on screen. Mine are a bit Jayne-like.

Oh, and "Carla" is now Melody, right?

"Like the man, the office is elegant but with dark corners." - what an amazing line of description. I have a complete picture in my head of the office, just from this line.

I really liked the first conversation between Rebecca and Web - she's trying to hold on her own in front of him, he - in a way - dares her to try, while still seeming to appreciate that she does. I imagine they both speak very quietly and calmly, even when saying the most standing-out things ("they were wrong", "you only think you have").

Oh! Paul, the nicest one so far, the one who didn't jump to look her up online, is the one who offered to go through her bags, the most obvious violation of her privacy. So, there's more to each of them than it seems in first glance, ha?

I loved the part in which Web chooses to call Rebecca by the full name, the one she was not using for herself. He's already changing the person in front of him, designing her more like he wants her to be rather than who she was when she entered the room, and he starts with the most personal and most outward thing, a name. Am I putting too much into this?

With each detail Rebecca is describing of the 8 victims, she's actually describing herself (age, looks, new in town). Huh. And she already works on the case, trying to form a theory, even before getting there, just off the plane. How does the murderer knows that the victims are new in town? Is it like she said, that something in their rootlessness attracts him? So he's also inside the heads of his victims, in a way?

So, Paul, the one who offered to go through her bags, the one who used the information the other two found online (he knew they were going to look for it, right?), he's the one who is on the team thanks to his conscience? I like this game. I wonder now what the others have that Web needs, what the dead Alvarez did, and how come Web already had his eye on Rebecca before he ever needed any new staff member. I'm less of a third of my way in, and already I want to know things about these characters.

(continued...)

[Edited to wave to Jessica]

Urbandictionary.com on "now watch this drive."

( continues...) The line describing Rebecca looking at the glove before putting it on gave me chills, even more than the scene in which the de-gloved hand was found at the crime scene. I don't know why, maybe because that's what I was thinking when reading about finding the skin (also, there's no way to say de-gloved in Hebrew in exactly the same way).

Oh, my goodness. She did this to herself? She cut herself like this? Her hand and her face? So this is much more of a "about the crew" than before, isn't it, if she did it to herself? She was the profiler, right? The one who was most supposed to know what's going on inside the murderer's head? Is it that she went too far in those attempts, and it made her flip, do this to herself? Was she trying to realize what was going on with the victims? The murdered? Both?

OK, deep breath, and I continue reading. What a twist.

I liked it that Paul said that they were too close to see that it was suicide, which explains both how come those people who were supposed to be the best and working for the best couldn't come up with the answer, and how come the rookie could. Also, it makes me wonder - if an advantage is in being a bit away, how can she keep it?

Alvarez got off her medication in order to try and catch the murderer? And she has kids? How far will these people go to in order to catch a person? How does that settles with what Paul said, about how sometimes they don't even get a case closed? I love the sensation of having more and more questions with each fact that's being revealed.

And it was Web who pushed Alvarez to do what she had done (get off the medication - I bet he knew about that, not just about the illness - and try to get into a killer's head). But what in her bi-polarity (and I liked the way it was treated, "it's a disease that people live with") made her such a good profiler for Web?

I loved it that Rebecca was calling the previous profiler by her first name, while everybody else was using her last name. She's trying to get close, inside, just like the dead woman did (and despite knowing that this was what killed her, in a way). And I used the word "inside" again, didn't I?

I loved the part in which Rebecca posed herself a question (which movie was out when Danny was nine), solved it, and didn't continue the very important thing she was doing before she reached that solution. It's like she makes herself all about answering the questions. Also, detached from what she does, despite being so very much inside it. Contradicting yet sense-making, otherwise she'd probably not be able to be so focused in such horrid details, at least, right?

I like the sense that I'm getting, of each of the people in the group trying to figure out the new element, be it Rebecca or the other members of the team. They check the boundaries, tell a bit about themselves, what they can do, what they want (or don't) to do, starting to get to know each other, in a place where getting to know is their job, or at least part of it. I read once an interview with a person who was an investigator in the Israeli Intelligence, and he talked about how he sometimes can't stop using his skills in everyday life, how when he meets a girl for the first time, he knows everything about her after talking with her for only 5 minutes, mostly without her even realizing that she gave that information. I remembered that interview during the conversations between Paul and Rebecca. It felt the same. This sometimes inability to not-know, if I'm making any sense. I'm curious about Paul's wife.

Putting the broken glass pieces back together - I loved that, and not just because I'm a jigsaw-puzzles freak.

If I were watching, I would probably gasp aloud at the man in the mirror. I really like it that she imagined him in the mirror, a reflection, more real to her than what was actually taking place around her. I liked it that the hint she did actually see in the reflection threw her out to something else. Like the hint and what she saw were connected in her mind.

(continued...)

( continues...) Sending a message of a girl whose screams can't be heard. And that's after slicing faces off and taking them with him - that killer has something special with taking the identity, the humanity of his victims. Also, scary. It's like the monster-in-the-closet: sometimes what you can't see/hear affects you more than what you can. And, a real monster-in-the-closet, this time.

It's like Web's all order-of-priorities is different than the rest of everybody else's, but I can't tell exactly what his is. And it seems like everybody knows it, Danny carries it secretly in his heart, and only Paul dares to say something, but still stays. I'm really curious about the dynamics in the crew, with Web, and between each of the members and the others, as well.

I imagine the effect of the voices from behind the door joining the silent picture on the monitor in Rebecca's hand, and loving it. I wonder how this played on screen.

I loved it that Rebecca's lack of experience is showing - she tried to rush to the scene, she fainted (goodness, who wouldn't?). It wouldn't have worked, had she been all cold-blood pro from the first second, I guess.

"I couldn't get to him... and he got to me. He made me feel hope." - I loved that line. It echoed what happened to Alvarez, both ways, what she tried to do and what she failed, and in a completely different way, because when Alvarez let him get to her, it ended up in her death, but when he got to Rebecca, what she felt was hope.

Rebecca reminds me a bit of Simon from "Firefly" - out of her element, yet so very much inside it, and handling things with a wry sense of humor. Falling and getting up and next time managing to stay up.

"She has a gift. Forged in pain. She wants me to use her." - I both believe and don't believe this line, if that makes sense. It's like Web was saying the reason I thought he was going to use, only - I kind of expected him to not say the reason I expected him to say, because, well, he's supposed to be a bit more unexpected. OK, now I'm sure I'm not making any sense. It's like he said what Paul or us thought we would hear, and therefore he even used big words like "forged". But these were not necessarily the real reasons in his head and heart. I already like those three characters: Rebecca, Paul and Web.

Oh, and I like the name change and the meaning of the names. I liked how Web distanced Rebecca's name even one step further from her original "Becky George". Obviously, Paul's new testament reference with his name, Web's noun-meaning (I need to Google to find out more about the original Virgil). Oh, and "Lock", without the "e" that was added to it, is not without meaning, as well.

Also, Rebecca, in the bible, came from a not-so-good family (her father was a relative of Abraham, but that doesn't say anything especially good about him, and her brother was a real villain, who tried - and managed - to trick Jacob several times), but she was a very obviously good person (giving water to the camels of Eliezer), and she chose to marry Isaac, and she was a strong woman, with her eyes open and aware of the personalities of her two sons, trying to help the beloved better one get a better place in his father's heart, in life, sometimes not with the most kosher of ways. I wonder how much of all that went into the choosing of her name. Also, I wonder about changing Carla's name into Melody. Names are just interesting, I guess.

I liked it that Rebecca reached for the plant, the one that the victim tried to take care of. Either she's trying to figure out the girl, or she's just a girl herself and that's the natural thing to do, and it connects her back to the victim and makes her even more similar to her than with all the other characteristics. And I wonder if Web said "I read your thoughts" as if matter-of-factly.

"We may not have a name. But we know this man. We know who he is... because of what he does." - again with the names, their existence or absence, and the person behind the names. I like that thread.

(continued...)

( continues...) "You're trying to be something you are. You just... you don't know who that is yet." - but isn't that what growing up is all about? I love this. This is where a show about FBI agents and murders and gore becomes about, well, me. So, yeah, it does it by putting people in much more extreme situations than actual everyday life stuff, but that's just as using a space-ship with a broken engine to tell something about people trying to make it in the world, and it also, in a sense, felt to me to be about me. Um, meMeME.

"Cheers me up" - she moved from "you" to "me" (after the mention of the plant). She's getting into the victim's head and talking about herself at the same time. It's just as much about her - and her ability to do that - as it is about the murders. And that's what drove poor Alvarez to suicide. And Web is totally pushing her in that way. He seems like he already knows what her answers are going to be, and still he needs *her* to get to those answers, for some reason. It can't be just for the answers themselves, if he knows them already, right?

Oh, so this is how he finds them! The trains. I loved that aspect. Such a practical yet in-their-heads way to tie the "new girl in town" concept.

I was reading the scenes with the train and the "other new girl" without stopping. I just wanted to know "what happens next".

OK, why is Web so angry? Did he expect her to do anything else? To leave when she sees their suspect? Also, we still don't know for sure that he's the murderer, right? He's a strange guy who is on trains a lot, but in these kinds of stories, as long as we're not 100% sure, we can't tell what twist will jump at us, right?

Oh, and the tech guy getting into the train with Rebecca is, I think, just proving my point. It's actually him, right? And all of Web's looks at him mean that Web suspects something, too?

Rebecca put herself in a position of bait, but actually Web manipulated her into that, or a little bit of both. She places herself as potential victim to the murderer, but from the possibility of a position of strength for her, since she chooses to do it, identifies how to do it, understands the murderer more than all those before her. And still there's the element of Web putting her there, so maybe it was less of her choice than she thought it was. Oh, so many possibilities, so many things to play with.

"you're not anything now" - just like Web and Rebecca said the murderer thinks. And I liked the way it was casually woven into the conversation, with her being fired and all.

"You didn't even know my name. I'm only wearing it." - again with the names and the knowing about people. I *love* that. It doesn't stop being interesting and running around in my head, even when it's a suspense-how-will-they-save-her kind of story.

Oh, and I want to make sure I got this straight: Web told Rebecca to get back on the *train* and go back to LAX? He sent her back on the train, where she was just bait, and I'm suspecting while guessing they arrested the wrong guy? Wow.

I wonder if Rebecca acted much differently in the second train round when compared to the first, in the one in which she was really like one of those girls that the murderer targeted, as opposed to the one in which she was bait, wired, with people watching her moves, and therefore in a different position.

"I was made a nobody a long time ago. By something a hell of a lot scarier than you." - I wanted to hug Rebecca when I read that line. Poor little lost girl who still manages to stand up on her feet and fight back and tries to do good and escape from that and find herself and find that strength exactly from that poor-girl place that makes me want to hug her.

Oh. My. Goodness. Web shot him! Not only did he know all along, everything, including where they will get off the train, he also arranged it so that he can be there alone with the two of them and he shot him! He's not the usual FBI "let's bring bad guys to justice" person, is he? Either being able to get bored by cases and stop them in the middle, or killing (executing?) a serial killer without even telling him "drop her" first.

(continued...)

( continues...) Mal would have shot him without blinking, either, wouldn't he? He would have never ever put Rebecca in that place, but he would have shot that killer without a moment's hesitation. But Mal also didn't work for the same system that's supposed to take care of those kind of criminals. Web scares me and fascinates me at the same time.

Web said "That's my girl", but the next minute, he tells Paul to take care of her, which pretty much can say "save her from me". Which did he mean? Both? Are they the same thing and Paul doesn't even know it?

I really like Paul, still don't really know Rebecca (even though she gave the line that pinged the "me! ME! I know this!" buttons for me), and am fascinated by Web. I guess there was no time to get to know the other main characters in just the one episode, right? But I loved what I read! I am even more curious now about the characters and what will happen to them and what are their past relationships and how will their future relationships will shape out to become, but that only makes me love what I got to read even more. Thank you, Kristen!

[Edit: Oops, I have some silly timing. Didn't mean to disturb the conversation or anything.]

As Allyson said, it makes one's mind go to the Micheal Moore thing and the pres-as-doofus of it, which tickles me. But I'll have no rage. So backing away now.