Oh, Joss. I can go with the human trafficking, but does the pathetically pining next door neighbor really have to be the only curvy/fuller figured/"normal"-sized woman on the show? Really??

Funny, none of that occurred to me. I just thought Not!Helo was stupid for ignoring the hot woman next door.

But when your premise is that mindwiping and whoring out women is wrong -- which you demonstrate by mindwiping and whoring them out week after week -- UR DOIN IT WRONG.

Errr ... it's kind of the premise of the show. If they did away with it in the second episode, the show would kind of be over.

But I don't entirely buy that that the show is about how mindwiping and whoring are wrong. I think they're the wrongs that are taken as the given of the show.

Moreover ...

Joss, the irony of using a show about mindwiped whores to make a statement on the treatment of....what? Actresses? Is no longer ironic. You don't get to use rape as a metaphor.

I don't think this is what's happening, either. Again, the horrid things are the context of the show, not the subject. The subject is identity, and about whether it can be completely suppressed, erased or overwritten. About whether we are our memories, or lack of them. All very Phillip K. Dick, I'm sure.

I have to admit, I was weak on the first episode, but I thought this one was head-and-shoulders above the first. I'm happy to learn some back story, and I think there's plenty of potential laid out here worth exploring.

To tell the truth, last week I was concerned that it would be impossible for Echo's character to plausibly progress, but I'm now a lot less worried about that. I like the idea that who she really is isn't so easily eradicated.

I'm not as in love with it as I was with, oh, "Buffy," "Angel," "Firefly" or "Drive," but I'm definitely more interested than I was last week.

(Also, I thought Eliza was much better this week time around. I really thought she was on.)

What Victor said. Although I get Tep's reservations. Although I think she's going to be security next week, so it will be less with the rape subtext. But it's REALLY hard to gross me out on a procedural basis, so ymmv.

I agree with Victor too. I can understand why the subject matter is upsetting to some people, but it doesn't really get to me when the bad guys do horrible, awful things, and I am even more intrigued by AA's character this week.

Although I get Tep's reservations.

Oh, completely. Joss and co. have taken on a lot to chew, here, and I'm still not completely sold on it. But ultimately, it's what happens with Echo that proves whether the artistic risk of the show's premise was worthwhile, and the jury's still out on that one. Way too early to tell.

At least the main characters weren't the worst people on the show this week, which is kind of how I felt last time.

At least the main characters weren't the worst people on the show this week, which is kind of how I felt last time.

Yeah, although the only one I actively like so far is Langton. Which is an improvement over last week.

Like I said, I'm a Lehane fan, so really hard to gross out. And then, there was the season of "The Wire" where nobody cared about the cans of dead hookers...I'm not your mama's women's studies alum and I'm aware of that.

Yeah, erika. I don't really mind if everyone is terrible, as long as there's something compelling about the main characters. Which can still be terrible -- Bubba Rogowski, anyone?

Reed Diamond's character strikes me as very much not a good guy. He was abusing Echo, knowing she couldn't defend herself or remember it later.

I'll be tuning in next week. I was fascinated by the way Echo turned the call and response with Boyd around on him, the "do you trust me" coming from her instead of him. It starts opening the same can of worms that seem to have resulted in Alpha going amok. Is it part of Caroline emerging, is it failure of the mindwipe or is it a new identity being built spontaneously around the absence of Caroline and Echo that is emerging? Is it the physical brain structure holding on to little bits of each imprint and trying to build something new? At what point will a completely different and self-aware conscious emerge? Will it be aware that it ever was Caroline/Echo? Is it murder to destroy that emerging conscious to wipe it back to Echo or even to put the original Caroline back in?

It's sci fi, Joss can really play with this from the technical aspect and from the philisophical. There's still so much we don't understand about the working of the human brain and about what makes us--us. Cogito ergo sum. But what are the beginnings of cogito and who is the sum?