‘Dispatches from Elsewhere' Episode 2 Review: Simone and Peter go to Fishtown and deal with their baggage
The motif of the fish looms large in this episode as Peter and Simone embark on another round of cryptic adventures. They are aided by a battery-operated talking fish and a pair of 3D glasses that take them from a convenience store to a bar in "Fishtown", whose back entrance leads to the "Elsewhere Clubhouse".
There, as Peter pedals, the light and sound show starts with the room's strange artworks lighting up and powering a 3D flip animation cartoon. In the cartoon, "Commander 14" of Elsewhere Society speaks vaguely about the ills of capitalism and the magic of freedom and beauty waiting to be found in the world if only people would stop feeling unloved or unworthy, trapped in their daily routines.
Are you getting tired of all the fluffy existentialism yet? There is more. Finding their way to the rooftop, they see an elaborate mural painted by the mysterious Clara (who the Jejune Institute is hunting according to Commander 14) on the sides of the buildings and the sidewalks.
All the pieces of the painting come together as a cohesive whole only when seen from a particular angle from the rooftop. The talking fish then asks both Peter and Simone to confess something that they are afraid of revealing. Peter, who despite his neuroticism, is quite open, confesses he "hears music" when he sees Simone and he has had a "feeling" ever since he met her - cue the romantic music.
At the very start of the episode, it is revealed that Simone is a male-to-female transwoman who is uncomfortable being her true self around people, scared they will reject her because of a not-so-great coming out. She is so anxiety-ridden because she always believes that people think the worst of her.
She thought that transitioning would make her feel "right" but even after her life-changing decision, she is still alone because she keeps getting spooked when she encounters love or has to be open with other people. Encountering Peter's wide-eyed fascination with her, she is overwhelmed by the inner self who tells her not to f**k it up. So she doesn't reveal anything about herself and rejects Peter's admission of his crush on her.
If the last episode was about Peter's particular demons, this episode is devoted to Simone, who is also like us, the viewers, as Octavio (Richard E Grant) tells us in another monologue. "You are Simone," he intones if "you" never fit in anywhere and the biggest obstacle to happiness was yourself. By the end of the episode, after her nana, who she lives with, tells her that hiding her "bag of shit" wasn't going to help because it would "still stink". So it was better to just be honest and say she had baggage that stunk. It is, pardon the pun, a sh**ty metaphor because a lot of baggage "stinks" in our head but is not necessarily offensive to others.
But Simone takes her nana's words to heart. So when she spots Peter at a protest site (more on that later), that she, Janice and Fredwyn are investigating, she tells him what's in her heart. She tells him that she really likes playing the game because it is the first time she has felt comfortable doing something with other people.
But flirtations might end in disaster and she really does not want to ruin the fun they are having. Peter accepts and joins Simone and Janice in their mission to rescue Fredwyn, who locks himself in the trunk of the car in which Octavio is being taken away from the protest site.
Both Janice and Fredwyn have few scenes in this episode but they are pivotal. When they meet Simone after Peter has ditched her, they tell her about the entirely different set of adventures they have been on. Janice tells Simone that Jejune Institute is doing some fine philanthropic work and was not the enemy. She compares the "Elsewhere Society" to the Occupy Wallstreet protestors who made a lot of noise but did not know what they wanted while Jejune Institute was doing work in the "real world".
Her speech gives us the flimsiest understanding of the debates around how our economy and political system should be organized. If it were just a simple binary between "propaganda" spread by flaky protestors and the grounded capitalist Institute's vision to make a better world, we could all be saved. To borrow the sh*t metaphor, pointing out that some things have gone to sh*t and need course correction is as important as running philanthropic ventures that often have hidden agendas like laundering money or buying power and influence through charitable works or influencing political candidates, for instance.
Anyhow, the game participants have to decide between going to a protest demanding Clara be freed and going to a shareholders' meeting for the Jejune group. Fredwyn, refusing to play by the rules, says they should go to both, He suggests hitting the protest site first at 7:00 and then walking briskly to the shareholders' venue by 7:30 pm. Ditching Janice in the crowd at the protest, he surreptitiously gets into the trunk of the car to Janice's horror.
Peter and Simone, who have now reconciled, join Janice to "rescue" Fredwyn, as mentioned before. And so ends another confusing 'Dispatches...' episode. Next week's episode will focus on Janice, in particular, and Fredwyn and Janice's partnership in the game.
'Dispatches from Elsewhere' aired its second episode on Monday at 10 pm ET /9c on AMC.