‘Pandora’ Season 2 Episode 4 : ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothin'’ is apt as the show seems to be going nowhere
Spoilers for ‘Pandora’ Season 2 Episode 4, ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothin'’
There are times when you feel bad for hating a show because it ends up being mediocre or outright trash, especially when you can see that the makers put in a tremendous amount of effort but simply lost their way. Luckily, ‘Pandora’ elicits no such guilt. Any visible effort in the show is only taken up by viewers - the sheer will power required to not stop watching. In the previous episode, we saw the Ancients -- who for some reason all appear to be White, bald, and mustached -- tell Jax that they are not convinced if the universe needs saving. But they offer her a chance to prove it to them. They allow her 121 days to change their minds and unite all the five species of their universe (apparently plants, lesser animals, and microbial organisms don’t count as species).
This episode was marked by a series of fever dreams experienced by Xander, Jax, and others, some virtual reality emotionality, and just general cockamamie that seems to be conveniently justified by the show’s internal logic, because clearly, no harm can ever befall Jax and Xander.
We see Ralen, left behind on Earth by his “friends” to deal with the loss of his wife - Matta was taken by the Ancients in the previous episodes. So, to cope up, he seems to have taken to conjuring his dead spouse in virtual reality, trying to live life as if nothing changed. How very ‘Inception’, right? Surprisingly, the person who comes to his rescue is Jett, a man who usually has the tact of a wooden block. Sharing his own grief over the death of his sister, he snaps Ralen out of his grief cocoon. Only to have it backfire. Ralen leaves in search of a new world to start over.
On the other side of things, the task of tracking down the lost alien race would almost seem ridiculously easy, had it not been for the fact that almost everything is for the show’s protagonists. It’s like they are playing life in “easy” mode. So, on their way to find this long-lost race, Jax, Xander, and Shral experience chaotic and apocalyptic dreams that seem to get more powerful as they near the coordinates. We see Xander’s deep dark fears - his mother preferring his brother Zion to him. We also see Jax afraid of Xander killing her. And we see Shral protecting the Pandora baby (that would grow up to become Jax). Also in his dreams, Pandora is dressed as a chorus line dancer for some reason.
Anyway, the Ancient race turns out to be a couple of meditating bald aliens who give Jax a shell necklace. No one knows what it does. Jax, who should know by now that things just reveal themselves to her when the right time comes, seems oddly perplexed by the necklace. But nothing in the show makes sense, does it? I mean there is no visible diminishing marginal utility of deus ex machina in this show.
Despite being a relatively short episode, it felt like an eternity to go through it, and to look for coherence in the plot is officially a lost cause at this point. One can suppose the episode’s title is a premonition of sorts: beyond here lies nothing at all.
New episodes of ‘Pandora’ Season 2 arrive every Sunday at 8 pm ET on The CW.
