Notes for Episode 9: Persons Unknown

Hi everyone! Hannah here with another set of episode notes for our $1 patrons and above. We got a little loopy while writing this set of notes, so expect a nice mix of "observations that germinated into bits on the final episode" and "expressions of terror and despair." One day we're going to watch another good show, and then you'll see how sweet and charming we can truly be. I've also attached a PDF of the notes in case that's easier for anyone to read. Hope you enjoy them!

PATREON NOTES: PERSONS UNKNOWN

• Plot / Structure Stuff:
  • Does the Persons Unknown organization deliberately target people who are related to missing persons?
    • “You have been touched by the Missing Force”
  • The Saw similarities are present down to the fact that every episode appears to have a trap plot and a cop plot
  • Joe getting handed a gun by poorly explained Chinese guys is the coolest part of this show so far
    • This came in under the wire. Two years later you could not do anything they’re doing in this pilot with the Chinese guys. Buzzer beater television
  • Episode 2 opens with a scene that we can only describe as ‘the screaming will continue until morale improves”
  • Someone runs into the microwave fence about four times in each of the first couple episodes
    • A butterfly getting zapped by it after serving as a treacly little metaphor is at least a little funny
  • What the fuck are any of these conversations?
    • Half of episode 4 is just someone sitting down and saying “You and I… could work together…” and another character saying “No”
  • I’m sorry but as of episode 5 Tom the Chinese guy has told Joe a million times now “you’re breaking protocol dude” and nothing ever seems to come of it
  • Joe being sick in episode 6… that’s not an A plot. That’s not an episode. C’mon
  • You’re gonna have a fucking B plot in episode 8???? If ANY type of episode calls for a single plot, it’s “main character undergoes psychological trial and rebirth”
    • Side plot in International Assassin about what the Stephen A looking dad’s work as a fireman is like
  • It’s INSANE that so much of episode 9 is a 3-tier hierarchy of managers yelling at employees. Who wants this?
    • And they don’t DO anything. This is like if Darth Vader was going” you have NO idea how bad you look” after his generals failed him
  • Note that we appear to have stopped taking plot notes for episodes 10-13. It was arduous, listeners. Please forgive us

• Character / Performance Stuff:
  • Is this gonna be another “everyone’s constantly shitty to each other” show, or
    • Time until characters begin yelling at hysterical women: 6 minutes
  • So one of them is part of the Persons Unknown Initiative right. But which one?
    • (It’s clearly Joe from the jump, we both called it in episode 1)
  • This Gerald Kyd guy looks like who you’d hire if you were shooting a sci fi movie and you needed to demonstrate the idea of “Mark Ruffalo after 10 generations of cloning degradation”
  • Hannah likes Tori the slutty girl from the jump, Esther gives her ENDLESS GRIEF OVER THIS FOR NO REASON
    • She said Tori was “a beautiful girl with a bad personality” but the main thing Tori does in the first few episodes is be kind to Moira. Hannah will make sure to Start Shit about this point on the podcast
  • You know this was made in the Obama era because they had Graham the army guy look at the camera and say “by the way, torture does NOT result in actionable intel.” It’s a new day in America
    • Graham’s backstory is he worked at Abu Ghraib and it made him more Muslim. Again. An idea only possible in Obama’s first term
  • Everyone else is having TV-PG Saw happen to them but Alan Ruck specifically is having TV-PG Silent Hill happen to him
  • The night manager is the most cooked attempt to make an epic quotable character in all of TV history
    • They were trying so hard to reverse-engineer a Onceler
  • What do TV shows get out of having characters like Blackham or Simon from Flashforward or Eric? Guys whose entire thing is to be really smug and annoying and hated by everyone and useless
    • Like obviously not every character needs to be morally upright or a juggernaut of charisma but why do we see this archetype so many times?
  • Because Joe is so obviously the plant from the Persons Unknown Institute, it’s like they’re hesitant to give him anything approaching a character
  • Joe’s revealed to have been a priest… get Will Reunion’s name out of your mouth at once

• Technical / Aesthetic Stuff:
  • Did not think this was gonna be an “overbearing music and procedural establishing shot” show. It’s instantly so much more, like. Without-a-Trace-coded than we imagined it would be
  • This is shot like a Saw movie for some reason. Network TV Saw movie is the funniest thing imaginable
    • It’s even worse… the cop plots are lit like trap plots
  • The reveal of the empty lobby and town would hit harder without, again, the extremely overbearing music and the endless reaction shots
  • Hidden messages in the opening credits are another recurring Lostalike motif
    • Lost certainly had its ARG trappings from time to time, but it never did anything as craven as hidden messages in the opening credits
  • Esther’s thoughts on filters and color grades used in the show:
    • This shit really looks like my tv settings are messed up
    • This is worse than a piss filter. This is like the piss of someone who’s sick
  • The Facility is in episode 8 is so SyFy coded. They’re Clockwork Oranging Joe but what they’re showing him is the “Happens” series of SyFy ads from the turn of the millennium where, like, a UFO strafes the Twin Towers

• Notable Quotes:
  • “You give me my transvestite first, then you can have your missing mom”
  • “What RAMBO movie did you just pop out of?” is not something you say in episode 2. You’ve already hung out with him for a day. You know he’s a soldier
  • “A jigsaw puzzle… it just isn’t as good if it’s missing pieces”
  • “You must be out here SITTING ON YOUR FAT ASS FILLING THIS TOWN WITH GAS”
  • Tom’s dialogue to Joe:
    • “We were friends, man. Close friends”
    • “I am not the man I was when we were in level one together”
  • “Get me all COMFORTABLE? Make me TRUST you then you slit my THROAT?”
  • “His head just exploded!” “I can’t believe they did this”

• Cute Things We Said:
  • You are NOT Person of Interest. You will NEVER be Person of Interest
  • $1,100?? You got Persons Unknowned over $1,100? They don’t got Klarna?
  • So much of this show is the part from Deus Ex: the Recut where the man says “I don’t have much of a business, I guess I’ll take your weapons, I don’t know”
  • We have to gate off access to Oldboy. American showrunners can watch Oldboy when they can prove they’ll be responsible with its imagery
  • My headcanon is the cop plot pair are working at Cracked.com
  • This whole show isn’t even Built by Gamers core. It’s “Wikipedia synopsis narrated by AI voices on Tiktok” core
  • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. AAAAAAAAAA
    • This one’s not cute it’s just something one of us wrote around episode 4 or so. Neither of us remember who wrote it or what the context was, but you can be sure we were going through it
  • In our live notes Hannah was constantly suggesting clips as preview clips because she was legitimately concerned it was the last moment in the show she’d remember
  • Flashforward was like eating concrete. This, on the other hand, is like [Esther never finished this thought]
  • By episode 6, Hannah got distracted and started listening to Tiktoks where they use AI to make Homer Simpson do pop song covers
    • By episode 9, Hannah got distracted and started doing “pick 3 to protect you, the rest are coming to kill you” challenges