Episode 5 of Reverie aired June 27th, on NBC.
Okay, so let’s just say Reverie can do a lot of stuff—this week the program gets used to stop a terrorist.
A Dangerous Mission
A building in West Los Angeles has been bombed, 66 people died and 22 were injured, and a video from the terrorist (a man named Silas) warns that it’s going to happen again. Monica (remember that she works for the Department of Defense and they own 30% of Onira-Tech) asks for Mara’s help. There is one surviving witness (a security guard) who can identify Silas, but she’s in a coma and dying, with only hours left to live. Monica wants to use Reverie and have Mara go into her mind and ID the man.
Charlie, Paul, and Alexis are all against the idea at first. It’s too dangerous. If the girl dies while Mara is in her mind, what will happen to Mara? Plus there’s the thing about whether this is ethical or not, to go into her mind without her consent. But Mara wants to do it, so it’s a go. Alexis tweaks the source code and Paul works with the team to create the Reverie, and then the BCI is implanted.
When Mara first goes in, she finds the girl who is very confused. She says that everything is weird and asks Mara if she ever feels like she’s in another body. Mara follows her until she passes Silas, whose face is missing. Ashley calls out to him and that’s when Mara realizes that she knows him. Turns out she was not really a security guard, she was helping Silas get the bomb into the building.
In the Meantime
Alexis is not happy with Charlie because he gave Reverie’s source code to Monica. She reminds him that Onira-Tech is her company, and Charlie tells her that she needs to get out more and take responsibility. You know, be more of a team player, Alexis. To show her what he mans, Charlie takes for a ride. They go to see Edith, a woman Dylan had identified as being someone Ashley had been communicating with.
Edith makes a run for it, but she’s a bad fence climber and doesn’t make it. So she pulls a gun and shoots herself. I’m thinking Alexis did not appreciate your lesson, Charlie.
Later, Charlie tells Alexis he’s there if she needs to talk about what happened. She tells him it’s not the first death she’s seen, but it clearly affected her because on her computer she’s been looking at Edith’s social media.
Ladybug
Mara meets with Ashley’s mother who tells her that Ashley’s dad swindled people and went to prison, and that there were civil suits which took everything they had, and the kids at school were very mean to Ashely. She sent Ashley to a wilderness camp to help her overcome the anger she had built up—but it didn’t help. Ashley’s mom had not seen her in over a year.
Next time Mara goes in, she masquerades as Edith. Ashley is happy to see her friend, but she points out a door and asks her to look inside. Mara/Edith looks and it’s a beautiful forest scene, with a cabin. Mara/Edith tries to get Ashley to tell her where the next bomb is, but before she can Ashley passes out because back at Onira-Tech her lung has collapsed.
After talking to Ashley’s mom again and finding out that the cabin was a place their family had when Ashley was younger, Mara realizes that what Ashley needs is the truth. She goes back in, finds Ashley at the cabin, and tells her who she is and why she’s there. A tearful Ashley says that Silas lied to her, that the bomb was supposed to go off nine hours later, when there would be nobody in the building, but instead it was set for 45 seconds. By the time she realized it, there was nothing she could do. The cabin starts shaking and rumbling because in the real world Ashley is dying, but she gives Mara the location of the next bomb (which is later found by Monica and her team). And Ashley asks Mara to do something for her.
Mara barely makes it out before Ashley dies. Back at Onira-Tech Mara visits Ashely’s mom who sits at her bedside and gives her a message from Ashley: “Ladybug loved you so very much.” Ladybug was what her mom called her when she was a little girl. And then Mara says that there was something else Ashley wanted her to do—she picks up the book that Ashley and her mom always read together, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and reads a passage to her:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to go,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where”, said Alice. “Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.” “So long as I get somewhere.”
Someone can bring me my tissues now.
No sightings of Brynn this episode, so maybe the derealization thing is getting better. And no Oliver this time around, either.
Leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of this episode. Reverie returns July 11th, 10/9C, on NBC.
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