“Back to Basic” Has Two Important Conversations
“Back to Basic” is an odd episode to talk about. It’s not really an episode; it’s exposition. The statement is barely a statement. The conversations don’t feel like conversations. The whole point of the runtime is just to teach us some worldbuilding elements.
And thank god. As soon as Klara started talking, I had a feeling we would get clues in “Back to Basic,” but I had no idea the level of detail that would just be presented to us on a platter. And then, somehow, the episode goes even further, with Lena adding her own explosion of information.
So, let’s talk about what we’ve learned in “Back to Basic.” Yes, technically, there’s a statement there about someone destroying themselves to create the code, but there are only a few sentences of horror there. I’m more interested in the fear-death code itself. Because it predicts death, but seemingly only deaths that will occur via supernatural means—even if only indirectly.
And that’s a science fiction concept all its own. It brings up a ton of questions about the universe. Are the monsters and magic of Protocol operating on such a predictable timetable that the code is just mapping out what they’ll do, or is this related to the other bit of information we had confirmed by Lena?
To be clear, I think they’re related, and though it’s a little complicated, I see a loop here. The O.I.A.R. has to balance the four aspects of dread whenever the statements reveal that the balance is off in the world. They do this by, usually, sending externals out to kill someone or multiple people—possibly with different externals fulfilling different levels of the four aspects. This has been operating like clockwork because the alternative is something likely cosmically bad happening. Now, here’s the loop/paradox/logic chain: is the code predicting deaths via supernatural means because that’s a death that would keep the balance? In other words, if the balance was allowed to fall completely out of whack, if Gwen did nothing, would the deaths predicted by the computer code still happen?
“Back to Basic” Reveals New Horror Worldbuilding
The whole thing makes me think of The End and The Web, because we’re dealing with the horror of knowing a death is coming and the lack of free will regarding when it will happen. The fact the code was created by someone overtaking someone else’s will is only more so drawing that connection.
But regardless of the answers to that, all this data opens a new problem. We’ve now got the real question, the biggest question. With all this exposition in mind, the stuff from this episode and stuff like “Hostile Workplace” considered, what, exactly, is the actual plot of the show The Magnus Protocol? That might seem like an odd question, but I’m serious here. A lot of stuff has happened. Sam and Alice have both learned things about the past. And there are certainly characters in horror situations all over the place. But what is this building toward? What is the overall goal of the plot, actually? Is it to destroy the O.I.A.R.? Is it to save the other dimension from The Eye returning? I don’t actually know anymore. It’s been a series of fun mysteries, but now that we’re getting answers, it doesn’t feel like there’s much left to take its place.
Honestly, I hope that “Back to Basic” isn’t secretly the beginning of some weird tangent into some new plot, but I actually don’t know. I have some rippling doubts. Things now feel like they’re wandering about a tad. I enjoyed listening to “Back to Basic” a lot. I ended up with a flurry of speculations, but I don’t know what to expect from episode 45, and that’s a little concerning.
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