“Sometimes we only see what we want to see.”
After reaching out to Bronwyn, Myfanwy returns to her childhood home and discovers that strong emotional connections may be able to work past amnesia-wiped mind, and Monica realizes that, sometimes, the truth we see and remember is not always the truth of the moment.
Picking up after the fallout from last week’s confrontation at the park, Myfanwy finds herself in an interrogation room alone with Conrad. His initial thoughts that Myfanwy is a traitor are warranted. After all, he has no idea what really happened to her. Figuring that she has no other recourse but to come clean, Myfanwy tells Conrad about the Bridge, the amnesia and, most importantly, Farrier’s involvement in the whole sordid mess. Using his abilities,
Conrad confirms the authenticity of Myfanwy’s story, releasing her from any more questioning. Myfanwy takes that time to contact Bronwyn and determine if the woman’s claim to being her sister is true. The two women are strangers, even though Bronwyn’s affinity for Myfanwy appears genuine. Bronwyn shares the terrible way the Checquy abducted Myfanwy from her hospital bed with impunity, her parents unable to fight back against the shadowy organization. That pain and helplessness attributed to their ultimate deaths and Bronwyn pushes all the blame on the Checquy.
Her anger is wholly justified; the idea that an organization can snatch a person (a teenager no less) from everyday life to fuel their own agenda is both terrifying and outrageous. Yet, though a part of her believes Bronwyn’s story, Myfanwy doesn’t allow the other woman’s earnestness to color her opinion. She asks the right questions, something much easier to do when you have no emotional connection to a person or situation. And yet, it’s a potent emotional moment—a flashback to Myfanwy and her friends, moments before her initial manifestation—that is the first memory she’s experienced (outside of her dalliance with Bristol) in the last week.
It spurs her to seek out Gestalt, whom she’d had an unpleasant conversation with earlier, in order to tap into her emotional connection to them. Of course, her timing is shite by the time she finds Teddy, Robert, and Eliza at Checquy HQ. Unbeknownst to Myfanwy, her announcement that she wishes to explore what they had together is running parallel to Alex and Monica getting to know one another…in the Biblical sense.
When we catch up to Monica in “Chapter 6”, she’s working through a bout of from the events at the park. Bronwyn’s words about Marcus stick with Monica and she replays one specific memory over and over in her head. It’s of her and Marcus in a D.C. bar, discussing his decision to quit fieldwork (and celebrate her promotion to deputy director) but each time it plays out, the tone and dialogue shifts. It’s a great example of how we sometimes romanticize a particular scene from our past, making both ourselves and our partners play up to a storybook ideal. But the more Monica ruminates on it, the more she can see through the mirage, eventually getting to the truth: it was never a celebration, rather it as Marcus’s attempts to communicate with Bronwyn, his contact for the underground, and maybe recruit Monica away from their agency and fight the good fight for EVA rights.
Though his overall goal to fight against the injustice EVA’s have experienced is both honorable and necessary, Monica sees it as a betrayal. She tries numbing the pain with alcohol and when Alex arrives at the hotel, ready to bring her in for a debrief, the two find comfort in each other to wash away the stain of betrayal.
We’re coming down the home stretch now and “Chapter 6” was the perfect lead-in for this season’s final two episodes. Myfanwy and Monica unravel key details as they take inventory of their past and how it will affect their future while Farrier being exposed sets the table for Conrad becoming the fulltime ‘King’; even her motivations for trading Myfanwy to the Lugat are finally revealed—she was obsessed with Nazim’s ability and says as much to Birch. But it’s her promise to tell Myfanwy “everything” that rings the Pavlovian bells in the hopes that next week, we’ll discover just how Myfanwy knew to set up two distinct lives for herself and whether or not an even greater conspiracy is playing out in the shadows.
Up/Down the Exchange
- From an ability standpoint, Gestalt is well and truly the most interesting character in The Rook. One consciousness spread across four distinct bodies is such an amazing concept but even more exceptional are scenes like this week, where Gestalt argues with one another over Myfanwy’s duplicity. Gestalt waffles between anger, hurt, disappointment, and the shame of not noticing the truth sooner. It’s in this moment more than any other that Gestalt feels utterly human. How often have we, as individuals, had this type of internal conversation with ourselves? From reconciling with a breakup or talking through our own mistake, we’ve all be where Gestalt is now, except that we don’t have four distinct voices participating in the discussion.
- Last week’s image of Farrier striding through the park, disruptive waves of sound emanating from her, looked like something straight out of the MCU or X-Men But unlike the superheroes dominating box offices—or even those EVA’s in this show—Farrier’s abilities evidently take a heavy toll on her, making her a formidable foe but one who has to prepare for each use of her power. Abilities aside, she finds herself holed up in a solitary cell in the Checquy basement thanks to Myfanwy’s confession. So where does that leave her? No longer the ‘King’, that’s for sure but did she hand over Nazim or is that the only piece of leverage she’s playing with?
