Rolling Review – The Promised Neverland (06)

Episode Synopsis:

While the main three discuss possible hints about the outside in the library, Don and Gilda make headway into Isabella’s secret room. Upon finding a radio and mementos of shipped siblings, Don decides that the intensity of the warning given to them is more grim than being part of a human trafficking operation would merit, and confronts the trio later that night about the true fate of those who have gone ahead. Sensing that doubling down would make things worse, they apologize, and tell the truth. Don is frustrated that his elders didn’t find him trustworthy to begin with, but is still invested in getting the heck out of Dodge. Many gears continue to turn, though, and two big ones are about to come into contact…

Review:

I had a weird time watching this episode because half of it made me feel like I’m falling behind on keeping track of what is going on and the other half made me feel like the writers are just being lazy.

Brendan picks up on stuff on subsequent watches:

I was so hung up on trying to figure out why the kids weren’t trying to order the words in Morse based on their books that it didn’t occur to me that there might not be an order, only a common thread being that all of the words are somehow relevant to their situation. Some of these are an easier buy than others. You need to doubt, and find the truth, that you’re on a farm, overseen by monsters, and you need to run – the point being that none of them have encountered any kind of promise outside of their interactions with each other (and, hopefully, 10-to-30-year-old co-conspirators aren’t prescient enough to warn them about that). I gather they’re setting up the title drop.

Incidentally, everyone does know that it’s 2045 – apparently no one has seen fit to verbally comment on exactly how far out of date all of their books are (which is a little weird, but I guess I’ll let it slide).

Brendan is somewhat less irritated by stuff on subsequent watches:

I had a hard time following Don’s thought process for most of this episode – like, I see where he’s coming from now, but I’m still not sure I feel like his suspicion of the story they were told was well justified given what they found. I had an even harder time following him logistically – while there’s a break where he and Gilda could have ditched the key after they unlocked the secret door, that scene is deliberately constructed in a way that tricks you into thinking that they were still carrying it when they walked in.

Brendan doesn’t think he’s this slow:

We’re really just going to have a) Emma pose an escape plan to Norman, b) Norman come up with a plan to deal with or at least distract Isabella, and c) Norman finds a stash of Ray’s stuff, and we don’t actually get to see or hear the details of any of those things? Such are the limitations of the 23-minute episode format, I guess, but I don’t have to like it.

Actually I am also still mad about the key thing. And where does that second door even go?

Summary:

Looking forward to seeing the wrench that Krone is about to throw into the works, but I hope the showrunners have time to make sure all of the little mysteries they bring up get resolved before the season ends.

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