Pantheon
Maddie’s life is complicated by her father’s death, her mother’s separation, and the bullying she experiences at school. It’s a difficult world to be in and Maddie is struggling to find ways to cope. Her friends are there for her, but they can only do so much. Maddie needs someone to help her through this tough time, and that person is Maddie’s new friend, Lenny.
Maddie’s computer is blinking with a message from an unknown sender. They send emojis to one another until Maddie asks exactly who this person is. They simply send a ghost emoji back. It’s a strange and enticing mystery that’s starting to build.
The next day, things change at school when someone hacks into the phones of the other girls and Maddie is clear from bullying. It seems that someone is sending out mysterious emoji messages that are causing the other girls to turn on one another.
Maddie’s mother Ellen shows up at her daughter’s house and immediately interferes when she sees Maddie on her computer talking to someone. Ellen demands to know who Maddie is talking to. ..
When “Emo” (Maddie’s name for the mysterious sender) drops a text full of emojis from a poem Ellen recognizes, she gets spooked and hurries out the room. Maddie naturally follows and listens as Ellen phones someone demanding to know why David – her husband – has been sending messages to her. But is this really true? Or is there more to this story?
The focus of the story shifts from a young boy named Caspian to an online chat between a girl and a boy. Caspian is a genius and is interested in conspiracy theories, which he gets talking to Maddie online. Maddie screenshot the chat and sends it over to Caspain, asking for help. Caspain dives into its origins and appears to have found a breakthrough, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens next!
Chandra is a new character who we meet this episode. He heads out for a business meeting, where he tells the other men in attendance that the “singularity is near.” He’s referencing here is Uploaded Intelligence; the idea of placing one’s consciousness into the computer. Chandra is just an engineer. A brilliant engineer, but still just an engineer all the same. He believes UIs will revolutionize the industry, with humanity able to kick back and relax while these digital consciousnesses do all of the work. Unfortunately, he seems to know too much and after the meeting, he’s snatched up in a van and taken away.
Caspian realizes that something is off about his relationship with his father and decides to investigate. He finds out that the two have been estranged for a while and the fall-out between them was staged to create a rift between Caspian and his father. The goal of this ploy was to make Caspian doubt his own abilities and make him feel like he needed help from his father.
Maddie’s phone has been hacked and her father is missing. Maddie is scared and decides to go to school. However, when she goes to class, her teacher tells her that her father is not in school and that she must be mistaken. Maddie grows suspicious and decides to go talk to her friend Samara. However, when she arrives at the address given by the emoji sender, she finds that it is a fake address. Maddie gets angry and runs home. Unfortunately for Maddie, Ellen follows her and hurts Samara in the process. Maddie sighs in relief as Ellen admits that she was keeping something from her friend.
The Episode Review
The first episode of Pantheon is a mystery that starts deliciously and continues to be intriguing. There are plenty of interesting tidbits to whet the appetite and the show has a lot of promise for future episodes.
The animation looks great and the transition between those three characters – Chandra, Maddie, and Caspian – is elegantly handled and helps with the flow of the episode.
Chandra is a compelling character and I’m looking forward to seeing more of him in the future. This singularity event looks to be the big threat that’s going to encapsulate the plot, and it could well be that Maddie is speaking to someone online who is actually part of this UI. ..
As Caspian, he’s clearly a genius and it seems his parents aren’t actually his real parents. They could well be grooming him to be part of this big project and that algorithmic problem is a big hint toward that. Still, we’ll have to wait and see as there could be more to this than meets the eye.
This first episode of AMC’s new series “The Walking Dead” looks to be off to a great start, with strong promise for the rest of the season.
