Constellation
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Constellationis chock-full of references to other pop-culture touchstones.
The Paul is dead Beatles conspiracy-theory teasefrom episode oneended up paying offlast week.
But none of the nods to OG storytelling seem more important thanAlice in Wonderland.
Quick recap within a recap: Alice A is the one from the universe that Jo returned to.
She calls her mother mummy, and their car is blue, not red.
Her actual mom is dead.
Alice B is from the universe that Jo disappeared from.
She calls her mother mamma, speaks Swedish, and their car is red, not blue.
Her mom is alive, but shes trapped in the wrong universe.
The episode opens right where the previous installment left off.
She walks out into the snow and calls for her mother, but she cant see anything.
As Jo looks around, she hears her daughter calling for her.
She also hears phantom footsteps crunching through the snow.
As the overlapping universes intersect in strange ways, Jo vacillates between being confused, frantic, and heartbroken.
But now, were seeing things primarily through Alices eyes.
Unlike Jo, both versions of Alice maintain a sense of purposeful calm throughout the episode.
This is also a main theme of Lewis Carrolls bookThrough the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.
Alice B struggles through the snow and ends up at an abandoned version of the cabin.
Well circle back to this in a bit.
Looking for comfort, Alice B heads upstairs in the liminal cabin and pops into the cupboard.
Will no one be so bold as to drive across the lake?!
He delivers an unnerving monologue during which he tells Magnus about his experience on Apollo 18.
Both versions of Alice find the cabin at the same time, but they dont actually meet.
Instead, they communicate through the Fisher Price tape recorder.
She hauls ass out of her cabin, carelessly leaving a burning lantern precariously perched on a table.
The wind knocks it over, and the old, creaky cabin starts to go up in flames.
The conversation between the two girls is relatively simple yet riveting.
(Im so crying.
All the versions of me in all the liminal spaces are crying.)
Yet again, Alice B asks when her mother is coming home, and its a heartbreaking moment.
Jo isnt sure how she can come home, but shes going to try and work it out.
So Im not sure how that would even work.
He promptly abandons her in the snow what an asshole, am I right?
and Henry has to deal with the direct aftermath of Bud shooting his protege, Paul.
Are there multiple versions of liminal space?
Does each universe have its own liminal cabin?
But how and why does the bridge between the worlds open and close?
There dont seem to be any rules, and if there are, Im missing them.
I love the vibe, but my brain just wants it to make sense!
In a coda to the universe-hopping hullabaloo, Jo finds Alice A in the snow and starts performing CPR.
She cant leave at the moment, but she promises to try in the near future.
As Magnus runs up to Alice B, he sees a familiar figure in the snow.
Later, Alice B asks if he saw Jo, and hes not quite sure how to answer.
Back in the alive-cat universe, Alice A is in the hospital, recovering from her ordeal.
She dreams of the Valya who beckons her to come find her mother.
Its a creepy dream, and when she wakes up her father tells her that Irena Lysenko has Jo.
Alice A immediately knows that they need to rescue her.
Alternative Orbits
Jo keeping the multimillion-dollar CAL in a mini-cooler for safekeeping is objectively hilarious.
Theres a lot of focus on the paintings on the walls here, especially on the Gollum-like changeling.
Other versions of the story including thereal-life inspirationfor the changeling myth involve burning an individual to restore order.
No one actually burns in this cabin fire, but Alice B sure comes close.
Did anyone else get seriousStranger Thingsvibes from the liminal cabin?
The abandoned space felt very much like a version of the Upside Down, albeit with no monsters.
At least not yet.
Is the Valya the Vecna ofConstellation?
