Constellation
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
The premiere ofConstellationis a total mood.
(That is, if there are actual answers involved.)
More than once throughout the premiere, I wrote, Is this all going to make sense?
And I sure hope so!
The mystifying CAL serves as the axis for the narratives orbit.
Jo and Alice arrive at a cabin, and Jo sets to work lighting lanterns.
Isolation is a prominent running theme throughout this episode.
Here, the focus seamlessly shifts from the biting elements on Earth to the vacuum-sealed beauty of space.
The transition between these two inhospitable environments feels wholly organic.
Jo is lovingly FaceTiming Alice on her iPad (we see you, Apple!)
when something goes horribly wrong.
The show seems to be suggesting that the CAL might not have caused the destruction.
Just as Paul starts his experiment, theres a point-of-view shot of something rapidly approaching the ISS.
Is it abillionaires rocketgone rogue?
An alien life force?
It turns out that the item is actually a body.
Jo panics, asking that they check the oxygen mix in her space suit.
She couldnt have just seen a body.
Inside the craft, the rest of the crew is dealing with the aftermath of the incident.
Pauls arm has been pinned down, and Ashley is performing CPR as weightless blood blobs assault her face.
Ashley gives it her all, but Paul succumbs to his wounds.
She reports back to the ground: Paul is dead.
Like her mother, Alice also oddly seems to be experiencing some fractures in her reality.
Meanwhile, Jo is seeing double on the ISS.
At least … this version of Jo is.
Do all of those selves exist within the universe?
How might you get back to where you needed to be?
So, which version of herself is she now?
Hopefully, shes a version of herself that remembers all that astronaut training.
God, space is so stressful.
Somehow, it feels like shes on her dads side here.
Why wouldnt she be?
Its worth considering that the perfect vision of Alice that Jo has in her head might never have existed.
On the ISS, Jo is notified that theSoyuz 2capsule has landed successfully.
As Jo struggles to perform her duties, the scene shifts back to that cabin in the woods.
Jo is losing time.
Shes lost in the blizzard.
The snow starts to fall in slow motion.
She keeps coming back to different realities with Alice in different positions in the cabin.
Then, she leaves for what seems like a moment but comes back to a deserted cabin.
Theres a dusting of snow covering everything in the interior.
And as Jo approaches a large wardrobe, she sees Alices necklace hanging on the knob.
She opens it, and a bedraggled and partially frozen Alice looks up at Jo.
Mama, she says.
That cabin in the snow-covered woods looks eerily like theYellowjacketscabin.
There is a framed painting in the cabin that catches the eye.
In it, an angel with a bloodied wing is carried on a stretcher by two men in black.
A quick Google search tells me this isThe Wounded Angelby Hugo Simberg.
The wording here feels pointed.
In a similar vein, Jos daughter is named Alice, which immediately evokes thoughts ofAlice in Wonderland.
(It cant be a coincidence that the girls favorite toy is a stuffed rabbit.)
Did anyone else Google Has anyone died in space?
while watching this episode?
