Summary
Inventive and intelligent, Pantheon continues to amaze as the animation reaches its halfway point. The complex storytelling remains detailed yet intriguing as a conspiracy starts to unravel and the many subplots begin to merge.
This recap of the AMC+ series Pantheon season 1, episode 4, “The Gods Will Not Be Chained,” contains spoilers.
READ: the review of Pantheon season 1.
The animated series created by Craig Silverstein continues to move forwards at an accelerated pace as the many subplots start to merge together in the fourth chapter. In “The Gods Will Not Be Chained”, Chanda seeks his revenge, David attempts to break out of his virtual cage and Maddie reluctantly asks for Caspian’s help. Pantheon manages to juggle all these complex storylines and more, whilst still feeling fresh and intriguing.
Pantheon season 1, episode 4 recap
The fourth episode opens with Prasad arriving at his luxurious tower block home via helicopter. The billionaire’s dwellings are fitted with a swanky rooftop swimming pool; lavish, high tech décor and an army of employees. Chanda infiltrates the home, hacking all this state-of-the-art technology to wage his own cyber war. He sends all the staff members home, makes the shower unbelievably hot for Prasad and then causes a petrol leak. Prasad’s son then becomes trapped in the rooftop pool, whilst an explosion separates his other family members.
In a horrifying setup, Chanda shows the gruesome footage of his brutal operation on the home’s television screens and then speaks with his former boss over the phone. Prasad begs for mercy, but Chanda only wants to watch as his nemesis loses everything. The fire in the tower block quickly spreads and there are to be no survivors from this attack. Pope and Waxman see the disaster on the news and ponder Prasad’s back alley uploads. Pope states that Prasad both succeeded and failed with these advances, implying that he is aware of Chanda’s vengeful attack.
Caspian’s narrative continues to develop further also, as he shops with his mother Renee after the father’s calculated assault. He wants his mom to be protected from further attacks and also financially secure. He gifts her with a hefty check, which he states was legitimately earned, and buys her a weapon. Meanwhile, Cary returns to his employer’s secret base for a debriefing. Cary worries that Renee is completely unstable now, although the bosses seem to think the entire project is on the brink of falling apart anyway. Cary warns them that Caspian is very close to unravelling the whole mystery, things are about to go south.
In Maddie’s world, the teen searches for answers, asking her father David to show her his electronic world. David may be able to play in video games and chat over the phone freely, but his electronic entity is still trapped within the coding. This manifests in the shape of his office, much like Chanda’s, where he spends his days. Maddie is shocked by this unfortunate revelation, but is then thrown out of the system. Laurie, the rogue UI being the perpetrator, who then erratically attacks David.
Laurie blames David for her current situation, believing he purposefully planted a flaw in her coding. She takes David hostage, but he continues to plead his innocence. David says he can fix Laurie, who is disintegrating at a rapid speed. Realizing that David cannot leave this office façade, she tries to train him to escape his cage. Emotions are the key and once he unlocks this power, David is able to break free from this mental torture once and for all.
Maddie worries what Laurie will do to her dad and contacts Caspian, asking for his help. Caspian admits that he never really knew who Laurie was. Maddie tells Caspian that they need to find her, but that they cannot trust her. Maddie explains how Caspian is being watched and he starts to link everything together – Logorhythms, Norway and Uploaded Intelligence. He confides in his girlfriend Hannah, telling her that his life doesn’t quite feel real anymore. Later, he takes apart his computer and phone, finding a Logorhythms chip inside both pieces of technology. The teen is rightfully paranoid and rushes to tell his mom of his findings.
Cody turns up at Maddie’s house and Ellen is on hand to pepper spray the intruder. After Maddie calms down both of the warring adults, Cody explains that Laurie is missing and that she hasn’t been acting herself lately. Flashbacks reveal how Laurie’s mind became uploaded intelligence and how they were able to communicate with each other once she’d escaped. It’s another tale of love somehow finding a way through all these electrical walls back to reality, a theme that solidifies the viewer’s engagement.
The ending
In the final scenes, Cody is about to shut down Laurie’s servers, when they receive a vital message. David wants to meet with Maddie. She puts on a haptic vest and enters the virtual world. Maddie hugs her father for the first time in years. David has become three dimensional once more. He explains how Laurie is decaying at an alarming rate, although he is suffering from a similar virus himself.
Caspian drives around searching for his mother and finds her talking in private with Hannah. The two argue and Hannah confesses that Caspian is questioning his own reality now. Renee is angry that Hannah didn’t tell her this sooner and demands that she gets more answers out of him. Caspian realizes what is going on in this crucial moment, friends and family members are just pawns working towards some higher goal. Who knows what profound effect this realization will have on the teenager?
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