Summary
Pantheon has been aptly paced so far, but in episode six, the tensions are ratcheted up some more as a new villain enters the fray. I’m not completely sold on this new bad guy just yet, but their plans certainly raise the stakes somewhat. It’s another fast-paced, well-crafted installment from the AMC+ original.
This recap of the AMC+ series Pantheon season 1, episode 6, “You Must Be Caspian,” contains spoilers.
Forget artificial intelligence, in Pantheon, Uploaded Intelligence is the way forwards. And the humans whose minds are uploaded to the cloud have become gods in their new domain due to this new technology, but they soon discover that they are still just mortals after all. The UI’s yearn to fix the defect that will inevitably lead to their end and in Caspian, they believe they have their salvation. Caspian finally meets the rest of the gang in episode six, on the eve of global disaster.
Pantheon season 1, episode 6 recap
After witnessing his fake mother shoot his fake father, Caspian drives off with Cary bleeding to death on the back seat. Cary stresses that Caspian must avoid any and all hospitals or else Logorhythms will surely find them, it would seem they cannot trust a single soul. Cary explains that through all of Caspian’s life, he believed in the mission and in Holstrom’s vision, but when it came to leaving Caspian and implementing the final inflection point, he had a change of heart. Cary connected with his fake son on a deeper level and lost all interest in the program as time went on. Unfortunately, Cary passes out before saying anything more on the matter.
Meanwhile, Laurie begins to glitch more regularly and loses some of her short-term memory. With time running out they decide to research Chanda and bring Caspian into the mix They debate the serious ramifications of bringing both of these controversial individuals on board, pitching more and more drastic possibilities instead. David and Laurie mention another alternative, merging two or possibly three uploaded minds to create an entirely new consciousness. Before this alternative can be given any real analysis, Caspian interrupts, contacting Maddie via her school friend Justine. Caspian has nowhere else to turn and reaches out to Maddie as these two storylines finally converge.
Cody offers to take Cary to the hospital anonymously, while Caspian heads home with Ellen and Maddie. Here he enters the VR world and talks with David and Laurie for the first time face to face. Holstrom cloned himself to give the planet a second chance at fixing the UI flaw, but Caspian is completely overwhelmed by all this pressure. He eventually comes around to the idea and begins to analyze the data. He realizes that the defect is caused by a memory problem, he suggests rotating the memories instead of deleting them. Before he can elaborate, Chanda arrives unceremoniously upon the scene.
Chanda, the third known UI, seems to have shifted into villain territory in “You Must Be Caspian”. He plans on making his own world for all the UIs, and lives with the other zombie glitches at a decidedly ominous-looking lair. When he arrives at David’s location, he puts on a show, pretending to be aggressive and violent. In private he tells David and Laurie this is all an act for the Pentagon, but as time moves on, his true intentions come to the forefront.
The ending
Living in solitary confinement for all that time has slowly driven Chanda crazy. He defends his murderous actions, stating that he had anger problems in the real world and now he has no way of releasing his built-up tension in the cyber world. Chanda replays them the footage of his horrific death and then updates them on Prasad’s diabolical scheme, in which he used people from the slums to experiment upon. Once Chanda is informed of the UI’s deadly defect, his real emotions start to show.
Chanda panics and lets slip that he has passed on the UI technology to all the top minds in the world. He has informed global institutes from the likes of NASA, to the Kremlin, to the middle-east of this discovery, unwittingly starting an arms race in the process. Chanda says that we are gods, but David counteracts this, by adding that we are gods that will soon die. Seeing that an unfortunate end to the entire human race is on the cards, Caspian drives off, telling Maddie that he is going to try and enjoy the rest of his short life before humanity destroys itself. Chanda has really opened up Pandora’s Box with this revelation, now that all the major institutes in the world have this same unstoppable power in their grasp.
What did you think of Pantheon season 1, episode 6? Comment below.
Additional reading for Pantheon season 1
Recap of Pantheon, season 1, episode 5.
