The Man Who Fell To Earth, Ep 2

8 min readMay 5, 2022

GGBD Season 2, Episode 4: Janae & Amanda discuss Ep2 of Showtime’s The Man Who Fell To Earth

Director: Alex Kurtzman
Writers: Alex Kurtzman & Jenny Lumet (Walter Tevis himself actually writes 3 episodes)
Producers: Adrian Kelly, Jane Maggs & Bill Wolkoff

(CLICK TO LISTEN TO PODCAST👇)

*Intro Script*

Janae: What’s Up, Weirdos! I’m Janae

Amanda: I’m Amanda. And together we are

Both: Girls Go Books Deep

Janae: We take deep dives into the Fantasy & Science Fiction content you love the most

Amanda: Today, we’re talking about Episode 2 of The Man Who Fell To Earth on Showtime, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Naomie Harris, featuring Bill Nighy, Jimmi Simpson and Clarke Peters.

Janae: So, hit that like button

Amanda: and stay tuned…

⬇️

~*Intro Music*~

⬇️

Janae: Hello Everybody! Thank you so much for joining the conversation today. Amanda and I are currently watching The Man Who Fell To Earth and discussing Episode 2: Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed.

Key Points

1. A) Adepts: a person who is skilled and proficient in a subject.
1. B) Drones: another word for a male bee in a colony. “Worker Bee”
21. A) “Alien of Extraordinary Abilities” Employment Based Immigration EB-1A achievement based opportunity for a Green Card is a classification used by USCIS for individuals who can demonstrate exceptional talent or professional achievements in one of a number of specialized fields. This category is available for those individuals who have risen to the very top of their field.
24. A) Dupuytren’s contracture (also called Dupuytren’s disease) is an abnormal thickening of the skin in the palm of your hand at the base of your fingers. This thickened area may develop into a hard lump or thick band. Over time, it can cause one or more fingers to curl (contract), or pull sideways or in toward your palm. Which can be treated by low-dose radiation therapy.
25. A) Los Alamos National Laboratory — a real place — for the US Dept. of Energy. It is one of the largest science institutions in the world and was started during WWII as part of the Manhattan Project.
3 Main Mysteries (so far):
26. A) What happened to Justin and her family to get them into this situation?
4. A) Does Newton actually want to help Antheans after all, or is this all a play for something much pettier?
17. A) What Insurance/Film is the old man talking about and how will it come into play with the douche canoe from the CIA? / Was Newton in those woods, torturing the last member of the team that took his vision?

Episode 3 Character Outline

Newton

1. In a Dream state or sort of a meditative-like mind connection, Newton and Faraday meet up inside of a tornado so that Newton could give the information needed for the mission without anyone seeing or especially hearing any details.
2. Their talking of dreams seems important for later on in the episode: “I held them at bay for a few years here, but when I wore down they broke through. It became very difficult to know when I was dreaming and when I wasn’t.”
3. Extremely Jaded. He’s slapping him and telling him to wake up and be more alert and stop acting like a spaceman, but he’s a real asshole about it. Jaded, drunk, asshole.
4. I honestly can’t tell whether he truly wants to help the last of his race survive, OR after watching him cry and then turn over with a menacing snarky laugh and grinning up at Faraday — does he think, there are so few of them left, they’re fucked. Fuck it all. I’m just going to use this guy to get what I want. Newton says he wants to leave Earth and go back home, but he could be lying to the Drone in order to get his full participation in Newton’s diabolical plan. hmmmmmmmm???

Justin

5. We pick up right where we left off and see her go through a pretty traumatic event, lol. She’s visibly, understandably, shook. Like completely questioning her sanity shook, after seeing him walk into a tornado, almost getting whipped up herself, and then seeing what he really looks like in such a heightened state of fear. She can barely hold it together.
6. Putting her daughter to bed, I could **feel** the guilt as her daughter was going on about #TeamGrandpa she feels so horrible on top of everything that she’s going through, her daughter is going through an entirely different experience of her own, and she knows that.
7. On top of everything else that has been happening to her over less than 48 hours (you’ll remember she was also sexually harassed at her last job just before everything kicks off.) She’s also dealing with mounting debt and bills and things she needs to do and so much worry she could implode.
8. This is a well written, well-acted display of exactly how the average American is living a life of quiet desperation.
9. Portia is a good friend, and I get exactly what she means by “Be where you are.” it’s solid advice, but it’s not exactly helping in this moment. What if where you’re at is super friggin’ horrible, huh?
28. She’s a very good friend though. No questioning. You can see & hear the stress, just be helpful and remind yourself to make her talk to you later.
31. Her fear was so visceral and then she sees him standing! SO HAPPY!!!

Faraday

10. Really hard for him to not be weird and creepy. This poor girl he encounters back at the diner after the tornado is so sweet for helping out. But he is freaking her out, she is officially having the weirdest, most emotional day at work right now. Poor Faraday is just talking to her, (like a child) explaining out all of the things he can’t help but notice.
11. Oh, no. Airport was the worst idea, in more ways than one. I can’t believe they released him so easily. The fact that he didn’t get held overnight or anything — is a little weird to me. If they think he’s on drugs and has no source of ID, they would just call someone to pick him up? I call BS. But because of this, their paths have collided again.
12. Seeing how he sees radiation at the airport and how it affects him, set us up for when he heals Josiah at the end of the episode.
29. I was so nervous as he walked back into the house, into the room, closed the door and touched Josiah. (This ability is def not shown in the movie) He feels the radiation coming off of/out of Josiah (I feel like some conspiracy will come out of it maybe that it’s from the radiation exposure at work)
32. What happens to Faraday now? And he’s so driven, he still only asks about going to Seattle… smh

Spencer Clay (Jimmi Simpson)

13. They gave us a CIA character to follow, interesting because neither the book nor the movie does.
14. A horrible person. Just the worst kind of asshole.
15. While walking in the forest towards the cabin of the last known survivor from the events of the movie, we see him kill the exact butterfly that was on Newton’s finger in the dream state. Is Newton in this forest right now?
16. He finally encounters this guy, and he’s batshit crazy. Going on and on about how he’s the one who made Newton blind and that’s why Newton’s a psychopath now. He’s the only one left, everyone else has died. Newton’s crazy. I thought I had insurance, the film. Then blows his head off!
17. Going back to the quote from Newton, has Newton been torturing people in their dreams? We see that he can share a dream state with Faraday… maybe he visits the others in their dreams and slowly drove them mad?

Josiah

20. Josiah at Physical Therapy *kills* — grumpy old man is too hilarious.
21. He is not an illegal immigrant. There are plenty of -legal- immigrants in America.
22. Molly calls Josiah a “Builder Bee” and Faraday is a Drone, a “Worker Bee” — that’s an interesting underlying theme that might be emerging.
23. While looking up what disease he might have, I noticed that a lot of articles are saying that he was or possibly is an illegal immigrant. But by having an EB-1A, he is an Alien of Extraordinary Ability (great pun) and therefore is a legal resident of the USA.
24. Figured out that he probably has Dupuytren’s Disease, which would make sense why he’s going to physical therapy because they can’t afford the surgery for a hand specialist; as well as the radiation that Faraday felt — it’s a lesser-used therapy for this condition. It also lowers your life expectancy and makes you more vulnerable to getting cancer. All of those seem to add up for me.
25. When looking this up, I also looked at the benefits packages for the Department of Energy. Because if they were both working for this major sector of the government, wouldn’t they have great benefits? Yes, they do — DOE offers high-paying salaries, insurance, retirement funds as well as Long Term Care! I’m sure they don’t think people are looking this up, but at the same time, most adults know that certain jobs have great benefits to working there and if the government sponsored you to come over to the USA because you were so exceptional — why are you struggling so hard now that you’re sick? And she’s not working there anymore either?
26. Josiah keeps mentioning Flaws and Mistakes. What Happened?!?!
27. Dinner Scene: Faraday’s words hurt, but they touch on Josiah’s and a lot of elderly people’s thoughts and feelings during this phase of their life.
30. Faraday lays his hands on Josiah’s hands and gets that same sort of reaction to the radiation. So that says to me that Josiah either had radiation therapy on his hands at one time, or the reason he’s having these problems is because of radiation he came into contact with while working at the “Nerd Farm.”

Emerging Themes

Clearly set forth in the scene where Justin and Faraday speak after being reunited.

18. “I am an immigrant” — This is a very interesting way to get the masses to look at immigration from a different angle. Not just invisible country lines.
19. “I am speaking to someone from another planet!” “So am I.” — great commentary on what we need more of in our everyday conversation in this country. Yes, you are going through something major and having an experience. But on the other side is also someone else, experiencing the same thing at the same time, but in their own unique way.
20. “We will build it together. My mission is your mission.” — is a Great message about real gender equality. Real feminism is wanting equality, not one to be better or raised higher than the other. In any direction. One is just as needed as the other in this journey. The work and appreciation should be mutual in order to ascend and reach the next level of human evolution. That’s why even though we see him on stage at the product reveal — he tells the story from her perspective to start with.

*Outro Script*

Janae: That’s all we have for today, everyone.

Amanda: As always — Thank you for listening and subscribing to our weekly deep dives into the geeky culture we all love so much.

Janae: Talking with you guys is the best part of our week, so please stop by our Instagram and say Hi

Amanda: And with that, we bid you wake up

Janae: take up all the space

Both: and we’ll see you next week.