AtS 5x17 "Underneath" -- some answers, please?

[chicken]

In this scene where the Fang Gang comes to rescuse Lindsey, he mentions his "speeding tickets" and some guy Fisher, and his son playing hockey, and some "league" that he's in.

Now, I know this is a massively stupid question, but do you folks think he really ever lives any of that stuff? Does he really ever leave the house and go bowling with some guy named Fisher and get a speeding ticket on the way home? Does he go to 'work'? Does he see his 'son' play hockey? And only once every three or four days have his heart cut out?

Or does he never make it past 8:00 am? In this scenario, he just gets up, helps his son with some homework, goes downstairs, gets his heart cut out, and then the magic spell (or whatever it is) kicks in and he's back in bed ready to start over. Maybe they let him sleep for a few hours to lull him back into the thrall. In this scenario, all that other stuff, the speeding tickets and hockey games and free vacation contests are all just implanted memories (like people's fake memories of Dawn or Connor's new life 'memories').

Which scenario is more plausible?

Comments

[zandra-x.livejournal.com]

Seeing that when Lindsey goes out to get the paper there are a lot of people doing the same, I would say that for the sake of th bottom line that W&H implant memories or attach them to the medallion he wears. Everybody is confined to their houses, it's cheaper that way.

P.S. thanks for the comment on my post earlier. I've deleted it because it was just a depression vortex I suddenly fell into and really shouldn't have posted it.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I do that too, post stuff that is depressing and then delete it later. I'm good with it, and I'm glad that you deleted it because that usually means you're at least a little bit less depressed. *hugs*

So, everyone is confined to their houses -- so you are saying he lives the short day, where he just repeats that dreadful one hour again and again? And what about the wife and kid? Are they breathing humans, or just magical constructs?

[zandra-x.livejournal.com]

I think humans are too much trouble. Too many needs. So constructs or minor demons. Just that one hour gets played again and again. But who knows how long that torture takes.

But how do they keep Lindsey alive? Does he die and they resurrect him repeatedly? Look at the big mojo they needed to bring Darla back. It's not cost effective. Lindsey's suburb is all overhead.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

You mean the whole suburb is "just for him"? There are no other people being punished in those other houses?

[zandra-x.livejournal.com]

No, no, I think there are other people in the individual houses. I just didn't know what else to call the development. Prison Groves? Hallucinationville?

I was just thinking that the whole thing is costing W&H a pretty penny. Though come to think of it, humans want to set up private prisons because it can be a profit making enterprise, so maybe W&H has found a way, too.

And I posted that last one in the middle of the night, why does LJ say 1PM? I find their clock system baffling.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I don't think the whole thing would cost too much, I mean, they only have to pay a couple of spellcasters to set up the spells, and hire a few demon types as guards/killers, right?

[zandra-x.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that they take over the prisoners' assets. Make'em pay for their own upkeep.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Now see, that's just brilliant, in an evil sort of way. Very bottom line.

[anelith.livejournal.com]

I had the same feeling as zandra_x, that the whole suburb was a holding cell or jail for people that were there at the convenience of the Senior Partners. And that those daily activities Lindsey talked about were completely fabricated. When we see Gunn talk about those very same things, it is so eerily robotic that it seems impossible for him to have done those same things -- I think it's all implanted and never actually done. And the actions of the "wife" and "child" show that they are demons or entities who are there to be jailers, not other prisoners -- they shoot at Angel, Spike and Gunn with precision and no hesitation.

As for the other houses in the "suburb", I feel confident that the Senior Partners could use them in similar ways for the many, many people/demons/entities that have earned their displeasure!

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

OK, good, that's the picture I'm forming in my head, too. It's really creepy and well done, with tributes to The Matrix but not completely ripped off from it -- because the basis of this alternate dimension is magic rather than computers, and therefore one could not "break out" or bend the rules the way Neo did.

I do think zandra_x may have an interesting point about how much this costs W&H to run, though. I blithely responded to her saying it was probably not expensive, but maybe it is -- after all, Willow had to expend an enormous amount of energy to do her spells, and those were more localized. Rack charges a lot of money or barter goods for his services, too. Something on this scale has to cost a pretty penny, although is W&H didn't actually have to create the alternate dimension, but "came across" one whose natural laws were coincident with their Evil Purposes, well, that would make it easier.