#just because this professor is a hologram AI who has gained sentience and is doing his own shady things doesn’t mean I can’t support him

[loveaintnobillygoat]

listen. is this professor absolutely a fraud and up to no good? obviously. but do I also love him? yes of course.

[jujuberry136]

Puppet History 5.03 - yet more lore

5.03 - “The Vietnamese Sisters Who Fought An Empire“

(yeah yeah, a couple days late due to travel)

Random observations below!

Starting with the post-credits scene - the Professor is alive-ish and hatched from his egg created via his two new dino parents getting it on. The lore implication - the professor still has the capacity to turn things he encounters into puppets. This is the exact reason the genie originally worked with the devil and Asmodeus to send him back in time because of the extra work he was giving the genie in the first place. Irony!

The big question now - how does the professor (and his dino parents?) survive the meteor impact? We know his hat and glasses get fossilized, but he wasn’t wearing either when he hatched (related - how did his OUTFIT get hatched too?)

Has the Professor of 66 million years ago created an alternate reality where the meteor impact doesn’t make that much of a difference because his ability to turn objects around him into puppets result in the meteor just becoming a foam ball when it gets close to where he is (this would be hilarious)

We’ve seen a big theme this season on revenge, impersonation, war, and murder/false death. Is the Professor, now with a taste for meat due to his carnivorous parents, going to try to take his revenge on Ryan? Is the genie going to realize his mistake prior to the meteor impact and bring the Professor back to the present and hope that his desire for revenge + taste for meat + Ryan’s now supple flesh going to create a death match and solve both his problems (the Professor creating puppets willy-nilly and Ryan on a mission)?

Related theory - the devil and the genie are preparing Ryan to be possessed by Asmodeus, get him to wish the Professor back to the modern era (to avoid the Professor continuing to wreck havoc on history), and then set-up a fight to the death between dino!Professor and possessed Ryan in a death match (see above)Is the Professor the only one who can create puppets? We saw mid-episode that the Professor is indeed a hologram (VINDICATION!) but are the special guests also holograms or are they puppets? If they are puppets, who is creating them? They seem bigger than previous puppets - if they are created by the Professor, are they larger because the Professor is now larger (due to dino DNA)? Or is the hologram!Professor not doing great with scale?

Early in the episode, the Professor replies that he has vague memories of siblings, but “screams echo” across his mind. Did he have additional dino!siblings that died via meteor? Is the devil running the hologram!Professor and this is a deep cut to Biblical history with the devil being a fallen angel?

The hologram!Professor goes to sleep mid-episode (with his cartoon snoring), but wakes up with a panicked “where am I?” How is the Professor being powered? Is this an AI professor who is gaining sentience? Is this some sort of duplicate professor? Is the actual Professor in the box under some sort of enforced sleep whose brainwaves are powering the hologram who, thanks to the technical issue, had a moment of awareness?

We have a couple technical issues in this episode - the first is the Professor asking if Ryan and Maya would ever kill their own child (with the glitch resulting is us not getting a response). The second is a glitch where we see our hologram!Professor wavering, with the box clearly acting up (it lights up!). We get another when the hologram!Professor (and Maya) getting Ryan to join in their war chant. 

When Ryan teases the hologram!Professor about having something on his face, when he’s laughing at his own joke the show puts devil horns over his head. Foreshadowing his potential future possession?

The Lazy River references - more references to previous episodes and the hologram!Professor fails to react appropriately. The Professor has previously mentioned his love of them, but when Ryan suggests them several times this episode, no reaction. Ryan is clearly testing this imposter!

Ryan notes that historically, the bigger entity will take out the smaller entity... with the Professor now having dino DNA and being bigger, more foreshadowing?

Ryan wins again, so shady!

Ryan wins yet more lotion, this time the Professor tells Ryan to take care of his body. More support for the idea that the hologram!Professor has a plan for Ryan. I’m still torn on the idea that they are going to turn Ryan into a puppet or they are preparing Ryan to be possessed by Asmodeus