#lena kelley

[just-a-lidle-creacher]

this episode killed me. celia is a MOTHER? sam used to VAUGEPOST? gwen is literally JONATHAN SIMS? lena is basically ELIAS BOUCHARD? SOME OF THEM ARE BENEVOLENT?????????

[thermodynamic-comedian]

literally my favourite thing about lena kelley that keeps being proven again and again as the series continues: she does not give a fuck and is just doing her job. no morals. no plans. no personality. go girl, give us less than nothing. cannot find it within me to believe she's the big bad when she's literally an empty shell of a person repeating someone else's lines back at the person she used to be. she is nothing. she's everything to me.

[thswrtchdthng]

Gwen starting to experience The Horrors and Lena being like "yeah things are like that" was exactly what I expected from their dynamic but it does make it any less funny

[catticry]

Lena Kelley!

[brainbleedo]

No I will not be elaborating.

[chicken-magnet]

“that doesn’t mean anything” “yet it is the only explanation you’re going to get. for now.”

that feels familiar

[cindytoast404]

BRING OUT THE RED STRING AND CORKBOARDS FOLKS

[99thpercentile]

[squints suspiciously]

[theaethernetconnection]

LENA WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THIS:

Lemme talk this out with you guys. So there are:

1) some good forces this time? As well as evil (which we've only seen a small range of the options like Mr. BONZO)

2) mostly bad forces but STILL some good or rather BENEVOLENT that clashes them??

3) if they weren't all moderated the wheels "wouldn't turn"? What does that mean? War between forces?

4) Benevolent as in helpful toward who? Humans? It's a good assumption...

5) the forces are monitored AND balanced. So somehow the government both has control over the benevolent and evil forces AND gives case loads to them based on ....need?

6) are the forces balanced based on good to bad or are we keeping the mostly bad ratio?

7) just speculation, but I think we might see Gwen meet a benevolent avatar (?) soon. That's the hope at least, she deserves it and I want to see the other side of the controlled horrors.

[lavendercrownbookworm]

"So what? We're the bad guys?" "We are... managing the bad guys." That exchange sent fucking shivers down my spine, damn.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i thought everybody saw how different lena and jonah are just in terms of personality but i guess i should point it out anyways. jonah acts like everything is a part of his plan, and everybody involved is just a source of entertainment. he makes jokes only he could possibly understand, he's either amused or mildly irritated by genuine threats, he has banter and witty comments and seems to be generally having a better time than everyone else. lena is never having a good time. she seems to actively avoid everyone, her consistant mood is disappointed and tired, she takes almost personal offense to every joke she hears. she's a killjoy and she's actively trying to get rid of what little personality she has. the only time her demeanor changes is the scene where gwen blackmails her. and it doesn't change into anything smug or amused, it changes into carefully concealed anger and fear, threats just vague enough to be a bluff, she's not dramatically dropping an act, she's revealing just another aspect of herself.

with jonah, it always felt like everything he did was a part of his plan. with lena, it feels more like a part of her training. do you get that.

[riotinyellow]

Lena just told Gwen about the fears, better hope no one comes at her with a pipe

[sherlocks-freebitch]

It tickles me that Elias seems infinitely more approachable than Lena, like if I needed the afternoon off for a doctor's appointment I know who I'd rather be asking even if he is a eldritch all-seeing murder manager who says terrifying things like "my door is always open".

[anthroposeen]

tmagp 13 relisten notes!!

there are spoilers for episode 13 below the cut!

celia:

- admits to sam that she asked alice for advice and general information about him. this implies she has a pretty friendly relationship with alice (evidenced by alice buying her a mocha) and seems relatively unthreatened by her past with sam so far.

- "no one, im mysterious" -> evidence for her not being from this dimension, if no one can give a lot of information about her

- reveals jack is her baby! (not followed by a glitch)

- says the past couple years "since the move" (between dimensions?) were weird for her

- believes the incidents they work with are real, and im certain shes in the same boat as the audience rn, trying to categorize them with background knowledge that isnt accurate anymore

sam:

- easy to make blush, doesnt know how cute he is, is an overachiever, obsessive, a but repressed, nosy, kind of a recluse, and very easy to wind up

- gifted kid syndrome poster child; he seems to view being turned away by the magnus institute as the beginning of his rejection streak (not admitted to oxford, didnt get first, got fired from his legal firm). i think this will be a major point in his motivations and a fear of rejection and need for validation is going to drive him to receive the greatness he wants (and believes he has earned). i can already see a corruption arc brewing for him, poor thing

- did NOT tell celia about his experiences in the institute or what his "incident" was (referring to lena's interview where she asked him what the worst thing he's seen/experienced was). this isnt super sketchy considering its a first date, but is interesting since he was the one who wanted "all the baggage" out early

- he doesn't want to accept that the incidents are real, but i think he does believe in them. he brought the topic up to celia and has asked alice about it before too, so he may be aware that the incidents are real, but is unwilling to fully conceptualize what that means for himself and his world view

- says that alice doesnt love the idea of him seeing celia, which means he may have picked up on her feelings for him

gwen:

- feels guilty over instigating the mr.bonzo incident -> whats really interesting is that she doesnt threaten to quit or not be involved, she accepts that she gas another email to look through and another external to interact with, but it seems to upset her

- she asks lena why this (externals and mr bonzo murder) is happening, implying that she can stomach the work if its for a reason

lena:

- gives gwen the ABCs of genre-awareness:

- this dimension also has "opposing forces- most of them meaning to be harmful.

- these "forces" need to be "balanced" and controlled in order to maintain order in the world/system -> still working off of a smirke-esque theory that retaining balance will keep the world secure. i dont know if she means balance between forces of good and evil or forces in the supernatural sense

- says the OIAR is managing the bad guys, as in monitoring their actions and directing externals to "balance" things

alice:

- actually offended that sam doesnt want to share information with her and isnt having a good time knowing sam and celia are seeing each other

- tells sam "he cant prove anything" about the cases being real, but doesnt tell him hes wrong

- i would fling myself from a sky scraper for you, miss dyer, but please never say bussin or fire again

- "stop trying to make an impact" -> the more she tells sam to cut the x-files shit out, the more she stops protesting his suspicions. her scolding has gone from "nothing is going on, chill out" to "sure, theres a conspiracy, but we are paid to ignore it"

-

alice/sam's past:

- dated at uni, previously stated they were together for several years. it seems to have been a decent split since they stayed in contact afterward.

- sam was there for her when her parents died, but lost contact after

- she contacted him w the OIAR job details after he made an exceptionally pathetic vague post

incident:

- centered around gambling and self harm to achieve success- this draws ties to episode 2 (self harm) and episode 9 (luck). i expect this is more aligned with ep 9, as the self harm seems to be in the interest of changing his odds/luck, and the incident is primarily about gaining external success, not physical change. though, ep 2 could be a personal experience with ink5oul that is not representative with their "force"

- the narrator of this statement was quick to actively sacrifice his own well being to achieve better luck, which is a pretty stark contrast to other people who looked to harm other people in their own interest (violin guy and dice guy, i forgot their names sorry!!)

- zorro trader may be a reoccurring organization in relation to gambling

- the narrators options for his debt were to either pay it back or have a personal adjustment, once he completes the voicemail he is transferred to the adjustments apartment, which was not an option on the original call log and something he did not request

- he is promptly adjusted :)

- i think this could be related to the theme of keeping balance, since the incident narrator claims it isnt wrong to play with the loophole, and it ends with him getting what he owes, which is a nice connection to lena's explanation of the OIAR's purpose

glitches/lies:

- "im happy you're happy", alice (she is not happy that sam is with celia!!)

extra comments:

- i really didnt expect an explanation of the OIAR and its position in this so early, and im surprised lena was the one to reveal it. this exposes that shes pretty open with the staff she feels are on a need-to-know basis, and it also changes my expectations for how we'll come across a big reveal in this series, since information is being given in a more open way

- i think alice and celia definitely know something but in opposing ways- acting as foils to each other with sam (information seeker) in the middle. celia knows about how the fears work in the tma dimension, and alice knows why and what the OIAR are really doing- together, they solve the puzzle that sam is trying to piece together.

[cuppa-noodle]

Tmagp ep 13 spoilers

Really took suffering for success literally, didn't ya Darrin? Wonder who killed him at the end.

"Are we the bad guys?" Finally figured it out, huh Gwen. Lena stop being cryptic!

[theanxiousghostartist]

A collection of theories and speculation from TMAGP 13

SPOILERS BELOW

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Celia: It's interesting that (assuming she is telling the truthee about Jack/his age) that she would have chosen the name Jack for her baby. Jack is an old nickname for John. I know names aren't really a big factor in the show (Jonathan Sims took his name for the main character of TMA lol), but it's still interesting. Also, she mentioned that it had been a few years since she "moved here" but we know that Chester, Norris, and Augustus showed up about a year and a half ago (the first episode mentions a year, but Same mentions in this episode that it had been about 6 months since he got the job). So we have 3 possibilities, assuming that Celia is from TMA and that Chester and Norris are Jon and Martin (and Augustus is probably Magnus):

1. Time works differently. Celia showed up a few years ago, probably 1-2 years before Jon and Martin, therefore time could work differently for Jon and Martin in the computer system.

2. Celia is lying. I don't remember hearing an glitches while she was talking, so this may be unlikely, however, it is possible that Celia showed up around the same time as Jon and Martin and lied about it to Sam to giver her more of a past. In this episode, she said Jack is around a year old, which could fit into this timeline, if Jack was a premie or if Jack came with her either from TMA or he randomly showed up when she arrived.

3. Celia could have just said the time frame wrong. It's possible that Celia could have said a few years, when she actually arrived around a year and a half ago. This would be untrue, but technically not a lie as a year and a half could be counted as 2 years, which could be counted as a few years. It's possible that she did this intentionally or it's possible that she actually thinks it was a few years. Since she was having "a werid time," her memories could be messed up, especially if she traveled from TMA.

Sam's past: Sam said everything started going wrong after the Institute, which eventually landed him at the OIAR. Could this be the Web's doing? We know that the Web has manipulated a future archivist before, with the Web being the first to mark Jon, so it's possible that it's doing the same to Sam.

Lena & Gwen's discussion: Lena says that her group is "managing the bad guys" which makes me wonder: Is something else controlling the fears? Did the Web take over? Or did this world just figure out how to deal with the fears?

Personally I think it's either a different entity entirely controlling the fears/keeping them in line or the Web (we already know that the Web has manipulated most of the fears before, with Gertrude's/Agnes's bond, Jon, the eyepolcolypse, ect).