#tmp ep 20

[allbluegem]

Episodes 16 to 20 from The Magnus Protocol. Happy I managed to catch up in the break.

[speckaboo]

Sorry, did Gwen compel Ink5oul into giving a statement? It's hard to tell since there wasn't any audio cues, but it sounded awfully close to one.

I wonder if all those back-to-back contact with Externals might end up changing Gwen as well, especially after what happened in this episode. She seems to be going down a similar path to Jon.

It feels like history is repeating with those two.

[evilmskitty]

Can’t wait for episode 21 of Mag Protocol to find out if Gwen pulled a “she’s a runner, she’s a track star” or if she’s gonna show up with a bedazzled “rich lost child, please return home” tattoo

(If she gets an eye tattoo and it has powers, I’ll lose my mind.)

[mechanical-v1scera]

after todays episode i’m forever gonna be picturing gwen with the coolest evil tattoos that just completely contradict the rest of her look but like… in a good way

[no-u-3d]

tmp theory, spoilers for episode 10

so I would like to start out with the fact that we the audience are listening, and that we started listening when Sam started his job. What we have learned about Sam is that as a child he was a participant in some of the Magnus institutes experiments, or child program or whatever (they’re experiments/research). He saw some weird stuff, and we learn that he wasn’t selected for something. We started listening when Sam, who has a mysterious past that he’s looking into, who wasn’t selected for something, started working at the government equivalent of the magnus institute. Huh. What is happening and who is intrigued by what Sam is going to learn who is listening in on Sam. Who are we as the audience in this case?

Another point, Sam talks about how he doesn’t remember everything in regards to his time at the magnus institute, and a lot of people think that getrude saying gerry is her grandson is a lie or a cover but what if it isn’t. What if their memories were changed, and they think they’re grandmother and grandson. (this is more speculation but could be interesting if true).

 the next point, a lot of people have established the fact that in this universe instead of fears, it’s more so desires, and there’s still the magnus Institute(it’s burned down but ya know, it existed). Which makes sense as it’s very easy to flip the whole fear of you being seen, fear of being like you’re having your secrets exposed, etc. etc. etc. Fear of being watched to the flipside of of the desire to know people secrets, desire to learn more, the desire to watch people etc. etc. etc. Which makes sense why they would have these children programs because they’re experiments or something like that. They’re trying to figure shit out and that’s why they had the children there, probably as research or experiments. The magnus institute in tma was a collection of knowledge, I think in tmp the institute was more focused on research. The whole wanting to have knowledge vs wanting to learn or find knowledge. And people doing corrupt things for the pursuit of knowledge isn’t something explored that much in tma(there was avatars of other fears pursuing knowledge in corrupt ways but not really avatars of the eye), and would be a very interesting direction to go in. Anyway, those are just my thoughts.

JUST HAD A THOUGHT HOLY SHIT WOULD TMP EURGEN LIGHTNER BE AN AVATAR???? BECAUSE HE WAS PURSUING KNOWLEDGE FOR THE SAKE OF KNOWLEDGE AND THAT FITS WITH TMP SO HOLY SHIT

[bonzobotdrum]

Can't wait for Gwen to get some awesome tattoos and nothing bad to happen. Maybe a tattoo of Mr Bonzo

Still putting your heART and 5oul into your mysterious job that keeps nearly getting you killed? How compelling.

Enjoy the final offering before the break! ❤️

We'll be back soon, but for now, once more with feeling ...

👁

[mercury-way-cryptic]

aaaaa if only Jon were hereeeee, he’d be able to explain in a way that would stop Ink5oul in their tracks,,, cracking open psyches like pistachios, I miss that!!! I miss Jon!!!

<SPOILERS FOR TMP EP 20: SOCIAL STIGMA BELOW>

[hazel0159]

Everyone just assumes that the dual CATs are additive. So CAT 13 is just a case with both a CAT 1 thing and a CAT 3 thing. This is the simplest explanation, but I don’t think it makes sense. Out of the 5 dual CATs, I’d say only the ones in episodes 1 and 19 work. 

Episode 3 and 23 are similar, so why is only 23 given a dual CAT? Why not give episode 3 CAT 23 for the garden and the polyps? 

There is nothing at all in episodes 11 or 22 to suggest that the graveyard/telegraph are individually supernatural. Why do they get dual CATs?

Why don’t more cases have dual CATs? Episode 5 has the cashier and movie, 7 has the volunteers and donations, 8 has uncanny people, 16 and 20 have tattoos, 21 has the doppelganger, 25 has the chef and food, 28 has the skeleton monster, 30 has a bunch of random stuff. I feel like episode 29 deserves a dual CAT more than any of the episodes that actually get one.

Person/Place/Object works ok for the single CATs as long as you ignore the Klaus spreadsheet, but I’m convinced that the dual CATs are more complicated than people think. That being said, I have no idea what else they could mean. 

Also, bonzos-number-1-fan came up with a pretty convincing DPHW theory here:

Alright folks buckle up because I'm about to break down my entire theory for the TMAGP classification system before season 2 drops.

1. CAT - Category Many of you have probably seen my original post about the TMAGP categories being literally the most basic thing in the world and we all missed it, but in case you haven't, here's the gist! It's nouns. Is the source of the supernatural activity a person, place, or thing?

1 - Person

Zombie [Ep 1]

Needles [Ep 6]

Bonzo (x2) [Eps 10 & 12]

Snake Guy [Ep 14]

Hunt Aristocrats [Ep 15]

Ink5oul (x2) [Eps 16 & 20]

Talking Corpse [Ep 18]

Isaac Newton [Ep 19]

Not sure if this one is the scientist or the test subject but either way it's a person [Ep 22]

Coral Doppelganger [Ep 23]

Demon Baby [Ep 24]

Compelled Runner [Ep 26]

2 - Place

Garden [Ep 3]

Theater [Ep 5]

Hilltop (x3) [Eps 7, 17* & 30]

Liminal Building [Ep 8]

Cemetery [Ep 11]

Construction Site [Ep 21]

Restaurant [Ep 25]

Magnus Institute [Ep 28]

Tunnels [Ep 29]

*Episode 17 isn't confirmed to be at hilltop I don't think, but it is heavily hinted at so I'm going with it.

3 - Thing

Tattoo (x2) [Eps 2 & 11]

Murder Violin [Ep 4]

Dice [Ep 9]

Phone App [Ep 13]

"Fruit" [Ep 19]

Telegraph [Ep 22]

Coral [Ep 23]

Carriage [Ep 27]

I may be slightly off on some of these, but many of them are glaringly obvious. And each episode seems to fit, though some more cleanly than others. I'm open to suggestions on this, though.

2. R - Rank I posted about this just a day or two ago but I noticed when I was going back through that episode 30 had a rank of S instead of A, B, or C which seems a lot like it's a tier system, likely for danger levels. My best guess would be the ranks mean the following:

C - Low-Level Threat B - Mid-Level Threat A - High-Level Threat S - Extremely High-Level Threat [DNI]

If this is the case, any ranks that contain two letters are likely to mean that it's between those two levels. BC is Low-To-Mid-Level Threat, AB is Mid-To-High-Level Threat. This could also mean that in the cases where there are multiple supernatural elements, one of them is low and the other is mid, etc., but based on the way double numbers and double letters line up, I'm inclined to believe it's the first theory. Here is a list of all supernatural elements along with their rankings.

C - Low-Level Threat

Garden that turns people into trees [Ep 3]

Violin that needs blood to play well [Ep 4] *

Hilltop Charity Center [Ep 7]

Spooky tattoo in a cemetery that makes people drown themselves [Ep 11]

Portal from another dimension [Ep 17]

Talking corpse [Ep 18]

BC - Low-To-Mid-Level Threat

Zombie/reanimated corpse [Ep 1]

Tatoo that makes reality reflect a self-portrait [Ep 2]

Liminal building with uncanny cannibals [Ep 8]

Isaac Newton's fucked up crystal tree [Ep 19]

The Dome construction site [Ep 21]

Something about an experiment splitting a brain in two [Ep 22]

Coral that grows into a doppelganger if you shove it in your leg [Ep 23]

Demon baby [Ep 24]

Compelled runner guy [Ep 26]

B - Mid-Level Threat

Movie theater that Knows you [Ep 5]

Needles [Ep 6]

Dice that control fate [Ep 9]

Bonzo [Eps 10 & 12]

Gambling app where you can bet against your own life [Ep 13]

Snake guy [Ep 14]

Hunt aristocrats [Ep 15]

Ink5oul [Ep 16]

Restaurant where you can't stop eating disgusting food [Ep 25]

Carriage that eats people [Ep 27] *

Magnus Institute ritual [Ep 28]

Tunnels that drown you [Ep 29]

AB - Mid-To-High-Level Threat

Ink5oul [Ep 20]

A - High-Level Threat

[None in Season 1]

S - Extremely High-Level Threat [DNI]

Hilltop/Portal to another dimension [Ep 30]

*Some of these seem to be ranked lower than I think they should be, but they are much older cases so maybe time plays a factor in how dangerous they are considered to be.

While not everything is where I would put them, personally, I do think that overall they do seem to increase in threat level. I'm still not 100% sold on this, but it's what I'm running with for now until season two either confirms it or proves me wrong.

3. DPHW I'll admit it. I'm stumped on this one. I feel like this has to be a lot more arbitrary than the other two so it would be hard to reverse-engineer a filing system from it.

The only tiny morsel of a theory I could come up with is that each letter in DPHW stands for a word (duh) and that corresponds to the same number in the four-digit code. So for example, if a DPHW was 1947 it would be D=1, P=9, H=4, and W=7. Now what those letters stand for or what the numbers actually mean are completely lost on me.

If anyone has any good resources for how we could potentially figure this out, please let me know. But as of right now I think my theory is "It's a rather arbitrary sorting system that Alex and Jonny made up and we have little to no chance of decoding it without much more data."

That's it. That's the whole theory. It's not as wild and fantastical as we all hoped I don't think, but I think everything seems to check out. Let me know if you have any other theories, especially about the DPHW.

[the-kingofdoritos]

OK SO! This morning I gathered all my evidence for this and i am actually gonna write this! Strap in, its gonna be a really long one lol :}

spoilers for tmp 22 and before below the cut :}

So, I believe that Celia is purposefully getting Sam to look into the institute. Could be for any reason, but in my own opinion she is 100% doing this to him. Episode 6. We get introduced to Celia for the first time during this ep. Now, originally I didn't think much of her conversation with Sam. But holy shit there is this tiny detail that i cant believe I missed. As soon as Alice mentions who Sam is Celia is does 2 things. 1. "You’re Sam, then?" - She knows who he is. Now, it could just be that Lena mentioned Sam in passing, but I highly doubt that. Because not even a few seconds later she says to Alice "Also, I don’t know if I caught your name." SHE KNOWS WHO SAM IS BUT NOT ALICE? And when Alice starts introducing herself and Gwen, Celia makes no steps to say anything about being told about them, or that they were even mentioned. But she knew who Sam was. 2. She tries to get Sam to relate to her. Now, she brings up how strange the interview was, like trying to make herself all relatable and more trustworthy than she is by waving the "Both our interviews were weird!" thing in his face in seconds.

Episode 8. Celia, Sam and Gerry's conversation. Now, a load of stuff happens in this episode and its easy to gloss over tiny bits of evidence, and i really wasn't paying all that much attention to what was being said because Gerry and Gertrude are alive. But what i realise that Celia does here is she cuts across Sam twice when he tries to ask Gerry and Gertrude questions. Now, if she had done this once maybe I would have brushed it off, but its done twice.

The fact that she did this twice when Sam was going to talk makes it seem really really suspicious in my eyes. Like, the questions are innocent enough but its the timing of them. Also, both questions asked by Gerry and Gertrude are along the lines of "what do you want" and its just weird that she stops Sam from asking. Also, what makes it even stranger is that she is the one to offer to come with Sam to speak with Gerry. She constantly seems to be encouraging Sam to look into the institute.

Episode 13. Sam and Celia's date. Sure, Sam is the one to bring up "getting their baggage out before they start dating" - which is fair. But there is two things that stick out to me here. But what's strange is as soon as Sam mentions "enrichment programs" she brings up the Magnus Institute. Unprompted. of course Sam answers her question. AND THEN, she asks if he thinks the cases are real. She is the one to ask both questions, not Sam. She wants him to speak about it, and wants him to be more curious about it. She clearly wants him to look into the institute more, and she is trying to point out that the cases are very much real.

Episode 19. Celia is looking into alchemy here, and we know already that thats gonna/is a very prominent theme in Protocol. But what I find interesting about the conversation is this next part.

Celia immediately tries to brush off his concern about him not being obsessed, the way she does this is through basically praising him. She knows that Sam values her input, like, look at his reaction. "you think?" He seems almost surprised and happy to know that she thinks he's handling it well. This almost seems like she's trying to encourage him to continue to look into it and brush away Alice's concerns. Later on as well, she asks "if I find anything to do with the Institute, I just keep it to myself, yeah?" - like, the way she says it makes me think she's checking to see if he is actually going to give up on looking into the Institute.

Episode 20. There are two small things that I think also back up my point in this episode. There is a small piece of dialog that Celia says to Alice about Sam.

Like, this makes me think she is trying to make Sam think there is things to back up his theories and that he should be looking into them. Because she does this twice. (ep 19 and 20). There is also that scene when Sam brings up his theory on who destroyed the institute, Celia is immediately interested.

She clearly wants to know exactly what he thinks and knows, and encourages his theories.

Episode 22. It was this episode that made me start to question Celia's intentions. Like, yes, we know she is from the original tma universe and knows a lot more than she lets on. But what made me question her was her reaction to Sam saying he no longer is willing to placate Alice, meaning he no longer is going to be as open to listening to her concerns about looking into the Institute. And as soon as those words leave Sam's mouth, Celia not even seconds later is asking if he's going to be looking into the Institute again. And as soon as he says yes, she immediately offers him more information.

Like, there was no reason why she couldn't have told him about Jon and Marin before. So why now? I believe it's because he is not being held back by Alice's concern. Sam states multiple times that he should stop/wont look into it because Alice thinks its a bad idea or because she thinks he's too obsessed or along those lines. And now, he won't have that. He will be looking into the institute and everything around that without any stopping him. I really really cant wait to see exactly what Celia wants and what all of this will lead to, because holy shit its so so so interesting!!

I could write a whole essay about how much i do not trust Celia or her intentions rn