Apparently, some fans of Colony are a bit dismayed that we’ve traveled forward in time and we don’t know all of the details of how the Bowman family got settled into Seattle as the Daltons.
We certainly have a lot of questions. Let’s see how many answers we can come up with. But first, I have one thought: the show is called Colony, after all. As much as Will apparently doesn’t like it, it makes sense that the bulk of the season would take place actually in a colony.
Warning, this post contains SPOILERS!
Identity
We know Will had fake names ready when they entered Seattle. He is James Dalton, Katie is Laura and Bram is Sean. I guess Gracie is still Gracie, with the last name of Dalton instead of Bowman. We know the computer at the refugee camp identified Will by name and we could see there was someone sitting behind that computer, so someone knows the Bowman’s true identity. We expected an immediate confrontation, but instead some period of time has passed and they’re clearly living as the Daltons.
Note: we’re not told in the show how many months have passed, but the official blog on the USA Network website says it’s 6 months. My theory is, that’s the last time jump for this season, but we’ll see if I’m right or not.
We meet another man who has assumed a different identity. Unlike the Bowmans, who presumably picked names out of a hat, Terry Lennox assumed the identity of Jonathan Crane, the man who had been his boss before the occupation and whose wife he was planning to run away with. No hint as to what happened to the real Jonathan Crane; since Lennox is living in a really nice house and has money for a fancy classic car as well as an important job with the Seattle Initiative, whatever that is, it’s safe to assume he’s not too worried the real Jonathan Crane will turn up and out him to his bosses. Maybe his bosses were in on the switch?
I think it’s safe to assume that the Rolodex, as it was called in past seasons, contains information on every person on earth. Name, age, what they look like, when and where they were born, where they’ve lived, what jobs they’ve had, who they’ve married and names of any children they might have. But some people are changing their identity anyway. The most likely scenario is that the powers-that-be are looking the other way. I wonder why they would do that?
In Seattle, you can be whoever you want to be, apparently.
Secrets
“Someone is always watching,” according to Michelle, Katie’s boss. And apparently that’s true, because one of the Community Patrol Officers finds Will in his car and, just from looking at his own phone and presumably picking up some kind of electronic connection with Will’s phone, he knows Will’s James Dalton identity and that he’s been sitting in this location since 1 am.
During the German occupation of France in World War II, the Nazis relied heavily on French natives who were willing to inform on their fellow citizens who were working with the resistance. These Frenchmen were motivated to betray their countrymen by greed, envy, opportunism and a desire “to ingratiate themselves with what they believed to be the winning side.” I’m wondering if there are people in Seattle who have similar motivations.
Will is not shy about identifying himself as James Dalton as he investigates the disappearance of Terry Lennox. He uses his phone to make numerous calls to Mrs. Lennox and goes to lots of places asking questions (while presumably carrying his phone, even though he’s aware it betrays his movements). He even goads Lennox/Crane into hitting him so he can justify beating him up, giving him “what he deserves” for leaving his wife and kids to fend for themselves. So he’s not afraid of his movements being known nor is he particularly scared to be accused of assault and battery.
James Dalton seems to have a job as a cab driver, so the question we’re asking is whether the PI gig is sanctioned by the powers-that-be in Seattle or not. He won’t tell Katie what he’s up to, but he clearly isn’t too worried about the consequences of being found out. Has he grown cocky because of his repeated survival during encounters with deadly drones, followed by his fake identity being accepted seemingly without question? Or is he still so inconsolable about Charlie’s death that he just doesn’t care?
There’s another Bowman family member going out at night. Bram is up to his old tricks of lying to his parents, and Katie’s so proud of him. I’ll talk a bit more about Bram below.
Jobs and their Benefits
Some jobs come with preferred housing and a car. Clearly, Will has a car. And the Daltons have a nice house. Maybe not as nice as the one the Cranes are living in, but much nicer than the vacant apartment that Michelle says the Winslows are supposed to be living in. We don’t know anything about the Winslows, but they seem to be a family similar in a lot of ways to the Bowmans, so why did the Bowmans get such a much different placement? Is it just timing — are all the good jobs taken now, but were still up for grabs when the Bowmans entered the colony 6 months ago?
And is it Katie’s job or Will’s job that earned then the comfortable digs? Or is a combination of 3 working adults? My vote is on Katie’s job being the important one — she seems to have a driver, after all. We see her getting out of a minivan at the “depot.” Or maybe she’s taking cabs everywhere? The vehicle she took to the housing complex was a cab like the one Will drives. Will said, in his intake interview, that he was good with his hands. Yet he’s placed as a driver, not a mechanic or construction worker. Even though Frank Winslow’s placement options change once he lists construction experience on his resume. If they need construction workers so badly, why wasn’t Will placed in that kind of job? (I have a suspicion that it’s the same reason the drones don’t seem interested in killing Will).
Bram seems to be looking for a different job, too, and he says he wants his own place. In the supposed “safe space” provided by the job placement counselor, he hints that there could be problems with his parents and that Gracie might be at risk, and someone needs to look out for her. What kind of bad things could happen if this job counselor reports Bram’s remarks to someone? Bram seems very naive — he was all for going to Seattle for the benefits they could provide, and he seems ready to trust the job counselor in her well-lighted office. Somehow, I’m not sure that trust is well-placed.
The counselor tells Bram he has “excellent metrics on his first three placements.” So Bram has had 3 jobs already — there’s a teeny clue as to how long they’ve been here. And all of the “metrics” are recorded somewhere, apparently. So data continues to be collected, stored and used for various purposes.
What’s Kynes Up To?
We’re still trying to get a read on Kynes. Is he a good guy or a bad guy or somewhere in between? Clearly, something nefarious is happening to some of the refugees — they’re being sent off somewhere, sort of like a secret Partial Rendition. If the Hosts and the IGA really put Kynes in charge of Seattle like he asked, then Kynes must be aware of this. It can’t be going on under his nose without him knowing, right? I see 3 possibilities:
- Kynes is fully in charge of everything that happens in Seattle. That means everyone’s placement is a direct result of using the Algorithm the way he intended it to be used. Or
- Maybe Kynes thinks he’s in charge, but there are secret IGA agents working in strategic positions to do things like allow the Bowmans to get preferred jobs even though they know they’re lying. These agents could report back to the IGA and the Hosts about what’s happening in Seattle, and whatever their plan is for Will, they can make sure it stays on track. Or
- The third possibility is that Kynes had one idea in mind when we saw him casually playing his guitar and waiting for the Chancellor to call, but when he had his face-to-face meeting with the Hosts, they did something that brought him around to their way of thinking. I have a suspicion we’re going to get to see his meeting with the Hosts at some point (if you’re curious, check out Wayne Brady’s Instagram and scroll back to a video he posted in February, while they were still shooting this season of Colony).
Who Can be Trusted?
We’ve talked a lot about trust already this season. The Bowmans have met some new people. Which ones are trustworthy?
- Michelle — we don’t know what she knows and what she doesn’t know. Does she know people are being “abducted?” Does she know where people like the Winslow family are really being taken? Did she know that would be their fate or was she truly trying to help them when she suggested to Katie that construction experience might change their placement status? She has the “supervisor clearance” that Katie doesn’t have, in order to get the information on their location, but then it turns out to be false information anyway, so maybe she doesn’t really know anything of importance.
- Meadow — Bram’s new girlfriend. Apparently he’s met her parents already, though I bet Will and Katie don’t even know she exists. Is Bram getting himself into another situation? At least Meadow has parents that are watching out for her. Do they know she’s at a secret drinking party?
- Amy — we didn’t see Broussard or his new friend Amy in episode 6, so we don’t know if Amy accompanied him into Seattle. And we still aren’t sure if Amy can be trusted, though I’m hoping she’s a good guy.
Family Dynamics
I wanted to briefly comment on some family dynamics within the Dalton household:
- I loved the way Bram wordlessly offers one of his uneaten waffles to his mother. He’s clearly more in touch with what’s going on with Katie than Will is, at the moment.
- In season 1, Katie was hiding things from Will, and now it’s the other way around.
- In season 1, Will kept trying to get Katie to talk to him. Now Katie tries to get Will to open up and he storms out.
- Will collaborated to keep the family alive and safe, and now Katie’s going along with the “Colony” mindset and Will can’t stand it.
- Poor Gracie is left out, as usual. Bram’s trying, but he can’t make up for what his parents don’t do.
- Will and Katie were both very physically affectionate parents in previous episodes. Will is distancing himself from the children as well as Katie. He clearly wants to reach out — he spends a few seconds giving some affection to Gracie’s jacket when he hangs it up, when no one is looking. Why can’t he give an actual hug to his actual daughter?
- We don’t know if the Bowmans ever got to have a memorial service for Charlie. There’s no evidence that they did. But we keep seeing reminders: Katie sees a young boy at the refugee depot and the little Lennox boy is prominently in the foreground when Will is talking to his mother. Clearly, Charlie is not far from everyone’s mind even if there’s no tangible memorial.
Sharing Intel
Speaking of characters who know part of the puzzle and may or may not be sharing their knowledge with other characters, we have:
- Katie knows there are refugees being sent — somewhere. They’re not where they’re listed as being, and that raises a red flag.
- Will knows soldiers, engineers and scientists are disappearing, being abducted. Presumably the rest of them didn’t meet the same fate as Jonathan Crane, being the victim of his wife and a co-worker ready to assume his identity. We have to assume that others really were abducted, but Will hasn’t mentioned this to Katie.
- Broussard knows stuff about the plan for Seattle and will probably put the pieces together and conclude that’s what’s going on in LA, also, He can give Will and Katie an update on what happened in LA after they left, if they think to ask him.
- Speaking of LA, the Daleys seem to think Katie was interested in the rumor about LA because she might want to go back there. But I don’t think so. The only thing LA means to her is danger, with the possible exception of the answer to what happened to Maddie. But you have to remember that Katie grew up — her father was in the service, I forget which branch. So they moved around a lot. And the house we think of as the Bowman’s home was not their home before the Arrival. So she’s used to making a new home wherever she lands, and I think she’s determined to stay in Seattle and believe the lies about how it’s a safe place. Or at least, that’s what she’s trying to do, but the empty building shook her and now she’s asking questions, because that’s what Katie does.
Predictions
I’m really at a loss as to what will happen in episode 8. We have a few hints from the clips they’ve provided and the re-appearance of Broussard gives us a clue:
- Katie wants to find out where the Winslows were sent, and we see other refugees being loaded on buses. But she asks Michelle. We don’t know if she tells Will what she knows.
- Will, meanwhile, is hiding out in the dark, looking through binoculars. Spying on Kynes and Snyder boarding a boat. He concludes if Snyder is here, it must be for something big. My theory is, we’ll see that Will is talking to Broussard when he says that. Knowing the Bowman family’s highly effective communication skills, I think he’s probably not going to tell Katie what he knows, so he won’t benefit from what she knows. Am I the only person who finds herself yelling at the characters through the TV screen, trying to get them to stop making these stupid mistakes?
- But getting back to Kynes and Snyder, where are they going in the boat?
- We see the pod people again. And a room filled with people in protective suits who look like they’re doing work similar to the work we saw the Factory workers doing back in season 1. Snyder and Kynes are watching from behind a pane of glass — presumably this is where they were headed in the boat. I hope that means we’ll learn more about what this is. Are the pod people related to the Factory work, or are they separate?
- And what’s up with that well-muscled naked (or at least, shirtless) man running in the dark. Looks like he’s about to jump off a wall into — what? — Puget Sound? the Pacific Ocean? Is he trying to escape from the Factory?
- Broussard — we have questions about him, too. Is Amy with him? How long has he been in Seattle? Did he sneak in, come in and claim to be one of his fake identities, or did he just stroll in and announce he is Eric Broussard? Does he have a job and an official place of lodging? He clearly has had a shower, shave, haircut, and access to laundry facilities and maybe even a clothing store. My guess is he has a job and an apartment, too.
- That makes me think of another question I have — they’ve shown us an image of Seattle surrounded by the same kind of wall we saw in LA. But the entrance they show has cars coming and going through the wall — what’s up with that? Can people just come and go if they want? The Winslows were going to leave, and Michelle seemed to believe they were allowed to. So is this open door part of Kynes’ plan?
- One thing’s for sure, as Katie says, “Something bad is happening.”
- I actually have some more thoughts about where all of this is leading, thoughts that came to mind as I read more about the French Resistance. But I’ll save that for another week, because this has already been very long. I appreciate you if you’re still reading!
Let me know what you think in the comments.
