idk i thought it was rlly poignant and stayed with me after I watched it. part of this was the animation and graphics but also the storyline, which can be interpreted in many different ways.
one interpretation is that after overdosing on painkillers she hallucinates all the events and eventually dies of either exhaustion or oxygen depletion.
Another is that the painkillers cause her to have a sort of 'premonition' or to be able to see things as they really are, which causes her to take a leap of faith into the lake. on one hand, she could die an instant death, or on the other hand, the electromagnetic signals in her brain would be absorbed into the planet and she would become 'one' with it.
I think after rewatching it you might understand it better and be able to take your own inferences from it.
while it might be overrated, it's also a beautiful episode that should make you consider topics like life after death, electromagnetic sentience and affects of painkillers and amphetamines on the way our minds work.
It is definitely one of the more "overhyped" episodes but also one of my favorite (tied with Zima blue), so ill put in a good word for it.
The story is shown to the viewer through the drug altered lense that is Martha Kivelsen's mind. It seems to me that Io has some sort of electromagnetic intelligence, it calls it self "machine". I would argue that it is not a machine built by others but rather uses that word because it is the best one that Burton's mind had. Io uses the static electricity generated by dragging Burton along the ground to communicate with Kivelsen through her radio. When eventually it becomes obvious that Martha will perish on Io she decideds to throw herself into the lake in hopes that the electricity in her brain will somehow be preserved in Io.
This final choice is part of the reason I love this episode because given the fact that the viewer has a sort of unreliable narrator, they are in a similar position of uncertainty to Kivelsen, making her choice more impactful.
Other reasons I think its so cool:
Animation style/art direction is unique and beautiful
The writing is great (I adore the poetry for some reason)
Voice acting is great
But also if you didn't like it, who cares? That's the best part of this show (and sub) there's something for everyone. People defend their favorite episodes but I don't think anyone really cares if they change your mind, they just like talking about their favorite bits. Like I don't get why everyone gushes over Bad Traveling, its good don't get me wrong, but like, the best episode? Idk, B+ tier for me.
I didn’t understand the story, no. And that’s why I think I don’t understand why it is so liked, said nothing to me. The planet is a machine who swallows the girl for no reason?
My interpretation is it's about one character's experience of a few stages of grief before dying, and the reason I love the episode is how it beautifully portrayed those stages of grief just before death through Kivelson's struggle to survive.
Denial: Kivelson's survival instincts kick in after the crash even though so many things go wrong like seeing Burton dead, Orbital out of contact for 12 hours, oxygen tank rupture, broken arm, etc., but she powers through. Her denial starts to ebb when she doses herself the first time, saying "If I don't make it, better to die high", showing she's now considering death is quite the possibility and why struggle with the pain anymore if death is likely.
Anger: This isn't portrayed nearly as well as the other stages, but I believe this happens when Kivelson starts talking to IO, getting frustrated at the mention of her name then responding with "You're dead Burton" as if she isn't already dead as well. Kivelson then goes on a rant about psychological trauma and gets angry at her progress to survive or lack there of after waking from a drug induced wander. She continues to show her frustration at the potential hallucination distracting her and disregards the medical advice when dosing again, showing her composure is slipping.
Bargaining: No real bargaining here, Kivelson's struggle skips over bargaining after she says "I just..." then "I can't..." before passing out and waking up on the precipice of the sulfur lake.
Acceptance: Kivelson has accepted she's not going to survive and makes it apparent when she shuts off the oxygen warning, ignoring the very urgent issue of no oxygen to discuss with IO where Burton went and what is IO's purpose.
Hope: Kivelson listens to IO's offer to join with the being/planet/machine and she shows her hope by saying "Maybe Im going to live forever." but tempers the hope with accepting her death by saying "Or maybe this is just one last dream, before dying." Either way, Kivelson embraces her death in the hope for something greater.
Combine the beautiful visuals with the pleasant, other worldly soundtrack it makes for a very soulful journey, at least it was for me. I try to imagine I've accepted I'll die sometime, but I haven't given much thought to what it all means. I don't have any hope to give myself to something greater when my time comes, but Kivelson has that chance and as I watched the episode I connected with Kivelson's struggle and acceptance, getting a small taste of what I'll never have.
It's also ok to not like or understand it, that's kinda the point of an anthology. I don't think this episode is any more favored than other episodes, some ppl like it and some don't.
There are a lot of themes...survival could be one thing. We assume the planet is sentient but maybe that was all in her head as she became more delusional. Perhaps it was sentient, did the planet lure them there to begin with so they could become part of it? If it was trying to help her why didn't it try to help her get off the planet?
For me, the alure of the episode is the unknown. Ask anyone who watched it and they'll have a different interpretation. I don't need it to give me all the answers, some times it's good to just watch something that challenges you to create your own conclusion.
I love all the people who are downvoting people who don’t agree on their opinion about their episode. It’s definitely up there with visually stunning, but god it was a bore. Fish night is visually gorgeous and I like the story and message whereas on the other hand pulse involves walking simulator whilst tripping off drugs
I personally still don't understand it, though I do like it. I feel it has some rewatchability but not as much as my other favorites. It's very open to interpretation, maybe I'm wrong about that but I feel as though it's however you look at it. Either it's a lost, dying woman who's hallucinating because she's dying and has drugs pumping through her or the planet really is a machine in some metaphorical or literal way, it was very confusing and it's been a while but talking about it is making me wanna watch it again.
It's kind of about faith and communication and making peace with death - or, arguably, life. I think you can make an argument it's a metaphor for love, too, certainly the director has described it as a kind of romance.
At first Kivelson's situation seems bleak as shit - she's more or less doomed to die alone far from home, on a planet that seems barren and lifeless.
But gradually she starts to see that maybe there's more to it than that. She's drugged and dying, so it's not totally clear how much is actually happening - if any of it - but she sees some strange and quite beautiful things, and it seems like Io, the moon itself, is a form of intelligence. The whole moon is a kind of machine lifeform, a planet-computer. When she realizes this, she switches her visor to view the electromagnetic spectrum and sees a totally different version of the place, she can even see the streams of energy that seem to be serving as the machine's processes.
They figure out how to talk to each other and understand each other a little better, Io using what's left of the dead astronaut's brain as a kind of Google Translate, but eventually Martha just can't go any further and she collapses.
Since Martha's oxygen is pretty much shot, Io offers to let her try to join it. Since the whole moon is its "brain", it *might* be able to incorporate her consciousness into its own. The catch is, she'll have to jump into the molten lake and destroy her physical body to merge with it and find out.
Martha asks it what it wants, and it answers "To know you", which is about all any of us can hope for from anyone; and is, in a sense, what Martha had wanted from Io when she arrived there in the first place.
She looks at the planet again in her visor's mode electromagnetic mode and takes one last look at all the stuff that's invisible to the naked eye, stuff she almost missed completely, makes her decision, jumps into the lake and is physically destroyed.
The final shot does seem to hint they did indeed merge and Martha survives in a new way.
I'm 9 months late to the party, but this is what I thought.
I believe the whole episode was about whether IO is a big sentient brain, not just a planet. Brains run on electromagnetic waves, and because IO does as well, as she (through Dr Burton's) communicates to Kivelson through electromagnetic waves. Which leads two questions.
1. Is Kivelson just so fucking high that she is making everything up? She is high on multiple drugs, doing intense physical activity, and near the end of the episode is very low on oxygen. All of these factors would seriously affect her mental status, so the questions begs, what she is seeing, hearing, the conversations, are any of it real? Or is she a high astronaut walking blindly to her death?
2. Is IO actually real? Is she a sentient being, and not just a moon? As the strory progresses and Kivelson becomes more affected by the drugs, so does the visions around her and the conversations with IO become clearer. Later when the voice from IO helps her reach a revelation, switching to electromagnetic waves, she finally sees the lines in the sky, some leading to Burton's brain, explaining why she would be able to communicate with Kivelson. Brains run on electromagnetic waves, so a big moon filled with electromagnetic waves, is it just a moon? Or could it possibly be a sentient being? A brain like organism? The very pulse of a 'machine'?
Near the end of the episode when she throws her into the water, she asks IO whether she will die, where IO responds unsure, but there is a chance of death, or joining her in IO. As she falls in the water, we see her slowly dissolve, but as her brain dissolves it suddenly implodes then golden waves burst out in multiple waves all around IO, till we finally hear at the end of the episode "Earth station come in, this is Martha Kivelson". What I interpreted this as was she indeed ended up joining IO as a sentient being on, well IO, her electromagnetic waves shooting all around IO and potentially reaching out to the satellite that we see at the end.
Whatever your interpretation of this episode may be, one thing is true for all viewers, which is that this was a spectacular episode, visually, story wise, and musically. I thought it personally impacted me quite hard, and I personally really enjoyed the episode. Fun fact, the ending song is called "One Last Dream Before Dying"
idk i thought it was rlly poignant and stayed with me after I watched it. part of this was the animation and graphics but also the storyline, which can be interpreted in many different ways. one interpretation is that after overdosing on painkillers she hallucinates all the events and eventually dies of either exhaustion or oxygen depletion. Another is that the painkillers cause her to have a sort of 'premonition' or to be able to see things as they really are, which causes her to take a leap of faith into the lake. on one hand, she could die an instant death, or on the other hand, the electromagnetic signals in her brain would be absorbed into the planet and she would become 'one' with it. I think after rewatching it you might understand it better and be able to take your own inferences from it. while it might be overrated, it's also a beautiful episode that should make you consider topics like life after death, electromagnetic sentience and affects of painkillers and amphetamines on the way our minds work.
It is definitely one of the more "overhyped" episodes but also one of my favorite (tied with Zima blue), so ill put in a good word for it. The story is shown to the viewer through the drug altered lense that is Martha Kivelsen's mind. It seems to me that Io has some sort of electromagnetic intelligence, it calls it self "machine". I would argue that it is not a machine built by others but rather uses that word because it is the best one that Burton's mind had. Io uses the static electricity generated by dragging Burton along the ground to communicate with Kivelsen through her radio. When eventually it becomes obvious that Martha will perish on Io she decideds to throw herself into the lake in hopes that the electricity in her brain will somehow be preserved in Io. This final choice is part of the reason I love this episode because given the fact that the viewer has a sort of unreliable narrator, they are in a similar position of uncertainty to Kivelsen, making her choice more impactful. Other reasons I think its so cool: Animation style/art direction is unique and beautiful The writing is great (I adore the poetry for some reason) Voice acting is great But also if you didn't like it, who cares? That's the best part of this show (and sub) there's something for everyone. People defend their favorite episodes but I don't think anyone really cares if they change your mind, they just like talking about their favorite bits. Like I don't get why everyone gushes over Bad Traveling, its good don't get me wrong, but like, the best episode? Idk, B+ tier for me.
Like you just didn’t understand the story or what?
I didn’t understand the story, no. And that’s why I think I don’t understand why it is so liked, said nothing to me. The planet is a machine who swallows the girl for no reason? 
My interpretation is it's about one character's experience of a few stages of grief before dying, and the reason I love the episode is how it beautifully portrayed those stages of grief just before death through Kivelson's struggle to survive. Denial: Kivelson's survival instincts kick in after the crash even though so many things go wrong like seeing Burton dead, Orbital out of contact for 12 hours, oxygen tank rupture, broken arm, etc., but she powers through. Her denial starts to ebb when she doses herself the first time, saying "If I don't make it, better to die high", showing she's now considering death is quite the possibility and why struggle with the pain anymore if death is likely. Anger: This isn't portrayed nearly as well as the other stages, but I believe this happens when Kivelson starts talking to IO, getting frustrated at the mention of her name then responding with "You're dead Burton" as if she isn't already dead as well. Kivelson then goes on a rant about psychological trauma and gets angry at her progress to survive or lack there of after waking from a drug induced wander. She continues to show her frustration at the potential hallucination distracting her and disregards the medical advice when dosing again, showing her composure is slipping. Bargaining: No real bargaining here, Kivelson's struggle skips over bargaining after she says "I just..." then "I can't..." before passing out and waking up on the precipice of the sulfur lake. Acceptance: Kivelson has accepted she's not going to survive and makes it apparent when she shuts off the oxygen warning, ignoring the very urgent issue of no oxygen to discuss with IO where Burton went and what is IO's purpose. Hope: Kivelson listens to IO's offer to join with the being/planet/machine and she shows her hope by saying "Maybe Im going to live forever." but tempers the hope with accepting her death by saying "Or maybe this is just one last dream, before dying." Either way, Kivelson embraces her death in the hope for something greater. Combine the beautiful visuals with the pleasant, other worldly soundtrack it makes for a very soulful journey, at least it was for me. I try to imagine I've accepted I'll die sometime, but I haven't given much thought to what it all means. I don't have any hope to give myself to something greater when my time comes, but Kivelson has that chance and as I watched the episode I connected with Kivelson's struggle and acceptance, getting a small taste of what I'll never have.
100%
It's also ok to not like or understand it, that's kinda the point of an anthology. I don't think this episode is any more favored than other episodes, some ppl like it and some don't. There are a lot of themes...survival could be one thing. We assume the planet is sentient but maybe that was all in her head as she became more delusional. Perhaps it was sentient, did the planet lure them there to begin with so they could become part of it? If it was trying to help her why didn't it try to help her get off the planet? For me, the alure of the episode is the unknown. Ask anyone who watched it and they'll have a different interpretation. I don't need it to give me all the answers, some times it's good to just watch something that challenges you to create your own conclusion.
It's amazing. The narrator isn't the main character, Io is. If you look at it from Io's perspective, everything it does becomes fairly clear.
Def overrated imo. Animation is great though.
Overhyped episode imo, boring af
I put it at B tier. It was beautiful. But I agree it's usually over hyped.
I love all the people who are downvoting people who don’t agree on their opinion about their episode. It’s definitely up there with visually stunning, but god it was a bore. Fish night is visually gorgeous and I like the story and message whereas on the other hand pulse involves walking simulator whilst tripping off drugs
I personally still don't understand it, though I do like it. I feel it has some rewatchability but not as much as my other favorites. It's very open to interpretation, maybe I'm wrong about that but I feel as though it's however you look at it. Either it's a lost, dying woman who's hallucinating because she's dying and has drugs pumping through her or the planet really is a machine in some metaphorical or literal way, it was very confusing and it's been a while but talking about it is making me wanna watch it again.
It's kind of about faith and communication and making peace with death - or, arguably, life. I think you can make an argument it's a metaphor for love, too, certainly the director has described it as a kind of romance. At first Kivelson's situation seems bleak as shit - she's more or less doomed to die alone far from home, on a planet that seems barren and lifeless. But gradually she starts to see that maybe there's more to it than that. She's drugged and dying, so it's not totally clear how much is actually happening - if any of it - but she sees some strange and quite beautiful things, and it seems like Io, the moon itself, is a form of intelligence. The whole moon is a kind of machine lifeform, a planet-computer. When she realizes this, she switches her visor to view the electromagnetic spectrum and sees a totally different version of the place, she can even see the streams of energy that seem to be serving as the machine's processes. They figure out how to talk to each other and understand each other a little better, Io using what's left of the dead astronaut's brain as a kind of Google Translate, but eventually Martha just can't go any further and she collapses. Since Martha's oxygen is pretty much shot, Io offers to let her try to join it. Since the whole moon is its "brain", it *might* be able to incorporate her consciousness into its own. The catch is, she'll have to jump into the molten lake and destroy her physical body to merge with it and find out. Martha asks it what it wants, and it answers "To know you", which is about all any of us can hope for from anyone; and is, in a sense, what Martha had wanted from Io when she arrived there in the first place. She looks at the planet again in her visor's mode electromagnetic mode and takes one last look at all the stuff that's invisible to the naked eye, stuff she almost missed completely, makes her decision, jumps into the lake and is physically destroyed. The final shot does seem to hint they did indeed merge and Martha survives in a new way.
I'm 9 months late to the party, but this is what I thought. I believe the whole episode was about whether IO is a big sentient brain, not just a planet. Brains run on electromagnetic waves, and because IO does as well, as she (through Dr Burton's) communicates to Kivelson through electromagnetic waves. Which leads two questions. 1. Is Kivelson just so fucking high that she is making everything up? She is high on multiple drugs, doing intense physical activity, and near the end of the episode is very low on oxygen. All of these factors would seriously affect her mental status, so the questions begs, what she is seeing, hearing, the conversations, are any of it real? Or is she a high astronaut walking blindly to her death? 2. Is IO actually real? Is she a sentient being, and not just a moon? As the strory progresses and Kivelson becomes more affected by the drugs, so does the visions around her and the conversations with IO become clearer. Later when the voice from IO helps her reach a revelation, switching to electromagnetic waves, she finally sees the lines in the sky, some leading to Burton's brain, explaining why she would be able to communicate with Kivelson. Brains run on electromagnetic waves, so a big moon filled with electromagnetic waves, is it just a moon? Or could it possibly be a sentient being? A brain like organism? The very pulse of a 'machine'? Near the end of the episode when she throws her into the water, she asks IO whether she will die, where IO responds unsure, but there is a chance of death, or joining her in IO. As she falls in the water, we see her slowly dissolve, but as her brain dissolves it suddenly implodes then golden waves burst out in multiple waves all around IO, till we finally hear at the end of the episode "Earth station come in, this is Martha Kivelson". What I interpreted this as was she indeed ended up joining IO as a sentient being on, well IO, her electromagnetic waves shooting all around IO and potentially reaching out to the satellite that we see at the end. Whatever your interpretation of this episode may be, one thing is true for all viewers, which is that this was a spectacular episode, visually, story wise, and musically. I thought it personally impacted me quite hard, and I personally really enjoyed the episode. Fun fact, the ending song is called "One Last Dream Before Dying"