So, this season we’ll be taking an episode-by-episode look at 86. Because this choice was kind of last-minute, it’s not really a show I’ve researched or know anything about, going in totally sight unseen. And from the first episode, this is actually looking fairly interesting.
The
general pitch seems to be that our main society is in a dystopian
future where it’s believed that their current war is fought entirely
by automated drone weapons, meaning that there are no human
casualties. However, the “Processors” of those drones are
actually people who drive them, ‘undesirables’ that the military
handlers consider to be not human, known as the 86. Our main
character is a major in the army and acts as one of the handlers of
the 86, but she’s not on board with her culture’s dismissal of their
humanity. She does their job, but considers the humans under her
command to be humans under her command, much to the chagrin of her
friends and superior officers.
Through
the Major, we get to see a lot of the dystopia she lives in. It
looks nice, with shiny clean lines and plenty of tech, but in
addition to the great lie about the war, we get some more subtle
notes. For one, everyone in the “First district” that seems to
be the national core has the exact same phenotype, to the point where
it looks very eerie in crowd shots to see so much silver hair running
around, suggesting that there’s something going on with genetics.
And when the Major checks in with a scientist friend, said friend is
able to get shock and temptation at the suggestion that she made a
cake with REAL eggs and REAL milk, suggesting that artificiality and
scarcity are everywhere.
Along
the way, the Major also does her job, connecting with the soldiers in
the field and trying to both preserve them and complete the mission.
However, she’s called in to be reassigned to a particularly important
squad. On one hand it’s a high-prestige posting offered by her
uncle… but on the other hand this particular command seems
‘cursed’, with many prior handlers having resigned more or less
forcefully and even a case of suicide, with the handler insisting
they couldn’t stop hearing the voices of the dead. Part of this
might be related to the tech that allows home to link up with and
command the squads in the field, which synchronizes the sense of
hearing between handlers and processors.
The
Major has some weird experiences of her own with her old squad, and
off-hours decides to introduce herself to the new.
We
then cut to them. The 86 squad, in the field, leaves a very
different life. Other than the war element it seems actually not
that bad. They go about their life on base in a sort of rustic and
homey way, making a nice group meal with some sly focus on the fact
that they’ve got chickens for plentiful eggs, contrasting their
existence with the sterile one of the home nation. We see a couple
of them with designs that indicate they’re probably going to be
relevant characters, and the brooding leader of the lot, Shin, who
goes by the call-sign of Undertaker. They brag about how their last
handler broke, and wonder when the next ‘white pig’ is going to show
up. Sure enough, late onto evening, the Major’s call comes in, and
after she introduces herself the episode cuts.
One
thing I noticed about this episode is that it is absolutely loaded.
It honestly felt like we got two episodes of material and character
in here, and yet at the same time it didn’t feel rushed. This is
about the opposite of what I experienced with Tower of God, where the
episodes felt like they were over in a flash. I think what really
did it was the time dedicated to quietly getting the audience a feel
for this world. These scenes don’t actually take much time, but they
fully hold interest in a way that means they feel like time is
passing both in the show and in real life. Because of that, if it’s
consistent, they’ll probably be able to get an ‘epic’ feel out of the
show in general. Either way, I’m really looking forward to more.