Spoilers Limitless - TV Series

[auntiehill]

Well, her face was pretty slack and her voice was very flat--almost monotone. Maybe she just wasn't feeling well, but her very wimpy portrayal of a supposedly aggressive FBI agent struck me as very odd.

Maybe I'm just not used to her NOT swearing all the time.

 

[sojourner]

"together, they fight crime!" show.

This is exactly what it is. The market is flooded with the formula right now. Bones, Castle, Sleepy Hollow, Minority Report, Blacklist, Blindside...

 

[Christopher]

Okay, I got the movie from Netflix today, so I watched both it and the pilot.

First off, the movie. I kinda hated it. Stylistically, directorially, it was impressively done, but the lead character was kind of reprehensible, and the movie was entirely too much on his side. The whole thing was about this guy using illegal and dishonest methods to gain wealth and power, and he ended up succeeding -- not because he deserved to, but because he lucked into something that let him cheat his way to the top at the expense of everyone who got in his way. Because he chose to make moral compromises -- use the drug, steal the stash -- and was rewarded for it. No moral, no lesson learned, no consequences for his misdeeds except to the people around him, just pure self-serving wish fulfillment in a dog-eat-dog world. The movie never even bothered to make clear whether he actually murdered that socialite or was framed for it, because the movie was so completely amoral that it didn't matter to the narrative if he did murder her, so long as he got away with it and continued his rise to the top. I also found it a rather chauvinistic movie, with the female characters basically just there to be Eddie's conquests -- and it was another one of those movies that have an almost entirely white cast despite being set in New York City. It's like Donald Trump wrote this movie.

Now, the only reason I bothered with the movie -- having concluded from the reviews at the time that it wouldn't be my cup of tea, and boy, were they right -- was because I'd heard the series pilot was so well-received by critics. But the pilot didn't blow me away. Its protagonist is definitely an improvement over the smug, selfish, contemptible slimeball that is Eddie Morra; Brian is just as much of a loser to start out, but he's a decent guy who's motivated more by helping other people than by advancing himself. But in a lot of ways, the pilot just felt like an imitation of the movie, right down to repeating some of the same plot beats -- the old friend giving him the pill, the lead finding him murdered and trying to steal his stash. And the way it expanded the stylistic trope of the person standing beside himself and having the hallucinated Brian actually give exposition about how the drug works was implausible; at that moment, he shouldn't have had the information to know that. (It also repeated the film's device of having him be in several places in the room at once doing different things, but at a point when he wasn't on the drug, which doesn't fit how the film used it.)

The show also has a bit more diversity in its cast than the movie did, but I don't find the FBI-agent partner all that interesting. And I'm not sure the premise or the execution is enough to make it stand out from the procedural pack. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of a show about a protagonist whose advantages come from using an illegal drug -- particularly with the downside of the drug being conveniently swept aside. It would've been more interesting if he did have to deal with the downside, if there were risks and costs to using it too often. It's not good to make things too easy for the hero.

The most unexpected part was seeing Alias's Ron Rifkin and Fringe's Blair Brown as Brian's parents. Arvin Sloane and Nina Sharp as a couple? Bizarre, and kind of scary.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Mark Waid wrote a Captain America Origin story in 1990ish.

In the beginning there were 4 applicants (testmonkeys) to be Captain America.

The first muscle bound goon exploded.

The (former) Nazi scientists figured out that they needed someone practically emaciated to survive the process.

Everyone taking NZT in the series, most probably will already be exceptional enough to drive themselves only into into a slightly finer point ignoring the rest of the spectrum of human achievement because they are comfortable and have no reason to evolve or strive.

Evolution only comes from adversity.

 

[Commander Richard]

One thing I liked about the movie was that it wasn't a cautionary tale. It was nice to see a wish fulfilment fantasy work out for once. Actions have consequences but real life doesn't always conform to our ideas of fairness or justice.

As for his acquisition of wealth, I don't recall him doing anything illegal. He just got good at playing the stock market.

Movie Eddie didn't seem like a bad guy, he just stumbled a lot with his newfound abilities. TV Eddie is a different story. More corrupt.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Pre-corrupt.

Imagine you were very gay, and you could see that congress was 5 years away from outlawing homosexuality, rounding up all you gays into works camps and digging massgraves.

Whatever happens next is self defence or genocide, or both.

 

[Christopher]

One thing I liked about the movie was that it wasn't a cautionary tale. It was nice to see a wish fulfilment fantasy work out for once. Actions have consequences but real life doesn't always conform to our ideas of fairness or justice.

But it was just so shallow. He had no goals other than advancing himself, and he didn't care if it was at others' expense. There was a token attempt to suggest that he cared about Abbie Cornish's character, but that was undermined by the way he manipulated other women into sleeping with him and treated them essentially as conquests. The illness of Anna Friel's character and the death of the socialite only had significance as complications for him, rather than tragedies for them. The movie didn't give me a compelling reason to care about this self-absorbed jerk or to want him to succeed. He didn't grow, except backward -- his initial moral qualms vanished in the face of the personal gains he could make. Everything was just too easy for him. Sure, people were out to get him, but he outsmarted them. The drug endangered his health, but he was able to weasel out of it and make it work for him. The story just felt like a straight line that didn't really go anywhere.

As for his acquisition of wealth, I don't recall him doing anything illegal. He just got good at playing the stock market.

The drug was illegal. He stole a stash of it from his dead ex-brother in law while practically standing over his body. That's not just illegal, it's scummy and reprehensibly selfish. And it was the basis for all the rewards and successes he gained thereafter.

Which, really, makes no sense. His run of success started practically the day after he reported his brother-in-law's murder. The police detective clearly felt there were unsettled questions. The cops should've been following his activities, noted that this guy who couldn't pay the rent before was suddenly buying expensive suits almost immediately after his brother-in-law's death, and started asking some very probing questions. Instead, the detective was just forgotten as Morra spent weeks playing around with the benefits of the drug. The movie wasn't only completely absorbed in its shallow wish-fulfillment fantasy, it didn't even bother to make it credible.

 

[Commander Richard]

He had no goals other than advancing himself, and he didn't care if it was at others' expense.

He wasn't going anywhere in life and took advantage of an opportunity to change that. Wouldn't most people want to better themselves or their situation in some way if they could? And I don't remember him blatantly stepping on others to get ahead. He just managed to find trouble.

There was a token attempt to suggest that he cared about Abbie Cornish's character, but that was undermined by the way he manipulated other women into sleeping with him and treated them essentially as conquests.

Sleeping with his landlord's wife wasn't right but I didn't see any blatant attempts at manipulation otherwise. Presumably with his newfound confidence, he simply turned her on and got better at attracting other women. As for Abbie's character, he seemed to care about her as much as any boyfriend or ex would. I didn't see anything unusual there.

The illness of Anna Friel's character and the death of the socialite only had significance as complications for him, rather than tragedies for them.

The story is about him though. I thought they would follow up on the dead socialite and maybe they should have but real life wouldn't necessarily give a situation like this a neat and tidy wrap-up.

The drug was illegal. He stole a stash of it from his dead ex-brother in law while practically standing over his body. That's not just illegal, it's scummy and reprehensibly selfish. And it was the basis for all the rewards and successes he gained thereafter.

The drug hadn't been approved but that's a minor legal technicality. It doesn't invalidate his successes or make them wrong. As for searching the apartment while his brother-in-law was dead, it's a movie where you want him to find the pills.

His run of success started practically the day after he reported his brother-in-law's murder. The police detective clearly felt there were unsettled questions. The cops should've been following his activities, noted that this guy who couldn't pay the rent before was suddenly buying expensive suits almost immediately after his brother-in-law's death, and started asking some very probing questions. Instead, the detective was just forgotten as Morra spent weeks playing around with the benefits of the drug.

Again, real life. Investigations don't always pan out.

 

[Christopher]

He wasn't going anywhere in life and took advantage of an opportunity to change that. Wouldn't most people want to better themselves or their situation in some way if they could?

Sure, but that doesn't automatically make them sympathetic or interesting characters to watch. The whole thing was just so totally about his own personal indulgence and advantage, so laser-focused on monetary gain and power as the only important goals in life. I find that shallow and empty.

And I don't remember him blatantly stepping on others to get ahead. He just managed to find trouble.

Again: He ripped off his dead brother-in-law to get a drug hit. That's a deeply selfish and unsympathetic act. The man's bloody corpse was sitting right there and the guy was ransacking his apartment. That's crass and disrespectful to a demented degree. Not to mention that he stole the guy's illegally obtained stash of drug money -- profits from the sale of a drug that was killing people by the dozens -- and used it to get ahead. He didn't just "manage to find trouble." He stole a drug dealer's blood money and used it to benefit himself.

Not to mention that, implicitly, by stealing Vern's stash, he caused the death of Atwood, the billionaire that the assassin turned out to be working for. We learned from Anna Friel's character that abruptly stopping the drug rather than easing off was fatal. The assassin was hunting Eddie to get the stash of pills, and the assassin turned out to be working for Atwood. Therefore, Vern must've been Atwood's supplier, and by stealing Vern's stash, Eddie forced Atwood to go cold turkey, which must have led to his coma and death. So Eddie effectively killed Atwood.

(Not to mention that it was extremely obvious that Atwood was using NZT the moment Robert De Niro mentioned that he'd come out of nowhere and had a meteoric rise to success, yet the script made our supposedly superintelligent lead character too stupid to see that. Another case of the script cheating to make the plot work.)

Sleeping with his landlord's wife wasn't right but I didn't see any blatant attempts at manipulation otherwise. Presumably with his newfound confidence, he simply turned her on and got better at attracting other women. As for Abbie's character, he seemed to care about her as much as any boyfriend or ex would. I didn't see anything unusual there.

It's not so much about how much he cared as how much the screenwriter and director cared. The movie itself treated its female characters like conquests and complications for the male lead, which is a perennial problem in Hollywood. I should note that the film fails the Bechdel test; the only parameter it meets is that there's more than one named female character, but I can't remember any instance of two of them having a conversation with each other.

The drug hadn't been approved but that's a minor legal technicality.

I think you're misremembering the plot. The drug was killing people or putting them in comas. It was highly deadly and there was no way in hell it would ever have been approved.

As for searching the apartment while his brother-in-law was dead, it's a movie where you want him to find the pills.

Speak for yourself. I don't want to root for a guy who'd ransack the apartment of a dead ex-relative just to get a drug fix.

His run of success started practically the day after he reported his brother-in-law's murder. The police detective clearly felt there were unsettled questions. The cops should've been following his activities, noted that this guy who couldn't pay the rent before was suddenly buying expensive suits almost immediately after his brother-in-law's death, and started asking some very probing questions. Instead, the detective was just forgotten as Morra spent weeks playing around with the benefits of the drug.

Again, real life. Investigations don't always pan out.

Oh, come on. That obviously doesn't apply here. Eddie wasn't trying to hide his activities. They were public and blatant. It would've been ridiculously easy for the police to notice that Eddie started living large almost immediately after the murder, and that the brother-in-law's stash of drugs and money was not present in the apartment. There's no way the cops wouldn't have liked him for the murder. Yet there was no sign that they were watching him when he went on to do things like taking out a loan from a mobster. And why did the script even bother to have the detective say "Something doesn't feel right here" if there was no intention to have him follow up on Vern's murder, if he was going to disappear completely from the story until the socialite's murder? That's just bad writing.

 

[Commander Richard]

I wasn't suggesting that the drug could have or would have been approved, just that its legal status or even what it did to others doesn't invalidate his successes. He's simply a guy who found a substance and learned how to use it properly.

Concerning the investigation, even if they were more thorough, there isn't enough to hold up. Eddie did find his brother-in-law already dead and the police didn't know about NZT. Can't really peg him for any criminal activity there. With the socialite's murder, it's possible that he did do it but that's not clear to anyone including the audience. Nothing solid to get a conviction.

 

[Christopher]

I wasn't suggesting that the drug could have or would have been approved, just that its legal status or even what it did to others doesn't invalidate his successes. He's simply a guy who found a substance and learned how to use it properly.

He's a guy who stole a stash of illegal drugs and blood money from his murdered ex-brother-in-law whose bloody corpse was still in the room. He's a guy who, despite having the brilliance to make a profit legitimately, chose to take out a loan from a mobster -- and despite having an infallible memory, then neglected to pay the mobster back and thereby brought a ton of avoidable trouble onto himself. Trouble which led to the murder of his totally innocent next-door neighbor, by the way. This bastard was leaving bodies in his wake. Even if he didn't intentionally kill any of them, his self-serving decisions still led to their deaths. And we don't actually know whether he killed the socialite or not. The movie never made it clear that he didn't. He might actually be a murderer.

Concerning the investigation, even if they were more thorough, there isn't enough to hold up. Eddie did find his brother-in-law already dead and the police didn't know about NZT. Can't really peg him for any criminal activity there.

But they do know that there is such a thing as money. Eddie was flat broke before the murder and going on a highly conspicuous spending spree just days after the murder. The victim was a known drug dealer who presumably had a large quantity of cash in his apartment, but the police would not have found any such cash therein. Eddie was guilty of stealing Vern's money, and he spent it so profligately and publicly that he was practically confessing to the theft. And yet the detective that the film made a point of showing to be suspicious about the circumstances of the murder then completely disappeared from the narrative at exactly the point when he logically should've been riding even harder on Eddie. He should've brought Eddie in for questioning about where he got all that money. And Eddie wouldn't have been able to account for it. His publisher would've confirmed that it wasn't from his book advance. The detective should've easily ruled out any other source except Vern's apartment, which would've probably been enough to get a warrant to search Eddie's apartment and find Vern's stash in his possession, including the money, the drugs, and the ledger listing Vern's clients.

With the socialite's murder, it's possible that he did do it but that's not clear to anyone including the audience. Nothing solid to get a conviction.

And that attitude -- that it doesn't matter if he murdered a human being so long as he doesn't get caught -- is exactly what I find so reprehensible about the movie's ethics.

 

[Commander Richard]

^ Not that it doesn't matter, just that they can't pin it on him.

About the money he took, you got me on that one. A thorough investigation would show that he can't account for it.

The mobster... I agree. I don't know why he took out a loan from him. It shouldn't have been difficult to grow his money further by playing the stock market as he was already doing. Guess they needed that for the plot.

 

[sojourner]

I don't get why he didn't just pay the mobster back right away. It's not like he didn't have the funds in time.

 

[Christopher]

^ Not that it doesn't matter, just that they can't pin it on him.

Again, that's my point. The movie doesn't care whether it matters, only whether he gets away with it. I object to that sense of priorities. It's part and parcel of the film's glorification of the selfish pursuit of wealth, power, and luxury above all other concerns. I find that morally and emotionally bankrupt. The stylistic innovations made the film interesting to watch, but in retrospect it left me cold and disgusted, and the script logic didn't hold up to scrutiny.


Anyway, we should be talking about the show here. Brian Finch is a very different lead character than Eddie Morra, with more sympathetic reasons for his involvement with the drug and less selfish goals. And though Eddie's role is ambiguous, he seems like he might be a somewhat menacing figure who's using Brian for his own ends -- perfectly in keeping with the person he became over the course of the movie. I even saw an article about the series describing Eddie as the film's "hero-turned-villain," so I'm evidently not alone in my assessment of him.

Still, though Brian is an agreeable enough character, and more willing to use his powers for good rather than self-aggrandizement, I'm not sure I'm invested enough in the premise to keep watching, even aside from my distaste for the movie. The advance reviews said this was one of the best-received pilots of the season and that it showed a lot of potential, but I'm not seeing it. It's mostly just a hybrid of the movie's plot and stylistic tricks with a by-the-numbers "person with special abilities helps an FBI partner solve crimes" procedural setup. And as I said, exempting Brian from the risks of using the drug is a copout that makes the storytelling less interesting than it could've been.

 

[DonIago]

I agree that the movie is rather amoral in and of itself, though I'm not willing to speculate as to whether the film wants us to sympathize with Eddie. He seems to be a textbook case of power corrupting...though as I may have said earlier in this thread, it's unclear whether what we see was always Eddie's nature, or whether his environment shaped him.

 

[Christopher]

I agree that the movie is rather amoral in and of itself, though I'm not willing to speculate as to whether the film wants us to sympathize with Eddie.

Maybe not; there are certainly other movies with morally contemptible protagonists, like mob films or something like Bonnie and Clyde. But there wasn't really much of anyone else I could sympathize with. Maybe Abbie Cornish's character, but she has a secondary role overall. (And the sequence where she uses the drug to escape the assassin is kind of ridiculous. All those possible weapons she can use against the assassin, and she picks the most convoluted and risky method possible -- running across an ice rink, picking up a skating kid, and swinging her around so her skate slashes the assassin? That's insane! It's putting style over sense. Not to mention how traumatized the poor kid must've been.) And I've never been a fan of mob films, or films about hit men, or whatever. I like stories about people I can root for.

Plus, my problem was more about plot structure. The main character achieved no growth, learned no lessons. He just went in a straight line and got more and more successful. He had setbacks, but he overcame them and wasn't really affected by them in the long run. The whole movie was like those showy FX shots where it just kept zooming in deeper and deeper in a straight line. It was just kind of a dull, one-note narrative. The director obviously cared more about showing off his visual and directorial tricks than about the quality of the writing, which is my problem with a lot of modern films.

 

[DonIago]

I can't immediately disagree with any of what you've said, though I now feel like I should listen to the commentary track again, heh.

Overall I agree with other reviews I saw of the film, in that I think it raises a lot of interesting questions, but it doesn't particularly explore them and it could have been much more than it is. About the only way I can sympathize with Eddie is by thinking that somewhere in his head there's a small non-enhanced voice screaming to be released from the thing he's become.

 

[Christopher]

About the only way I can sympathize with Eddie is by thinking that somewhere in his head there's a small non-enhanced voice screaming to be released from the thing he's become.

Maybe that's my problem. For all that he superficially triumphs and advances, this is a story of a man losing himself to addiction (not just to the drug but to success and power), gradually being eroded away until there's nothing left but ambition. He doesn't even really try to fight it, just gives into it, which may be why I find the narrative so lacking in drama or complication. Sure, he has struggles, but only external ones; there's never any internal struggle between who he was and who he's becoming.

I wonder if the show will explore this -- have Brian run the risk of succumbing to the intoxication of the success and power the drug can give him, risking the loss of who he is. Unlike Eddie, he's someone who could actually struggle with that, both because he's more ethical and other-directed to begin with and because he has more of a support structure, a family to remind him of who he is. (Eddie had Lindy, but she walked out on him, something I assume Brian's parents wouldn't do.) If we do get that struggle, it would make the series more engaging than the movie.

 

[shapeshifter]

Sooo, IIUC we have a police procedural program which teams a drug user with an agent in the FBI.

Sure, why not. Can't be any dumberer than one with Zombies. lol

I sense a short shelf life though, I wonder how long they can keep the stories fresh...

 

[JoeZhang]

Sooo, IIUC we have a police procedural program which teams a drug user with an agent in the FBI.

Sure, why not. Can't be any dumberer than one with Zombies. lol

I sense a short shelf life though, I wonder how long they can keep the stories fresh...

Which is why the one where he's an immoral asshole is more fun - I guess we are going to me a 'drugs are bad, m'kay moralising' not something I want to watch when I've got the munchies.