12 MONKEYS : 01x11 : Shonin

Okay. A recap-type write-up of episode 11 quickly got away from me with tangents and what-ifs. So, I'm gonna try and keep this non-epic by going thru and rambling a bit on new info/insights we get on some characters this episode…

THE GOINES FAMILY.

LELAND: I don't know boys… One-Eyed Willy's a little lackluster…

Was Leland, like, a cool dad back before he was a virus-weaponizing corporate villain? I like the idea of Leland going with his precocious nerdgirl daughter to see THE GOONIES. Maybe a couple of times. =)

When Leland visits Jennifer at J.D. Peoples in 2014, he mentions her mother, who was also thought to be mentally ill. When he leaves, one of his cronies explains that Jennifer shouldn't be locked up for killing her Night Room colleagues. Security footage clearly shows that she did not kill them. Goines explains that she is exactly where she should be.

When Olivia visits Jennifer after her apparent release, she asks about her mother, and seems to know that Leland had her locked away and forgotten as well. Perhaps Jennifer and her mother share a natural ESP of some kind, something that manifests as symptoms of mental illness, informally, a Cassandra complex.

I'd like another look at the drawings she makes in the hospital. Animals and nature retaking cities. Maybe red leaves? And then, the fierce black monkey. From where does she pull that image? From Markridge labs' test subjects? She said she freed them, right? Six and six? Or did the agents of the Army wear the image as sigil on their clothes or as tattoos (the Chechnya assassin had one).
Hey, did you hear what Jennifer was murmuring outside the Markridge conference room in 2011…?

JENNIFER: Everything's changing… Green to red. Everything's changing… Green to red.

So, she's either been present for a paradox shower, has had visions of one, or is somehow "reading" the effects of one (perhaps ripples from the 1995 one?). This is at a time when she's working as a Markridge scientist, before the Army's Night Room massacre, before Jennifer's stay at J.D. Peoples. She's definitely vibrating at some kind of special frequency. Maybe like her mother? Who perhaps was prescribed a certain red tea while pregnant…? By Dr. Guy-who's-Olivia's-father…?

Perhaps this extra sense or sight is an ability resulting from engaging in the nasty in the past-y ((c) FUTURAMA =). Remember what Jennifer told Ramse in 2043…

JENNIFER: We're the daughters of mothers and midnight and fathers. It's all out of order. But there's still time. For you, and me. We have work to finish.

It's all out of order.

RAMSE (aka SEKI).

What happened to his hand? His left hand, right? Was he injured in 2043 before Splintering? Wounded during his fight with Cole in 1987? Oh! Maybe he had that hand outside of the Splinter stream, holding his gun on the technician who executed the Splinter? Given the layout of the Splinter lab, tho, probably would've been his right hand. Hrm…

One day Olivia interrupts Ramse while he's thinking of Sam, recalling memories from the future. The first time I watched, I heard…

OLIVIA: Time isn't perfect. Yet I'm envious how most of you seem to defy it.

She reaches out to touch him, he pulls away, and the scene continues, revealing how the Army has made strategic investments for profit and to help events along their proper, future historical, paths. She seems to be speaking of Ramse and humanity as something different from herself, ready to fight fate, time, mortality.

The second time I watched, I heard…

OLIVIA: Time isn't perfect. Yet I'm envious how most of you seems to defy it.

She reaches out to touch his hand, which he pulls away, and the scene continues… She's referring to most of RAMSE, not most of humanity.

For the most part, it appears that Ramse's aging has been arrested, or at least dramatically slowed. The only part of him that shows the signs of time's passing is his hand (and wrist/forearm). Visually, this was difficult for me to make out. Early on, I thought that his hand seemed to be coated or covered with something silvery/metallic, maybe some compromised protective gear? Later, in prison, maybe a brace or cast? Then, in a shot while in prison, it seemed to be scarred. Only when I properly (I think) heard Olivia's words with her actions and his reaction, did it click that it's meant to be age, and in contrast with the rest of his body (at least, of what we can see). I'm still not sure what it looks like, tho. Wrinkled? Gray? Oh! If it was his gun hand, maybe the metal/materials of the gun became embedded in his flesh? Combine that w serum-healing and that's kinda Wolverine!

Remember when Peters analyzed Cole's physiology back in 2015? Scans showed that he was running hot, featuring upgrades like enhanced strength and healing. I think he might have described his blood as a biological computer, too? When cumulative Splinter events don't drain away years of your life, the Splinter serum seems to act as something of a Super-Soldier Serum (w Vita-Rays, turned Steve Rogers into Captain America in the MCU). Would love to see that exploited in some superhuman feats and action scenes.

OLIVIA.

When Olivia comments on Ramse's moisturizing regimen, she seems to imply that she herself ages like a typical human being. Gotta say, it's difficult to confirm that by observation, right? It's 20 years from when she welcomes Ramse into the fold to when she confronts Aaron Marker outside the Army's container lab. She looks like an ageless replicant every time we see her.

When the pendant paradox mitzvah is complete…

TALL MAN: Your father was right.
OLIVIA: Yes. He has come.

And when Olivia meets Jennifer in 2014…

OLIVIA: My father was the same. He had plans for me. There was a thing in a box, with printed instructions. Difficult… Problematic.

Who is her father? What plans did he have for her? The only thing in a box we've seen thus far is the precursor, but it's only been in a box since the 1980s, and her father is spoken of in the past tense already in 1995. Huh, Jennifer has actually already seen the precursor when Olivia speaks to her. So, I'm thinking that the thing in a box that Olivia refers to is something else. Printed instructions. Some relic of the future—a box containing some artifact and perhaps a timeline or calendar, a written history or diary, which would be interpreted as instructions—deposited in the past, and passed down across generations.

I love that we get to see her—and so, the Army of the 12 Monkeys—as an influence behind so many people and projects we encounter in their more developed forms in the future. She and Ramse meet with Leland in 2011 because the Army's financial group is heavily invested in Markridge. She plants the seed of the Daughters in Jennifer's mind in 2014. She shows up at Senator Royce's office in 2015 because the Army is funding the "selective survival protocol" that will ultimately become Project Spearhead.

ROYCE: Tell you what, the investor is on their way over here right now, and they're looking for someone to spearhead the project…

The one big ticket item we haven't seen Olivia connected to (yet) is Raritan National Laboratory and Project Splinter. I think it's in the first episode that Cole describes to Cass that scientists from his time used technology from her time to develop a solution to beating the plague. In my head, I believed that Splinter was unfinished at the time of the outbreak, and that Jones's ragtag Spearhead refugees sought out the facility to complete the work. Hence the early ghastly test runs and results.

But—who's to say it wasn't operational before the plague and then abandoned, de-powered, and/or disabled? That would open up some very interesting possibilities. At the time of the growing outbreak, Splintering would have offered not a cure for, but an escape from the plague. Perhaps someone/s from the original Project Splinter is manipulating the manipulators to ensure that s/he is able to make the Splinter that save his/her life?

You see how a mild-mannered write-up of episode 11 would quickly get a bit superfantastical? Yeah, I might have a problem. =)

ON CHILDREN.

JONES: The greatest lie is believing we are shaping them, that we have any control. No. They make us. They can destroy us.

That's Katarina talking about how both Ramse's and her own actions are inspired by their children. Hannah's death set Jones on a path to change the past as they know it. Sam's life sets Ramse on a path to preserve it. Reminds me of another nugget of fried wisdom for Ramse (the not-Witness) from Jennifer in 2043…

JENNIFER: Death can be both cause and effect. That's how it works. No straight lines. You're ready. It's time… to go.

It seems the child pretty consistently destroys the parent in the world of 12 MONKEYS. Sam inspires Ramse into Atari (a situation he’d otherwise never fall into). Hannah drives Katarina to seek a solution that will erase her own existence. Marcus Whitley chooses Dr. Jones over his father. Jennifer Goines is in part responsible for events that lead to Leland's death (and legacy). And Olivia and Tall Man do speak of her father in the past tense…
Fun times!

Keep on keepin on~

12 MONKEYS : 01x10 : Divine Moves

I've gotta ramble a bit on the awesomeness of the choreography that led to Ramse's decisions in tonight's episode…

*** SPOILERS FOLLOW ***

When Ramse met Sam, I knew it would cause him to rethink his stand on undoing the plague. In order to preserve the timeline that led to the birth of his handsome modest son, I knew he'd do whatever he could to stop Project Splinter, and this episode, that's what we see him do.

Gotta say, though, I did NOT see him becoming a force for preserving the viral outbreak in the past. Mostly because I had it in my head that Cole was a one-in-a-million Splinterer. Y'know, uniquely, genetically, qualified to accept the Splinter serum and survive the time jump process, for more than one trip, at least. I figured the odds that any other random person could do what Cole was doing would be astronomical.

Hrm… Was that a concept I lifted from the Terry Gilliam film?

Well, I'm kinda glad I was wrong on that, because Ramse vs. Cole vs. Yakuza in 1987 Tokyo? Ain't nothing wrong with that, I tell you hwhut. =)

Seriously, the writers did some wonderful work getting Ramse, the master strategist who preaches the dangers of atari, *into* atari! If you haven't picked it up from Ramse's descriptions, atari is a defensive position in Go where you only have one possible move (thanks, Interwebs). When Jones sealed Ramse in the Splinter chamber and then straight up told him…

JONES: There's no where to go. Give up, Mr. Ramse.

Well, you knew what he had to do. And for such a righteous reason, too.

RAMSE: I promised my son I'd always protect him. I can't do it now. I'll do it then.

12 MONKEYS has turned Ramse, the guy who in 2041 convinced Cole to accept Project Splinter's mission of retconning the plague, into a time traveler dedicated to making certain that M5-10 is released, resulting in the plague-pocalypse that kills billions, but also ultimately leads to his meeting Elena, and thus the birth of young Sam. Too bad Ramse doesn't get the chance to discuss that calculus with Cassandra Railly, like Aaron does…

CASS: Helping to destroy the world to save just one person?
AARON: One person… that you love? In the end, isn't that all that matters?
CASS: No.

Cass and Cole *so* belong together, don’t they? =)

So, what do we have to look forward (or rather, backward) to? Well, it looks like Ramse *did* land in Tokyo (or Epcot Japan?), but we don't know when. I'm kind of hoping that he was thrown farther back into the past than 1987. Remember, Jones mentioned that with the serum so fresh in Ramse's bloodstream, his Splinter landing would not be precise. An earlier arrival would give him time to prepare for Cole's appearance. I'm not sure if he'd know the November 12 date, but from Cole's stories, he def knows that the White Dragon in 1987 is important.

Heck, maybe Ramse takes advantage of some snippet of ancient history (to him) to invest or gamble very profitably in the 80s and opens the White Dragon night club himself! Well, maybe, maybe not. It would be enough that he builds an organization of some kind that is ready to move on Cole whenever he shows his otter eyes in 1987. Maybe the Yakuza are with him? Or, maybe they're his (and Markridge's?) rivals in some shady deal/bidding war over the Precursor/Annapurna Remains. That sounds about right. That could work out nicely.

Working on a next post… Just a list of cool $hit from the episode… =)

It’s later than you think~

Keep on keepin on~

BETTER CALL SAUL : Wexler & McGill

I've got a kinda out there theory about Kim and Jimmy's back story. It's based on two assumptions, ones that I hope don't upset your delicate sensibilities:

1. Jimmy and Kim are exes.
2. Jimmy is gay (well, bisexual perhaps).

Okay, I can hear you blinking. Come on, do the math. I'll wait.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Okay, you get what I'm saying here? Kim Wexler used to be… I dunno… let's say… *Chris* Wexler. And Chris and Jimmy were together, an item, went steady, you know. Perhaps in/thru law school? But somewhere along the way, Chris realizes that he isn't all that he's truly meant to be. And he undergoes gender reassignment surgery and begins life as Kim. Maybe they break up before the surgery, maybe after, but they remain close. Given what we've seen, I have to think that Kim initiates the break-up, for whatever reason, and Jimmy agrees to move on, but of course carries a torch for her.

Crazy talk? Sure, but I like it. Give it some thought. I know it seems farfetched, but wouldn't that just be perfect?

I'll call it crazy talk…

Keep on keepin on~

12 MONKEYS : 01x05 : The Night Room

I do like a time travel story, and *love* one that plays with the possibilities in clever *and* consistent ways, so of course I am loving 12 MONKEYS on SyFy. The show is taking the source material/jumping-off point of the film and LA JETEE and going to some very dark and fun places. Gotta say, tho, after this latest episode ("The Night Room"), I might actually be a little annoyed at all the great possibilities. =)

Spoilery spoiling spoilers follow!

Some thoughts that occurred to me In the course of "The Night Room"…

1. The precursor is the body of a modern-day victim of a legit ancient virus (which is what Tall Man seems to claim). Something that was sequestered from the rest of the world in an antarctic ice or some undersea cavern or maybe a bubble of air preserved in hardened volcanic ash or lava, uncovered by a scientist or explorer?
2. The precursor is the time-travel-shredded body of one of Katrina pre-Cole Splinter subjects, presumably immune to the virus, but perhaps still a carrier? Although it seems there's no concern for Cole being a carrier, right? Do they de-con Cole before he Splinters? Or maybe the virus is actually no longer around, having killed all of its potential hosts? Or maybe the virus don't survive a Splinter event? Maybe that wasn't true of earlier Splinter attempts, though. Okay, there are detaily problems w this, but I kind of like it for the horror paradox of it.
3. The precursor is Cole's body, which would mean that the Night Room is his final resting place. Remember Jennifer's obsession with Cole's "otter eyes?" We also get to hear Jennifer comment on how she hates the way the precursor looks at her. I like the idea that she's talking about the same eyes, as horrible as the implications of that may be. When the precursor was wheeled out of the vault, Cole seemed to have a physical reaction to it. Again, it could have been a pre-Splinter snapback wave of discomfort, but hey—maybe not. Maybe it was the pain felt when someone encounters himself while time traveling, specifically, his deceased and chemically preserved self.
4. The Witness is one of Katrina's pre-Cole Splinter subjects. Someone who survived the process but never returned. Perhaps someone who was driven insane by the experience. The Witness knows the history of the future and for whatever reason is determined to ensure it unfolds as he remembers.
5. The Witness is a future Cole, driven somewhat mad (madder?) by repeated failures to change the future. It could be that the Witness might yet become the precursor (#3) as well. Another horror-ible possibility. In any case, I'm 90% certain the Witness is a Splintered individual, and maybe 5% certain that it's someone that Cole meets in the past—his personal future, a 1987 Splinter has yet to happen, remember?—to whom he gives, or is forced to give, intel about the apocalyptic future.

Some thoughts that occurred to me at/on the ending of "The Night Room"…

1. Cole has Splinter-returned significantly later (weeks/months) than when he Splinter-departed. Pretty straightforward, if a bit aggravating. The core's power has dropped below Splinter initialization levels (but apparently, not return levels), which might have made the installation more vulnerable to another attack by West 7. Maybe this will be good for another more action-packed episode, but I really hope we and Cole haven't lost something like a year.
   
   Will Katrina tell him it was the booze?
2. Cole, Cassie, and Jennifer's burning of the precursor in the past actually changed the future, but only relatively slightly. Cole felt *something* after stepping out of the vault, right? Sure, it could easily be the weirdness he feels that precedes a Splinter snapback, but maybe it was a kink in a rewriting of his personal history. This would be *extremely* important, because it's actual 12 MONKEYS universe proof that the future can be changed. The previous episode involved some wonderful time hopping strategy, but did not necessarily change any events, right? It's that experiences of pre-short-Splinter Cole and post-short-Splinter Cole dovetailed (and very nicely! =).

I thought that Katrina (and maybe all of the Splinter group's staff) went by false or altered names in order to prevent Cole from accidentally, or intentionally, messing with their younger selves or pre-histories in any way. Was a little surprised to hear Katrina give up her maiden name and some personal info during the end-of-the-timeline drinks do. But she's no dummy. It makes me think that Cole is meant to seek her young self out on one of his Splinters, perhaps to give or leave her a clue that helps her in some mundane way, or maybe to survive the fall of civilization, and end up where she needs to be for the Splinter project.

Another thought… Jennifer met a future Cole in her childhood, maybe infancy. He protects her from something, befriends/charms her while doing it, and she holds a memory of his "otter eyes" from their interaction, but is not old enough to retain his face or name.

I was a bit surprised at how "well" Cassie took the news of Henri's death by Cole's hand. I get that she's got more than a tough skin when it comes to matters of life and death thanks to her CDC field experience, but still, a surprising lack of outrage. She says she can never be what Cole is, but maybe she had to be at one point? Or almost did, and couldn't make the call? Perhaps that will be in a story we have yet to see.

I'm waiting for a Splinter that sends Cole to a time between Splinters we've already experienced, where a future Cole tips a past Cassie off to something that a past Cole experiences or does. This, of course, would come with instructions for Cassie to not reveal anything of that jump to past Coles until after a certain date. Who knows? Maybe future Cole tells Haiti Cassie to get Henri to wear a bullet-proof vest? Or exactly where to be in order to save Henri after he's been shot and Henri-shooting Cole leaves?

Yeah, crazy talk. I do love having fun with time travel. =)

Make history.

Keep on keepin on~

AGENT CARTER: Crazy talk =)

Here it mostly is — a brain dump of crazy talk notions inspired by a couple of random words here and there in the pilot of AGENT CARTER last week! *not* a summary or critique of the episode but yes, full of *** spoilers *** ! Enjoy the madness!

Leet Brannis?

What kind of name is that?! Pretty frickin conspicuous, no? Well, anagrammatically, I like SILENT BRANE, and SILBERTANNE certainly has its dark connection to the era, but a google will reveal that it's a deep callback to Marvel Comics of the 1940s. Fraindeer Games's character is named for the leader of a gang of jewel thieves who went up against the Whizzer in an issue of ALL-WINNERS. I wonder who on the CARTER staff had that awesome bit of Marvel minutiae in his/her pocket. So, okay, an impressive callback.

But who's to say that's all it is or does? I mean, look at that frickin name! My first thought was to try to parse it as leetspeak/hax0r, but after a few minutes of trying character substitutions, I couldn't come up w anything sensible. Maybe there's a date or coordinates in "BRANNIS" but it seems unlikely. Character substitutions got me more slashes than numbers. Seems like a dead end. Still, I'd love to be wrong, tho, and have this choice of name/codename be a sign of knowledge, contact, or an origin in the future (our present, in which leetspeak exists).

My next thought was that it's an anagram. But at the level that military intelligence, secret agents, and industrial spies play, it doesn't seem like a credible hidden clue or message (except maybe for us, the audience). So, it got me to SILENT BRANE and SILBERTANNE, but I dismissed it in favor of a funner possibility…

Attempting to imagine Leet Brannis is Le'et Bran'nis, of the Shi'Ar, or Lee-T Bran-Nis of the Kree, or perhaps (pretty pretty please) Leet Brannis of Atlantis! =)

Agents of Leviathan.

Okay, SBD (Silent But Deadly, aka the guy in the green suit, the assassin on Leet's trail) works for Leviathan. Leet *used to* work for Leviathan. Both exhibit the scarring of an apparent laryngotomy. In the course of a fight w Agent Carter, SBD survived a fall out a building window onto a city street or alley from several stories up. So, maybe he's more than your average voice-box-less Earthican? Still, he's not invincible, as we see later that his left arm is broken.

Leviathan sent Brannis to rob Howard Stark's vault, presumably to deliver its contents to them. However, Leet has double-crossed them. Or at least has opted to make a bit more on the side for himself, choosing to put at least one bad baby (Molecular Nitramene/implosion grenade tech) up for sale. Can't remember exactly when, but at one point Leet humbly describes himself as a simple businessman just trying to make his mark, also mentioning that he's not a killer, but does business with them. He's afraid of Leviathan, but not so afraid that he won't challenge them. Apparently, he believes that Agent Carter and the SSR are capable of protecting him from Leviathan, as he asks her for just that. Unfortunately, Carter and the SSR don't get the chance, as SBD catches up to them and forces events that lead to Leet's death. The last thing Brannis tells Carter is in the form of a drawing he scratches in the dirt—what appears to be a heart, intersected horizontally by a wavy line. I *swear* this is familiar to me, but I canNOT remember how/why. His artificial voice box smashed, Leet can't explain what it means before he dies, but we're meant to believe that this is connected to what he left unspoken earlier: the one thing that Leviathan is interested in.

More than a laryngotomy?

Okay, so our Leviathan agents have lost their voices. They have access to some unusual tech, including the Fringe typewriter adapter, and likely whatever machinery it took to reach Howard Stark's vault. Maybe they're a little more resilient than the average human, too.

What if that scar was the physical sign of a much more involved procedure? Something that together with the vocoder device GAVE Leet and SBD voices they never had before? What if they'd been altered more significantly, to help them draw oxygen from the air, when most of their lives they'd been drawing it from ocean water? Throw in a full body skin bleaching treatment and I'm talking about modifying Atlanteans to pass for and survive (and communicate) as surface world humans!

Think about it. Code name: Leviathan—a giant sea beasty! With the industrial age and war production of the surface world, the oceans would be significantly affected by artificial pollution for the first time in history. World War 2 sea battles could have been responsible for untold undersea collateral damage. And the two atomic bombs that ended the war in the Pacific? An undersea civilization with advanced (or even comparable/parallel) technology is not going to miss those.

Yeah, it may be crazy talk, but I love the possibilities in it. We don't have to bring Namor in. Maybe Attuma. Start Atlantis with a true warlord in charge. Maybe bring Namor in as a moderate, ready to talk or negotiate? Although… When does atomic bomb testing in the Pacific begin? Perhaps that is the cover for a crippling attack on an Atlantean civilization that had negotiated a peace, but the surface world found too threatening. Secret history!

Oh oh oh! Maybe it wasn't a legit surface world government or coalition, but Hydra! Working thru its many heads, or is it legs? No, heads. Whichever. you know what I mean.

Something Leet said… Fight the Future?

"You're not going to like the future, such as it is…" Interesting choice of words. Cryptic… Big Picture-y… One reading is that he believes that Leviathan's "coming" specifically will bring some kind of ominous doom, if not for everyone, then at least for Agent Carter and her side/kind (America? the SSR? the Good Guys?). Another reading is that Leet actually knows what the future is/will be like, and that Agent Carter won't like it.

Of course my comic book brain wants to read everything possible into THAT. =)

Perhaps Leet is from the future, and Leviathan is based there, sending agents back in time to ensure that certain events in the past lead to a Leviathan-favorable future. But Leet turns out to be a non-believer and opportunist, and once he finds himself in 1940s America, he realizes that he could set himself up very comfortably for the rest of his life in this past. His profiteering ends up derailing Leviathan's apparent plan to exclusively control Stark's bad babies and discredit the man, and perhaps destroy his legacy, in the process.

Such a plot, originating in the future, would point to present-day enemies of Tony Stark, no? And, by identity and association, Iron Man, the Avengers, and perhaps SHIELD. That is a pretty tantalizing idea, especially given that AGENT CARTER is currently airing in AGENTS OF SHIELD's time slot until they return to finish season 2. *I* think that it would be great if the wrap-up to CARTER in the 40s leaves/connects to a legacy that the present day agents of SHIELD are dealing with.

Some reminders to myself… To the best of my AOS recollection, at the time of AGENT CARTER…

1. Whitehall is locked away.
2. Hydra is playing dead (Zola is working for deep dark SSR).
3. The Obelisk and blue boy are in storage w the Ark of the Covenant.

Some more reminders to myself… To the best of my AOS recollection, as of the mid-season finale of AGENTS, the following hot items are in play…

1. A hidden subterranean city below Puerto Rico.
2. Kree tech and genetics.
3. Inhumanity (terrigenesis triggered by the Obelisk in the hidden city chamber).

And, a wonderful wild card that I'm kind of happy and amazed has been kept in play in AGENT CARTER…

Vita-radiation! As far as I can recall, we have no stories as to its origin/discovery. What if its origin is extraterrestrial? Perhaps that fact is unknown even to its discoverer (was it Erskine)? Maybe a patron who knew of its ET origin gifted a scientist or several scientists w the opportunity to work with it? In any case, I'm glad this wild card is in play. It gives me some comic booky hope that we'll see something superpowered in Carter's case files. If not fully realized in that era, then maybe later in the MCU.

Do we know how old the MCU's Nick Fury is? =)

Keep on keepin on~

AGENT CARTER: Who is Leet Brannis?

The Internette tells me that Leet Brannis is a name pulled from ALL-WINNERS in the 40s, the leader of a gang of thieves who faced the Whizzer back in the day. Okay, that's all fine and good as a callback, but in the world of AGENT OF CARTER, what else/more could Fraindeer Games's* Leet Brannis be about?

Well, me being me, of course I've got a couple of poppy Marvel Comics-y crazy talk ideas about Leet Brannis, but I haven't got those turds properly polished just yet. However, along the way, I ended up internet-anagram-solving my way to this one frickin dark, but apparently contemporary connection that I'm gonna share right now…

Anagrammatically," Leet Brannis" equals "Silbertanne," which translates to "Silver Fir" in German. Operation Silbertanne was the codename for a series of executions during the German occupation of the Netherlands, Nazi reprisals for attacks made on Dutch collaborators. Triggermen posed as resistance members, clothed as civilians and using British weapons.

Could Leet have been part of the operation and wished to (somehow, perhaps impossibly) make amends? Or known of it but was powerless to stop it? Or perhaps he chose this name/codename as a morbid reminder of a vicious enterprise whose victims (his own family?) he felt he would be avenging?

Pretty frickin dark, right? Would certainly offer some heavy backstory very quickly.

My escapist fantasy mind has still got my fingers crossed for a connection that's more otherworldly and science fictional. We shall see…

Keep on keepin on~

P.S. Who thinks that Sousa pulled the one photo that caught Carter's face at Spider's club? Nice to see another Doll cross over into the MCU.

P.P.S. Some other anagrams of "Leet Brannis":

Lesbian Rent
Blaster Nine
Al Bernstein
Silent Brane

I really like Silent Brane, which to me unscientifically implies a soundless dimension or 'verse, but haven't let myself drop down that rabbit hole… yet. =)

Please let me know if you dig up any fun connections in those directions, tho—thx!

* My first lasting impression of James Frain was made on screening the wonderful ridiculous action caper REINDEER GAMES. =)