Saint James Infirmary 211: Better Things Than Heaven

[Daphne]

Coming Friday, August 9th!

[Chettbaker]

Cake!!??   

[Daphne]

The cake is a lie.

[jmundt29]

So, two adversaries.  This is probably Q (or his nominal boss at Princess Pink).  Watch programming doesn't protect against Pink Clouds (might actually be an indication of susceptibility).  One candidate for the driver who now has the housing of The Watch is Vik.  Adrian could have been the intended target on the road.

[Werdna]

Vik as the driver?  My read is that while he's worried about Laura and his sister, and convinced that Adrian is an evil mind controller, he (Vikram) is not a murderous asshole.

re: watch programming vs. Pink Clouds - I'm not sure that is clearly established here; perhaps Caitlyn just hasn't run up against a conflict between the Pink Clouds influence and the Watch directives.  She certainly looks more confused than anything else.

[Now watch, as Vik turns out to be the evil mastermind of everything, and Caitlyn has her watch programming completely undone during her time as a stripper.  In fact, given my apparent inability to figure out anything about what's going on, I would expect nothing less.]

Lastly: wow, great art today, especially of Caitlyn.

[jmundt29]

The art is gorgeous.

The way this arc seems to be going made me pessimistic about the near future.  You're right.  We haven't had it definitively established that Caitlyn's been exposed to Q's stronger (original? ) Pink Clouds mix.  I made two (other) assumptions based on what we already know about Pink Clouds, and Caitlyn's response posture and phrasing in the last panel.

1. Alex waylaid and triggered her ex either just outside or just inside the curtain to Caitlyn's booth.  So, Caitlyn either actually saw Alex take the dancer away, or saw the dancer, pulled out through the curtain and the outline of two figures walking away.  At the minimum the dancer stepped out momentarily and never came back.  To me, this means that Caitlyn readily accepting the "she just wandered away" explanation is an early indicator of Pink Clouds' influence on her.

2. Pink Clouds' odor is really strong.  If all Alex did was reach her arm through the curtain and spray her ex with it to make her suggestible, Caitlyn would have gotten a faceful.  Even if Alex sprayed her target just outside the curtain, the scent appears to be powerful enough that Caitlyn would have smelled it, and would have been influenced by it.

Also, that outline is ominous, even if the last three people we officially met that way were Jacqui, Rain, and Pearl.

I don't believe in coincidences colossal enough to lend credence to the idea that Alex and her ex were far enough away from Caitlyn that she didn't smell Pink Clouds when it was used.  Then, a couple minutes later, perhaps after a coversation with Jacqui, Sawyer walks by to check on things and sees Caitlyn alone.  Genuinely confused, he still has the wherewithal to grab a lucrative business opportunity that falls in his lap.  Not credible.  And that's the best face I could think to put on the situation.

[mns_95125]

Did anyone else notice the subtle text banner at the bottom?  Looks like we might want to add subliminal audio to the control mix.

[laguna85]

first I think that Alex Spray the private booth or walk in and spray Katie.
May be after getting spray Katie got a headache from Pink clouds and left the booth and then Alex walk with Katie
Look like there in walllway and then a another Booth.
leaving Caitiyn in the private booth with No Headache, Look back and She may had small headache

Laure may give Any a perfume samples back (I -117) After that meeting.
This also take me back to Laure call Any about Headache and her sister had one. (I-173)

The Pink Clouds may not do anything to Caitiyn?

Caitiyn becomming Nude Dancer and Pink Clouds control Her (horny and wet) and want to give lap dance to him.
Do anything He wants
She start dances for the guest? with Jacquelyn and Adrian stop her?

I took a look a light subtle text banner at the bottom  of the last two window (Subliminal audio)
said (Anything He Wants)

Now Caitiyn under (watch, the pink clounds, subliminal Audio)?

[jmundt29]

Didn't see the audio, but that's one of Daphne's favorite control mantras.  I don't know if that's one of Sawyer's business practices, an aura side effect of Pink Clouds, or a new device we haven't seen yet.  Also of note, the belltower signal probably has an audio element.

[GodWilling]

My take on it was that Alex sprayed both Katie and Caitlyn and during their blackouts she possibly implanted suggestions in both of them and then moved one of them into a different cubicle. It seems pretty clear that they both got the headache, and Caitlyn's hasn't worn off any quicker than Katie's.

I saw the text as being an instruction that was hanging around Caitlyn as her headache faded. But perhaps the subliminal audio idea is correct. Actually I guess that would amount to the same thing - an instruction drilled into Caitlyn's mind while she was susceptible to it. The question would be: is that subliminal audio a standard feature at Sawyer's or is it something rigged up specially by the evil genius behind this plot?

At this point I'd have to say that Caitlyn looks like the intended victim here, rather than being someone caught in the crossfire: Pink Clouds, instructions, and almost immediately there's a visitor to what I'm taking to have been a closed cubicle.

Anyway, I may have to spend some time re-reading these last few episodes at Sawyer's over and over. Looking for clues, you understand. Especially this one.

[ainfinite]

It took a second look before I noticed the mantra on the bottom 

[jmundt29]

I finally looked at Caitlyn's legs and got the contrast for the text.  I can't tell if it's subliminal from the speakers or echoes of the suggestion Alex gave Caitlyn.  I'm leaning toward the latter.  But now I can't figure out who this guy is because Katie is Alex's reward for completing her task.  Who would target Caitlyn?  Yves doesn't have history with anyone, and Q seems much more likely to target Jacqui than Caitlyn.  We know that Q is able to play a longer game if the prize is big enough, but how would he pick Caitlyn as a stepping stone?  The order had to have been given to Alex on delivery.

[laguna85]

The Man who see Caitlyn May be the guy siting at the bar and look at both Katie and Caitlyn

It may be HANS who trun on the subliminal audio and when to check on the girls.

[mns_95125]

Most of the discussion of this installment has been based on the premise that Alex is an agent acting on behalf of someone else -- presumably whoever used Pink Clouds on her at the delivery to the store.  On that assumption we then go on to speculate about who her controller is and what his/her goals are.  I'd like to try thinking outside the box and suggest an alternative hypothesis: suppose that Alex is acting on her own behalf.

We have some evidence that Sawyer uses subliminal mind control technology to recruit and retain talent for his strip club.  Alex and Katie may have been in a relationship until Katie was picked up by Sawyer.  Perhaps Alex tried to get Katie away from Sawyer in the past, without success.  This would be the basis for the other employee at the store wondering whether it would be a "good idea" for Alex to go to Sawyers in #199, and for Sawyer's admonition of "No drama" to Alex in #209.  Now, here's a hypothesis about what Yves and Q-Box are up to: they're arms dealers.  Instead of using Pink Clouds to build harems for themselves, which become obvious to outside observers, suppose they're selling it to other people.  Alex bought some to use to retrieve her ex-girlfriend from Sawyer's clutches and Caitlyn just got caught in the crossfire.

The one point that doesn't fit cleanly with the above is that the Princess Pink delivery driver apparently used Pink Clouds on Alex.  My guess there is that they use it to somehow prevent their buyers from revealing the source to law enforcement as a self-protection measure.

[GodWilling]

That's quite a bold hypothesis...

I think it would be cheating if it turned out Alex had not been dosed with Pink Clouds at the store but was just touching her left temple for some other reason. I think we have to assume that - for whatever reason - she was. I can't see any clear reason for them to dose her whilst delivering boxes of beauty supplies to the store. Which is not to say that there isn't one.

A long time ago I suggested that Princess Pink might be supplying beauties to Sawyer's. Rather than being moves in some new plan, what we're seeing here could simply be a long-standing, tried-and-tested mechanism by which that happens. Alex could be one of many unwitting agents who carry out these Pink Clouds attacks. These third party agents have no obvious connection to Princess Pink or to Sawyer's - and they might not even be aware of what they've done. So in any given case, it would be hard to trace what had happened. The programming happens automatically via continuous subliminal audio (or whatever) in, say, a particular cubicle, while the target has simply been sprayed with some perfume. "No drama" may have been a signal from Sawyer, rather than a warning. That would make Caitlyn his chosen target - but not necessarily a target who had been identified before the evening began. Perhaps rather than becoming a full-time stripper, Caitlyn has simply become available to Sawyer's patrons just for one night.

At this stage it's hard to see Caitlyn's current predicament not being the intended outcome of this attack. Currently we have Alex getting a "dance" from Katie in a private cubicle as the other obvious outcome. Yes, that could be the intended outcome if Alex is a knowing perpetrator, but we come back to the apparent "fact" that she too was dosed with Pink Clouds earlier.

One thing that may be worth pointing out is that Caitlyn was more or less still dressed at the moment when Alex burst in. She's decidedly less so now. (See - I did re-read them.)

If Caitlyn is the intended target then it becomes a question of why. Is it because she'd make a good stripper and/or lap dancer and she happened to be here tonight? Or is it because she's part of Adrian's harem? If it's the latter then who knew she was coming to Sawyer's tonight? Apparently it was a spur of the moment decision on her part - i.e. when she asked Mallory if she could go. But on the other hand, in the car on the way she apologized for being late.

Who might have known Adrian was going to Sawyer's tonight? Who might have suggested it? Who might have known someone might be coming with them? The only person I can think of is Jacqui. Jacqui who is friendly with Sawyer. Jacqui who has history with Q. Perhaps she's been having some strange headaches herself recently? I don't know. Probably not. But it was she who sent Caitlyn off with Katie as soon as they arrived. Sawyer has been wanting Jacqui to dance there for ages, but he warned Q to keep away from her, so... I don't know what to make of that.