MILD SPOILERS
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i wasn't too disappointed but i can definitely see how others would be.
overall a good episode, but a little too much talking, too much molly and gus and not enough malvo. barely any actually.
the time jump was definitely distracting but it makes me excited. this is a set up for a perfect 'you may think you're done with the past' kind of scenario, lester is so happy thinking that he's out of the woods completely. i don't think show can end with anything other than complete chaos and disaster.
END spoilers
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but i made this post for a different reason. i have recently been studying the cleverness of the episode titles.
they are all named after classic paradoxical parables. some of you may know all of them, most of you probaly know some of them.
what i would like from you guys is some discussion and dissection of this idea, and how they correlate to the shows content. i've laid them out plainly for ease.
The Crocodiles Dillemma:
The premise states that a crocodile, who has stolen a child, promises the father that his son will be returned if and only if he can correctly predict whether or not the crocodile will return the child. The transaction is logically smooth (but unpredictable) if the father guesses that the child will be returned, but a dilemma arises for the crocodile if he guesses that the child will not be returned. In the case that the crocodile decides to keep the child, he violates his terms: the father's prediction has been validated, and the child should be returned. However, in the case that the crocodile decides to give back the child, he still violates his terms, even if this decision is based on the previous result: the father's prediction has been falsified, and the child should not be returned. The question of what the crocodile should do is therefore paradoxical, and there is no justifiable solution.
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The Rooster Prince:
In this story, a prince goes insane and believes that he is a rooster (or turkey.) He takes off his clothes, sits naked under the table, and pecks at his food on the floor. The king and queen are horrified that the heir to the throne is acting this way. They call in various sages and healers to try and convince the prince to act human again, but to no avail. Then a new wise man comes to the palace and claims he can cure the prince. He takes off his clothes and sits naked under the table with him, claiming to be a rooster, too. Gradually the prince comes to accept him as a friend. The sage then tells the prince that a rooster can wear clothes, eat at the table, etc. The Rooster Prince accepts this idea and, step-by-step, begins to act normally, until he is completely cured.
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A Muddy Road:
Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.
Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.
"Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.
Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"
"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"
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Eating the Blame:
Circumstances arose one day which delayed preparation of the dinner of a Soto Zen master, Fugai, and his followers. In haste the cook went to the garden with his curved knife and cut off the tops of green vegetables, chopped them together, and made soup, unaware that in his haste he had included a part of a snake in the vegetables.
The followers of Fugai thought they had never tasted such great soup. But when the master himself found the snake's head in his bowl, he summoned the cook. "What is this?" he demanded, holding up the head of the snake.
"Oh, thank you, master," replied the cook, taking the morsel and eating it quickly
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The Six Ungraspables:
A monk once asked Ummon, "What is the Dharma Kaya?" Ummon answered him with "The Six Ungraspables." (The Graspables are the five senses and the mind.)
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Buridans Ass:
an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will.
It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein an ass that is equally hungry and thirsty is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water. Since the paradox assumes the ass will always go to whichever is closer, it will die of both hunger and thirst since it cannot make any rational decision to choose one over the other.[1] The paradox is named after the 14th century French philosopher Jean Buridan, whose philosophy of moral determinism it satirizes. A common variant of the paradox substitutes two identical piles of hay for the hay and water; the ass, unable to choose between the two, dies of hunger.
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Who Shaves the Barber:
Suppose there is a town with just one barber, who is male. In this town, every man keeps himself clean-shaven, and he does so by doing exactly one of two things:
shaving himself; or
going to the barber.
Another way to state this is that "The barber is a man in town who shaves all those, and only those, men in town who do not shave themselves." From this, asking the question "Who shaves the barber?" results in a paradox because according to the statement above, he can either shave himself, or go to the barber (which happens to be himself). However, neither of these possibilities are valid: they both result in the barber shaving himself, but he cannot do this because he shaves only those men "who do not shave themselves".
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The Heap:
The sorites paradox sometimes translated as the paradox of the heap because in Ancient Greek: sōritēs means "heap") is a paradox that arises from vague predicates. A typical formulation involves a heap of sand, from which grains are individually removed. Under the assumption that removing a single grain does not turn a heap into a non-heap, the paradox is to consider what happens when the process is repeated enough times: is a single remaining grain still a heap? (Or are even no grains at all a heap?) If not, when did it change from a heap to a non-heap?
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A Fox, A Rabbit, and A Cabbage:
A man has a fox, a rabbit and a cabbage, and he wants to get across the river but his boat can only carry two items at a time. The man being one item and a fox, rabbit or cabbage being the second. If left along the fox will kill the rabbit, and the rabbit will eat the cabbage. How can the man get all three items across the river without losing any of them?
The man can only take himself and one other item.
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Morton's Fork:
An example of Morton's Fork occurs in the Poirot novel Death in the Clouds, in which Poirot sets a trap for the murderer by asking him to dress in disguise as a blackmailer. When the suspect does so – with a hapless lack of skill – Poirot reasons this was because the murderer was trying to hide the fact that he is actually highly adept at changing his appearance. Yet if the suspect had indeed proved his skill at disguise when asked (rather than dress up with "a false moustache that cries out to heaven, and those ridiculous eyebrows"), it would have alluded equally to his guilt.
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ok! so the one i'm having the most trouble finding literature on is 'the six ungraspables' so if anyone can help me with that, please do.
the most obvious one is last night's episode in which the agent LITERALLY dictates the concept of 'The Heap'. but before i get into any more speculation on the other episodes, i wanna hear you guys thoughts!
