Photo Courtesy Ed Miller\/Netflix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEventually, she convinces Jack to try the game and, after having his throat cut inside a few times because he was \u201cnot invited,\u201d Jack is officially adopted into gameplay, leaving Jin and Jack playing for hours at a time to try and determine not only how the game works, but what the ultimate goal of the game truly is.<\/p>\n
The two eventually realize that the game is played in a simulated world with three suns (3 Bodies) that cause different eras within the confines of the game\u2019s universe. Stable Eras are when the planet is safely and consistently orbiting one of the celestial bodies, the inhabitants are happy, the weather is pleasant, and there is generally a period of peace. Chaotic Eras are when the world within the game gets too much or too little sun, causing wild swings in weather, loss of gravity, and everyone on the planet loses their lives.<\/p>\n
After Jin and Jack are asked to pick better names for themselves within the game (Jin picks Copernicus, Jack picks Sir Francis Bacon), they understand their goal is to devise the solution to predicting when Stable Eras will arrive and how the planet can make them more sustainable. Each significant discovery within the game allows them to move to the next level of play, where more is uncovered about how the world works (for example, moving from Level 1 to Level 2 occurs because Jin and Jack were able to determine and convince inhabitants of the land that science has superiority over mysticism).<\/p>\n
Jin and Jack become infatuated with the game, much to the dismay of Auggie, Saul, and Will, the other three members of the Oxford Five. Even after convincing their friends they will not play after learning many of the 32 dead scientists around the world played this game before their suicides, they still fall deeper and deeper into the game.<\/p>\n
As Jin and Jack make their way through the 3 Body world, they encounter other players like Aristotle, Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Alan Turing. Each other player on their journey through the game believes they have the answer to solving the 3 Body Problem that will lead to eternal Stable Eras and win them the game. All fail and Jin and Jack realize by Episode 4 (and Level 4 of the game) that the problem is impossible to solve, and their true goal all along has been to figure out how to save humanity from horrors that can not be avoided. An interesting contrast from Wenjie who wants to purge humanity from the horrors that can\u2019t seem to be avoided.<\/p>\nPhoto Courtesy Ed Miller\/Netflix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nReaching this level of enlightenment, Jack and Jin are invited to a secret gathering of others who have reached this level around the world. Jin reluctantly accepts, but Jack declines, which will have serious consequences when he returns to London.<\/p>\n
Jin attends the gathering, but allows Da Shi and Wade to monitor what is happening at the Summit. Jin soon learns that these other players are being recruited to be a part of a movement that follows a new \u201cLord,\u201d the race of the San-Ti, who are coming to destroy humanity and save our planet. The leaders of this movement are introduced and brought to speak before the attendees. All along, the driving forces behind the 3 Body game and the zealous following of the San-Ti are Ye Wenjie and Mike Evans (older version played by Jonathan Pryce).<\/p>\n
2024: London<\/h2>\n Each of the modern-day characters in 3 Body Problem<\/em> is dealing with their own challenges outside of the virtual game. It\u2019s probably best to go through each one of them individually or as part of their narrative group.<\/p>\nDa Shi and Wade<\/strong> \u2013 With seemingly endless resources (Wade is backed by \u201call of the\u201d governments, by the way), Da Shi (Benedict Wong) continues to monitor and track the Oxford Five, in hopes that it will give him answers about the game, about the dead scientists around the world, and about the sinister intentions of the group behind 3 Body.<\/p>\nWade and Da Shi convince Jin to attend the summit as a mole for them so they can learn more about the group\u2019s intentions and also finally locate and capture those who are in charge. When that turns out to be Mike Evans and Ye Wenjie, they are able to capture Wenjie and bring her before some kind of judgment panel represented by the world\u2019s governments.<\/p>\nPhoto Courtesy Ed Miller\/Netflix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWenjie is neither fazed nor intimidated by Wade\u2019s questions and believes all that happened to this point was because the Lord allowed it and it was part of their plan. She says to them as Episode 4 ends, \u201cYou have no idea what they can do. You think you do, but you don\u2019t. They are coming and there\u2019s nothing you can do to stop them, and when they arrive, you will be so grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Auggie Salazar<\/strong> \u2013 After stopping her work on nanofibers completely so that the countdown she was seeing would stop, Auggie\u2019s career sits on a razor\u2019s edge. Her board is furious that she has developed one of the most important scientific discoveries of the century, but she won\u2019t take it to market. Her co-workers are perplexed and threaten to oust her so they can continue the work.<\/p>\nBriefly relenting, Auggie turns the machines back on, but the countdown immediately returns, so she U-turns again, shutting it all down. She is the one, after all, who warned Jin and Jack about playing the game, remembering the words of the stranger she met, \u201cnothing good happens when it gets to zero.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saul is on her side and is beginning to put all the pieces together. \u201cThe stars, Auggie\u2019s countdown,\u00a0this video game: They\u2019re all virtual realities, indistinguishable from actual reality,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s controlling all sensory inputs and outputs, everything that goes into your brain, everything that goes\u00a0out.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is right, that it is all connected in some way, and how these friends from Oxford work to solve this mystery should be one of the more compelling pieces of the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n
Jack Rooney<\/strong> \u2013 After not agreeing to attend the summit of 3 Body players who made it to Level 4, Rooney returns to his home in London (complete with the largest collection of 1980s and 1990s toys one can find). Unfortunately, the promise made to Jack and Jin that they \u201ccan leave anytime\u201d was more of a Hotel California<\/em> situation, and Jack is killed when he returns home. Now just the Oxford Four, the remaining friends will surely have to deal with the fallout of this death in the episodes to come, and will have to look for Jin for answers, since they know how deep they were into the game.<\/p>\nPhoto Courtesy Ed Miller\/Netflix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMike Evans and Ye Wenjie<\/strong> \u2013 One thing Mike Evans said when they first met back in 1977 resonates with Wenjie as she meets Mike again in London in 1982. She is now a professor and in town for an astrophysics conference. She can\u2019t stop thinking about when Mike said \u201cIn nature, nothing exists alone.\u201d His reference was originally intended to mean that humans must take care of their planet and the species they share it with, but Wenjie expands that worldview to a universe-view.<\/p>\nShe tells Evans, \u201cBack on that hilltop, I did something.\u201d And \u201csomething\u201d sure is doing a lot of work in that sentence, since she means \u201cI invited aliens to come to destroy Earth.\u201d She wants Evans’s help. He is wealthy. They share a similar ethos. And Evans believes, \u201csometimes in order to fight power, you have to embrace power.\u201d<\/p>\nPhoto Courtesy Ed Miller\/Netflix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOver the next 40 years, they will embrace that power together as they turn one of the Evans Energy oil tankers into a mobile headquarters for their movement that embraces the San-Ti as Lord. They recruit individuals and families from all over the world to their cause, primarily through the 3 Body game, and Evans has also found a way to communicate with the San-Ti in real time (a wild deviation from the first book where messages take eight years to transmit from one planet to the other).<\/p>\n
But this regular communication they have established backfires. Evans, Wenjie, and their followers want to be the interlocutors when the San-Ti arrive; the ground zero for the establishment of a new, more perfect human race. Evans reads them Little Red Riding Hood <\/em>to help the San-Ti understand human intentions and emotions, but the San-Ti can\u2019t comprehend the concepts of lying and deception. They equate those actions with people who should be feared, who cannot be trusted, and who should be destroyed. Evans admits his following has also lied to keep their intentions hidden.<\/p>\nThe San-Ti now fear the humans are the wolf and their race is Little Red Riding Hood. Ironically, Evans should have lied about being a liar. Now the San-Ti have changed their tune, and ostensibly, their purpose:<\/p>\n
\u201cA liar cannot be trusted. We cannot coexist with liars. We are afraid of you.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
We\u2019ll explore the fallout from that revelation in Episodes 5-7 in the next piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The following recap contains spoilers for\u00a03 Body Problem S1E2, \u201cRed Coast\u201d (written by Rose Cartwright and directed by Derek Tsang). S1E3, \u201cDestroyer of Worlds\u201d (written by Alexander Woo and directed by Andrew Stanton), and S1E4, \u201cOur Lord\u201d (written by Madhuri Shekar and directed by Minkie Spiro). Portions of the novel\u00a0The Three-Body Problem\u00a0are also referenced. It […] More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":286926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[551,8621],"yoast_head":"\n3 Body Problem Episodes 2-4 Recap: Instructions and Intentions | TV Obsessive<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n