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destroyed notes on Omniscient

copied from Etherpad Version 1587 Saved December 7, 2022

Authors: SN, destroyer + 3 unnamed authors (     )

It’s Friday, the 4th of November 2022. It is raining and I am staying inside, on a couch made from pallets with some mattress on top. It is quiet here in Ussana. On top of a hill, in the house of an agriturismo site where I’ve been staying for the past two months in Sardegna. I’m currently watching Omniscient (2020) on Netflix. Omniscient is a Brazilian science fiction series created by Pedro Aguilera, revolving around a city with an all-knowing security system of drones. This is a summary of E1 “I committed a crime”.

We follow Nina Peixoto (played by Carla Salle), a tech trainee at Omniscient. This episode starts with her waking up, greeting her dad and brother and rushing to her first praise. The praise is like a performance interview, about which Nina is slightly nervous. She nails it and is excited to share the good news with her father, who retired as a maintenance employee from the same company. She tries to reach him on her phone. No response. Only to find him lying dead at home, killed. No security drone did alert the system of any crime committed. Why did the system fail? Nina finds herself in a moral conflict. This evident crime should not have gone unnoticed! Condolences are offered, but she cannot grieve. The firm’s reputation is on the line.

Economic standing is more important than solving what went wrong. She needs to keep quiet about her suspicions of the system’s error, but enraged by the lack of support she gets from the company, she commits a crime herself; she breaks an artwork in the office hall. Immidetly, she is reported by her drone. She asks Judite (Sandra Corveloni), from the city’s council, for help. Nina and Judite briefly leave their city, and Omniscient’s privatised security technologies, to talk without the need to watch their words. Here, Nina comes up with a plan to investigate her father’s demise. The next day she commits her second crime without being caught in the moment by, and in, Omniscient.

Omniscient E2 “A good person who’s done a horrible thing”. She has the fingerprint, but she cannot go through with it.  Her brother Daniel Peixoto (Guilherme Prates) goes outside, against better judgement. Nina discovers a cowardly act from her father’s past. Is she not the coward he seemingly once was? She goes through with it. Oh, and the CEO of Omniscient leaves the city to beat up a random homeless person. How typical.

Omniscient E3 “This is our Pandora’s Box”. The method devises the means? What is that saying about ‘everything is allowed to win the game’? Demanding bureaucracy (bureaucracy) never works. Fail. Trick the system. Betrail of friendship. Sex tapes. The moral compasses seem to be destabilised. The socks I’m wearing today state that “We cum in peace and so should you”.

Omniscient E4 “Who wants to dive in first?”.  Nina joins Vinicius’ spiritual liberation group. In front of everyone, her guilt and fears are involuntarily laid bare through mediation and meditation. 

Omniscient E5 “Open this door!”. or I will suffocate. guilt trippin’ because she didn’t see another way. I am not suitable to do any psychological assessment. The protagonist and other characters are a bit flat. I tune out.

Omniscient E6 “Don’t forget that I’ll keep my eyes on you”. Predictable ending.