Review: Pantheon “The Gods Will Not Be Chained”

Three episodes in before “The Gods Will Not Be Chained,” and I feel like I need a cigarette. All of the exposition and story that has been unloaded onto us has been absolutely insane. And I am all for it. I haven’t been this excited to see any sci-fi show, live action or animated, in a long time, because Pantheon gives off some serious The Matrix vibes, and that’s a god damn good thing.

The many plot points so far come so close to converging, then veer off just to come back again. Finally, it seems Chanda’s coming for vengeance, and it starts this episode off with a literal bang and blazing inferno. I have been waiting since episode two to see Chanda get some form of revenge, and this was much needed. Speaking of aftermaths, we get Caspian and his mother. They’re getting their protection in line, even though it’s very obvious that they don’t need it. I am loving it. Renee is capable of making sure that Caspian is oblivious to literally everything. Well, as of now, it seems like he’s oblivious. I would not be surprised at this point that he knew for the length of the show. There was a brief, weird moment with Carey and a bunch other Logorythm employees.

Now, we get to see how David is doing, and we get to see his cage. Surprisingly, we get to see Laurie, who gets REALLY aggressive, and pushes Maddie out of David’s room/office. I’m loving Laurie, because she is the embodiment of chaos that this universe craves. She’s the antithesis of the control that Logirythm craves, and help set Maddie in motion to get her father free. I have a feeling she’s going to not last the full season. But for however long she’s going to be here, she’s going to bring the chaos.

Finally, we get more with Caspian and Maddie. Caspian runs to the local shop so he can get back in contact with Maddie, and the pop culture references are insane. You know that the creators love all things pop culture because you see everything from The Boys to Mega Man references. This sets up a very small information exchange between Caspian and Maddie, where they don’t get anywhere.

What we didn’t know we needed until we got it, was the complete backstory for Laurie. Let me tell you…getting thrown into a coma, losing both legs all because you wanted to pull over to the side of the road, really fucking sucks. Then we get how to see how she got her own server, and how Cody really fit into everything. It’s like we get major pieces to the world when we don’t expect to get it. Just like how we get baby Caspian and his “parents.” I am now thoroughly convinced that Renee and Carey are as much Caspian’s parents as Mr. Met and the Philly Phanatic are mine. Carey is trying to reign in the problem Carey sees with Caspian’s progress, and he goes all in on Renee being the problem. Just like with the prior three episodes, there are so many layers, especially with Caspian and his “parents” double life.

David’s training takes the back end of this week’s festivities, along with more Cody and Ellen. The resounding question, and the theme of Pantheon as a whole, is something that Ellen said. “Can we still be human, yet have no body?” The big sequence, and what everyone is going to be talking about around the water cooler, is the sequence right after David “unlocks” himself, and you see a brief look into the code that makes David up. It was absolutely fucking insane. Beautiful does not even explain. We see the fruits of his labor at the end of the episode.

Speaking of, Caspian took Maddie’s info to heart, and started hitting the paranoia hard. Caspian showed some poor execution when it came to disassembling his electronics, and just ripped cables out with zero regard to the pieces. After creating blow up art of his pc and phone, he finds Logorythm chips everywhere. He goes to find his mother, who was supposed to be at the doctor, but he finds his paranoia engine has been proven correct.

THIS IS THE TWIST WE NEEDED. And we get it exactly at the right point. That’s just the beginning of how “The Gods Will Not Be Chained” stacks up. This was a master class. I sat here watching this with a buddy of mine from out of state. He was hooked, and he caught Pantheon here. You know a show is fucking great when it catches the interest of someone when the show is four episodes in. I’ve been singing the praises of Pantheon the last couple of weeks, and “The Gods Will Not Be Chained” does literally nothing to make me stop. The animation is beautiful. The audio is dialed in. The plot is intriguing. The exposition is perfectly crafted. I need more. Titmouse just makes visually stunning shows.

I can’t say enough about how good “The Gods Will Not Be Chained” is. AMC, please don’t fuck this up.