Alphas by the Bay - Episode 1

Got to Give the People

The latest program streaming on the new LostFoundry service, Alphas by the Bay aims to take viewers into the backlog of the technology and venture capital world that has dominated the area for two decades. Whether or not show creator Joseph Cicchetti will deliver on his high concept remains to be seen but the first episode is off to a decent, if at times confusing, launch.

The show concerns the day to day workings of employees at Sherwood, a lean start-up in SoMa district in San Francisco committed to bringing Justice to the community à la Robin Hood. Yes, you read that right: Justice is now an App. But before the eyes roll out of our collective heads, it’s clear that there is something different afoot here than just the latest shiny tech gizmo to drive fortune and workplace romance. These crazy kids want to actually do it. For reals.

Nicole Lu, from Locksmiths and The Pine Whistlers, plays Jenya Zhao, the optimistic Founder and CEO of Sherwood who is bringing her new creation to market. JZ is Phi Beta Kappa from Harvey Mudd with a Masters in Computer Science from Stanford. She does Barre, plays timpani in a community orchestra, and is driven to succeed, like all real life and TV entrepreneurs, in everything she takes on.

We see her lead a morning scrum session with a small team of developers and analytics strategists before ducking into her office for a tense, closed-door meeting with her CFO Pascal Freemantle (played by Nick Welsh, recently of The Carnevale Conundrum). The two tussle over how to best allocate ad buying between different channels. In something of a character establishing scene, lines are drawn early. Pascal is a pragmatic technocrat while she is the True Believer architect behind the foundational technology meant to enable her hardcore do-gooder demo.

Pause for a moment: The office-speak of Alphas grates in some scenes but (to my ear) is not cringingly inaccurate. We are used to police and legal slang establishing those worlds so why not a gritty office drama? For better or for worse, Alphas treats the viewers as one of the dev ops team and liberally makes use of the tech and marketing argot that has spilled out of office complexes and infected consumerism at large.

Back to Jenya the Jenius ™ and square-jawed apple-pie eyed Pascal, who help us understand what their Sherwood app purports to do: the service utilizes block-chain technology allowing anonymous users to band together to fight injustice locally. A case, or “Green Ball”, is given a unique index by the system and all volunteers are put to work solving it. A Green Ball is assigned randomly to a Little John (yes, seriously) who organizes the rest of the team (Merries) on the case. Merries may provide free legal counsel, research, or provide other negotiating capabilities over the app to help the case along. This is done in situations when the law, or other agencies, won’t help the little guy with no clout. Sherwood is meant to redress the imbalance caused by tech profiteers and real estate moguls that have tilted the local landscape so the have-nots are flung outside its hilly and Valley confines. I have little comprehension of Venture Capitalists but this mission seems a bit much for a mobile app.

The scenes leading up to here may have tried the viewers patience while the minutiae of features and testing protocols get discussed but I’m sympathetic of the virtual world building Cicchetti has to do. If he doesn’t explain anything about the product, he runs the risk of devolving into a show about magic vaporware that promises to change the world without audience buy-in. Now, at least there are some ground rules for the drama to unfold. We hope.

As to what that drama is, we’re given a sneak peek when angel investor Cabot Barley pops in to the modest warehouse office unannounced during an inopportune time: the platform has crashed and developers run around tracing errors and talking a whole lot more than normal. They still wear headphones and quip the lines sarcastic while crunching code.

Cabot (played by Flint Harrison aka Plucky Bucky from Hoist the Maine Sails) strolls into the frantic meeting like he owns the place, which he sort of does. He starts trying to organize the troops and troubleshoot outage issues, much to the annoyance of everyone. They slowly wander back to their desks one by one, leaving Cabot scrolling alone through error reports and talking to no one in particular. Jenya, however, can’t escape.

Back in her sparsely decorated office, Cabot holds court and expresses his vision of the business which we see is somewhat at odds with hers. We learn here that Jenya and Cabot have a shared work history at a previously successful venture but it’s Jenya who supposed to be steering this ship. She wants the Green Balls to be cases that matter for people who can’t be heard. That’s all well and good, he says with a wave, but takes her to task for sluggish performance numbers.

Jenya reminds him that Sherwood is “Kickstarter meets Anonymous” designed to end the “corruption of disruption.” Cabot bristles and reminds her that his investment is predicated on the “double-bottom line” of pursuing profit and doing something positive for the community. He wants stronger adoption rates and an updated business plan that guarantees returns on a tighter timeline. There is an implied threat of losing funding if his targets aren’t met.

Enter Pascal, literally, with a wrench and a plan. He proposes real-time case work where users can signal for help and get an amateur swat team immediately in person. Instead of the slow research of land development misdeeds and prejudicial hiring practices that Jenya is focused on fixing, he wants users to found a virtual Neighborhood Watch. Cabot loves this idea, especially in neighborhood districts where the police are underfunded. Once again, entrepreneurialism is here to save the day!

Jenya is firmly unconvinced and warns that bringing users out into the street will leave Sherwood vulnerable from a legal standpoint. Cabot advises her to push ahead and assures her he can handle any legal issues with his connections in City Hall.  She looked most unconvinced about that.

Random Noticings

• There is no Sherwood signage in the office. This must be intentional since other fictional office spaces are usually lacquered with branding and product. It gives the office a very “black-ops” feel.

• The attire of the team feels very on point. Allbirds sneakers and Everlane for both the guys and gals, along with the odd pair of Rothy’s. It’s a nicely muted uniform that underscores the singular (one note?) vision of the team. Everyone has bought into the neutral palette except for:

• Jenya’s Pucci print heels. I had to check with someone in my house, far more stylish than I, to confirm the colorful paisley pattern. Molto elegante.

• And then there’s Pascal. Tan suede bucks with red brick soles and a tasteful sea foam poplin shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow. Someone fancies himself quite the tastemaker. I bet his conditional formatting in Excel is similarly chic.

• About these two: I couldn’t tell if Pascal was trying to undermine or help when Jenya was in the hot seat with Cabot. Workplace reality and TV drama points to subversion but his sincere smile indicates a little more going on in their relationship.

• I wondered why the fictional product wasn’t just named Robin Hood but it looks like there is already an app in the real world by that name that lets you trade stocks and ETFs. Boooo!

• We didn’t get much more than a brief introduction to the other characters which I hope will be rectified in the following episodes. Here’s who we did meet: security team developers Duc Parrish and Amrita Vevo, and Community Liaison, Mathilde Hummel. Their dialogue was largely scene setting but Mathilde’s scoffing at Duc’s incessant step counting throughout the episode got a laugh.

• Bonus points for “BabyRock” Rock by Clorofila (of Nortec Collective) in the closing credits. Someone knows what’s good.

• Oh, and it’s pronounced Jenya Jiao (rhymes with Dao.) Cabot can’t get it right but we should.

Alphas by the Bay - Episode 2

Called Out

Last week’s episode did a lot of blocking and tackling to introduce us to the concept behind the app. This week, we deep dive into the effects of Sherwood on the community. We start with an elderly couple receiving some legal representation that allows them to stay in the apartment they’ve called home for 30 years. A new landlord was trying to push them out with an eye towards selling the postage stamp property for big bucks and leaving them out on the street. While the vignette felt like a self-serving ad within the show for the fictional Sherwood product itself, it did at least connect a few dots as to what the ideal is for the service Jenya has passionately cooked up. It’s essentially Task Rabbit for activist advocacy.

Still, Alphas has taken on a big bite I’m not sure if it can effectively choke down. As opposed to other shows that use the workplace as a backdrop to stage drama, it is asking some core questions about the venture itself and expects viewers to participate. It’s almost functioning as half storytelling and half VC pitch and it’s gone a long way towards convincing me of the viability of the Sherwood product in the hyperactive search for the next big market need. After all, who hasn’t wished for a crowdsourced Bat Signal they could use in times of distress?

Back in the office, Mathilde Hummel huddles with the coders and they quibble about backlog features she needs to do her job effectively. Mathilde is the Community Liaison and bemoans the fact that she doesn’t yet have a community because of delays. She doesn’t want to be cooped up indoors any more than Amrita and Duc want her nosing around their white boards. There’s some real comrade-in-arms chemistry between the two as they brace themselves in the face of the marketeer’s rapid fire “ideations”. Mathilde might be overbearing but she is played with enough self-deprecation and verve by Jackie Froustey so as to not wear out her welcome. Yet.

We are shown how the app operates with a huge screen mounted on the office wall displaying the open Green Balls (cases) that the network of anonymous volunteers is working on.  We learn a user may submit a case that gets reviewed en masse. Over time, the case file grows in detail and is voted on to become active through some complicated algorithm that determines what is worthy of Robin Hooding. Then, the system starts the Green Ball rolling and presumably, through the work of the embryonic Merries, justice is served? Color me dubious.

Later, Duc has a quick lunch with his expecting wife Nancy at a local cafeteria place (sous vide tempura?) and there is tension about Duc’s work history at serial startups. He gets scolded for checking messages on his phone and Nancy urges him to find a steadier gig with better hours and less risk. It’s a nice note which belies the often-glamorized world of start-up life where you have an idea and crank out code while munching on bomb carnitas burritos. Lightning then inevitably strikes and everything turns into primo blow, mounds of cash and infidelity so delicious it’s almost worth it. In reality, most startups are grinds with tough hours, sketchy business planning, unaligned expectations, and a lot of turnover as mission criticals get redefined quarter by quarter. Rinsing and repeating for years will take a toll on anyone.

The office is frantic because the latest real time feature that Pascal championed has been rolled out and causing more instability on the platform. Error codes and panicked typing provide a steady drum beat of tension as Jenya keeps Pascal calm, ignores Cabot’s flurry of calls, and helps the team stay focused. She even does some architecting wizardry alongside self-proclaimed code serf Carlo Weeks. She’s a hands-on leader, not merely a ‘visionary’ who invents lofty targets for the rest of the squad to make real. The fires get put out by the end of the day, and Carlo tells the team he’ll finish fixing a few things solo as the others head out for a well-deserved repast.

Over Fukuoka-style Donburri bowls and soju fizzes, Jenya, Mathilde, and Pascal argue over the soul of the Sherwood endeavor. Where Pascal wants to build a successful venture regardless of the product, Jenya is on a mission. To hear her tell it, consumers don’t want to sit back and passively consume. They want to contribute but just don’t know how. Their generation has grown up during a time without a channel for real participation.

Pascal: But voting participation is abysmal. You can’t count on people actually trying, JZ.

Jenya: That’s the bet we’re making - that people want to help fix the world. Everyone is sick of bingeing on calorie free information. Isn’t that why you’re pushing to drive numbers?

Pascal: More users means more opportunity to expand to third party services. Let the consumers decide what they want. That’s what drives this boom.

Jenya: This boom hasn’t created anything of value except ways to buy garbage. People want to do something.

Whether the viewer agrees or not is secondary to the fact that ideological differences are acknowledged, even if they are fuzzy. Mathilde mostly keeps to the sidelines at this dinner and tries to keep the peace while the trio heads off bar hopping. First, to a Speakeasy joint with wood paneling where nü-vintage cocktails in sturdy tumblers are served, then off to an after-hours light painting gallery with a lot of heads nodding along to Squarepusher and Grace Slick mashups. (It sure seemed like a lot of action for a weekday but this is TV and I’m old.)

There’s a fair amount of political chess-playing between the three, with Mathilde counseling Pascal on the right way to grow a business and Pascal warning Jenya to avoid “falling into the same trap as last time.” Jenya assures him she won’t and we are left guessing as to the details. Like everything else in our contemporary experience, his caution seemed to refer to both her professional and personal history.

Back at the office, Carlo is cranking on his keyboard with a little pyramid of GigaBurst Energy mini-bottles piled up in front of him. In between uploading patches and testing, he digs into a few open Green Ball files. Something catches his eye and the next morning, he is still in his seat typing away. His eyes are bloodshot but he’s upright at least. All in a 24-hour day’s work.

The episode finishes with some foreshadowing. A young man and his girlfriend are hassled walking past a group of rowdy guys outside a bar. Some bumping and jostling ensue and the couple tries to move down the block. Three of the guys peel off and start following them, hurling invective and insults.

Incidental Findings

• Alphas continues to drip out details about how the app works. It’s tedious for the non-technophiles out there but does provide a realistic enough sounding description of what an app could be. To that end, we learned that:

• Sherwood is a peer-to-peer program that includes a cloaking device and manual install that prevents any carrier from knowing it's on your phone. It has end-to-end to encryption so that even Sherwood can’t see user messages. But wait, there’s more:

• Existing users can only invite up to two people, and this makes a ‘capsule’. Capsules are checked by some algorithm for virtuous behavior and can be disabled. All users are anonymous and only have ID numbers assigned by the system which is called TRAViS (Targeted Results Algorithmic Vigilance Solution). Ok, fine. I believe the app could be real. More drama please!

• You might recognize Duc’s wife Nancy from The Day of Drizzle. I hope we see more of Akiko Boskello, I totes didn’t recognize her without her blue-razz buzz cut!

• The opening credits are an acquired taste. At first, I was annoyed by the obvious pull from Godard (notably Pierrot le Fou and Bande à part) but they are growing on me. The coronet call is a nice touch.

• The Green Balls are Lincoln Green, natch. Hex #195905. Solid detail.

• Amrita is little more than a placeholder at this point. Here’s hoping they give her something to do. At least we got to see Duc fret about buying the wrong off-road stroller.

• Did anyone else catch Cabot’s line about the Platt Amendment? I’m missing the reference and Wikipedia didn’t help much.

• “It’s milquetoast, Duc. Not MILK toast.”

Alphas by the Bay - Episode 3

A Man in His Room

This week starts with the couple from the end of the previous episode scurrying down the street as they are menaced by some louts in Niners gear looking for trouble.  Utilizing the standard playbook of assholes everywhere, the harassers grab the girlfriend by the arm which prompts the boyfriend to push them away. Now they get the chance to play the victim with shouts of “Don’t start something you can’t finish, guy” and other epithets too crass to print on the internet. The couple jogs across the trafficked street and into a Chaing Maestro Thai restaurant around the corner. End of scene, right? Not in these times lacking adequate access to JUSTICE!

The thugs predictably follow, now with some straggling friends from back up the block. The restaurant manager urges calm, while a waiter gets shoved, and everyone is trapped inside. That is until girlfriend Lana pulls up the Sherwood app and presses a distress button. Nothing happens for a tense beat – then two off-duty firemen dining from the back stand up… and promptly leave. But wait! The odds tilt in the couple’s favor when a few everyday citizens enter through the front door to help. It’s not exactly the cavalry but it might as well be. The thugs slink out after mumbling some more drunken threats. This was another solid commercial within the show for Sherwood’s new “S.O.S flare” feature.  Seriously, so much production work went into this scene that there must be real investors in this app, right? The entire show seems like a multilevel scheme that I can’t quite figure out but I so want in on.

The next morning, we see Cabot at a board meeting for the Build Up Youth children’s charity promising big things to a couple of retired judges and some big shot business types. Cabot brags about his latest venture and all the good it will do towards rewiring “inefficiencies of the city.” There’s a sly contrast of the mostly older, grey-haired cohorts wearing casually tailored suits while late 40s Cabot is in wrinkled chinos, a blousy Eddie Bauer button down and neon trail runners. His is not the slick Rick Owens wardrobe that shows up in shiny magazines highlighting society’s victors, but rather the getup of a guy who stumbled into success and thinks he earned it. It’s a minor note that thumbs its nose both at the aging Patricians of the city and the new rush of get-rich-quick schemers digging for market leverage in these Golden Hills.

Meanwhile, Jenya is over at her family’s small apartment trying to help dad and the Brothers Zhao with Grandma, who has been displaced from her elder care facility which is being retrofitted for earthquakes. There is nowhere else for her to go and the boys have no room and no interest. This leads to an onscreen guilting only seen over tense holiday dinners in small towns fled long ago. Jenya wins the Great Grandma Giveaway and is forced to move her into her own one-bedroom apartment in the Richmond district. This should be cozy. (Would it have been inappropriate for Jenya to hit that S.O.S. button on the app?) Joking aside, Grandma seems like a peach.

Duc and Amrita get to have a field trip out with Mathilde at community organizers’ offices. The overtaxed director Erik and his team aren’t buying that the Sherwood mission fits with their charge. The ESL counseling group is underfunded as it is and can’t take on more overhead for a totally distinct service, nor would they lend their name to something this out there.

Mathilde tries unsuccessfully to secure their promise to sign-on should other service groups be brought onboard but they hedge. There is a palpable mistrust by the career volunteers who are skeptical of the Sherwood concept and technology in general. The Alphas face rejection at several more offices, including an area food donation and distribution center. The on-duty Operations leader Sydney throws this haymaker when pressed:

“Look, I don’t know you. But I know that people like you are the problem. You displace whole populations for decades and then try to make money cleaning up issues you made on top of it?”

(Cue Ad-Rock) Mmmmic drop!

Mathilde shakes off the rebuff and Amrita opines that if they can just get some momentum with a local, well-known charitable organization then everyone will be quick to jump on board. I didn’t think Showrunner Joseph Cicchetti would be willing to explore the natural resentment of long-standing community groups towards private capital. But as Mathilde retorts to her scold “What other choice do you have? City Hall isn’t stepping in anytime soon. You see what they did to Market Street”, a reference to the cushy deals given to the tech behemoths to redevelop a huge stretch of previously down-market businesses and residents.

Back at the Sherwood Forest, Sheriff Cabot swings by to show off the team he invested in to a few of the boys from the charity board. The only problem is it’s completely deserted except for Pascal who is busy crunching the numbers. Cabot is bent out of shape that he can’t flaunt his workers and doesn’t like Pascal’s mumbling answers. He’s soon on the phone to Jenya, who is dealing with Granny and cooking up a storm while she handles Cabot’s tirade. I know that ultimately everybody has a boss, even hotshot CEOs, but I didn’t expect the angel investor to be so hands on with the day to day. Is this normal?

The end of the episode cuts back and forth to the evening scenes of the Robin Hooders. Duc and Nancy eating in a cramped dining room, Jenya working on her computer while Grandma watches TV in bed, and Pascal and his girlfriend Kasia at a Belgian restaurant sharing steamed mussels and Duvels with a group of college friends.

We join Amrita out on a first date with Celine, a high-strung, Adderalled mess in a fancy print jumpsuit. (I am assured that this is in fact a thing.) Amrita, dressed to the nines, tries to find common ground with her self-focused date as Celine steers the conversation to her profiles on other dating apps and how each requires a different persona. She seems shocked when Amrita cuts it short and the night ends with the Millennial Mambo: Venmo.

But where’s Carlo you ask? Oh, he’s just alone in his empty apartment in the Tenderloin sitting on a thin sleeping mat organizing his Herschel backpack for five minutes of uninterrupted screen time. Seriously. Alphas gives us the quintessential single-take Bresson scene while he tallies his clothing, which includes a hotel bell hop jacket. He meticulously arranges some tools along with a compass, night vision goggles, crowbar and a black expandable baton.

The original scene from A Man Escaped has the protagonist Fontaine braiding a rope from torn bed sheets and scraps of other cloth to be used to escape from a Nazi prison in occupied France. Viewers may be slightly more familiar with the Taxi Driver scene that it inspired with Robert De Niro building a wearable contraption that allows a small hidden firearm to slip down his arm on a repurposed slide from a drawer.

Remember earlier in the episode where Carlo complained about the useless misty drizzle to Duc and said the Bay Area needed a real rain? It echoes the famous line from Scorsese’s Gotham Horror flick: “Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.” Things are getting interesting.

Ancillary Notes

• Amrita’s AirPods with multicolored feathers are something. Is this a real fashion? It shouldn’t be, should it? But I could be persuaded.

• Now we have our answer as to why the Sherwood platform is named TRAViS. Travis Bickle (might be) comin’! 

• Mochi donut and muffin delivery every morning? Now this is a decent office perk…

• …but the struggle of trying to get your lunch order in by 9:30 a.m. is not. Mis-marked grain bowls leading to confusion as to whose is whose was a nice touch that resonates with anyone who deals with the headache of company provided meals on the reg.

• Cabot has his pilot’s license, trained as an EMT, and bakes his own sourdough bread with a proprietary starter. If you’re interested in what else he can do, just ask! He’ll be happy to tell you.

• However, it seems like the ending of his previous venture Watch 6 with Jenya was not without some controversy and hard feelings.

• I counted five Fjallraven backpacks in the episode. Though I don’t mind the easily identifiable sleek Swedish product, I felt like I was in another commercial. Are they really this omnipresent? Maybe it’s a collab with Cabot to break into the merch market.

• That look Kasia gives Pascal when he’s extolling Jenya’s “big brain” and “unparalleled ambition”. Dial down the rhapsodizing, dude. Talking too much about Jenya Zhao in your house is going to bring trouble. Trust me.

Alphas by the Bay - Episode 4

Echelons

Breathe people. Now that was a humdinger of an episode. Whoever was worried that Alphas by the Bay would be forever stuck indoors staring at test harnesses and bug reports must be elated to be out of the hellscape that is open office planning. We’ll get to newly minted Secret Agent Carlo and the Case of the Abandoned Elevator in a moment but let’s get through some workaday plotting first.

Jenya and Pascal get interviewed by an area industry glossy about the meagre successes of the Sherwood initiative to date. While Bay Bytes magazine reporter (Nate Petro from season 2 of Chrysalis) tries to deliver a puff piece with softball questions about white hat hacker lifestyle and blue-sky visions, Jenya repeatedly tries to bring the conversation into the nitty gritty of security protocols and the core objectives of the platform. With the faceless Robo-Barrista pouring out a line of steaming espressos behind them, Bay Bytes guy tries to soften the value prop into “providing a niche good Samaritan service for our connected age”. Jenya counters:

“Sherwood offers a hands-on way for the disenfranchised to correct problems inherited from a broken system. Victimization is over. The solution is action.”

She then proudly reads him a list of Green Balls that her users have addressed since the launch of her service, including helping indigent patients illegally denied health care coverage, partnering with OSHA to bring charges against managers that exposed employees to hazardous materials at various job sites, and uncovering fraud in a low-income housing lottery.

Hmm. Alphas by the Bay is a curious watch. Jenya and her product are definitely the protagonists we’re supposed to root for but the whole premise seems a bit naïve. Should we have faith in its promise or spot the glaring holes? Does anyone think that random people tapping on their phones for some vague causes will turn out okay without blood in the streets?

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe some unbridled optimism and bleeding edge ideation are what’s required to address the thorny social and economic issues of our age. Alphas serves as both a satire of the Valley mythmaking machine while at the same time believing in the panacea of tech innovation to design a better world. If this is all part of a kooky meta-investment scheme, I’ll gladly trade my Litecoins for some e-shares. (With my luck it’s just an MLM ploy and I’ll be knocking on your door trying to unload a suitcase of herbal energy drinks before they’re banned by the FDA.)

Now it’s time to discuss The Count of MonteCarlo. We finally see what our favorite DBA was prepping for last week in his superhero training scenes: going undercover (yes, really!) in an upscale hotel that’s been thwarting organizing efforts of its workers and violating terms of their employment if they step out of line. Clad in a porter uniform and utility belt, Carlo mixes with the staff and pumps them for information about the hotel consortium. He breaks off to find evidence of coordinated managerial malfeasance and evidence of employee abuse. Even though the scene in the garage with valets Hector and Eddie was largely expository, I still liked the duo’s kinetic energy and humor. (The hand checking rules in the NBA are bullshit.)  

After a close call pausing to help an out of town couple with restaurant recommendations, Carlo moves his way through the premises just out of reach of security. Checking detailed maps of the hotel along with data sheets containing several passcodes of the Green Ball case file on THE SHERWOOD APP, he manages to obtain access to both a desktop computer and a physical filing cabinet. With his USB and backpack loaded up with the purloined info, he scrambles outside on a perilous, heel to toe walk along a razor thin ledge while a real rain starts to fall in the dark sky. He shimmies down a drainpipe to the alley beneath. He gets into a brief scrap with a guard but manages to break free into the night.

When Jenya was extolling the wins of Sherwood with the reporter, I thought it too convenient that the audience hasn’t seen any real evidence of its successes. As ridiculous as Carlo’s heist scene was, at least the show provided a taste of true risk and results. The cases can’t all be solved through legal documents and counseling sessions. The people need ACTION!

Speaking of action, the office is buzzing the next day with a team-building event. Mathilde teaches the squad how to make macaroons in the well-appointed office kitchen. The results aren’t too shabby and everyone’s established personalities are on display. Duc is overly cautious with the sugar, Amrita has her own spin mismatching the colors and expected flavoring. Pascal over-delivers, cranking out a huge tray, while Jenya makes only a half-dozen perfect cookies that have “Fix It” written delicately in script on their surface. Carlo looks a little worse for wear with a few facial abrasions but muscles through thanks to another shot of GigaBurst Energy drink and the help of mentor Mathilde. I got the sense he was open to the additional tutoring.

Just as the gang is having a blast with Rafaella Cara’s greatest hits echoing through the warehouse, Cabot pops in for an emergency meeting. He’s pushing for more features to tout in his upcoming address at an investor symposium. He wants growth for growth’s sake to show that the initiative “is trending in a positive direction.” What else has the team got? Jenya tries to mollify him with all the good casework being done and points to the big board with active Green Balls but he’s not interested. “If patches aren’t being pushed, work is not getting done. I thought Sherwood was all about action?”

Mathilde pipes up with her idea of bringing back the executive dashboard so the Sherwood team can add cases for users to work on, which will drive adoption and guarantee worthy work to pending partnerships. For once, Jenya and Pascal are on the same side and vociferously disagree. The whole point of Sherwood is that it’s decentralized and the wisdom of the crowd picks their battles. Sherwood must maintain neutrality. Cabot is incensed and believes firmly in top down control of the case load. It’s the only way to make sure users don’t go rogue and are working “for the good.” The meeting ends with a stalemate and no one is happy.

Jenya drags Cabot aside and they get into it. She upbraids him for coming into her office unannounced and upending an already established business plan. Cabot cautions her that he “gave her this chance” even after how badly things were fouled up last time. Jenya reminds him that it was her security algorithm and patents that made him his millions, and not his “stolen concept for a real-time bid consumer recycling service”. Cabot warns her that she works for him, just like always and that one way or another, “he wants what he wants.” Deuce.

Auxiliary Annotations

• Eat that dogfood! Hearty applause for Alphas giving us a programmer turned super hero utilizing the very codebase he wrote to bring <justice> to the community. I’m sure everything is gonna be all right…

• Carlo sans his omnipresent headphones for the first time. This guy is game ready, no more distractions. Did you see him portentously sweep those hard copies of The Society of the Spectacle and The Lyotard Reader into the wastebasket? Take that Post-Structuralism!

• Interesting note during the Bay Bytes interview that Jenya and Pascal refused to have their picture taken for the article.

• High marks for the Synthwave soundtrack that propelled this week’s action. The message boards assure me that all songs are off Dryptopya by P-REX. I’d grab a copy but the chill vibes mixed with pulsing drum loops make me feel like I swallowed a fistful of Rotterdam club pills in 1985.

• Episode director Jan Develski with several nods to Benoît Jacquot’s 1995 A Single Girl in the hotel caper scene. Alphas directors seem to be engaging in an ongoing competition with who can deliver the most absurd tracking shot cinematic reference. If someone tries to pull off the ballroom scene from Russian Ark in an upcoming episode, this show will definitely deserve to get picked up for a second season.

• On the big case display board in the office, we get to see Packworth Hotel Group is a Green Ball with lots of activity by the Merries. It’s climbing up the charts and MonteCarlo lit the fuse!

Alphas by the Bay - Episode 5

Those with Virtue

Alphas by the Bay has generated quite a bit of online chatter in the last few weeks. It’s been both supported and attacked from some surprising quarters that normally have little to say on the world of entertainment. From a glowing and ponderous essay by Galia Andreasian in Upstate Magazine to a lambasting in The Sentry, Joseph Cicchetti’s divisive vision is sparking water cooler conversation and getting the LostFoundry streaming service some much needed publicity and @’s.

This week, we are introduced to officer Lonnie Powell who is investigating a series of beatings and rumored kidnappings in an underserved neighborhood of the city. Neighbors and local shop owners are reluctant to help as they fear collaboration will make them the next mark for violence. Officer Powell (Anderson Coleman from The Getting is Good) patiently tries explaining to disbelieving residents how the police can protect the neighborhood and is trying to bring perpetrators to justice. He has a number of doors slammed in his face and finds himself at a dead end. A young boy in a Sarunas Marciulionis jersey is the only one to offer assistance and tells him he should try the “Robbing Hood game.”

Back at the station, his fellow officers can’t make heads or tails of the tip and urge him to drop the investigation until a new case gets called in. This doesn’t sit well with Powell. Late at night after the wife and kids have gone to sleep, some internet sleuthing brings him to what the viewers already guess he’s going to try: it’s Green Ball time!

Cabot has invited Duc and Amrita to lunch at the Samovar teahouse overlooking Yerba Buena park and adjacent to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Cabot is actually quite charming in this scene and shares his own ex-coder frustrations with the pair. He fosters a sense of camaraderie and they let slip that the admin control feature he wants was already built during testing but simply disabled. Pushing it as part of the next patch is of no risk, it’s simply changing a flag in the database explains Amrita. Ostensibly switching topics, Cabot offers to increase their skimpy equity stake as part of their continued commitment to the enterprise. It will take a couple of weeks for the paperwork to go through. In the meantime, he would appreciate their cooperation on anything contributing to the growth of the product that he can highlight at his upcoming symposium. They meekly assent and the three go off to enjoy some post-prandial pop-art at a new Paolozzi exhibit.

This episode has the rest of the group splintered on their own endeavors, perhaps signaling disintegration of the start-up is not only inevitable but even closer than we might have guessed. Kasia and Pascal are house hunting in the extremely picturesque Sea Cliff neighborhood. The house they are looking at has a post card view of the Golden Gate Bridge and is some serious real-estate. When Pascal gulps at the asking price, he and Kasia have a heart to heart about finances and acceptable risk. She wants him to make a bet on himself and to “really go for it” at Sherwood. She’s a high-flyer herself in some marketing analytics firm and is confident the area’s economic upswing will continue unabated. She pushes that there’s no reason Pascal shouldn’t be in charge - he’s earned it and this house. He swallows his argument on Jenya’s behalf and turns the conversation back to the new roof garden. The kid is learning.

Meanwhile, it looks like Carlo is hard at work with his headphones back on but he’s actually cranking on Green Ball cases. When Jenya asks him about the latest patch to fix stability issues he storms out, making sure to grab his backpack which is presumably full of superhero equipment.

Jenya and Mathilde spend some time talking outreach models in the huge conference room. Jenya continues to be a believer in the Sherwood technology itself as salvific, but for Mathilde it’s merely a tool. She’s working at Sherwood because it gives her a new channel to mine for community organizing. Platforms are all fungible she says, and it’s the groups they serve that need strengthening. That’s why she’s pushing for the company run administrative model to drive case work that matters. Her constituents will use whatever helps their causes and will sign up only if they see the utility.

Complicating matters is money. Pascal gives them the bad news that they are well below business targets. Won’t someone think of the KPIs and COGS? Their operating costs are still too high and there’s not enough donations or ad revenue to offset investments made in their hardware expansion. Jenya reminds him that he was the one who pushed for the SOS flare feature that required all the extra investment that wasn’t on plan.

Pascal takes his lumps and is stressed they’ll have to go back to Cabot merely to keep Sherwood afloat through the quarter. When are they going to charge for the product? Pascal wants to embolden Mathilde to bring a couple of local advocacy groups on board and charge a subscription fee. Jenya reminds them both that this is antithetical to their mission of delivering a decentralized, anonymized service to enable self-starting Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews of the community to change the world for the better.

Which brings us to where Carlo ran off. He meets up with a squad of fellow Merries turned vigilantes in an industrial park on the far side of town. They cover logistics and planning before the makeshift swat team storms a row of sweatshops on the edge of the city. Some local business owners are using groups of new immigrants as indentured servants.  Having confiscated their passports and documentation, they force them to live and work in unsafe conditions. The Merries overwhelm a couple of foreman and security guards and drag a dozen women and children to safety. Shots are fired in the fracas but no one is hit, thankfully. By the time the police show up on scene, the Merries and some of the workers have hightailed it.

There is considerable dissension among the group as what to do next. The shelters are full and the immigrants have no place to go and no money to get there. The Merries disband, invigorated by their exploits while ignoring their lack of foresight.  Later that evening, we see Carlo has let a family of four stay with him for the night in his tiny apartment. He chugs another mini GigaBurst drink and types away on his laptop while the family sleeps on the floor.

After getting Grandma to bed, Jenya gets dressed for an evening out on the town, well – on the Bay to be exact. On a private boat, she meet-and-greets some heavy hitters in the investment world while somehow staying upright in her Pucci’s on the undulating vessel. She garners a whole lot of attention from the well-heeled set, but it’s not the kind she’s looking for. She gets saved from some handsy jerks by the striking Sophia, a senior member of the investment class. Unfortunately for Jenya, Sophia’s wants aren’t aboveboard either and she’s left to make a hasty getaway. (Yes, we all caught the references to Antonioni’s L’Avventura.)

Back home in the wee hours, after checking on Grandma Z, she reviews the latest code commits on the server. She sees the admin feature has been enabled by dparrish (Duc) earlier that evening. She’s livid and gets to work. This world isn’t going to save itself.

Spare Musings

• Carlo’s book shelf now has fresh copies of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and The Book of Mencius, which he quotes telling Rocket Ray: “The feeling of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom.”

• There are way too many motorized skateboards in this show. Can’t people walk? Seriously, how are these even legal?

• I was flooded with messages last week correcting me that Dryptopya by P-REX is an example of the genre Outrun, and not Synthwave. I am duly chastened and have no defense. Please hold off on any further clarifications of these sub-genres that include Popwave, Darksynth, and Drivewave. (Only one of these is made up and will potentially be real by the time you read this.)

• Mathilde showed some backbone this week in her minor dust up with Jenya and Pascal. Good for her. Almost as important, her clear Lucite glasses with dried flowers were outstanding.

• Duc has a buzz cut! Perhaps actor Mark Vo was shooting something else in between filming? I’m assured that Ticket to Moribund is on quasi-hiatus much to everyone’s chagrin but maybe he’s doing some Indy work. It’s a good look for him.

• I have no idea where the last episode of this season is going. Will Jenya blow it all up? Will Cabot? If Sherwood does get thwacked on the noggin with a candlestick (park) in the (SF) Conservatory, there will be no shortage of culprits.

• Pascal and The 80’s Who are a perfect match. Of course, he bumps Eminence Front on his commute home.

Alphas by the Bay - Episode 6

Don’t Get Fooled Again

Alphas by the Bay has concluded its initial run with a blistering final act. Whether it gets a second season (and most indicators point to yes) largely depends on how well the LostFoundry platform weathers the current business climate. While the upstart service has had successes with some of their lifestyle content, including the breakout hits Farm to Fable and GROWERS, they’ve had some highly publicized misses that have hurt the brand and slowed development deals. (The cast of Spectorellas needs a Shot in the Arm.) Rumors of an upcoming restructuring are rampant and seem to mirror the internal strife at the fictional Sherwood offices. Which brings us to the finale. 

Intrigue! Grand Mal seizures! Detailed explanations of peer-to-peer network authentication! This episode had it all. 

Jenya, Pascal and Cabot are summoned to City Hall for an interview with a few of the Mayor’s staff and representatives from the police department. Cabot and Pascal fret in the lavish archway while Jenya arrives uncharacteristically late. (She got caught up in some research.) They hustle into a beautifully marbled and gilt meeting room for an “off the record discussion.” Gulp. The Sherwood app is making some nervous in the City Legislature who warn of the dangers citizens could face if they go after the wrong bad guys.

The Mayor has to take a stance on any company that puts constituents at risk, regardless of the nobility of the undertaking. Jenya is asked what measures can Sherwood take to protect its users. She thinks anonymity and encryption are enough while a board supervisor interrogates her about the types of offline activities Sherwood is encouraging. This is where the danger is from their perspective. Well, that and the general public poking into “situations that are more complicated than they first appear.” Uh huh.

Jenya explains the Sherwood system is decentralized and utilizes blockchain technology. Once a case is active in the community, it is distributed throughout the network and doesn’t live on a central server that the company can control. It’s up to the users to determine when a Green Ball case is closed. This brings more consternation from almost everyone.

Officer Lonnie Powell speaks up on Sherwood’s behalf, arguing that it was his networking with private citizens on the app that led to a break in his case. He sees nothing but upside for routine police work. Cabot assures the room that they are all working for the good of the city and are continuing to tighten corporate controls to that end. After the meeting, Edmund, a Special Assistant to the Mayor, pulls the three of them aside in the hallway and gives them the skinny:

“Both the Mayor and the Police Chief support Sherwood. They are for anything that gives them good publicity on city leadership partnering with private capital to clean up crime. But any failures, real or perceived, will be pinned on you.”

Ditching Pascal and Jenya with an excuse about zoning permits, Cabot stops in on Brooke Elliott from the Board of Supervisors. She’s meeting with one of the retired judges from his charity we saw earlier in the season. It seems Cabot’s got some political aspirations himself, though it’s not clear whether he wishes to serve or merely engineer the campaign. Flint Harrison plays this scene to perfection and uses Cabot’s folksy, let’s all pitch in farm boy attitude to just barely restrain his naked ambition for power.

At an office overlooking the Ferry Building, Duc interviews at another firm (Lock|Bocks Solutions) and gets an offer to be the lead architect on a new mobile payment security product. He meets up with his wife for a quick lunch at the food truck alley in the Financial District. Nancy was the one who set up the interview with her friend but Duc doesn’t want the job. The money is good but he trusts Cabot’s word that the increased equity stake in Sherwood will come through. She begs him to reconsider. Great scene with Akiko Boskello’s Nancy imploring her husband not to over-complicate things. Why can’t Sherwood just hire her to be awesome?

Back at the office, everyone participates in an ideation session for enhancements on the app. Everyone except Jenya, who claims she has an important family emergency to attend to around Grandma Z’s retirement home search. She closes her office door and pretends to be on the phone while she scans hard copies of legal documents, patent filings and other detailed financial statements. Hmm.

Cabot is back and makes another gambit for control. He pulls Pascal into the conference room and makes him an offer he can refuse. He wants Pascal to take the reins on Sherwood because he’s losing confidence that Jenya can keep her emotions out of her decision making. She’s a great architect but doesn’t know diddly about the product business, to hear Cabot tell it. Pascal thanks him for the opportunity and declines. He believes in Jenya and that Sherwood will succeed as currently constructed. Good looks, Pascal!

Just outside, Carlo is looking a bit peaked and Amrita urges him to go home and rest. Just after he says he’s a-ok, his eyes roll back in his head and he goes limp. No one knows what to do until Cabot rushes in to help. He’s a trained first responder and eases Carlo to the floor onto his side and tends to him. He checks his vital signs and his pupils with a small flashlight pulled from his keychain. Everyone is frozen while Cabot dials 911. Eventually, the EMTs arrive and Carlo is sitting upright and talking again. He’s going to make it but they take him in for further observation.

Mathilde breaks the tension. She just received some good news that the Sherwood app has been unofficially endorsed by both the Policeman’s Benevolent Association as well as a citizen’s advocacy group that wants to reform the department. With this anticipated increase in userbase, she’ll be able to bring on board some additional partners keeping them just under plan for the year. It’s a good start.

After celebratory cans of Rosé the Riveter over ping pong and the appropriate concern for Carlo, Cabot and Jenya have it out. While the office speakers pump out bootlegs from the Check Your Head tour, their second set is a doozy. Veering into the personal, Cabot expresses disappointment in Jenya. She has two options: do what he asks and let him set the agenda of the Green Ball cases to protect his interests in the city, or he’ll buy her out. Jenya reminds him that it’s her company, he’s just the angel investor (with a seat on the board.)

He reminds her that she and everyone at Sherwood is replaceable. If she doesn’t do what he wants, he will simply have a new team recreate the service, making sure to stay one step ahead of any pending patents. He has the blueprint now and the possibility of harnessing civilians to work for free on projects of his choosing will be very much appreciated by his “friends in high places.” When Jenya counters that people know the different between “right and shady” he reminds her how much grey there is in the world and how plastic meaning can be. Every message can be tweaked until people agree and Cabot has “that knack”. Duc is in his pocket, Amrita can be brought on board, and even her buddy Pascal will join his new team if he dissolves Sherwood.

And just when it looks like Jenya will be run off Centre Court, the big board on the office wall announces the subject of the latest Green Ball case: Cabot Barley. There is a flurry of activity as it climbs to the top of the board. Advantage Zhao.

You think that you can front when revelation comes?

Straggling Remarks

• Kudos to Joseph Cicchetti delivering a show where personal and professional tensions drive the story without (yet) resorting to romance to keep things interesting.

• That said, Pascal has simply settled for Kasia, right? He’d follow Jenya to the ends of the earth. I’m sure this will be explored in Season 2.

• Cabot is quite canny in this episode. At the beginning of the season he treated the app simply as an investor looking for a good return. Now he realizes he can utilize it to curry favor with the powerful and is willing to pay out Jenya to recreate it in his image.

• I hope Carlo is back on his feet soon and leaping across buildings, infiltrating street gangs and freeing hostages. Who wants to reinstall libraries and futz with config files when you can fight for what’s right?!

• Amrita is really living that Food Truck life. A half-lobster on a buttered roll three times a week? I guess you can take the girl outta Portland, ME…

• Powerful pastiche of Kobayshi’s Hara-Kiri in Cabot’s reaction shot. He’s completely floored by the Green Ball reveal while Jenya’s eyes blaze with Come at me, bro intensity.

• Melanie Safka’s What Have They Have Done to My Song Ma is the perfect choice for the final credits of this rollercoaster of a season. Here’s hoping Squad JZ codes a Brand New Key in season 2.