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.