FB: Sometimes you get a big win, and sometimes you get a clean win. But the biggest wins are rarely the cleanest ones.

The deaths of the Sepia Five had been foreshadowed in Carol’s dreams, in the readouts that weren’t EEGs, and in the way HR created their semblances as puppets instead of summoning them from their sleep. But it was still a jolt. There are various reasons we did it, including narrative streamlining, our desire to keep Sepia World a little gritty, and our desire to emphasize certain main characters over their Sepia counterparts. Flo might argue that we didn’t have a choice, but magick means lots of choices: the death of HR and his magicks could’ve restored the Sepia Five to life as easily as it took them out of their illusory suspension. In the end, this felt like the right choice. A win in Sepia World shouldn’t be a clean one.

I’m always amused by the thought of that 911 operator frantically flagging down her supervisor. “She says she’s Carol Masters, the acting CEO of that GIANT COMPANY DOWNTOWN. Is this a prank call? How do I tell?”