Posted in: TV | Tagged: chinese science fiction, Liu Cixin, TenCent, The Three-Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem Ep. 23 Review: Science Grandma, Bond Villain

The Three-Body Problem Ep. 23 sees Science Grandma go full Bond villain & things get real in the worst political party meeting of all time.

Episode twenty-three of The Three-Body Problem is where things get really real. War is coming. With aliens, no less. People have been murdered to make it easier for that to happen. And Science Grandma goes full Bond Villain.

The Three-Body Problem's Resident Terminator

Wang Miao (Edward Zhang) has an invitation to attend a meeting of the Earth Trisolaran Organisation. He's going in as undercover for Shi Qiang (Yu He Wei) and the Combat Center. But first, Shi Qiang and Xu Bing Bing (Li Ze Hui) tell Wang Miao about the woman who killed the hitman on the train to Hai City and reporter Mu Xing. Turns out Chen Xue (Vian Wang) is Ye Wen Jie's (Chen Jin) niece, abandoned by her mother but adopted by Science Grandma, then indoctrinated into the ETO and her aunt's fiercest protector and enforcer. It's remarkable that the show has filled the viewer with dread every time Chen Xue shows up, because that means she's going to murder someone with her bare hands.

Chen Xue is the biggest change from Liu Cixin's original novel. In The Three-Body Problem, the character was just a nameless fanatic who appears just once in a scene adapted for this episode. In the book, Ye Wen Jie's sister got killed as a teenager during the Cultural Revolution. In the series, she seems to have lived long enough to get married and have a kid but disappears from her daughter's life for reasons unknown. How many mothers leave their kids a goodbye note that only says, "Forget I exist"?

It's On!

Shi Qiang considers the ETO as not just terrorists but traitors to humanity. If they sold out the planet to genocidal aliens, they're capable of anything and will likely be armed. This is not a police operation but a full-scale military operation where he requests a full squad of Special Ops soldiers, showing his anti-terror experience back in the military. And Wang Miao is going in as their canary in the coal mine. Neither of them are happy about this, but who else have they got? Shi Qiang drills him on what to do: act natural, don't freak out, don't stare at anybody, stay calm no matter what. What do you do if they catch you? "Fight desperately. Just kidding." It took twenty-three episodes for Wang Miao to crack a joke. "No, keep low and wait for the rescue," says a grim-faced Shi Qiang. "If I die, can you look after my family? They say the kids of people who die in the line of duty get to go to a top university," says Wan Miao. "Shut up! You're not gonna die!" Honestly, Da Shi and Wang Miao are the most fun when they bicker.

Worst Party Meeting Ever

The ETO meeting scene is nearly verbatim from the book, though it takes place in a huge, converted hangar instead of an internet café like in the book. A hangar looks a lot more cinematic and epic for a global terrorist group, after all. It occurs to us that this whole scene could be a commentary on Communist Party meetings and not just in China. It's full of infighting, testimonials, public accusations of party disloyalty and subversion, with a hint of satire. When Science Grandma, aka Ye Wen Jie, aka The Commander, finally shows up, everyone becomes quiet. She's revered, even loved, considered untouchable, as the entire organization is based on cult of personality. She's the co-founder after all, the one who started it all even if Mike Evans funded them.

The members are up in arms over Pan Han (Johnny Zhang) purging the Redemptionist faction so his Adventists faction can win dominance over the party. His imploring Science Grandma to declare herself an Abventist to legitimize his faction is redolent of political party infighting. Science Grandma calmly informs him that he and Evans have committed an unforgivable betrayal of the ETO by using Red Coast Two to hoard messages from the Trisolarans and only letting the rest of the Organization see them after changing them, if they bothered to share them at all.

Then Chen Xue runs right up and murders Pan Han in front of everyone. Science Grandma doesn't bat an eyelash as her henchmen drag the body away like they're taking out the trash. Seeing someone get murdered for the first time does not make Wang Miao feel any better about all this. Things don't get better when Science Grandma introduces him to the room as her friend, the esteemed professor researching nanomaterial, which the Trisolarans don't want him to advance because it could be used to develop weapons against them. Suddenly Wang Miao is standing in front of over two hundred people who might want to kill him right there.

But first, he manages to buy himself time by asking Science Grandma how all this started, so she obliges by telling him her origin story back in the Red Coast days, and we're in for a long ride, like the whole of next episode and beyond.

MVP: Science Grandma

Wang Zi Wen as Young Ye Wen Jie and Chen Jin as elderly Ye continue to be the MVPs of the series. Wang with her smoldering intensity, and Chen with her effortless cool. She never changes her tone, whether she's tutoring the local grade schoolers or addressing her terrorist group and pretty much declaring a death sentence on a dissenter. She never raises her voice and exudes control. She doesn't need to be menacing to be menacing. The whole story exists because of Science Grandma the Bond villain. She was already that before we entered the story.

Ye Wen Jie seems to be Liu Cixin's embodiment of the history and trauma of the Cultural Revolution and its consequences. She is one of the boldest commentaries on that era in fiction, especially since her endgame is the extinction of humanity.

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