Reverie Review: Blue is the Coldest Color (Season 1 Episode 4)

Reverie Season 1 Episode 4, “Blue is the Coldest Color,” introduces some interesting new concepts and characters to the series’ overall universe, indicating that the show could expand in really fascinating ways. But its over reliance on schmaltzy solutions for its cases of the week is getting kind of tiresome.

So, here’s the thing about Reverie. It’s a procedural series whose weakest points are actually the procedural elements. That’s kind of a problem, especially when those are such a big chunk of the show.

Plus side: It seems as though Reverie is busy introducing larger arc-ish elements every week. Those are worth tuning in for, even if your mind might drift a bit during the case of the week.

As it turns out, this week’s designated reverie rescue has an interesting set up: An obsessive-compulsive man whose various disorders prevent him from leaving his home, or interacting much with the world at large, outside of the nice single mom and her sick son who live across the courtyard from him.

His name is Glenn, and he steals some reverie-related technology called the BCI — or Brain Computer Interface — that makes entering the virtual world possible. This is, in and of itself, kind of fascinating idea, as one assumes he’s not the only person using this technology to medicate his psychological problems.

However, Reverie once again errs on the side of making a potentially complex mission as gloppy and gooey as possible. Glenn didn’t steal for selfish reasons, of course. How else could we be okay with Mara helping him otherwise?

Instead, Glenn is using his stolen reverie equipment to map out a real-world robbery (another interesting set-up that gets kind of squandered, by the way). His goal? To help the sick neighbor boy access a lifesaving medical trial.

The thing is – this story isn’t bad, per se. The idea of a guy using his reveries to train for real-world robberies is actually pretty creative. But, for some reason, the show doesn’t want to really dig too hard into the dark side of this technology.

It is also understandable that on some level Reverie might want to hang on to its optimistic, empathetic tone. There’s not a lot of that on TV right now. And, quite frankly, given everything else going on in the world, we probably need it.

However, repeatedly stepping up to the edge of darker, more challenging stories only to shy away in the end is annoying. If you just want to tug at our heartstrings, go back to the “crying over dead loved ones” tropes from the pilot.

This “potentially bad person who’s really struggling to do something good in the end” stuff already feels stale. And it’s only the fourth episode!

Luckily, everything that isn’t about Glenn’s story this week is not only much more interesting, it potentially opens up a lot of new avenues for the show to explore.

Picking up where Reverie Season 1 Episode 3, “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” left off, Mara realizes her experience in her sister’s house isn’t real as everything starts dematerializing around her. She’s rescued from her confusion — and an oncoming speeding car — by a mysterious man.

This guy’s name is Oliver Hill, and he not only claims to be one of the co-founders of Onira Tech, but someone who also experiences derealizations thanks to all his time in Reverie 2.0. Charming and more than a little unstable, it’s completely easy to like this guy even as we feel we shouldn’t trust him.

Which, we probably shouldn’t. At least according to Alex, who admits to being in love with her ex-partner back when they founded the company. But Oliver was problematic long before he ever started using the 2.0 system, at one point burning down Alex’s house. (She got a restraining order after that, though she still seems fairly haunted by the whole experience.)

Yikes.

This is the sort of messy ongoing story that Reverie probably needs – Oliver, who may or may not be trustworthy, is shown buying a black market BCI set-up at the end of the episode. And Onira Tech definitely lied to Mara about his existence and history with the company.

Everyone is untrustworthy, and no one seems to be telling Mara the truth about the very real mental problems she’s going through thanks to her frequent trips into virtual reality.

(If any of you think she’ll be fine if she just takes a pill every few hours? I have a bridge to sell you.)

Furthermore, this episode also introduces the concept of “dark reveries”. This poorly explained situation sounds like a virtual reality take on the dark web, where the program has been hacked to allow people to perform certain activities otherwise prohibited by the system’s safety protocols.

This reveries aren’t quite Westworld after all, in that it looks like there are definitely certain things you can’t do. (Likely murder, rape and all that sort of thing.) But, the internet being what it is, someone’s created pockets where those rules don’t apply and people are free to act out their worst impulses.

The question becomes: Should those unhealthy impulses be allowed? Isn’t a reverie technically the safest of safe spaces for something like that? Either way, it’s a discussion worth having

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• As someone who struggles a bit with mild OCD, I just feel like I have to point out that combating this disorder takes a LOT MORE than simply getting ahold of some dice to roll around when you feel anxious. I love the idea of the reverie technology helping Glenn heal, but the odds that he could go from basically incapacitated to voluntarily visiting his neighbors in what appears to be a couple days are pretty much zero.
• Sarah Shahi and Sendil Ramamurthy have ridiculous chemistry together even in the smallest scenes.
• I get that we’re all supposed to be v. suspicious of whatever is up with shady Onira Tech boss lady Monica, but I honestly could not care less about her.

What did you think of this episode of Reverie? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Reverie airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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