The Magnus Protocol Reviews: “Restructuring”

“Restructuring” Is An Odd Mashup Of Horror Ideas

“Restructuring” is a weird episode—mostly in its writing style. It’s juggling two very different conceits within one horror statement. And that becomes only more apparent when it’s clear that there’s nothing else of note in this episode. No big revelations. No multi-dimensional anything.

So, let’s unpack that statement. “Restructuring” leads with an amazing idea for a horror story. The “must be an accessed digital something or other” rule for Magnus Protocol doesn’t always work, but medical case files are perfect. You can imply the most grievous body horror you want and still stoke the listener’s imagination. It’s sometimes annoying hearing all the numbers read out, but at a certain point, it really settled into a narrative. We get a bit of a mystery even.

But then the hard pivot. I had expected “Restructuring” to become a transcript at some moment—for some of its runtime—but we descend into annoying “J” and “K” tags, and then a full, uninterrupted monolog to round it out. The previous cool ideas become almost entirely abandoned.

The Transition Between Styles Is Not At All Smooth

But it is a good monolog. A little hard at first to understand exactly what’s going on, but it’s got interesting metaphors. Some of the language could be more considered—I’m not a fan of prose using being blind as a metaphor for lack of forethought or empathy—but the idea of an angry Earth screaming against what humans have done to it is unique for the series. It’s an interesting way to explore the inhumanity of humanity through our often awful history. I admittedly don’t know if the character is simply experiencing history through that framework or if the land is literally sentient, but it’s not the only time someone’s been claimed by the environment in this series, so there could be something there.

I suppose I should also speculate on the stuff with Colin’s body bits flowing out of the computer. It’s horrifying conceptually. Imagine typing and accidentally putting your fingers on a human tooth. But I can only see a few outcomes from it in the plot, and most of them aren’t more interesting than existing plot lines. I’ll delay my judgment for now—but I’m not that excited.

I suppose I’m also biased by what I like from this series. “Restructuring” feels very much like we’re going back into the episodic stuff, and we’re not going to be getting any obvious clues for a bit. Maybe the next episode will prove me wrong, but that’s the vibe. “Restructuring” is a good episode; it’s well-performed and such. It just feels very middle of the pack, and that’s hard to muster much enthusiasm for this deep into reviewing The Magnus Protocol episodically.

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