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TV Review: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency 1.7 “Weaponized Soul”
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Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Episode 1.7 “Weaponized Soul”
Created by Max Landis
Directed by Paco Cabezas
Starring Samuel Barnett, Elijah Wood, Hannah Marks, Fiona Dourif, Jade Eshete, Mpho Koaho, Dustin Milligan, Miguel Sandoval, Neil Brown, Jr., Richard Schiff, Aaron Douglas, Alison Thornton
BBC America
Air date: Saturday, December 3, 2016

SPOILERS for Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Last week on Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, holistic detective Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett) and his sidekick Todd (Elijah Wood) ended up in the clutches of the nefarious Gordon Rimmer (Aaron Douglas) and his drones. But by episode’s end, the duo appeared to be on the verge of escaping via a time machine! Todd’s sister Amanda (Hannah Marks) was furious with him for lying about having had Pararibulitis, a debilitating genetic disorder she’s currently suffering from, so she left with The Rowdy 3. It’s unclear where Farah (Jade Eshete) was after being knocked out by the droned Agent Weedle (David Lewis). Detective Estevez (Neil Brown, Jr.) figured out that Lydia’s soul had been swapped with Gordon’s corgi Rapunzel (Bentley the dog). Holistic assassin Bartine (Fiona Dourif) and her sidekick Ken (Mpho Koaho) decided to try to find Dirk Gently again, but not try to kill him next time.

Here’s a recap of what happened this week on Episode 1.7 “Fix Everything”…

This week, we finally get ANSWERS — tons of them!!! When we last saw Dirk and Todd, they were about to use the soul exchanger machine to travel back in time, as Dirk proclaimed that he “solved the case” and that there wouldn’t be a murder, because they were going to “fix everything.”

The episode begins with Todd and Dirk traveling back one week in the past to the moment when Gordon and his followers swap Lydia Spring’s soul with that of Gordon’s corgi Rapunzel. This is the event that started everything. Gordon plans to give dog-souled Lydia to her father Patrick, who’s waiting for them at the Perriman Grand Hotel, in order to get the Unlimited Energy Device from him. But Gordon’s plan goes against the Supreme Soul Rainey, who accuses him of sacrilege and treason and says that they no longer need Patrick’s machine. Rainey’s people take the dog, and Gordon grabs the machine and flees with his followers.

But just then, a masked man in armor appears and starts killing everyone, including specifically the body that houses the soul of Jake Rainey. The armored man then finds Dirk and Todd, but doesn’t know them, but Dirk knows who he is. “This is Patrick Spring,” he says. The man lifts his masks to reveal one Patrick Spring!

Dirk says he can explain everything. Get ready, because there’s a lot here… Patrick Spring is really Zachariah Webb, who in the 1880s attempted to build a time machine. But at first the device only sent energy through time, not matter, causing the soul to come out of the body (this is how it came to be used as the Soul Exchanger). Eventually, he sent the machine into the future, but it came back altered. So, Webb had to undo what went wrong, so he jumped to the future, where he found the machine in his lab that he used to go to the future, but NOT the original machine. So he continued traveling through time to look for it. When he jumped to 1968, he found his mansion occupied by Rainey and his crazy hippie followers, who refused to give up the original machine, saying that it magically appeared from nowhere and was meant for them.

In 1981, Webb was living as wealthy inventor Edgar Spring, who turned the time machine into an Unlimited Energy Device. But by then, Rainey’s people had figured out how to do the soul exchanging. (Remember, Rainey’s group was a cult who originally thought the soul swapping was a spiritual experience.) Rainey used that machine to become more powerful, and then demanded the Unlimited Energy Device from Edgar, but when he refused, that waged a war. By 1995, the hippies had renamed themselves the Men of the Machine, and they shot him, but he was then saved by Catherine, who became his wife and the mother of his daughter Lydia. But in 2001, the Men killed Catherine, and that was when he jumped to today in the armor to catch Rainey and his people by surprise.

(NOTE – I didn’t hear any mention of when Edgar became Patrick, but when he married Catherine, he was going by the name Patrick Spring, Edgar’s son. We know that Edgar went missing for a long time.)

Turns out, Dirk got it ALL right!

Todd reveals that they are there trying to save Lydia Spring, but this Patrick doesn’t know what’s happened to his daughter. They tell him that Gordon is taking Lydia to the older him at the hotel. “Don’t get in my way,” Patrick tells them, and walks off.

Todd and Dirk then leave the Temple, which is actually an abandoned building on zoo property. “Damnit, my brain hurts,” Todd says when talking about whether Patrick realizes that today is the day he was murdered. (His brain and mine are going to hurt a lot more once this episode ends.) Dirk then realizes that the 3 questions 1 answer clue (the clue he had from Patrick to help solve the case) has several meanings: There were 3 maps that led to one solution; there’s men – Webb, Edgar, and Patrick – who are really one man; there’s 3 machines — Time Machine, Soul Exchanger, and Unlimited Energy Device — that are actually 1 machine. Todd now says they can fix everything (yes, that’s what Dirk had said)!

[Elijah Wood as Todd Brotzman and Samuel Barnett as Dirk Gently.]

Meanwhile, Gordon and his drones now have the Soul Changer. The drones say they want better bodies (one wants to be a panther), and Gordon brags about having “big plans” for them, and that once they have both machines, they’ll have great power. Then he asks if someone has “the kitten,” and one pulls the kitty out of his jacket. This is a “a weaponized soul” he created, Gordon reveals, and he plans to use it as a last resort. (We know that the kitten has a shark soul in it.) But for now, he wants his dog back!

Back at the zoo: It’s 8:51am and Todd and Dirk steal a truck so they can get to the hotel. But before they go, Todd — who’s wielding a crossbow — dons a giraffe mask, while Dirk takes a gorilla mask, which is the one Todd saw someone wearing on the video tape of the hotel the morning of the murder! In the truck, Todd realizes things about Gordon: That he must have police on the inside; that he is actually rock star Lux DuJour; that he swapped the kitten soul with the shark; that he likely rebelled against his leader. And now, Patrick Spring shows up and annihilates Rainey and his people. None of this has been a coincidence, everything is actually connected, Todd realizes! (Duh, that’s what Dirk’s been saying all this time.)

Todd and Dirk show up at the hotel at 9:36am. As Dirk tries to make a plan, Todd finds the winning lottery ticket in the truck — he was always meant to have it! They don their masks and head into hotel, where Gordon is bringing Lydia to Patrick at the Penthouse suite. Todd and Dirk take the service elevator to go get the master key that will get them into the Penthouse; they see Bellhop Todd pass by — he had gone there that day looking for his key, but couldn’t find it. They also see armored Patrick arrive!

At the Penthouse, Patrick says that the girl isn’t his daughter – knowing that her soul wasn’t there. Gordon says, he gets the machine, and the girl will get her soul back. Patrick then tells Lydia that he spent 15 years preparing for this moment, yet he still took her for granted. Then he picks up the phone and makes the “It’s time” phone call to Dirk that was the very first scene of the first episode of the show! “Now it’s over,” Patrick says, just as armored Patrick bursts in the door. Gordon freaks out when he sees two Patrick Springs together at the same time — this is why he’s been asking all season how Patrick could be in two places at once! Older Patrick tells his armored younger self, “Don’t blame yourself, it always ended like this.” But younger Patrick is angry that his older self would make a deal with Gordon’s people, who killed Catherine. Just then Todd and Dirk show up, and older Patrick tells Dirk that when he finds Lydia to tell her that he loved her, and that he’s sorry.

Then, the Drone with the kitten goes to shoot, but armored Patrick shoots him first. The kitten goes up in the air and the shark soul comes out, killing the drones and older Patrick — this is the moment of the murder from the first episode, and Gordon hides, while Todd, Dirk, and armored Patrick run out.

We then see the scene where Todd goes to his boss to ask for an advance on his check, and the boss tells him to go to the Penthouse and Room 745, and gives him his own master key. While this is happening, we see Gordon running out with Lydia, and the blood seeping from under the Penthouse door covering the lottery ticket. Then — and here’s where it gets really confusing — future Todd and Dirk run into past Dirk! Future Dirk tells his other self that Todd is his best friend who lives at the Ridgely Building and “hopefully he’ll forgive us for this,” and that there’s “3 questions and 1 answer,” which other Dirk has no clue of the meaning. Future Dirk then tells him to run back and get the kitten, but not to let anyone see his face, as he hands him the gorilla mask.

Now comes the part where Bellhop Todd sees Future Todd in the hallway. Right before this happens, Todd is yelling at Dirk, saying he knew this was going to happen, that it’s a time loop, but that he didn’t say anything. Dirk tries defending himself by saying that he didn’t really know what it all meant, though.

Gordon meets his other drones, who have the corgi with Lydia’s soul inside. Gordon tells them other people showed up, and now Patrick is dead. Their new plan is to go back to the temple to see what Rainey knows — he doesn’t know yet that Rainey and the Men were killed already.

Now that they are away from the hotel, armored Patrick is taking off his gear and getting rid of it, while Todd is in the truck remembering what happened before – how he met Dirk, first saw the kitten, got Todd the shirt, etc., all while realizing that Dirk remembered what was going to happen. Dirk then tells Patrick who he is and that the future Patrick hired him to investigate his murder, and that they followed several maps he left them to find the buried pieces of the time machine. Dirk then gets annoyed at Patrick’s flippancy — they risked their lives to solve his case. But Patrick doesn’t think Gordon and the Men are an evil empire, but rather just greedy imbecile buffoons.

Then Todd comes and says there’s still time to save Lydia. Patrick says when his machine came back, it had a note on it covered in blood with Dirk’s name on it. Patrick then gives them a tube to send the time machine they have to Patrick in the past, which Todd doesn’t think is possible. Plus, Todd and Dirk forgot the machine back at the zoo! Patrick calls them stupid — which sets Todd off. He says Patrick doesn’t have all the answers, because he’s just as blind and crazy as everyone else. He’s so obsessed with one mistake he made a long time ago, he can’t see how he’s hurt people in the process, and that some choices you have to accept and try to rebuild as best as you can. (This whole rant is basically Todd talking to himself, since he has done the same thing thanks to the one mistake he made that he can’t get over.)

Patrick says Todd is right; he’s hurt Lydia throughout everything. He’s heading back to 2001 to be with his daughter who needs him. “Certain things can’t be changed,” he says. “It was you all along, it will always be you. Please save her,” he tells them, and they promise they will.

Once alone, Todd laces into Dirk. “You’re a monster,” Todd says, because Dirk knew everything that was going to happen. But Dirk says he didn’t know exactly, because he didn’t understand everything. But Todd is pissed that Dirk deliberately kept things from him. “You’re a liar,” Todd says, “and you’ve ruined my life just to have a friend, you deserve to be alone, Dirk.” But Dirk is adamant that he didn’t lie. “I think you of all people should know what a liar looks like by now,” Dirk says through tears, but then apologizes right away. But Todd wants nothing to do with him after this is all over.

Gordon and the Men are back at the Temple, where Todd and Dirk are already there trying to get the machine. Dirk wants for them to jump back to the wild west before this all began, but Todd doesn’t want to go, and screams “I hate you” before they seemingly jump.

And now what happened to Farah: It’s 5 minutes before Todd and Dirk jump back to the past, and she’s locked in the trunk of a car outside. She tries shooting her way out, but it doesn’t work — but these are the gunshots that are heard when Gordon is holding Todd and Dirk at gunpoint inside (the end of last week’s episode) when Todd attacks Gordon so they can escape. Farah does manage to cut her way out through the back seat and then shoots droned Agent Weedle. Out back, Gordon hears Rapunzel barks and goes to look for the dog, but it’s actually human Lydia with the dog’s soul, and she’s with Detective Estevez, who punches Gordon out and then kicks him while he’s down. But Gordon gets away!

Inside the temple, Todd and Dirk made the jump, but only back to where they came from. Two drones come in and shoot Dirk with an electric arrow, and when Todd goes to pull it out, he gets zapped too.

So, I called it that Webb and Patrick were the same person! But, I still don’t see when Edgar became Patrick. Unlike Todd and Dirk had planned, they did not fix everything. We learn that no matter what, Patrick Spring will be murdered. Also, while Dirk should have been more forthcoming with Todd about what he knew — that his future self would give him a warning at the hotel — I don’t think that Dirk ruined his life; he did that all himself before when he lied about having a disease and bankrupting his parents because of it. Something tells me that next week during the Season 1 finale, it will become more clear why Dirk kept certain things to himself. We also have to find out how Bartine and Ken fit into this entire scenario. And will this all end with Dirk being captured by the CIA?

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