First Episode in and Spin-offs are Already Setup

J.C. mention in an interview that he hopes to have spin-off series written by some of his other author friends.  This would be rad, even though I’d prefer the content by J.C., I’d still consume anything that had at least his partial involvement.

I was little bit surprised with all the opportunities this first episode opened up for possible spin-offs.  There were obvious lines about Five-by-Five and the other sub-branches of The 33, but then there were unexpected references to gods and martians; this story will go anywhere.  Well, I guess that’s good for universe you hope to expand, but it also feels a bit overwhelming to have this massive info dump of info in the first episode.

“'We’re not for hire, and we don’t answer to anybody.' Creel snickered.'Right. Because that’d be inconvenient. So. Being above the law and all, does the government know you exist?' 'The U.S. government? Sure, some of it does.' 'Yeah? Does it approve of your world-saving?'  'Some of it does.'”

Here I feel there is one of the great opportunities for a spin-off into neat, murky, political series. It was relieved that J.C. didn't pigeonhole The 33’s political situation into a solid position.  It seems like everyone wants to have clear-cut delineations in politics.  Ambiguity, in this instance, is great.  I really hope this story can utilize themes of both straightforward good vs evil, while also containing stories of hard decisions and ethically ambiguous characters.

“'Actually,' Bliss said, 'we’re up to World War VII now.' 'Eh?'”

Yep, that’s another prequel side series waiting to happen.

Speculation (S01E01)

Another character attached to his flask for nefarious purposes

The Flask
What’s the deal with Addison Creed’s flask? It was mentioned a total of four times within this one episode. Ordinarily, this wouldn't mean a thing if the character was a drunk, but I’m not getting that impression. Sure, he’s living on the streets, wallowing in self-indulgence, but he also seems really on top of what’s going on. Call me overly obsessive, but I think it’s a clue of something else to come.

 He’s always checking to see were it is and the other characters looked shocked to see him drink from it after going through the portal, as if no normal person could stomach a drink after that. The real kicker that got my attention was this line:

 “…one hand inside his hoodie pocket gripping the flask— can’t lose that, lose that and you’re good as dead no matter where you go…”

Bliss
I can tell right now that Bliss is going to be the scene-stealer of the series. This is totally going to be the character that everyone quotes and associates with this book. Fans of J.C. seemed to really latch on to the Killroy 2.0 character in 7th Son, so I wouldn't be surprised if Bliss is the next character that J.C.’s Internet-savvy fan-base immortalizes.

Mad_Ana
Mad_Ana is totally going to die. I’m calling it now. She’s going to get killed within the next four episodes. She’s way too average and too much like the reader. Then again, I thought the same of John in 7th Son and he was one of the few survivors.

Zebulon Pike

“...Zeb to the tech press. Founder, Chairman, President and CEO of Sprightly, the world’s largest online retailer. If the people in those ‘world’s richest ’ lists were in a rock band, Zeb would be lead vocalist and play lead guitar. Sprightly practically invented online shopping. It mastered the dry-goods delivery model, then conquered the digital-goods market, then moved on to cloud-technology services.”

Jeff Bezos

This guy is totally Jeff Bezos. He’s obviously a combination of a lot of real-life people, but I’m getting stronger vibe of Bezos with a hint of A.U. Rookman.