convo i had with myself in the shower because it's past 1 in the morning
okay, so like what if undercover is es testing out the song extraction machine on themselves before they use it on the prisoners? maybe to warm it up or get a feel for it? because es is all "it's my job to judge these prisoners!" so they're thinking about the prisoners and judging their crimes and restraining them accordingly. but also we get a glimpse of them starting to get a glimpse of something (maybe their memories), but we don't actually see it because their memories are still locked away as represented by the box closing at the end.
hmmm it doesn't hold up though. because if we assume undercover hypothetically was done beforehand if it's consistent with the other songs coming out chronologically, then they wouldn't know anything about the prisoners yet aside from maybe what jackalope told them. there's no way they could recall the glimpses into the prisoners' lives or their respective murders.
but what if they did know?
huh??
what if like, even though es can't clearly remember their past, maybe they've learned this all before? they've done this whole prison guard thing with these prisoners before, but everyone's memories were wiped and they're doing the trial again.
like a time loop?
yeah. i mean, es said it feels right that they're a prison guard or something, right? like they have experience. maybe they have had experience with all of this and all of these prisoners before, so they actually know everyone quite well. what we see in undercover is actually es remembering the past runs of this. but then their memory's locked away in the box. regardless of the outcome, they are to repeat the cycle again and again in this purgatory of a prison.
...
...
... that'd be fucking stupid.
