Do you have any thoughts about why they might have chosen to play "Daisy, Daisy" in the episode?
Indeed I do! (I watched it on West Coast time, so it just ended for me. Probably someone else has already brought this up, but I haven’t looked through my dash yet.)
“Daisy, Daisy” or “Bicycle Built for Two” hits me straight off as the song HAL sang to Dave while Dave disconnected HAL’s higher brain functions. Dave did that because HAL had turned into a bit of a serial killer in space, and it was the only way to keep the ship running without getting eventually killed himself. (I see on the wiki page that it is also the earliest song used for computer speech synthesis, which is what 2001: A Space Odyssey was apparently referencing.)
Amara’s soul sucking seems to work in a somewhat similar way except that it turns people into killers instead of stopping them. Len described himself as a robot, puppet-man without a soul. HAL prided himself on being almost human, except better, until his “brain” was sucked out bit by bit by Dave. As he lost his “mind” he reverted to a sort of childlike state, going through denial and fear and then finally singing the song that his creator taught him when he was brand new. As soon as his higher brain function was really gone, a recording popped up that told Dave what the true mission was: seeking out the answer to whatever was up with those big, black monoliths on the moon and on Jupiter. In the sequel to 2001, it is revealed that the monoliths (and the godlike aliens behind them) were creating new worlds. They turned Jupiter into a new sun and Europa into a new world filled with life. Humans were not invited to the party. Much like Len did in trying to avoid the loss of further life in “Thin Lizzie”, HAL sacrificed himself to save the astronauts on the second mission.
I’ve actually written a ton about SPN and 2001/2010, so I think I’ll just link to some of those old posts here:
There was talk of Naomi’s office wall looking like HAL’s brain from several people. (This has been brought up a few times over the last couple of years.)
This one is comparing Dean to Dave and Gadreel to HAL.
This one is comparing Metatron’s words to 2010 - and actually at this point, it would seem that maybe Amara has picked up what I thought Metatron was going to do a couple of years ago.
This one is comparing a bunch of astronaut movies to SPN.
This one is about Dean comparing himself to HAL in season 10.
This one is about the evolution of the weapons on 2001 in comparison with the First Blade.
This one is about the Odyssey connection to all of this.
Seriously, I’ve written about the comparisons between 2001/2010 and SPN to an almost embarrassing degree! :P So, I was super pleased to hear that song being played tonight!!
One thing to note is that HAL learned this song as a little baby computer and then sang it again at his ‘death’ in the first film. It could be that the comparison is to Amara just starting out on her own journey. She, too, has been tasked with a mission from a sort of creator (the lady in the dark cloud) and getting conflicting orders from her sort of adopted step-dad Crowley. And she’s got someone (Dean) who might qualify as a kind of a friend, like Dave was to HAL. Conflicting orders caused HAL to experience paranoia and make mistakes and kill the people he was supposed to support. Perhaps something similar will happen with Amara, who doesn’t seem to know yet quite what is the best thing for those around her. Dave ended up heading straight into the dark abyss of the monolith (which turned out to be “full of stars”), and then in 2010 he and HAL end up sort of bound together in whatever form they have in the new creation formed on the shiny new planet below.
It all sounds ominous, but 2010 was actually a very hope-filled film with a mysterious but happy ending. Humanity got a second sun and a new hope to overcome their own violence towards each other, and new life got a chance to grow a little further out in the solar system.
