Godzilla Singular Point and The Spoiler Paradox

A single line of silk, cross it over against itself and pull the thread taught. Does it all start to unravel, or…

This is, of sorts, a review of Godzilla: Singular Point. It is also a bunch of rambling thoughts and musings on spoilers, well plotted shows, surprising twists, and viewer payoff, amongst other things. While I argue throughout this review that spoilers shouldn’t matter all that much, I strongly urge you to watch the show before continuing, as there will be spoilers throughout this review. I’ll try not to ruin the more magical moments, but there will definitely be spoilers to the vague overarching structure of the show.

One thing you should know is that the end of this review is already written. Much like the show I had to know how I wanted it to end, in order to know how I wanted it to begin…

I mean, look at the title for instance — of the show I mean, it spoils itself in the grand scheme of things, so can I really call this review a spoiler?…

Well what constitutes a spoiler? I’m not here to review Star Wars, but I think it’s a valid point of reference here, take Episode V, the Empire Strikes Back. Most everyone who wasn’t alive when it originally aired in theaters in 1980 knows that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. That’s a huge spoiler, well, if you’re about to watch it for the first time in 1980. Knowing this doesn’t change the fact that the movie is compelling throughout, enough to constitute being a cultural phenomena decades later at least…

There’s another example in the Greek Tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, an even older tale that I can almost guarantee you no one is alive from the first telling of. I’m, admittedly, more familiar with the Hadestown rendition of the tragedy, but the compelling aspect does not come from the surprise that Orpheus looks back at Eurydice in their last steps out of the Underworld and dooms the two of them to be separated…

There’s this misconception that’s arisen in the past few years that if your show or movie or whatever, is predictable, then it isn’t worth watching. That’s simply not the case, it is so rewarding to not only see the writers of something you love put in the groundwork to be paid off later…

The show really has quite clever pacing though, it wants you to predict what happens and expertly foreshadows things to come, and things unfold in very interesting ways that show the natural conclusion of what you might (correctly or incorrectly) guess! It subtly tells you the show is a mystery, if the first episode isn’t an indication there’s a moment in episode four…

The show argues for and against determinism in its text, it’s weird. There are multiple branching futures that are all true, but if you change something, it posits, history adjusts to display the new change. It creates this sort of paradox with these overlapping diagrams of Singular Points in time, their circular nature like a gentle song…

There is a certain metaphor the show uses, of an egg. The mother lays the egg and it contains all the genetic information for the chick, and then the next and the next and the next ad infinitum. But this isn’t quite the whole picture…

At the center of it all, the ending is the beginning and the beginning is the end. When the whole picture is revealed to you, through this recurring theme of “Fearful Symmetry,” the broader strokes of the show become crystal clear. It’s not only an element of the mystery the characters are solving, but is a metanarrative element of the show that helps tie up most every loose end the show has. This isn’t to say it ties up every loose end, after all the show is built upon asking questions. It remains at its core a cyclical mystery. It is definitely something that I will re-watch again soon, knowing every last plot point ahead of time to watch it unravel anew.

… There’s more information to be gathered, from the father, and put into the egg to make the next chicken, and in a weird and convoluted metaphor that doesn’t quite work, that’s the relationship the show expects you to bring. It trusts you to fill in these gaps with your own information on your own time, and quickly follows suit with the answer. It knows that you know how Godzilla stories work, what are some of the marks that are always hit, how things are meant to be. But it lets you get lost in this recursion of eggs, will they turn out different this time? If it does go with the predictable result, how do we get there that’s so different? What is the orthogonal path we take to get this resonance in conversation with the franchise as a whole. It does this while also being a story about predetermined histories through what should be impossible means and really manages to stand on its own two feet extremely well.

…that’s begging for a chorus of voices to join in, chime in with these answers to the questions that it lays out before you. It reveals these mysteries in their own time, usually something that’s been in the back of your mind for multiple episodes, it’ll hit you with the full reveal moments after you’ve solved the picture for yourself. It’s like, you know this puzzle resembles a horse but, holy shit, it’s a really cool picture of a horse when the show shows it to you. It is all the time breathtaking to see unfold in front of you, revealing the whole picture.

… wherein Professor Li’s showing off a new material, called Archetype, that is very important in the show’s own consistent logic. There’s this almost shot and chaser moment, where your mind is buzzing with possibility at this impossible substance and how it works, and then one of the main characters, Mei, answers with a theory — interrupting the lecture in the process. The timing in the moment is, in my opinion, expert pacing and primes you to start looking for clues to start piecing things together for yourself.

…This predictability doesn’t make the show unwatchable, if anything it treats not only the work and characters within with respect, but also the viewer. It knows you’re paying attention to it and is grateful for that attention. Who cares if you know one or two things that are going to happen in a routine, if you pick up on the choreography being used isn’t that a good thing?

… but rather from hoping it turns out differently. While that’s not necessarily the case for Godzilla: Singular Point, part of what makes the show compelling is knowing the answer well in advance — this is achieved not only by calling upon a rich and storied history a decent chunk of fans will be at least passingly familiar with, but by providing excellent morsels of hints throughout the show’s text that reveal itself to you over time.

… The groundwork is even there to figure it out well beforehand. Darth Vader’s own name is a few letters off from literally translating to Father in German, and George Lucas is not one known for subtleties. What’s interesting about these things is rather the minutiae of ramifications that ripple out from this single, earth shattering revelation. How does Luke react to knowing Darth Vader is his father? Does that mean Darth Vader is redeemable in some small way? What does this mean for the Rebellion? How did his rise to power take place if what Obi-Wan said about Darth Vader killing Luke’s father is true? It’s all certainly interesting! It’s certainly interesting enough to warrant the making of three prequel movies that explore this predetermined outcome that everyone has been intimately familiar with for decades.

… Like if you look at a Singular Point, like the definition of one. I’m not a math expert by any means, but one of the defining characteristics of a Singular Point is a curve that overlaps itself at a given point.

…and so the end, planned as it was, starts to reveal the whole tapestry of a well woven history, both in eighty diegetic years — with the implication that it all starts in 1950, around four years before the first Godzilla film was released — and thirteen expertly paced episodes that dilates time seamlessly on both a literal and metanarrative level. A prophecy written by itself, it all folds in.

…does the picture in the tapestry become clear?