FREEMAN'S MIND: EPISODE 61

[RandomGuy]

Gotta admit, this episode was pretty disappointing. I've been looking forward to this scene for a while, because I wanted to see how Freeman would react to being told that there's a single alien keeping the rift open, and that he has enough troops to threaten the whole Earth. More importantly, I wanted to see how he justified going to Xen given his personality so far. I'm not a fan of him just bumbling in there. It's bizarrely out of character, as it relies on Freeman completely trusting guys he called lemmings, and leaving Earth for the aliens.

 

One, Freeman does not seem to trust anyone, least of all the Black Mesa staff, and it makes no sense for him to assume they'll do exactly what he says when they never took back their earlier statement that they're sending him to Xen if he goes in the teleportation room. Two, Freeman is selfish, but he has a sense of self-preservation. The Xen expedition staff flat-out told him that there wouldn't be much to come back to if the portals remained open. Even if they can't conquer the whole Earth, the aliens could inflict enough damage to effectively collapse modern society, via both the military invasion and the wildlife infestation, and Freeman knows this. Why would he think that getting to New England would stop that?

 

As for the jokes themselves: I didn't laugh at Freeman's teleportation rant, which took up a good chunk of the episode. I did, on the other hand, find his interactions with the guard and scientist to be very funny. Especially his reaction to the Kleiner scientist packing a shotgun, and him insulting the Barney.

 

Also disappointed to here that there will be no more Freeman's Mind any time soon. Of course, that probably translates to a lot of them in November.

If I had allocated a little more time when recording I would have talked more about this (I may come back to it in the next episode), but the bottom line is they sort of thrust this information on you with no context at all. Besides for self preservation, who the hell says HE has to be the one to go in there and stop it? There are plenty more qualified people on Earth to handle it, plus it's assuming they know everything that's happening globally. The way I see it Freeman would rather take his chance on Earth than trust these clowns to teleport him to another part of the galaxy. This comes back down to Half-Life's story presentation, they give you the absolute bare minimum and you're just supposed to go along with it. I think a lot of people remember details that are plugged in later from HL2 or online supplements, when the game gives you almost nothing and you only have one option anyway. As for the teleportation rant, not every line is meant to be a laugh out loud event, there's always a bunch of space to fill and I try to mix it up with thoughts that might be interesting to follow.

 

The thing is, the scientists (who should know what they're talking about, given their department) outright told him that if HE doesn't go there, there wouldn't be much to come home to. Meaning that not only is Earth fucked if the portals stay open, but no one else in the area is qualified enough to go to Xen, using their only Xen teleporter Which should be obvious, as there's like three guys in the Lambda Complex, none of which are as heavily armed or adept in combat as him. Everyone else has been killed by aliens, and all the doors are sealed. It doesn't really require knowledge of HL2 or the Laidlaw vault to recognize any of these things. At the very least, he should recognize that maybe millions of soldier aliens showing up in the middle of the United States along with highly deadly wildlife teleporting all over the Earth would be very bad. The aliens apparently teleport at will, so who's to say that he won't make it to New England only to have a Garg dropped on his head?

 

And why wouldn't he trust these clowns to teleport him to Xen? He apparently trusted them enough to let them teleport him to the other side of the continent. This is despite the fact that he almost never trusts anybody, has repeatedly called all of Black Mesa incompetent, and never even got a response from the scientists who just told him that they'd teleport him to Xen. There's no real reason for him to think they'll follow through.

[Crawfish]

Ah, another great episode!

I can just hear the beginning of the next episode.

"...Okay, this definitely isn't Massachusetts..."

[ThatGuyWhoMakesThoseThings]

"Follow the thoughts of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a 27 year old physicist and neurotic individual. In this episode, Freeman experiences his final moments on Earth."

 

Final moments on earth? What about Freeman coming back to fight the Combine in Half-Life 2?!

Edited October 20, 2014 by Guest (see edit history)

[Shadowlink839]

One of my new favorites in the FM series. Great job as always, Ross!

[VeryShyPerson]

"Follow the thoughts of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a 27 year old physicist and neurotic individual. In this episode, Freeman experiences his final moments on Earth."

 

Final moments on earth? What about Freeman coming back to fight the Combine in Half-Life 2?!

 

Possible spoiler?

[Ross Scott]

"Follow the thoughts of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a 27 year old physicist and neurotic individual. In this episode, Freeman experiences his final moments on Earth."

 

Final moments on earth? What about Freeman coming back to fight the Combine in Half-Life 2?!

Well that goes back to the teleporter clone question again huh?

[Jeb_CC]

"Follow the thoughts of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a 27 year old physicist and neurotic individual. In this episode, Freeman experiences his final moments on Earth."

 

Final moments on earth? What about Freeman coming back to fight the Combine in Half-Life 2?!

Well that goes back to the teleporter clone question again huh?

 

Guys. Ross knows what he's doing.

However when the scientist pointed a gun at Gordon Freeman, instead of standing and like, surrendering sorta thing which is what I suppose the normal reaction, Gordon goes to run and hide. Not sure if he made this decision because of temporary panic or... Gordon is just so used to running to save his life that this happens now.

[Crawfish]

"Follow the thoughts of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a 27 year old physicist and neurotic individual. In this episode, Freeman experiences his final moments on Earth."

 

Final moments on earth? What about Freeman coming back to fight the Combine in Half-Life 2?!

Well that goes back to the teleporter clone question again huh?

Oh goddamn you and your ways of keeping the possibility of a HL2 FM a mystery!

[Goliath Curolo]

Gotta admit, this episode was pretty disappointing. I've been looking forward to this scene for a while, because I wanted to see how Freeman would react to being told that there's a single alien keeping the rift open, and that he has enough troops to threaten the whole Earth. More importantly, I wanted to see how he justified going to Xen given his personality so far. I'm not a fan of him just bumbling in there. It's bizarrely out of character, as it relies on Freeman completely trusting guys he called lemmings, and leaving Earth for the aliens.

 

One, Freeman does not seem to trust anyone, least of all the Black Mesa staff, and it makes no sense for him to assume they'll do exactly what he says when they never took back their earlier statement that they're sending him to Xen if he goes in the teleportation room. Two, Freeman is selfish, but he has a sense of self-preservation. The Xen expedition staff flat-out told him that there wouldn't be much to come back to if the portals remained open. Even if they can't conquer the whole Earth, the aliens could inflict enough damage to effectively collapse modern society, via both the military invasion and the wildlife infestation, and Freeman knows this. Why would he think that getting to New England would stop that?

 

As for the jokes themselves: I didn't laugh at Freeman's teleportation rant, which took up a good chunk of the episode. I did, on the other hand, find his interactions with the guard and scientist to be very funny. Especially his reaction to the Kleiner scientist packing a shotgun, and him insulting the Barney.

 

Also disappointed to here that there will be no more Freeman's Mind any time soon. Of course, that probably translates to a lot of them in November.

If I had allocated a little more time when recording I would have talked more about this (I may come back to it in the next episode), but the bottom line is they sort of thrust this information on you with no context at all. Besides for self preservation, who the hell says HE has to be the one to go in there and stop it? There are plenty more qualified people on Earth to handle it, plus it's assuming they know everything that's happening globally. The way I see it Freeman would rather take his chance on Earth than trust these clowns to teleport him to another part of the galaxy. This comes back down to Half-Life's story presentation, they give you the absolute bare minimum and you're just supposed to go along with it. I think a lot of people remember details that are plugged in later from HL2 or online supplements, when the game gives you almost nothing and you only have one option anyway. As for the teleportation rant, not every line is meant to be a laugh out loud event, there's always a bunch of space to fill and I try to mix it up with thoughts that might be interesting to follow.

 

The thing is, the scientists (who should know what they're talking about, given their department) outright told him that if HE doesn't go there, there wouldn't be much to come home to. Meaning that not only is Earth fucked if the portals stay open, but no one else in the area is qualified enough to go to Xen, using their only Xen teleporter Which should be obvious, as there's like three guys in the Lambda Complex, none of which are as heavily armed or adept in combat as him. Everyone else has been killed by aliens, and all the doors are sealed. It doesn't really require knowledge of HL2 or the Laidlaw vault to recognize any of these things. At the very least, he should recognize that maybe millions of soldier aliens showing up in the middle of the United States along with highly deadly wildlife teleporting all over the Earth would be very bad. The aliens apparently teleport at will, so who's to say that he won't make it to New England only to have a Garg dropped on his head?

 

And why wouldn't he trust these clowns to teleport him to Xen? He apparently trusted them enough to let them teleport him to the other side of the continent. This is despite the fact that he almost never trusts anybody, has repeatedly called all of Black Mesa incompetent, and never even got a response from the scientists who just told him that they'd teleport him to Xen. There's no real reason for him to think they'll follow through.

 

Why would Freeman care about killing the alien and saving the world? He doesn't care, he just want to get the fuck out of Black Mesa, and he cant care about these stupid scientists mumbling around about portals and shit either.

 

I think you are overthinking this to much.

[Ross Scott]

Guys. Ross knows what he's doing.

However when the scientist pointed a gun at Gordon Freeman, instead of standing and like, surrendering sorta thing which is what I suppose the normal reaction, Gordon goes to run and hide. Not sure if he made this decision because of temporary panic or... Gordon is just so used to running to save his life that this happens now.

It was definitely a survival thing, he sees the scientist cocking his shotgun, pointing it right at Freeman, my first instinct would be to get the hell out of his line of sight too!

 

 

Why would Freeman care about killing the alien and saving the world? He doesn't care, he just want to get the fuck out of Black Mesa, and he cant care about these stupid scientists mumbling around about portals and shit either.

 

I think you are overthinking this to much.

Oh I think Freeman would care about that, he just doesn't see that as HIS responsibility. I mean Freeman isn't TRAINED as a fighter, he's just paranoid, lucky, and in an impenetrable suit. I plan on talking a little more about this in 62.

[RandomGuy]

Why would Freeman care about killing the alien and saving the world? He doesn't care, he just want to get the fuck out of Black Mesa, and he cant care about these stupid scientists mumbling around about portals and shit either.

 

I think you are overthinking this to much.

 

Freeman is selfish, but he's not stupid. The guy in charge of the "teleport people to the alien planet" department just said that Earth was screwed if no one killed the Nihilanth. But my main problem isn't that, it's Freeman just jumping into the portal under the assumption that the scientists will do exactly what he said, even though none of them even responded, and aliens start pouring out of the portal the minute it starts up.

 

Oh I think Freeman would care about that, he just doesn't see that as HIS responsibility. I mean Freeman isn't TRAINED as a fighter, he's just paranoid, lucky, and in an impenetrable suit. I plan on talking a little more about this in 62.

 

Also, his enemies have bad luck, and he can sprint at 40 miles per hour while still accurately shooting a gun without looking down the sights.

 

The manuals and the tutorial level implied he got some firearms training, but of course that wasn't the case here. Also, his suit isn't impenetrable; in this series specifically, it's seemingly more protective against lower level threats than it is in the games, while being more vulnerable to higher level threats, but the suit wasn't all there was to Freeman's success. Otherwise, those other HEV-suited scientists wouldn't have gotten killed by aliens (not that Freeman knows about them yet).

 

For maybe a third of his journey, it didn't matter whether he had a suit or he didn't due to the enemies he faced not really caring (speaking of this series here, of course, where his suit is just really high quality plated body armor with some rubber). You know, soldiers with .50 BMG machine guns/mortars/rocket launchers/grenades/whatever, tanks, IFVs, super-strong aliens that can smash through concrete casually, 3 meter tall aliens that can take more damage than tanks and smash through thick metal doors bigger than them, horrid tentacle things hanging from the ceiling that choke their prey to death and eat them, three-story tall aliens with giant knives for faces that can gib armored humans, etc. He has survived (and killed) all these threats. So he has a reason to think that he's more qualified than the geezers and the rent-a-cop. Especially since he constantly brags about how athletic is, how badass he is, how death-defying his stunts are, and how much combat experience he's getting in a short time.

 

It should also be mentioned that the scientist in the Lambda Complex just told him that the scientists they sent to Xen got killed. And he's in a place full of HEV suits. It doesn't take a lot of effort to connect the dots and see that they already tried sending people technically more qualified than Freeman there, with the same equipment, it just didn't work. Freeman also wonders why the lab has so many guns, when the scientist also told him that they were a supply depot for the Xen survey teams, and the guard told him to gear up. I know he doesn't pay much attention, but come on.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Guest (see edit history)

[TraceX]

Was hoping for, "Get back here you big orange fuck!" but I guess a river of blood will have to do. Great stuff as always Ross.

I never planned on doing that because I thought it was too predictable and didn't add to the humor too much. My original plan was to have him say something crazier like "gimme some tacos!" or "rubber jump pants!" But the timing for him ended up being too short because of everything going on in the scene. It got drowned out a bit by everything else going on, but there wasn't any good way to make it more audible without making it sound like he was standing right next to Freeman.

At least you did intend to follow through with the crossover ( however short it was), though without the annotation I couldn't make out what was said. I guess we could count this as a Shepard's mind reference, though it would be neat if Freeman thought about it at some point. Other than that, it was a great episode. The next one will certainly NOT feature Massachusetts.

[Darth Blitzer]

Freeman is selfish, but he's not stupid. The guy in charge of the "teleport people to the alien planet" department just said that Earth was screwed if no one killed the Nihilanth.

He did indeed say that........... but on what basis should Freeman believe that? No evidence was presented in that little info dump. Why would Freeman think he's the most capable person for doing this? He's bumbled around the facility for several days, almost always on the verge of death.

 

Sure, the military unit sent in to deal with the situation was incompetent. That's not necessarily a sign that he's the last thing between the evil super-mega alien and the Earth. Thus far from what he's seen and observed. This is a failed small scale containment operation that happened because some squad of goons were sent in to kill the science team rather than stopping an alien invasion.......... Surely he would assume the most probable way of defeating this thing will be the full scale intervention of the military?

[kjc609]

BACKRUBS

[RandomGuy]

Freeman is selfish, but he's not stupid. The guy in charge of the "teleport people to the alien planet" department just said that Earth was screwed if no one killed the Nihilanth.

He did indeed say that........... but on what basis should Freeman believe that? No evidence was presented in that little info dump. Why would Freeman think he's the most capable person for doing this? He's bumbled around the facility for several days, almost always on the verge of death.

 

Sure, the military unit sent in to deal with the situation was incompetent. That's not necessarily a sign that he's the last thing between the evil super-mega alien and the Earth. Thus far from what he's seen and observed. This is a failed small scale containment operation that happened because some squad of goons were sent in to kill the science team rather than stopping an alien invasion.......... Surely he would assume the most probable way of defeating this thing will be the full scale intervention of the military?

 

On the same basis that he believes the scientist will do what he says and send him to Massachusetts? Unlike in the latter case, what reason does he have to assume the scientist isn't telling the truth?

 

He would, if the scientist hadn't outright told him that one person needed to go through the portal to kill the Nihilanth. That's the only way they have to go to Xen. Freeman should know this. So how the hell does he expect the military to do shit against the aliens that can teleport anywhere and are invincible to retaliation?

[phollox]

Ah, another great episode!

I can just hear the beginning of the next episode.

"...Okay, this definitely isn't Massachusetts..."

 

What about this as continuation of that intro:

 

"...Although, some newer buildings on MIT looks really weird. Maybe they are just renovating. Besides, walking around the Stata Center stoned for the first is far more weird that this. Wait. The gravity here is fucked up? OK, now definitely this is not MIT either. OMG, the sky is purple. I'm in LA. Those stupid scientists sent me to Cal Tech. Pollution and beautiful sunsets my ass. I clearly said Massachusetts. This isn't pretty. This is fucked up. I bet they also say that the water in the San Francisco bay tastes like cinnamon due to pollution...."

[DeWolfeJV]

Pretty darn good episode.

[Grakiao]

Holy cow, thanks for another great episode Ross! I'm so excited for the next one!

[Schwarzwald]

Gordon Freeman has left the building.

 

But don't worry. He'll be back. With lots of badass explosions following in his wake.

 

Also he'll have plenty more timely sequels to recount his badass odyssey through time, space and beyond.

 

None of this wait 10 years for a half assed sequel. I'm looking at you Duke Nukem.

 

Oh and he's coming for you too Gabe, you obese ass monkey.

[hyperdragon97]

Why would Freeman care about killing the alien and saving the world? He doesn't care, he just want to get the fuck out of Black Mesa, and he cant care about these stupid scientists mumbling around about portals and shit either.

 

I think you are overthinking this to much.

Oh I think Freeman would care about that, he just doesn't see that as HIS responsibility. I mean Freeman isn't TRAINED as a fighter, he's just paranoid, lucky, and in an impenetrable suit. I plan on talking a little more about this in 62.

Can this be taken to mean that Episode 62 will feature the long-awaited moment in which the gravity of the situation hits Freeman like a freight train and completely redefines his perception of everything that's happened? Either way, looking forward to it!