Amazon's new science-fiction drama Tales from the Loop follows several personal and interconnected stories - each centered on a piece of mysterious technology. Developed by Legion writer Nathaniel Halpern, the series is based on the 2014 narrative artbook created by Simon Stålenhag. Tales from the Loop also drew inspiration from the table-top role-playing game the book spawned in 2017. Starring Iron Man 3's Rebecca Hall, Jonathan Pryce, and many more, the 8-part series is set in and around the town of Mercer, Ohio. The entire first season was released via Amazon Prime on April 3, 2020.
Though ostensibly a normal town on the surface, it is actually home to the Mercer Center for Experimental Physics - which is known colloquially as The Loop. Created by Russ Willard (Pryce), the facility's mission statement is to make possible the seemingly impossible. Based underground, its resident scientists conduct numerous (and often unspecified) experiments. Though seemingly rigid in its security, several resulting pieces of technology make their way out into the town and into the path of certain townspeople. Though it has yet to be renewed for a second season, Tales from the Loop is already drawing comparisons to Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone.
The exact origin of each piece of technology, right down to who actually created it, is never explicitly revealed. Equally, it's never conveyed how most of the anachronistic objects are able to do the miraculous things that they can. Instead, the show opted to focus on the existential ennui and moral dilemmas of the characters with which it comes into contact. As such, rather than allowing the show to be dragged into practicality by explaining each device, Tales from the Loop merely utilized them in a thematic context and weaved them into each character's personal and emotional journeys. Here's a breakdown of each piece of tech and how they affected the episode's main characters.
Episode 1 - The Eclipse
In Tales from the Loop season 1, episode 1, "Loop", viewers are introduced to a young girl named Loretta (MCU's Abby Ryder Fortson). Established as very intelligent in her own right, Loretta is the daughter of a scientist at The Loop named Alma. It's quickly revealed that Alma is conducting an illicit experiment, for which she stole a piece of something called the Eclipse. Returning home from school one day, Loretta finds that both Alma and their entire house has disappeared. All that remains in its place is the little black fragment. A test of the rock would later reveal that it defies gravity. More prominent in the episode, however, is that the fragment sends Loretta decades into the future.
There, Loretta meets her older self (Hall) and her own future children. As such, it's emphasized that Loretta's life is punctuated by a wholly different kind of loop. The nature of the Eclipse is never truly defined beyond being described as "the beating heart of The Loop". It equally fuels Loretta's time-spanning adventure, which begins when she first picks up the fragment and concludes when she returns it to where it belongs. It also helps both iterations of the character achieve a level of cathartic closure. Though the younger version is destined to spend many years believing that the experience was a dream, the journey teaches her that things will ultimately be okay despite having lost her mother. Equally, it allows the older version to (literally and figuratively) reconcile with her childhood and to not repeat the same mistakes as her own mother. As such, the experience allowed her to connect with her own child, Cole, more deeply.
Episode 2 - The Transposer
In Tales from the Loop season 1, episode 2, "Transpose", viewers shift to follow Loretta's teenage son Jakob (Daniel Zolghadri) as he and his friend Danny (Tyler Barnhard) discover a device in the woods. With Jakob climbing inside, the pair discover that it enables them to switch bodies. Though freaked out at first, they eventually decide to play around with the idea for a day. Jakob initially rejoices at inhabiting a more athletic, socially desired physique - even experiencing his first kiss.
Unfortunately, Danny grows even more comfortable in Jakob's life and the broader wealth of opportunities it affords him. Refusing to switch back, things end bleakly with Jakob's desperate attempt to force the issue ending with Danny's body in a coma and his mind trapped within a local robot. This particular plot is one that continues to play in the background of subsequent episodes, with Danny increasingly missing his own family and robot Jakob lurking on the periphery. The episode itself, however, serves as a tragic allegory for never knowing what's going on with another person - however confident they appear and appealing their lives may seem from the outside - and that a new life doesn't always equal an escape from problems.
Episode 3 - The Stasis Device
Tales from the Loop season 1, episode 3, "Stasis" follows the character of May (Nicole Law). Established in the previous episode as a girl Jakob has a crush on and whom Danny started dating while in Jakob's body, May is revealed as a tech-savvy teenager with a passion for figuring out how things worked. Despite dating "Jakob", May meets and falls for Ethan (Danny Kang) and is eager to make the early excitement of a romance last forever. May appears to get her wish when she finds a device while fishing. Fixing it, she finds that the on/off switch can control time itself. Wanting to avoid outside interference and having reality get in the way, she and Danny spend the next few months with time (and everybody else) frozen around them.
The episode served as a fitting metaphor for how many feel at the state of a new relationship, with little else seeming to exist outside of it. Unfortunately, as both May and Danny discover, the honeymoon period can only last so long before genuine effort needs to be put into the relationship. While the outside world can be ignored or shut away, there is no escaping the issues that can emerge from within oneself. And, as May's father intones towards the end of the episode, "sometimes things are special because they don't last".
Episode 4 - The Echo Sphere
In Amazon's Tales from the Loop season 1, episode 4, "Echo Sphere" revisits Loretta's son, Cole (Duncan Joiner), more directly. It's revealed that Cole spends frequent time with his grandfather (and Loop founder), Russ. On one of their outings, Russ takes Cole to the titular echo chamber. Though left to rust on the outskirts of town, the structure is revealed to still be functional when Russ instructs Cole to yell into it. Doing so, Cole receives six increasingly aged echoes in response. Russ informs him that each echo denotes a different stage in Cole's life to come and that the number of echoes directly corresponds to how long your life will be. Sadly, when Russ is encouraged to try it for himself, he receives no echoes and is forced to reveal a terminal diagnosis to his family. From there, the episode becomes a meditation on learning to let go, coping with regrets, and what constitutes a life well-lived.
Episode 5 - The Scrapper
Tales from the Loop season 1, episode 5, "Control" revisits Danny's family in the wake of his decision to abandon his life in favor of stealing Jakob's. With Danny's body still in a hospital, it's revealed that the family is suffering severe financial difficulty due to medical bills. The pressure weighing on his father Ed (Dan Bakkedahl) is further exacerbated when things at home start to break down and he catches somebody haven broken into his house. Though it's revealed to have been Danny secretly visiting his sister in Jakob's form, Ed remains in the dark and further driven to extreme measures to "protect" his family. That ultimately sees him purchase an android known as a scrapper from the local junkyard.
Primarily used to crush and transport heavy pieces of junk, the device is controlled via a pack attached to your own body. As a result, the machine can mimic the movements of its user like something out of Real Steel. The concept is played for both laughs and drama as Ed becomes increasingly reliant on it. Forgoing sleep in order to serve as a neighborhood sentry alongside the machine, his efforts are met with the chagrin of his wife, his neighbors, and even the local police. The matter comes to a head when Ed comes close to almost fatally injuring his young daughter. As a result, Ed learns to accept that not everything can be fixed and accepting that some things are out of one's control is sometimes the only control one can have. Equally, the concept is also no doubt an allegory for real-world situations - wherein the tools that are supposed to keep people safe can often do more harm than good when used emotionally.
Episode 6 - The Tractor
Tales from the Loop season 1, episode 6, "Parallel" centered on a seemingly abandoned tractor in one of the town's fields. Attempting to fix it (with brief help from episode 3's May), Loop security guard Gaddis (Ato Essandoh) comes more centrally into focus. Lonely and driven by a photo of an attractive man he found on the tractor, he ultimately manages to get the machine working. Despite the fact it seemingly floats above the ground, the tractor is merely designed for fieldwork rather than something more scientific. However, with shades of The Flash and Fringe, the work at The Loop is revealed to have caused the machine to become quantum entangled with a parallel universe.
It's never revealed what exactly pulled the machinery into Gaddis' world in the Amazon series. The moment he turns the key, though, he is immediately transported alongside the tractor to its original world. Once there, with the tractor no longer able to serve the same function, Gaddis finds himself trapped. Rather than pursue a goal of getting home, the tractor is immediately left in the background in favor of an interpersonal journey. A journey that revolves around the man from the photo, Alex, whom Gaddis discovers to be in a relationship with an alternate version of himself. At first, befriending them, Gaddis ultimately embarks on an ill-fated affair with Alex - only to learn the lessons that nothing is truly perfect and that to latch onto a fantasy can often blind you from seeing something genuine lurking right under your nose.
Episode 7 - The "Monster"
In Amazon's Tales from the Loop season 1, episode 7, "Enemies" delves into the adolescent years of Cole and Jakob's father, George (Paul Schneider). Coerced by his supposed friends into visiting a nearby island, he is ultimately left stranded. Bitten by a snake, his arm becomes increasingly septic as he's forced to endure a night alone amid torrential weather. When he's finally rescued, it's revealed that his arm had to be amputated - explaining the advanced prosthetic adult George was seen sporting in earlier episodes. That isn't the central gadget of the episode, however. Before he is rescued, he discovers that the rumors of a monster lurking on the island are somewhat true.
Unlike such shows as Lost, it turns out to be a hyperintelligent android that had merely booby-trapped the island rather than a monster. Believing himself under attack, George fought back with a stun gun, causing the robot to also lose an arm. Now in adulthood and still grieving the death of his father, George finds himself haunted by the experience. Having been forbidden from talking about it by his father, George now learns the truth of the robot from his much more forthcoming mother. Unlike the other devices, the robot is revealed to have been created by Russ personally. Though considered to be alive, it was met with fear by those who learned of it. As a result, Russ was forced to abandon it on the island for its own safety. Upon learning this, and having been similarly abandoned by his father (to the point he chose work over George's wedding), he confronts his fear and returns to the island. There, rather than something to be feared, both George and the android reunite as lifelong outsiders and somewhat kindred spirits.
Episode 8 - The Stream and Sarah the Teacher
In Tales from the Loop season 1's ending, episode 8, "Home", comes the conclusion to the story of the Willard family, bringing multiple threads heartbreakingly yet hopefully full circle. Having learned the truth regarding the body swap between Jakob and Danny, Cole sought out the robot now housing his brother's mind. Unfortunately, once he had, the journey to get their mother's assistance was knocked off course when another robot attacked and damaged Jakob. Still holding onto hope that he could restore things to how they used to be, Cole trekked onwards, crossing a once frozen stream that had now unthawed. Things immediately share similarities with Flight of the Navigator, however, when Cole inadvertently found himself decades in the future - paralleling his mother's journey from when she was a child. The nature of the geographical feature is never explicitly explained, though its anomalous time properties are known to Loretta. As such, it serving as a barrier around Mercer could explain the town's various anachronisms.
Though Cole found his mother still alive, it was revealed through a montage that Jakob had been found but was unable to be saved. Equally, though it had been a short while for Cole, both his grandmother and father had passed away in the interim. Still inhabiting his brother's body, Danny had also grown up and had a daughter now of his own. With no way of returning back the way he had come, Cole was forced to adjust to his new normal. He received a little help in that regard from a secondary gadget of the episode - with it expressly revealed that Sarah was an android that had functioned agelessly as the school's teacher for over five decades. Created by Cole's grandfather, Russ, she had been the second iteration - created after the one from the island. Unlike that one, however, she had been designed to more effectively pass for human.
Speaking with Cole, Sarah served to fully encapsulate the themes that had been running through the entire first season. "Change is a part of nature," she said. As such, all anybody can really do is go with it - all the while forging memories and catching snapshots of life as it unfolds along the way. After all, has repeatedly stated across the eight episodes, things can go by in "the blink of an eye". Such themes were further hammered home by young Cole frequently taking photos on his grandmother's camera and adult visiting his childhood house but never actually able to go home again. Though it effectively rounded off the journeys of the Willard family, there were several characters that weren't revisited. Given that and the fact that the show ended in a whole new era, it begs several questions for where Tales from the Loop could go next - should it receive a second season.