Recap / Philip K Dicks Electric Dreams S 1 E 7 Kill All Others

• Adaptation Title Change: "Kill All Others" is based on the short story "The Hanging Stranger".
• Advert-Overloaded Future:
  • Holographic characters advertising various products show up uninvited within the protagonist's home. He is treated as unusual for resenting this.
  • Sex Sells: The characters are apparently closely tailored to individuals' sexual preferences to get them to buy more products, and people buy certain brands specifically to get closer to certain characters.
  • Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: The characters aren't tangible and aren't actually programmed with naughty bits, but that doesn't prevent the protagonist's wife from emotionally cheating on him with one.
• Apathetic Citizens: Anyone who is not an "Other".
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Critics almost universally picked up that "the Candidate" in this story is a metaphor for Donald Trump, though people were quick to point out that there were also clear thematic parallels to Hillary Rodham Clinton (a female politician who expects a "coronation") and even Barack Obama ("Mexuscan, Yes Us Can!" = "Yes We Can")
• Expanded States of America: The United States has merged with Canada and Mexico to form the unfortunately named polity of "Mexuscan". It is unclear if "Mexuscan" itself is a sovereign state or part of some larger world state, since the ending has the Candidate describe expanding the "Kill All Others" policy to the entire Western Hemisphere.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Philip K. Dick's original story, "The Hanging Stranger", was about a Body Snatcher scenario where the hanging corpse was put up as an Impostor-Exposing Test for unconverted humans. In this story, there's no indication anyone in the world is anything other than human, and the lesson is that Humans Are Bastards.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • The politician around whom the episode revolves is always referred to, including in print, as "the Candidate," with no name given, and only goes by "they/them" pronouns (even though they are played by Vera Farmiga and present as feminine). Whether this is related to the Mexuscan government's unique form of media-driven one-party rule is left unexplained.
  • No one ever defines what exactly an "Other" is, aside from the general sense of people who are somehow different and disloyal. In the end it seems an "Other" is anyone who feels threatened by or opposed to the phrase "Kill All Others".
• Sham Ceremony: The upcoming election is treated as very Serious Business even though it's a Foregone Conclusion since there's only one candidate (who is never referred to by name, only "the Candidate"). It's unclear whether this means "the Candidate" is a President for Life or whether this is a process by which the populace rubber stamps the party bureaucracy's decision, as in real-life one-party states (the Candidate says they took part in a long, grueling selection process to become the Candidate, but it's unclear whether this was any more competitive than the "election").
• Subliminal Seduction: Subverted. It is implied at first that this is what is going on with "Kill All Others", with the phrase flashing and glitching randomly during the Candidate's speech, and no one but the main character apparently having heard them say it. We then find out that people did actually hear the phrase and understand it, but just don't see it as remarkable because dehumanization and making scapegoats out of "the Other" is human nature. In the end the Candidate gives a whole speech that is quite clearly ''superliminal'' laying out the "Kill All Others" philosophy in explicit detail, which everyone blithely accepts.
• Title Drop: In the Candidate's opening speech. Doubles as Arc Words.
• Witch Hunt: The whole premise.