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The first minutes of the Season 2 premiere of Lodge 49 are, like most of the show itself, a psychedelic journey into the cryptic quest for the meaning of life. After a truly bizarre in media res featuring a parachuting Paul Giamatti and a corporate mascot in flames jumping out of a plane, Dud (Wyatt Russell) lays in a hospital bed, no doubt foggy from the drugs that accompany his recovery from the shark attack he suffered in the Season 1 finale, while a tableau of imagery featuring the show’s characters spins around him like a carnival ride of museum still-life. (You can see a clip of it in the tweet below.)
For fans of the impossible-to-describe series, this isn’t new. Lodge 49 is full of secrets both in the plot (how much of the Lynx’s mythology is real?) and in its presentation (what’s with all the crows?). But do they really matter? Should we be treating Lodge 49 like Westworld and cracking every clue handed to us to unlock all of its secrets, or should be just chill out and enjoy the scenery? It sounds like a bit of both.
#Lodge49 is calling in those bar tabs! 8.12 on AMC. pic.twitter.com/81ezXuKzrp
— Lodge 49 TONIGHT 10/9c (@Lodge49) July 24, 2019
“My attitude is it’s all there for the taking,” creator Jim Gavin told TV Guide at the Television Critics Association summer press tour. “I think you can watch the show in many ways. I will say nothing is there on accident, and the stuff we reference, the images you see on the walls and stuff, everything is chosen, and I think we show our hand sometimes, but we’re also very content just to let [the audience think about it].”
“I think it’s great not to over interpret.” added Giamatti, who serves as an executive producer. A user on Reddit could have used that advice. Lodge 49 remains a hidden gem in the growing pile of television being thrown at us, but internet sleuthing has found its way to the sun-bleached drama as evidenced by this lengthy post trying to breakdown all the symbolism and meaning from Dud’s hallucination.
Eric Allan Kramer, Lodge 49
“It’s not meant to lead to a pot of gold, we don’t ever want the end result to be distracting from the journey,” Gavin added. “If you enjoy it, enjoy it! It’s there for a purpose, but it’s not meant to be the real point of the show.”
But there’s at least one planted image in the show that apparently has some significant meaning, and no one has solved it… yet.
Even Those Who Make the Puzzling and Fantastic Lodge 49 Don’t Know How to Describe It
“There’s a portrait of a crow above the fireplace in the library of the lodge, and that is a very specific print that has a very specific meaning — someone will crack that at some point,” Gavin says.
Sounds like you’ve been tasked with a quest, internet.
Lodge 49 airs Monday nights at 10/9c on AMC.