Does ‘See’ Make Any Sense? 17 Questions About Jason Momoa’s Wild Apple TV+ Show

Can we talk about See? I’m dying to talk about See! And don’t talk to me about plot points or theories or, Godflame help me, your ships. I legit only have time for one thing when it comes to the See discourse, and that is questions.

Because lordy, do I have questions.

That’s an understandable reaction to a show as mythologically dense and ambitious as See. The show, which stars a DC (Jason Momoa) and a Marvel (Alfre Woodard), is set on an Earth hundreds of years after a virus decimated the population and left the handful of survivors completely blind. Now, years later, a new human civilization has emerged without the ability to see. It’s a premise that begs many a question, and indeed, I have many of them after watching the first three episodes of the series (now available on Apple TV+).

Here are the burning questions that have been running through my mind and clogging up my Slack channels, confusing all my co-workers who have not yet seen See. Honestly, these seventeen questions just feel like the beginning…

1. Where’s all the stuff? If you’ve driven through, uh, America in the past decade, you know this country has rarely met a piece of land that doesn’t need a Walmart on top of it. Yet See, set hundreds of years after the fall of a cluttered civilization, is a completely clutter-free civilization! Aside from, like, a water cooler jug, See’s Earth is like an extreme Marie Kondo experiment. How is everything just forest now?? Did the virus that robbed people of their sight also turn Starbuckses into trees?
2. See is set in Pittsburgh? Really? Really. The Alkenny tribe comes from Allegheny, and Queen Kane’s Kanzua dam is the Kinzua Dam (not a stretch, that one).
3. So what was the Payan Kingdom? Was it named that because someone a hundred years ago misread or mispronounced a scratched up PennsYlvANia sign? I just know we’re going to get invading tribes from Wet Vernia and Oho at some point.
4. What are they saying all the time? Ironically for a show about blind people, See is a show you have to watch with subtitles because every now and then they say something like “scentiers” which is not a job, let alone an English word. It also sounds like “centaurs” which, honestly, not implausible for this show!
5. If scentiers are a thing, are there also heariers? Feeliers? Tastiers?!
6. Why is his name Jerlamarel? Why did See name a messianic heretic figure spoken about strictly in tense whispers with a name that makes it sound like he’s a Hanna-Barbera villain? It’s impossible to say “Jerlamarel” without sounding like you’re gargling consonants!
7. How does Baba Voss have a warrior rep if no one can see him do anything? I know seeing isn’t necessarily believing, but how does anyone know that Baba Voss is a fierce warrior? How does Baba Voss know who he’s fighting? How does anyone know they’re fighting Baba Voss? How do the members of any tribe know that their leader isn’t just stepping aside during battle and then being like, “Wow, I slit so many throats”?
8. Is the Godflame not the sun? I get that people need fire for warmth, not light, and during the day (which they have no concept of) they feel general warmth all around them, hence a “Godflame.” But the people also have a word for the sun (see next Q), so… are the sun and the Godflame two different things?
9. I can’t… just… Sun Grave? Context clues lead me to believe that Sun Grave is what people call the west, since the sun sets (or dies?) in the west every day. But, how do they know the sun exists and how do they know where it’s setting? And at what point did humanity forget the word “west” and replace it with a mouthful like “Sun Grave”?
10. Is Tamacti Jun actually Guy of Gisbourne? While every single one of his scenes gives me major Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves vibes, no, Tamacti Jun is not Guy of Gisbourne, nor is he Michael Wincott, nor is he Gary Cherone of Extreme. He’s actor Christian Camargo!
11. Can a record really survive the fall of mankind and still sound like it’s brand new? It can if it’s Lou Reed’s Transformer, I guess.
12. When did sex become prayer? In the world of See, Madonna is the only Madonna.
13. What does Pittsburgh look like? We know that Queen Kane’s kingdom has power, but… do they all just live in that dam? Is her kingdom literally just a dam?
14. Knowing that her twins are the only people in her tribe that can see, isn’t it super shitty of Maghra to tell her young children a fable all about the wicked evils of sight? Yes.
15. Why did Baba Voss and Maghra wait to name their kids? Were they waiting for Jerlamarel to just jump outta nowhere to name the twins? And why the hell would they trust a guy named Jerlamarel to name anything?!
16. How did the twins learn how to read? I get that Jerlamarel left them a big box of books arranged in reading comprehension order and told their guardians to not mix them up, but… don’t they need a key? Did he provide knotted rope (the language they can read) to get them started? How hard is it for 12-year-olds with zero concept of written language of any kind to suddenly learn how to read and comprehend concepts as complicated as genetics (which we know they’re aware of!)?
17. And that being said, what the hell do these post-apocalypse twins make of 1984?!

Stream See on Apple TV+