Wisdom of the Crowd episode 4 review: False narratives and fake martyrs

Wisdom of the Crowd episode 4 wasted almost no time at all before making one thing clear: It was willing to take risks. There’s almost no other way to describe an installment that opens things up with the murder of a white nationalist leader in the midst of violent clashes with counter-protestors. This was, by far, the most political episode of the season, and was also one that forced Jeffrey Tanner and his team to ask some tough questions regarding his Sophe platform.

For most of the season so far, Sophe has been allowed opportunities to be seen and perceived as a beacon of positivity. It has shown itself to be very much useful in bringing people together from all walks of life … and this is where the main case tonight feels a little bit different than the ones that have come before. When Cavanagh worked with Tanner to get the murder of this nationalist on Sophe, there were plenty of people out there who just didn’t care — or felt that the murder was deserved. When they found a suspect (who turned out to be a man in the United States illegally), people on the other side of the spectrum wanted him to dive.

“We can’t dictate what [people] do with what we make.” This was the argument that Tanner made in response to all of the negativity and backlash that came about as a result of the case getting off the ground. It’s a lovely way to look at the world, but as the story progressed it became all the clearer that the trolls were desperate to try and win out. They flooded the Sophe systems with bad data in hopes of reinforcing their own agenda.

Here’s the good news: Where there’s a will, there’s apparently an algorithm. They were eventually able to whittle down some of the results to a select group. In between this and getting some more information about a secret “retreat” he was out, the truth about this said nationalist was clear: He was not murdered in a traditional sense. He died, but he did so as an intentional martyr. He was diagnosed with cancer, and rather than go about an untimely end via that ordinary measure, he decided that he would rather be someone who died for a cause. Not only that, but his wife was involved in making sure that he died.

By the end of the episode she had to made a decision: Whether she wanted to be perceived herself as a murderer or a “loving wife” who did something to fulfill his final wishes. She refused to help, and in that sense, she apparently decided that she wanted to be a martyr herself. The sad story at the end of the episode is that no matter what the truth was about what happened here, the white supremacist army still chose to follow the narrative that best suited them, as opposed to the one that actually existed in reality.

The latest on the Mia investigation

Jeffrey is still doing everything that he can in order to find her, but over this episode he also lashed out in a harsher, angrier way than he has so far this season with his ex Alex. Where much of this stems from is her refusal to give in to some of his theories.

Tanner did learn about Ochoa’s stabbing near the end of the episode, but we wouldn’t say that this was an episode with a great deal of progress made over the course of it … aside from Tanner confessing to the Sophe userbase that he wasn’t upfront about everything with Mia’s history. He put everything about her case online, and realized that if he’s not transparent about himself, how could he be about anyone else?

What are your thoughts regarding Wisdom of the Crowd episode 4?

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