Orb deftly continues its dramatization of the mid-millennial mélange of science, philosophy, and theology that shaped our current understanding of the universe. In other words, Oczy gets a new playmate. Although he’s initially reluctant to believe a guy like Oczy holds the keys to the cosmos, the disgraced monk Badeni changes his tune once he realizes he can use him for observational gruntwork. Nobody’s calling it an altruistic alliance, but every relationship has to start somewhere.

Badeni immediately impresses as a larger-than-life character willing to suffer any pain and humiliation to continue his study of the heavens. While “normal” clergymen would self-flagellate to atone for their sins, Badeni cashes in corporal punishment like a check that buys him time to do profane algebra. There’s some melodramatic absurdity baked into the torture scene, but it’s an efficient way of communicating his stubbornness while endearing the audience to him. It’s also important that, unlike the rest of our cast of main characters, Badeni isn’t a layperson. Prior heretics have already argued that heliocentrism is not intrinsically at odds with their faith, but Badeni’s frock pushes that idea further. His belief in a beautiful universe drives him to resolve the ugliness of geocentrism.

Badeni has convictions, but he’s not immune from hypocrisy. In the flashback, his superior chastises him for believing that humans could come to understand the mind of God. Ironically, Badeni throws that attitude back at the unlearned Oczy. Oczy also puts up little resistance to that admonishment, per usual, but he starts to open up by the end of the episode. While I had called Gras’ death a little gratuitous last week, its ripples make a stronger case for its narrative necessity. Oczy needed a shock to the system, and the contentment he saw in the face of his dying (and probably only) friend achieved that. It flipped his world upside down.

This week’s episode is less dramatic, yet no less compelling. The scene that stands out to me the most is actually one of the simplest and quietest: Badeni’s circumambulatory model of retrograde planetary motion. This is a basic demonstration that some of your science teachers probably forced you to do in school. But with that simplicity comes its elegance. It transposes the inconceivable sizes and distances of the cosmos onto something anyone can observe and understand. Moreover, it’s a teaching moment for both Oczy and the audience. Oczy learns something about the solar system, but we learn something about the power of human ingenuity. The telescope hasn’t even been invented yet, and these men can still perceive and connect huge truths about how planets orbit. I just think that’s so cool.

Switching from science nerd mode to literary nerd mode, I’ve also noticed that eyes continue to be an important motif throughout Orb. The show isn’t exactly subtle about it, either. There are practical reasons for this: astronomical observations are dependent on eyesight. The monks are partially blind to Badeni because they want to stop him from pursuing astronomy any further. Thus, Badeni teams up with Oczy because it gets him a working pair of eyes that can carry on his research. Eyes, however, are laden with meaning and symbolism, too. The watchful eye of the Inquisition fosters the atmosphere of paranoia clouding the study of heliocentrism. The disembodied eyes of celestial judgment stare back at Oczy when he thinks about all the evil trapped festering on Earth. Badeni’s partial blindness symbolizes his tunnel vision.

Finally, and more positively, an eye is also a sphere. The name and subtitle of the show prompt us to associate the titular orb with the objects in the sky: planets, stars, and so on. However, the persistent eye motif forces us to make this more personal connection as well. This story is not merely about orbs; it’s about orbs observing orbs. Maybe that’s a little too cute, but the reciprocity is supported by the show’s text. At the end of this episode, Badeni spells out his fundamental argument: heliocentrism does not sully the night sky with earth’s impurities, because it instead positions earth in harmony with the cosmos around it. We’re all made of the same stuff. It’s orbs all the way down.

Rating:

Orb: On the Movements of the Earth is currently streaming on
Netflix.

Steve is on Twitter while it lasts. He is busy pondering the orb. You can also catch him chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.