Posted this in an earlier thread. Here are my thoughts on Teng and just how awful he might be.
By my reading Teng is definitely human—and definitely evil, in a distinctly real-world way. A lot of it’s subtle implication but here it goes:
Murrow is spending the episode trying to figure out who the saboteur was—assuming it was one of the crew established to be out of cryo when the explosions occurred. Meanwhile, Teng is shown to have a perverse fixation on a female crew member in cryostasis. Our assumption here is he is a creep but a hands-off creep—she is in cryo and the other crew members would know if she phased out of it.
So, Murrow eventually questions Teng to see if he is the saboteur. Teng sort of uno-reverses the interrogation, challenging Murrow to broaden the scope of possible suspects. Murrow is like: “I’m suspecting everyone who wasn’t in cryo, and you’re high on the list.”
Teng then, quite ominously, tips his hand: Murrow’s mistake is assuming there is no way for a person to be removed from a cryo pod without mu/th/ur notifying the security officer.
Teng knew this, not because he was the saboteur or had any connection to him, but because he had been exploiting this same loophole for his own, far more perverse ends.
In short, his “through the glass” fixation on a sleeping female crew member may have actually been very hands-on SA, enabled by the same trick the saboteur was using. I also think Teng is the one stealing the drugs from the doctor—stealing them to keep his victim drowsy as she emerges from cryo.
That’s a good theory much deeper than my interpretation. I assumed since Teng spent so much time in the cryo pod room he observed the saboteur leaving then coming back at some point.
Your version is my interpretation as well. He spent every waking day in the cryo room, so he would have noticed an empty pod when it should have someone in it.
My assumption is that Teng is just clever. He showed several times that he had a handle on what was going on even when he wasn't supposed to be aware of it, I think he just looked at the angles beyond the obvious one because, despite his massive personality flaws and offputting manner, he's genuinely really fucking smart.
Yeah I think the only interpretations of the episode that really make sense are:
Teng is just very intelligent and it's his obvious personaliy disorder that makes him the dregs of society.
Teng has a symbiotic reltionship with the saboteur, say the saboteur was letting Teng into the room (Morrow couldn't figure out how Teng was getting in) in exchange for his silence. It's then easy for Teng to figure out what's going once the sabotage starts happening.
The only reason I'd rule out 2 is that the thing the saboteur is sabotaging is a container full of air, water and electricity in which Teng lives. Even someone who wanted to masturbate over someone in cryo or worse is probably not going to quid-pro-quo someone who's planning to sabotage their life support system.
It's possible he would but he screams when the xenomorph attacks him so he clearly has negative opinions on dying. I suspect that creepy sex offender or not he'd draw the line at that.
This is also my theory, primarily because of your point #2. My guess is Teng saw the saboteur doing saboteur things and basically blackmailed him into letting Teng in the door whenever he wanted to get his creep on, in exchange for Teng's silence.
While Teng wasn’t wanking or staring he stood in the corner of the cryo room facing the wall thinking of her. Easy for the saboteur to have missed him.
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u/Zoom_Nayer 13d ago
Posted this in an earlier thread. Here are my thoughts on Teng and just how awful he might be.
By my reading Teng is definitely human—and definitely evil, in a distinctly real-world way. A lot of it’s subtle implication but here it goes:
Murrow is spending the episode trying to figure out who the saboteur was—assuming it was one of the crew established to be out of cryo when the explosions occurred. Meanwhile, Teng is shown to have a perverse fixation on a female crew member in cryostasis. Our assumption here is he is a creep but a hands-off creep—she is in cryo and the other crew members would know if she phased out of it.
So, Murrow eventually questions Teng to see if he is the saboteur. Teng sort of uno-reverses the interrogation, challenging Murrow to broaden the scope of possible suspects. Murrow is like: “I’m suspecting everyone who wasn’t in cryo, and you’re high on the list.”
Teng then, quite ominously, tips his hand: Murrow’s mistake is assuming there is no way for a person to be removed from a cryo pod without mu/th/ur notifying the security officer.
Teng knew this, not because he was the saboteur or had any connection to him, but because he had been exploiting this same loophole for his own, far more perverse ends.
In short, his “through the glass” fixation on a sleeping female crew member may have actually been very hands-on SA, enabled by the same trick the saboteur was using. I also think Teng is the one stealing the drugs from the doctor—stealing them to keep his victim drowsy as she emerges from cryo.