Series

Overview[]

An overriding theme of the series is the nature of reality and chaos. Unrelated storyline points interact with each other by the end of the episode and random chance plays a large part in the character's decisions.

Episodes[]

The first 2 series are almost totally devoid of speech, and all of them encourage a lack of continuity, with this being especially noticeable in the second series, which features the death of Aeon in every episode.

Season 1 (1991)[]

Each of the six episodes in the first season was originally broadcast as a 2-minute segment of “Liquid Television”. On home media releases they are compiled into a single “pilot” episode.

Pilot[]

Episode: 1 - 6
Storyline: The episode starts with the now-famous scene where Aeon catches a fly with her eyelashes. We then cut to an apparent battle between Monican agents and Breen forces, with Aeon liberally mowing down dozens of soldiers on her quest to apparently assassinate a Breen Official, though most of them are already sick and dying from a strange disease carried by an azure beetle. As hundreds of soldiers die in the sewers, Trevor Goodchild finds and takes in one of the beetles, hiding it in his finger and carrying it with his lover to the top of the building where Aeon’s target is sleeping. While going there, Aeon sees Trevor and the woman fondling each other, and shows signs of longing for such treatment. As Aeon travels on her own path, Trevor uses the infectious toxin in the beetle to formulate an antidote, which he first uses on himself and his lover. Aeon has travelled up onto the roof, unwittingly picking up a tack from a loose cable fastening on the sole of her boot. As she prepares to kill her victim, she steps on the tack, stabs her foot and falls from the building to her death. The Monican authorities destroy her body and burn her apartment, while Trevor is hailed as a hero for developing a cure for the virus. In the final part of the episode, a young boy is seen buying a magazine with Aeon exhibiting a foot fetish, while Aeon goes into a strange heaven where a spirit does to her what she exhibited in the magazine.

Season 2 (1992)[]

Each episode of the second season was broadcast as a 5-minute segment of “Liquid Television”.

Gravity[]

Episode: 1
Storyline: As the episode opens, Aeon and Trevor are kissing through the windows of their transports, with the former being in a plane and the latter being in a train. As they do, Trevor uses his tongue to open up Aeon’s fake tooth and place a rolled up picture inside. After the two of them part, Aeon spies an industrial vehicle driving past. Aeon then retrieves the picture from her tooth to find it is a photo of a fellow passenger, and a suitcase. She climbs out and moves along the side of the plane to spy on the man, who is reading documents from the same suitcase. Aeon must jump mid-air to the back of the plane to get inside, but she misses and falls. Realising her fate, Aeon prepares to shoot herself, but distracted by the industrial vehicle from earlier stopping at the edge of a cliff. The workers pull at ropes to bring something to the surface while an intrigued Aeon struggles to keep her binoculars at her eyes from the air resistance. She notices a bridge near the point where she will land, and shoots her grapple at it. At the same time Trevor’s train is passing over the bridge and inside he is kissing his Breen lover. While she swings from the rope Aeon is again distracted by the men salvaging the object which is obscured from view by the cliff, but is glowing brightly. Aeon’s distraction leads the rope to loop around her neck. A moment before she can clearly see what the object is, her neck is snapped.

Mirror[]

Episode: 2
Storyline: In this episode, Aeon is on an assassination mission. She infiltrates her target’s home via a maintenance ladder. On her entry she falls from the ladder, and notices she is spied on by a security camera. While walking down a hallway she notices a room where the security camera recorder is being kept, and enters. She goes to destroy the tape but at the last minute decides to review the footage. The picture is faulty because of a loose video jack shorting against an air vent. Aeon goes to fix the connection but spills coffee on her gloved arm. Unnoticed by the departing Aeon, footage of another intruder previously entering the building plays on the monitor. While washing her arm, Aeon accidentally sprays water on herself in the bathroom’s shower and spoils her signature hairstyle. Aeon then hears gunshots, and evacuates the area to find her target killed. She rushes out of the bedroom, but is then also shot by the assassin. While Aeon lies on the floor dying, she looks at the exiting figure in the security monitor, but the image is still distorted. Aeon shoots a nearby temperature control knob, disabling the air conditioner. With the air conditioning off, the loose video cable stops shaking, and the security camera picture clears up. Just before she dies, Aeon sees the face of the her killer on the monitor, Trevor Goodchild.

Leisure[]

Episode: 3
Storyline: Aeon enters her living quarters to find a container of eggs she was keeping in her refrigerator. But she finds that Trevor, who is in a cupboard, has had them all. Angry, Aeon leaves her apartment, but before venturing outside the Monican base, she witnesses another agent fail to successfully complete jumping through a complex climbing frame. Aeon steps up to practice jumping through, just as the other female agent walks away, and flawlessly executes the complex routine. Later, she enters a strange base and collects some of the same eggs seen earlier in her apartment. Resisting the urge to leave, Aeon breaks one of the eggs and analyses the broken contents under a portable microscope and finds an aggressive infant form of a strange ‘alien’ lifeform. The infant dies as a result of her probing. On her way out Aeon is confronted by an adult alien, but she holds up one of the eggs and threatens to break it if the alien attacks her. She runs away, and the alien triggers a grid barrier similar to the one at the Monican training base. Aeon begins surmounting it with ease, but the Alien, with its four legs, is far faster and swiftly catches up to Aeon, killing her.

Tide[]

Episode: 4
Storyline: In the episode, Aeon and her red-clad companion are descending from the high floor of a sea base, carrying a key. As the two enter a lift, they are attacked by Trevor, who is easily knocked out by Aeon, but not before he pushes all the lift’s buttons at once, sending the lift down through all the levels. She handcuffs him, but drops the floor number attached to the key, leaving her no choice but to go down from level to level. On each floor, Aeon shoots up the stairwell to keep a pursuing Breen soldier at bay, tests the key on that floor’s locker and shoots a distant sky hook that is attempting to latch on to the railing of a small, distant, water level platform. Each time she exits the lift, Trevor and the red-clothed agent make love, with the agent springing back to either guard Trevor or try to retrieve the number. Aeon begins to suspect and sets a trap, exposing the agent’s weakness. The agent attacks and apparently kills Aeon as she advances, then comes out on the correct floor for the key and finds an odd plug-shaped object in the locker; not knowing what it is for, she discards it. Without Aeon to keep him at bay, the Breen guard runs down to the small platform, killing Trevor on the way, and helps the sky-hook get a grip on the platform’s railing. Just before the red-clad agent reaches them, the sky-hook lifts up the entire platform, revealing an identical plug attached below it. The base sinks and the agent is left stranded.

War[]

Episode: 5
Storyline: This episode focuses on a massive battle between the leather-clad, dark-haired Monicans and the Aryan soldiers of Bregna, with Aeon Flux in the thick of battle. During the course of the battle, Aeon cuts down dozens of guards before she is knocked down by a Breen guard who had been playing dead. Aeon sees another Monican agent creeping up on the guard and keeps him distracted with alluring tongue movements. But the Breen sees the agent and kills him and Aeon. The Breen makes his way into the battle, slaughtering dozens more attackers, and encounters a long-haired, super-fit Monican agent (called Romeo Svengali in the DVD commentary) with a sword. The Breen tries to shoot the agent down, but the bullet is deflected and the Monican kills the Breen. We then follow the Monican as he opens a way into a heavy-duty prison and heads up into a Breen airship, killing more soldiers before being shot in the chest. The track then switches to a redhead female Breen agent who infiltrates the base and frees someone who seems to be her lover from his cell. They run, pursued by guards, but are heading towards a pool of grease started when the Monican opened the gate.

Season 3 (1995)[]

In its third and final season, “Aeon Flux” became a standalone program with each episode given a half-hour time slot with commercials.

Utopia or Deuteranopia?[]

Episode: 1
Storyline: In the episode, Aeon has infiltrated Bregna at a time when Trevor Goodchild has accepted power ‘temporarily’ from the kidnapped chairman Clavius. Soon, Trevor enacts a policy of ‘complete openness’, installing cameras all across Bregna and giving him ultimate control over the people. But Gildemere, a Breen soldier loyal to Clavius, is plotting against the new Chairman, guessing rightly that Trevor was the mastermind behind the kidnapping. Trevor’s reasons for the coup are two-fold; he gains ultimate power in Bregna, and uses Clavius’ body to create an isolated place, locked with a strange ornate key, where he can keep Aeon for good, keeping her to himself in perfect privacy. Aeon, for her own reasons, allies with Gildemere and finds her way “into” Clavius, confronting Trevor and leading Gildemere to his leader, allowing him to free Clavius from Trevor’s captivity: however Clavius is revealed to be completely insane and Gildemere is forced to kill him. He and Aeon then fight and she easily overpowers him. Trevor finds them both near the walled frontier and Gildemere condemns Trevor as a traitor. But Aeon uses the key to Clavius to unlock her own underwear and provoke the other soldiers into showing duplicate keys, apparently discrediting Gildemere’s claims and opening the way for Trevor to cement his power. But Trevor’s wish to keep Aeon to himself is not granted, since Aeon prepared her escape route beforehand and, though she returns the key to Trevor, flees across the frontier to Monica.

Isthmus Crypticus[]

Episode: 2
Storyline: Trevor has two humanoid birds held captive, named Seraph-Trevs, the Female of which he is trying to seduce. Meanwhile, another scientist named Ilbren is planning to have his way with the Female, even going as far as trying to employ Aeon to capture it and offering the Male in return. Their meeting is interrupted by a mechanical tentacle, which Ilbren fends off with a swarm of robot wasps. The Male Seraph-Trev is securely held in a separate cell, reduced to a state of abject misery by separation from his mate. Aeon plans free them from Ilbren and Trevor’s designs, and to do so employs an old friend of hers, named Una, to translate directions to the Birds’ chambers. Una is a social misfit like Aeon and has apparently fallen in love with the Male Bird, of whom she is sent a picture (it is revealed that the Male seemingly sent out the bird with the picture, perhaps as a call for help). Though distraction to the picture prevents Una from translating the directions in the time she is given beforehand, Aeon and Una infiltrate the base anyway. Una guides Aeon through the network of tunnels, but then sets out on her own to find the Male when she realises where Aeon wishes to go. Ilbren finds and ambushes Trevor, tying him up and making his way to the Female. Trevor breaks free and finds Ilbren with the Female, while Una and Aeon are arguing over the Male. Aeon blows a hole in the wall dividing the two Birds and the Female rushes to embrace her mate, but one of Ilbren’s robot wasp escapes and stings the Female, killing her. The Male, though saddened, takes Una and the two fly off in an ecstatic embrace. Trevor kills Ilbren and, mourning the death of the Female, tells Aeon to go to Hell. Aeon replies “Will you fly me there?”. The episode ends with Una and the Male flying through the clouds, though a small mite from the Male jumps onto Una and bites her, hinting that she will meet the same fate as the Female.

Thanatophobia[]

Episode: 3
Storyline: The episode starts with a pair of boys play-fighting, while another claps to mimic the sound of heavy punches. That boy later flicks a pebble into the path of one of the border turrets, activating it and watching the resulting spectacle. Trevor Goodchild is being pressured by the government into making the border more intimidating, despite his want to make people stay in Bregna through the ‘power of ideas’. To this end, he secretly allows Aeon to come in and bomb the factory where the parts for the wall are being made. In a parallel and intertwined storyline, two Breen lovers, Onan and Sybil, seek to escape from Bregna into Monica through a gap in the frontier. The escape is almost a success, but one of the turrets shoots Sybil in the back, destroying one of her vertebrae. Now she can only stand up straight when a special ampoule is inserted, though when she takes it out she has otherwise impossible flexibility, making crossing successfully a stronger possibility. When she is forced to work in the factory being bombed by Aeon to pay off her medical bill, Trevor takes an interest in Sybil and visits her in the guise of a doctor, manipulating her nerves though the gap in her spine to stimulate orgasm. Jealous, Aeon indulges Onan in his sexual fetishes while he visits her to find another way of getting his lover across. Eventually, Sybil finds out and angrily refuses Aeon’s offer of help, telling Goodchild about Aeon’s secret way into Bregna, and finding out about his resistance to the new border defenses. Trapping a returned Onan in her apartment, Sybil attempts the border crossing again. This time, she avoids the turrets, but before she can pass through the small entrance into Monica, wires trap her legs and robots built with the parts she has been helping to manufacture anesthetize and amputate them, leaving her trapped in Bregna forever. The episode ends with the boys from the beginning fighting each other for real, with the clapping boy sitting nearby, though now his arms are missing, showing that he had tried his stone trick again and been caught by the robots.

A Last Time for Everything[]

Episode: 4
Storyline: By the time the episode starts, Goodchild has perfected a method of human cloning. Determined to put an end to the operation, Aeon and a fellow agent Scaphandra, who is a double-agent for Bregna and lost parts of her feet on a crossing and had a hand-transplant to replace what had been lost, cross the border into Bregna. As Aeon rushes towards Trevor’s base of operations, Scaphandra is captured and taken to Goodchild, who takes a sample of her for copying. Aeon comes in, frees Scaphandra and tackles Trevor about the ethics and inner purposes of his operation. Deliberately presenting an opportunity for Trevor, Aeon allows him to take a sample of her, though Aeon smashes Scaphandra’s sample. After Aeon leaves, Trevor copies Aeon for himself. It is revealed to be a complex plot by Aeon to inflict maximum pain on Goodchild by exchanging places with her Copy, toying with Trevor’s feelings, then allowing her Copy to kill her. But as she performs her half of the mission, the real Aeon begins to lose herself, developing feelings for Trevor and vice versa. But, while she is still herself, she orders her Copy to kill Scaphandra. The Copy carries out her twin’s request, pretending to cross the border with Scaphandra and hanging back, allowing the turrets to cut down her treacherous partner. It is then that the real Aeon, who now looks and dresses very differently from her old self, comes and confronts the Copy. The two Aeons, reluctantly, go to perform the border run and Trevor, not wanting the Aeon he has come to love to die, orders the turrets to be deactivated. The two Aeons do part of the run, then, as Trevor watches in horror, the real Aeon stops and allows the turrets to shoot her, just before they are shut down. The episode ends with Trevor cradling Aeon’s body, shedding tears, while the Copy escapes back into Monica.

The Demiurge[]

Episode: 5
Storyline: The story starts with a battle between Monican agents and Breen forces. Aeon and the Monicans had captured an astral being called the Demiurge, which is threatening to dangerously warp people’s view of the world, and are preparing to launch it into space. Trevor is determined to stop them, believing that the Demiurge will ensure a lasting peace for humanity. The rocket is successfully launched after bloody Pyrrhic victory, but not before the Demiurge instils parts of itself in earthly Avatars: a cat, a bird, and a resurrected Monican agent named Nader. Over the course of the episode, the three Avatars meet different fates: the bird is captured by Aeon in a Monican morgue and apparently vanishes, the cat is nearly killed by Nader’s lover Celia, who was obeying her lover’s last request to her, but prevents its death only to fade when alone, and Nader is taken to a Breen base for experimentation, where he begins to show signs of pregnancy. Aeon has gone to her apartment, an unstable structure supported by a single cable, and seen Nader’s condition. Celia, apparently wanting to steal the Bird Avatar, infiltrates the home and is killed by Aeon, without the assassin even seeing whom she has killed. Aeon goes to kill Nader’s ‘baby’, but is too late to stop Trevor extracting it; it is a new humanoid form of the Demiurge. As the Demiurge’s power manifests itself in people nearby as extreme positive and negative emotions, Aeon and Trevor fight over it as it rapidly grows to maturity, taking on a physical form similar to its host. Celia is resurrected by the Demiurge and carried to safety - taking refuge in Aeon’s home - when suddenly the supporting cable snaps and the building collapses. The Demiurge is apparently buried in the rubble, but Trevor is sure it is still alive. Aeon, despite his protests, assures him that it knows they have its best interests at heart. Eventually Aeon saves herself and Trevor by hanging onto a piece of rubble from the structure. The episode ends with Trevor carrying Aeon to safety, and Nader, restored to a normal living state by the Demiurge’s power, reuniting with Celia.

Reraizure[]

Episode: 6
Storyline: At the start of the episode Aeon is preparing to penetrate a Breen prison disguised as a guard, where Trevor is keeping compromising photographs of him and Aeon having sex, with the price of their return being a Narghile. Narghiles are a mysterious controlled species, apparently immortal, that produce a memory-wiping drug called Bliss. During her escape, Aeon runs into a female prisoner called Muriel, killing her in self defense after being mistaken for a guard. After her escape with the photos, Aeon encounters and leaves with a Monican called Rordy. As they drive away from the prison, Rordy reveals himself to have been Muriel’s partner, and Aeon is afraid to tell him what actually happened, though she does tell him of Muriel’s death. Rordy tells Aeon that, years before, he and Muriel had taken ‘Bliss’, and lost their memories. Not remembering who they were or what lives they had had, Rordy and Muriel set out to capture every Narghile alive and launch them all into the sun on a special platform. Through her consolatory actions, Aeon and Rordy begin to develop affection for each other. Aeon takes the final Narghile up to the platform, only to find that all the others are missing. It transpires that Muriel betrayed Rordy and sided with Trevor, handing the Narghiles over to him and giving him exclusive control over Bliss. Trevor, who was on the platform waiting for Muriel, and Aeon fight, which ends with Trevor stealing the Narghile. Aeon tells Rordy (who has discovered the compromising photos) about Muriel, and the two have harsh words. Rordy eventually goes up the cable and finds out the truth of Aeon’s words, then tries to launch the platform, which is still anchored to the ground by a cable: eventually, the platform crashes. Meanwhile Aeon infiltrates the prison a second time to find proof for Rordy, but Trevor meets her as she escapes and the two battle a second time, with Aeon only just managing to escape along the anchoring cable of the crashed platform. Once at Rordy’s home, she gives him the Narghile she stole, but Rordy no longer cares about it all. Annoyed at his attitude, she leaves, then remembers her mission and returns, destroying the photos. But when she looks for Rordy, she finds that he took the Narghile’s pill of Bliss as mental suicide. She leaves in a state of misery.

Chronophasia[]

Episode: 7
Storyline: The episode begins with Aeon lying on a stone slab, waking from a dream where she was screaming. We then flash back to earlier, where Aeon and Trevor are making their individual ways to a Breen research base researching an ancient virus that apparently causes insanity and formed a basic part of early humanity, until they developed an immunity. Aeon is cornered by the Breen soldiers near the base, but is sucked down and finds that, although the base has been there for under a month, it looks like it has been derelict for centuries. There, Aeon finds a young boy who guides her through the base and eventually shows her a vial of virus, the only intact vial out of a set of five. There is also a giant fanged baby, which appears to have been the first test subject for the virus, stalking the caves. The episode revolves around Aeon’s continued replaying of events in different ways and eventual encounters with various fatal situations before waking on a stone slab at the center of the cave system in which the base is built. The reality of these situations is uncertain, and the boy seems to have mystic powers, isolating him from the normal flow of time. After her final waking, Aeon is met by the boy, who tells her “To you, I bequeath...my inheritance”, causing her to seemingly experience the flow of time. In their final encounter, they are both encompassed by a bright light. The episode ends with a very normal scene, showing Aeon in normal clothing taking the boy to a baseball game.

Ether Drift Theory[]

Episode: 8
Storyline: Aeon and fellow agent and friend Lindze infiltrate a secret base called the Habitat, a place where mutants and artificial lifeforms live in a stable environment, surrounded by a sea of liquid which induces paralysis in any lifeform exposed to it. Lindze and Aeon are there both to rescue Lindze’s boyfriend and to destroy the facility. Soon after they arrive, Trevor and one of his human experiments arrive, destroying Aeon’s ship in the process, though the experiment is quickly subdued by a swarm of metal-sensitive wasps. It turns out that Lindze’s lover, a scientist named Bargeld, is sick from an artificial disease and has developed a way of changing the composition of the paralyzing fluid around the base, allowing all the people trapped there to swim to safety. Though her actions, Aeon destabilizes the environment, much to Trevor’s anger, and everyone must work to get out before the paralyzing sea floods the base and traps them all. Bargeld dies before he can escape, and he also leaves behind the key to his device for changing the sea. Aeon rushes back to find it as Lindze and Trevor escape. Aeon finds the key, but is trapped by the paralyzing fluid and ends up floating in the sea as the base disintegrates. In a final cruel twist, the key nearly slips into the device as it drifts, but just misses and leaves everyone to their fate, Aeon included.

The Purge[]

Episode: 9
Storyline: The episode opens with Aeon chasing Bambara, a vicious man who frequently causes injury or death to those he encounters. Aeon, ignoring his victims, pursues him through a train and onto a building site. Bambara escapes Aeon, killing a construction worker in the process, but is captured for Trevor Goodchild. He inserts a strange robot into Bambara through the man’s navel and he suddenly loses his darker side, becoming friendly to those around him and quickly befriending an orphan. Trevor says the robot is a Custodian, an artificial conscience of his creation which he hopes to implant in all citizens. Aeon then meets up with an organization of women who are opposed to Trevor’s project, planning to remove the implanted Custodians and bring the operation to an end. Aeon goes after Bambara’s Custodian, successfully removing it although she is drugged and captured by Breen forces. Trevor meanwhile takes down the resistance movement, while a bomb planted on the train Aeon was on explodes, killing the group’s leader. Aeon then wakes in the middle of a game show, with many of the resistance members implanted with Custodians acting as ‘Hostesses’ and Trevor being the presenter with two small twin girls. The object of the show seems to be to prove to Aeon that she has a natural conscience. It is then that Bambara bursts in, preparing to kill Trevor. Aeon pulls a lever that should instigate Bambara’s death, but it only shows ‘Game Host Trevor’ as a complex robot. It is the audience that pulls a lever and opens a trapdoor beneath Bambara, sending him to his death. Aeon leaves, assured by her actions that she has no conscience. But, as she leaves, she sees a Custodian imitating her action with the lever.

End Sinister[]

Episode: 10
Storyline: Trevor has designed a satellite, Aldis B, which will help speed up the evolution of humanity, but could also kill off half the living population of the Earth. Aeon, determined to stop Trevor from using the satellite, steals and buries the remote. But, avoiding the search parties, she finds a hibernation pod holding a strange extraterrestrial alien with removable eyes, psionic abilities, and no breathing, eating or genitals. The Alien is captured by one of the search parties, but saves Aeon when its captor throws a fire bomb. Trevor examines the Alien and sees the signs of exposure to Aldis B. He heads off to find the alien’s ship, but the Alien escapes and follows him, finding both him and Aeon at the ship. Aldis B has killed off everyone on the ship, leaving only the alien, who had been awaiting rescue in its pod. Aeon and Trevor make love in the ship, while the Alien watches. The next day, the Alien finds Aeon and offers her one of its own eyes, but Aeon refuses. Then Aeon offers to show the Alien human sexual pleasure. The Alien, either frightened or revolted by the idea, leaves and is captured by Breen soldiers. The Alien and Trevor, after getting better acquainted, head in a special shuttle to the Alien’s amazing homeworld, while Aeon decides to await his return in the hibernation pod. While Trevor learns the Alien’s psionic skills, Aeon sleeps through hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. Waking, she finds a strange hive like city has taken the place of Monica and Bregna, with the entire population being Aliens. Enraged, and finding Trevor trying to fit in, Aeon finds the remote for Aldis B and fires it. Trevor, who now has the Aliens’ full telepathic power, tells her that the ‘Aliens’ are what humanity has become, and that Aeon has done what he was about to do in their original time: killed off most of the human race. Aeon angrily knocks out Trevor and puts him in the hibernation pod, then travels back into the city and sees the surviving or sickened aliens boarding their ship. Realising her folly, Aeon returns to Trevor and enters hibernation with him. The pod is picked up by the departing ship and Trevor’s voice is heard saying “Go forth and multiply”, implying that Aeon and Trevor will help the Aliens save their race.