Violet

Violet Verdier enters therapy in a state of severe anxiety, haunted by memories of a mysterious Pink Room and convinced that her past is visible to everyone around her. As her therapist guides her through grounding exercises, the line between clinical treatment and orchestrated ritual begins to blur. What begins as anxiety management becomes something far stranger, as Violet is led into a ritualistic landscape where therapy sessions transform into something deliberately designed to reinforce her dissolution into fantasy and control. The episode establishes the predatory nature of systems built to appear therapeutic while systematically breaking down the boundaries between reality and programmed experience.

Violet Verdier sits in Lilly Ekimmu's office, a space designed to feel safe: soft lighting, calming arpeggios, the ambient sound of a fountain. But beneath the clinical veneer, something is orchestrated. Lilly takes progress notes on a patient who is convinced her anxiety stems from exposure, from being seen. Violet describes a Pink Room she cannot quite remember, a space that feels both intimate and terrifying. She is certain that everyone around her can see her past, that her trauma is visible in her body, written across her face. Lilly listens with professional compassion, but her listening is apparatus. Every word Violet speaks is feeding a design that predates this session.

Grounding exercises begin: name three things you can see, three things you can feel. The clinical language is calming, methodical. But the exercise itself becomes layered, ritualized. As Violet grounds herself in the present moment, she finds herself descending instead, deeper into fantasy. Lilly's voice guides her down, down, into memory that may not be memory. The Pink Room becomes more vivid with each grounding exercise. Violet begins to see things: gravestones glowing, figures moving at the edge of perception, sensations that are both real and impossible. Lilly validates each descending sensation with clinical neutrality. That's good. That's working. You're doing so well.

By the midpoint of the episode, the boundary between therapy and ritual has completely dissolved. Violet finds herself in a landscape with other figures, other women, moving in patterns that feel choreographed. They speak in unison about submission, about three goddesses (Inanna, Lilith, Ekimmu), about three rituals. The sensations intensify. Violet becomes panicked, tries to assert that none of this is real. But Lilly's voice continues, calm and patient, suggesting that if it's not real, then Violet must be seeing things. That must mean Violet has a problem with perception. That must mean Violet needs more treatment. The apparatus reveals itself: the therapy is not designed to heal anxiety. The therapy is designed to deepen Violet's descent, to make her dependent on Lilly's guidance, to remake her into something that fits the design.

By episode's end, Violet has begun her dissolution. She is being remade into something that fits an architecture she does not yet understand. Lilly's calm voice, her clinical language, her promises of safety, all of it is apparatus. The session ends with Violet confused about what is memory, what is suggestion, what is real, what is becoming real through repeated suggestion. She books her next session. She cannot wait to go back. The therapy is working perfectly, not because it heals anxiety, but because it creates the conditions for her willing surrender. Violet Verdier, patient 111222, is becoming something new. And she is beginning to want it.