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For the 2019 Netflix series
Carmen's funds
- Where exactly does Carmen get all the money she spends (travel, gadgets, charity, the fish auction, Zack's sports car, etc.)? Since this version of Carmen only steals artifacts to return them to their rightful owners, she can't sell or ransom them.
- Probably incidents like "The Duke of Vermeer Caper", where they sold a painting to VILE only to steal it back. The Shanghai job from shortly before the series picks up also resulted in the gang receiving funds somehow. Most is definitely sent to charities, but presumably they keep some for themselves to fund the capers.
- Answered in the novelization. They do keep some of the funds gained from capers, and donate the rest.
- Lots of episodes outright state that Player is using his hacking skills to get Carmen tickets and stuff, and one even stated that he somehow rigged it so that the money comes out of VILE's bank account. Essentially, "Player did it."
- Season 2 gives us the answer, Ivy is an expert at machinery and the one who came up with the hand grapple.
- Probably incidents like "The Duke of Vermeer Caper", where they sold a painting to VILE only to steal it back. The Shanghai job from shortly before the series picks up also resulted in the gang receiving funds somehow. Most is definitely sent to charities, but presumably they keep some for themselves to fund the capers.
Carmen and the authorities
- Will the show ever explain why Carmen didn't go directly to Interpol or the authorities? Yes, it may have put Interpol in even more danger with V.I.L.E. than they were before, but Carmen is essentially operating on her own and attracting trouble from both the law and her former family. It would make more sense if she pooled her resources and knowledge with people that want the same goal: to take down criminals. Besides which, her actions indirectly led to a former Interpol agent — Chase— getting captured and tortured.
- One reason could be because she is still a thief, even if she’s only stealing from V.I.L.E. She may assume that the police or Interpol wouldn’t want to help a thief.
- Also go to the authorities with what? As the Chief says V.I.L.E. is just thought of as a myth, a rumor. And as shown with what they did to Crackle they make absolutely sure to extract any operatives captured and then erase their memories so they can’t spill the beans if law enforcement finds them again. Carmen would have been seen as a crackpot if she spouted off about V.I.L.E. being real and having grown up there.
- She does have proof though: the hard drive she stole from Cookie Booker, aka the same hard drive she uses to pull off her heists. But I do agree that maybe it's that Carmen would be arrested for still being a thief.
- V.I.L.E. isn't just a gang of thieves. They also engage in white collar crime and apparently run at least one corporation capable of space missions. It could be that they are just so wealthy and powerful that regular law enforcement can't touch them. Or their profile is too good for regular law enforcement to deal with.
- Also she sent the hard drive to Player, she didn’t exactly know how the world works outside of what V.I.L.E. taught her, and even if she did she probably didn’t trust them to be able to deal with them.
The Eye of Vishnu
- Why is the Eye of Vishnu, a presumably Hindu artifact, in Morocco, a country which (as far as I can tell) never had a significant number of Hindus?
- This was explained in the novelization, it was originally from India but lost centuries ago, presumably stolen.
Helio-Gem's operation
- What kind of Mickey Mouse operation is running the launch facility in the "Opera in the Outback Caper"? There's a rocket with a known fault that will likely explode if launched, which VILE plans to take advantage of so it will explode over Ayers Rock. With this in mind, the Launch Facility is deserted when Carmen, Friends and VILE agents arrive, the Rocket is fueled and chilling on the pad and presumably there's a big red Button that when pressed, launches the defective rocket. Why is there no ground crew fixing the rocket? Why is the rocket with a known defect fully fueled and ready for launch? Why rocket primed for engine ignition at a single button press? If VILE had hijacked the facility, fueled the rocket, prepped it for launch and locked up the ground crew so they could launch the rocket prematurely, this would make sense(and they wouldn't need to bother with the Opera House Shenanigans in the first place). Instead it looks like the Spaceflight company just has incredibly poor safety procedures and doesn't even need VILE's help. Hell, VILE probably got lucky they didn't end up launching considering the damn thing might just as easily exploded on the pad with their agents on site.
- I've thought on this one, and they(VILE) intentionally did exactly what was described above, on top of placing a pulse in the underground structure (a controlled RF pulse, Dr. Denim's love of Bizet), in order to control her and make the Space "X"-esque company look incompetent for their folly(as suggested in the show). There must've been structures for safety protocols built internally, but it was down for maintenance. The problem is that we, the viewers, only see the events in medias res, whereas reality ensues, and that VILE beat Carmen and co. to the punchline (by having better equipment, a supported shadow infrastructure, and all the lovely toys from Dr.Bellum). Most likely, Le Chevre and El Topo were transported on an unmarked or stolen jet (either from the previous job that may or may not be in relative proximity to the Outback by comparison, and let said operatives take all but Denim and tamper with the launch sequence code to force launch only) that could get them to the launch site in The Outback at a faster speed in order to fuel and launch as quickly as possible.
- Along the same lines, if the Rocket potentially exploding over Ayers Rock is a known issue, why place the launch facility so the programmed flight path would fly over the area? There's more then enough outback to have the launch facility positioned in such a way that any possible explosions would be over empty outback or the ocean. Especially since there's no indications VILE altered the Boomerangs launch in any way, other to attempt to cause it to launch early.
- That’s probably what was wrong with it in the first place, a faulty program that caused its trajectory to be off in addition to exploding. Or perhaps it was an experimental prototype model?
Player helping Carmen
- How exactly is Player constantly available to help Carmen-he appears to be a minor, which means he probably had school during the day. Moreover, how does he explain all this to his parents?
- According to the novelization of the first two episodes, he’s homeschooled, as for the latter point he probably never told his parents about his hacking hobby in the first place.
- Then again, he is a White Hat hacker, a legitimate job you can get paid for, so they probably leave him alone because they think he's earning his allowance.
- According to the novelization of the first two episodes, he’s homeschooled, as for the latter point he probably never told his parents about his hacking hobby in the first place.
V.I.L.E's witness policy
- V.I.L.E. is very inconsistent with their rule of killing off witnesses. In The Sticky Rice Caper, Tigress leaves a bunch of Indonesian puppeteers and folk musicians alive. So why didn’t she kill them?
- Because they didn't actually witness her swapping the firework rockets for the spore-laden substitutes. Not only is it well after dark, but the racks to hold the rockets were at least several meters directly behind the musicians. The noise of the music would have covered Tigress' movements, and even if one musician were to turn around, they were all staring at the lighted shadow-puppet screen which would have ruined their night vision. Also, they were in the middle of a performance; one suddenly being "silenced" would have alerted everyone watching the performance that something was wrong.
- That would have been completely unnecessary since Tigress would be drawing more witnesses and more before soon having to deal with the authorities which is not VILE's style. Besides, Tigress' uniform was perfect to blend within the festival which is something VILE would do, hiding within plain sight so no one would've suspected her of tampering with the fireworks as everyone was focussed on the puppet show. Furthermore, the musicians must've thought Carmen and Tigress were apart of the puppet show who just didn't get along and decided to follow along when the two "actors" got on stage.
Graham's inital codename
- When Gray/Graham first starts thinking about his code name, he suggests 'Graham Crackle', but drops it when Jean Paul says "Who would take us seriously if we have puns for names?". But Graham Crackle is presumably a pun on graham crackers. Gray is Australian, and graham crackers aren't sold in Australia! Most people in Australia haven't even heard of them unless they've been mentioned on a US-made TV show. Are they served in the Academy cafeteria?
- Maybe they're served in the cafeteria. Maybe Gray visited the US once. Maybe Black Sheep or an American student told him about them. There's plenty of reasons.
Addressing Shadowsan
- Shadowsan is addressed as such by everyone in V.I.L.E., but shouldn't the recruits be calling him "Shadow-sensei" instead? Sensei means 'teacher' in Japanese and he's something of a teacher.
- "Shadow-san" is his whole codename. No one addressing him is choosing to use the honorific with him just because he's Japanese, but rather because "san" is part of the name he chose to be addressed by.
Shadowsan holding Carmen back
- The whole point of Shadowsan holding Carmen back was because he felt she could do something more with her life. However thanks to V.I.L.E.'s "no contact to the outside world" rule, the only thing she ever grew up knowing was looking forward to being a thief. Her cultural education may have alluded to a world at large but she never got to see it for herself so what exactly was Shadow-san trying to protect her from when she was inevitably going to ask to join V.I.L.E. academy (that being the only occupation she was ever exposed to)? The fact she ends up as a good egg with a conscience wasn't through any effort he made.
- It was also because as she said he knew when the time came when she would inevitably be forced into a situation where she would have to kill a witness she’d never accept.
Chase surviving the fall
- How the heck did Chase survive a fall from a rooftop onto his car in the first episode? Not only survive, but be completely unharmed, while destroying both the windshield and hood of his car. I get that this is a family show, but come on!
- It’s a cartoon, sure it falls under the more realistic ones but it’s still a cartoon.
- There's a more realistic reason here. Devineaux was at initial velocity of approximately 0 m/s as he fell from a vertical height of a municipal roof in Poitiers, France. The tallest municipal height for buildings in Poitiers (like Countess Cleo's chateau, for example) has at most a vertical height of 189 ft or 56 m. The descent from initial velocity approximately slowed by the shingles on top of the roof onto the car, Devineaux would fall approximately 55m in 3s. The larger impact felt by the car absorbing the impact, but the damage to Devineax is typically akin to a fast-moving Vehicle on a passerby (for traditional suicide victims above a height falling to the ground above 150 ft) in the middle of the road. Hurts like hell, probably some bleeding or hurts all over as the energy of collision-based Impact could've dispersed over his entire body( SA ~= 1.85m^2 and the dispersion of force acting on him from the car and he in equilibrium, it fully disperses on both) and is not seen bc it's a kid's cartoon yadda yadda, but nothing long-term. That is, if he's stupidly lucky enough to be alive. Assuming that the car absorbed most of the stress applied to Devineaux during the fall, and given that he is an above average French male with a mass of about 70-75 kg and a height of about 6'2" ( a muscular build, being a detective in Interpol, extremely muscular because he needs to be physically strong/agile to catch a super thief).In this troper's humble opinion, it is possible that Devineaux was too hopped up on the adrenaline of the night chase of La Femme Rouge to feel the physical stressors applied to his body, assuming that said force applied to his body and the car should've killed him or it to begin with. It'll probably be felt in the morning as it wears off, though.
Timeframe between Carmen's escape and her first caper
- Carmen escapes from V.I.L.E. as a teenager then begins her counter-op work as a young adult. More than a year has passed since she escaped and, even taking into account the previous three heists mentioned at the start of the series, all her known activities take place within less than a year (with the first season itself only happening over the course of six months). Player mentions that he's combed through the entirety of the hard drive Carmen stole during the season finale but the intel on that is only supposed to support V.I.L.E.'s operations for a single year. So why is the intel still good even after a year has passed when it sounds like they took more than a year to actually act on it?
- I'd imagine V.I.L.E.'s plans are very complex, and require possibly months of behind the scenes production work before anything is done on-site. With this in mind, plus how they know it's only a rag-tag handful that could possibly come after them, they (wrongly) thought they'd still have the upper hand and forged forward.
- Player explains to Shadow-san that he listens for VILE chatter and then uses the hard drive as a reference point to figure out what it means. Most likely, the hard drive has information like "The forger is occupied with Vermeer pieces, don't bug him with smaller jobs. Roundabout is still embedded in British Intelligence. The Indonesia lab is making progress on the spores and our imitation rice is ready to go." It's got all the background information they'll need to make the heists functional, but no actual timeline for implementing them so that VILE can act on that intel when the time is right. They'd need to update it every year to reflect changes like "Vermeer is done, you can call the forger again. Indonesia fell through, so we're moving those assets to New Zealand. Liquid assets are coming from Brazil and Botswana instead of Boston."
Carmen hindering VILE
- What kind of sorry operation is VILE running? Why does VILE seem to only have one operation going at a time? They talk about Carmen interfering and how profits have severely dropped, but, VILE is a global operation. So how can Carmen and her crew be such a thorn in their side? They're just ONE really small group. They can only be in one place at a time. Even if they interfered in the larger ops, the dozen of smaller ones should more then make up for it. Realistically, Carmen shouldn't be anymore more then a small nuisance.
- This isn't very well explained, but in the penultimate episode of Season 2, Cookie Booker says that due to Carmen and co. targeting the lynchpin operations that V.I.L.E. otherwise would make plenty of profits from, they invariably would fail to make a great deal more off the books funding for future successful operations without other means to succeed on this axis. For example, Carmen using her temporary operant/ conditional credentials with CHIEF to shut down a blood diamond mine. Fortunately for the operatives involved and Coach Brunt, Roundabout warns them of such a possibility and they can evacuate with ease via an emergency evacuation protocol. This yields critical information for V.I.L.E. at great cost, however.
- Remember, before this, V.I.L.E. has been operating with zero interference whatsoever. This is their first time facing an actual challenge. Any interruption to their status quo is noteworthy and frustrating, and if they were counting on a big payout from one of the jobs Carmen thwarted, they probably weren't ready with a Plan B when it fell through. A great example of this shows up in season 3: Shadow-san lures Flytrap and Spinkick to Africa while Carmen herself goes to Mexico. Roundabout sniffs this out almost immediately and quickly informs the rest of the faculty. Do they reroute Flytrap and Spinkick? No, they wait until Flytrap and Spinkick contact them and blame them for the failure. Also, her first operation was stopping them from counterfeiting American currency, which was probably a major source of their liquid assets (at least locally), and they don't start complaining about a financial loss until after she disrupts their alexandrite mine. They also believe she's operating with the authorities and therefore that A.C.M.E. knows everything about them that she does. That fact alone probably caused them to scale back operations, regardless of what she was actually doing against them.
- One episode after Shadowsan joins Carmen reveals he's on a separate mission from the rest of the team, handling another caper. V.I.L.E. does have multiple ops going on at once, so it seems Carmen's just usually targeting the biggest ones.
Shadowsan in "To Steal or Not To Steal"?
- Where is Shadowsan during the events of "To Steal or Not To Steal"?
- I got the sense its events happened between seasons 1 and 2.
- It's certain he's on another mission and this takes place somewhere between the events of season 2 given he's shown absent in episodes in Season 2 and 3. He's also very skilled on his own so he could very easily do a caper without Carmen and her friends.
Zack's face
- What are the lines on Zack's face? Are they scars? Cheekbones?
- Probably cheekbones I don’t think he has scars.
Chief communicating through the pen
- What does the "actual" Chief see when she's communicating through the hologram projector?
- The agents and surrounding environment. She comments on a room someone's standing in during one of her conversations. Given holo-Chief's ability to walk around the room, it's likely she has a special office that broadcasts her movements, and the pens probably have omnidirectional cameras that let her see everything around them. The fact that she even sometimes moves to interact with a person as she would if she could actually touch them suggests that maybe her office has a more advanced hologram projector that turns the entire room into whatever the pen's seeing, so she can feel like she's really there.
VILE operatives leaving fingerprints
- Why does nobody at VILE seem to use gloves or make any attempt to not leave fingerprints? Paper Star is the most egregious example of this, her origami ninja stars should be covered in fingerprints and she leaves them literally everywhere.
- Perhaps the procedure for becoming a VILE operative involves erasing some degree of biometrics, like fingerprints. Though the validity to such erasure's implementation to have them on file and re-inserting them iff the agent has failed (revealed to police, and cleaners on the run). The HOW is another matter altogether. Studies have shown that, even if intentionally removed, some biometric markers return if fingerprints were burnt off chemically/ physically with time...
Shadowsan vs. Robo Robber's arm
- In Season 4 Episode 3, Shadowsan fights against a robotic arm of Robo Robber that can easily fight and pinpoint Shadowsan and was also able to climb up the stairs which was being controlled by Dr. Bellum who at the time was unaware and struggled with the robot's controls. How on Earth was it possible for that arm to move and function well as if it was a creature? Wouldn't the arm have been wiggling instead? Does that thing have lenses with Dr. Bellum noticing Shadowsan and decided to use the opportunity to fight him? Was it a case of button mashing when Dr. Bellum tried to move Robo Robber? Or did Dr. Bellum accidentally made a revolutionary discovery of A.I robotic body parts moving autonomously?
VILE Faculty offering a pardon.
- According to Crackle after Carmen defected from V.I.L.E, he says that the council wants Carmen back with a truce and states that "even Shadowsan is on board". But knowing who Shadowsan is, why would he want her to return to the island given that he didn't want Carmen back to be a professional thief and steal for V.I.L.E. What exactly would he have planned for her or know V.I.L.E would do if Carmen actually returned? Wouldn't he have preferred Carmen to not come back?
- It may have been another necessary ruse. We see in the situation with Paper Star that Shadow-san can be pressured into giving his vote for the council’s decisions if the rest of the council agree, so that may be what happened here. Or he may have given his vote without convincing with confidence that Carmen would never agree to such an offer. Alternatively, it may be Shadow-san was hedging his bets and trying to keep her safe if the worst should happen: in the event that Carmen is captured (whether by VILE themselves or by the law) it’s safer for VILE to be willing to keep her alive under the pretense of possibly getting her to work with them rather than simply kill her or torture her.
