Analog Squad was a heartwarming made family and biological family drama that reached inside and touched me. Execution can make or break a story that’s been told before in different ways and this story nailed it. Without becoming maudlin the characters all faced secrets that they were keeping or were being kept from them.

“We lie to make other people happy”
Pond is a mysterious character when we meet him. He’s hired his ex-girlfriend to play his wife, a guy who works at a pager company to play his son, and a young woman whose family owns a video rental store to play his daughter. They head south to visit his dying father whom he hasn’t seen in over a decade. When his father makes a miraculous recovery the fake family has some tap dancing to do to keep the charade up.

“Everyone lies for their own sake”
Each of the family members is hiding a secret or several. Pond keeps secret why he left home, why his wife and children left him, and a host of other problems. Lilly/Mam is hiding a health problem. Keg/Mon hides the fact that his mom whom he adores is a nude model and that he’s going to the United States. His mom is hiding a whopper of a secret from him. Bung/Mag is hiding the fact that she’s a lesbian from her family, plus a family member is hiding a devastating secret from her. Pond’s biological daughter discovers a secret as she’s preparing to be married.

“Because when you compare it to death, anger is literally nothing”
The secrets could be overwhelming at times but most of them were dealt with a loving and forgiving hand as the characters worked through their complex feelings. This made family became deeply entwined with Pond’s parents and with each other. Just as real families struggle to communicate and confront complicated problems, the fake family found themselves dealing with many of the same issues. As they worked together and spent time with the “grandparents” they began to untangle some of the knotted challenges in their own lives.

“You have to accept that mistakes are a part of life and you deal with them”
The made family began to develop deep feelings for each other and the couple they were lying to, including love and guilt. The journey that took the longest to traverse was the one that had started the convoluted mess everyone found themselves in-Pond’s. Running away from the truth had caused him to make decisions that went from bad to worse over three decades and brought him to a place where he was ready to take his own life.

“Sometimes waiting is its own form of happiness”
For those of us old enough to remember the 1990’s and Y2K, this will bring back some memories. People were afraid that computers would stop working and planes would fall out of the sky. The fear was that it would be similar to an EMP blast that would cause technology to cease. Some of the technology on display included portable CD players (the darn skipping!), videos and video stores, and ancient looking computers that held less than your cell phone and were slow. Then there was the now almost obsolete technology of pagers and phone booths. Pond’s dad owned a photography studio and used cameras with film. They did a good job of taking us back to 1999 after the financial collapse and the devastation it caused people. By setting most of the story in a small village it was believable that it was 24 years ago. The best part of the cinematography were the shots of the gorgeous Thai scenery. The forests, water, and islands were stunning.

“There are no real or fake bonds. If we feel it, we feel it.”
This story of healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, and growth both in the family and made family was satisfying on several levels. Not every problem was neatly tied up in a bow, but most were resolved satisfactorily. Each member of the newly expanded family discovered something that filled an empty place in their heart. The family might have been fake but the love was real.

9 Dec 2023