Humans S02E06 “Episode Six” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Channel Four, Sundays
Writer: Joe Barton
Director: Francesca Gregorini

Essential Plot Points:

• The episode opens with a chilling advertisement for synth children to replace your own kids if they die. It’s all very reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence.
• Milo finds Dr Morrow in his lab which is full of synth children, and so he challenges her. He reveals a few got away and melted into society without anybody noticing (although they lost some). She’s aghast at the very idea of marketing synth children.
• However, he points out that they’re working on very similar projects, and she can’t really deny it.
• Anita arrives back at the Hawkins house, much to their bafflement because she’s no longer Mia.
• Mattie goes to meet Leo in the middle of nowhere, and he introduces her to Hester. Mattie wants to tell him that she has finished the code, but realises there are bigger things afoot as Leo and Hester try to break into Qualia.
• It doesn’t go well: Hester is electrocuted.
• Niska is on the run, and synths everywhere are on the lookout for her. Meanwhile, Laura discovers that when the police do find her, “they don’t plan to bring her in operational”.
• Odi is unsure what to do with his life. He goes for a walk and winds up in a church, then in a confessional, where the priest tells him that he should help people.
• So Odi tries to help an old man with his shopping, but the chap thinks he’s trying to steal his car. Odi is left even more confused.
• Pete tells Karen that he’s got the Seraph and she comes home. She’s astounded to discover a child synth. And it becomes very obvious, very quickly, that she’s bonding with the kid.
• First they go to Qualia, though, to talk to Dr Morrow, after discovering that’s where the Seraph came from. Dr Morrow just fobs them off.
• Mia is finally restored after Mattie sends her family a patch for her to upload. She’s devastated by her betrayal, and leaves.
• This does not help little Sophie, who is similarly devastated to be abandoned again. She goes into full-on synth mode until Joe starts a food fight and makes her laugh. Sadly it doesn’t work long-term.
• Max discovers that Hester killed the prisoner, but when he calls her she claims she’s already told Leo and he’s fine with it, and that Leo was angry with Max for leaving but now never mentions him. Poor Max is really upset.
• He re-programmes the alerts for when a synth wakes up, so that Leo can’t get them any more.
• Karen properly bonds with the Seraph, calling him Sam. Suddenly they’re a family!
• Niska turns up at Astrid’s place.
• Dr Morrow, after waking up in the night when V has a bad dream, suddenly realises she needs to work with Milo and Qualia to make her plans a reality. So she asks some synths who’ve met Leo to help find him.
• Mia joins Leo again, and tells them that, after speaking to Odi, she knows that Mattie has completed the code and can help them change the world…

Review:

Another solid episode from the Humans team, this week seemingly focused on the perils of parenting – from Dr Morrow’s horrible experience with her AI daughter V’s all-too-real nightmare, to Karen suddenly finding a new lease of life with the arrival of young Sam, to the Hawkins family worrying about little Sophie. Good knitting together of sub-plots, there.

The highlight is, of course, the food fight, which proves beyond a doubt that while Joe has his faults, he can be a bloody lovely father at times. Best of all is Laura’s grim-faced realisation that if you can’t beat them, you have to join them, as she unleashes a bottle of fizzy pop all over her husband and kids. That must have been a wonderful day on set: how many takes did that food fight require? More than necessary, probably, as they no doubt enjoyed it all so much. What a shame Mattie wasn’t included, too (we suspect she’d have won).

Hester is fast becoming the biggest villain in the show’s history as she repeatedly lies and manipulates to get her way: her attack on poor Max is particularly bruising, as it’s rather like kicking a puppy. When she wakes up from her accident and it’s just her and Mattie in the scene, you can’t help but feel worried for Mattie – will Hester find a reason to kill her? She seems to find doing so a necessary part of her new existence. We can only hope that Mia, still bruised from her love-rat boyfriend’s behaviour, doesn’t end up as bitter and homicidal as Hester.

Elsewhere, Odi’s rather comical wandering into a church to talk to a priest yields unfortunate results (there’s that “kicking a puppy” feeling again, as the old guy tells him to bugger off), and we can only wait and see what happens to him next as he searches for a purpose. Karen, however, now has a purpose – to be a mother! – but it’s not clear what Pete thinks about it yet. He certainly looks troubled as he watches “mother” and “son” charging together…

The Good:

• Yet again, Ivanno Jeremiah showcases how marvellous the actors’ synth training is, as he sits with his arms hanging down here in a distinctly inhuman way. You can’t help but wonder if he sits like that when he’s not filming because it’s become second-nature?

• The contrast between Laura’s first hug with Anita compared to her second hug with Mia is just beautifully realised.

• Niska trying to navigate a world full of hostile synths is very Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.
• Dr Morrow might be one of the most clever AI scientists in the world but she doesn’t notice Karen is a synth when she’s right in front of her. Go Karen!
• Toby’s “shocked” face when Anita returns is priceless.

The Bad:

• It must’ve been really boring for all those kids standing around with their eyes closed during the filming of the show’s opening scenes at Qualia. Perhaps the director told them it was a game of Statues and the winner would get a prize…
• How did Niska find Astrid? Is Astrid back in Germany? That can’t have been an easy journey, surely?
• If humans go around pretending to be synths, what does this mean for their safety? We already know that synths are treated really badly by humans (Odi is verbally abused this week, for example). If a human-synth is shoved in front of a car for a laugh, it would kill them – so that’s a whole new strain of manslaughter for the courts to consider now.

And The Random:

• You have to love how the Hawkins’ family’s default response to finding Anita instead of Mia in their home is to try turning her off and on again. Which, of course, was the catchphrase in Graham Linehan comedy The IT Crowd – which Katherine Parkinson starred in.
• Best Quote: Priest: “There is great grace in a life of service. Look at me!”
  Odi: “I’m trying, but you’re behind a screen.”