https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYVOxIUNNzU
So in the future, health care is even shittier and people
destroy perfectly reusable organs? THANKS, OBAMACARE.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. This episode is the sixth episode of
Almost Human to air, but was the third episode made. This is why Kennex and
Dorian’s roboromance seems to have suddenly cooled — in actuality, they’re still warming
up to each other (I would also like to note for the record that I only use the
word “robromance” because I hate it and I want to remind people that Fox is
using this word, on purpose, to market the show). I don’t think this early production schedule is why I felt
this episode was a marked improvement over the last two episodes, though. I
think it’s because it had two Michael Ealys in it, and two Michael are enough
to cancel out the show’s general crappiness.
It probably also helps that Almost Human doesn’t try to cram
any cop show clichés in the episode. It’s just a straight-forward tale of a dude
getting his artificial heart shut off remotely, which eventually leads to a black market artificial organ ring, where the bad guys
inject little chips in ’em and force the recipients to pay a monthly fee to keep
them going. Dorian and Kennex investigate the organs’ manufacturer
and the mortician who is supposed to destroy them, Minka Kelly tries to make an “interested” face as sad women tell sad tales, the mortician and the heart
manufacturer’s boss’s secretary are running the ring, and it’s all pretty
standard stuff.
What makes it interesting is that Dorian spies another DRN
model at the heart manufacturer, working as a janitor. Dorian is confused, saying the DRN series were made to be
police officers — so that’s interesting to know — and Dorian takes the other DRN
along with them on their investigation. If you thought Dorian and Kennex were fun together, two Dorians and one
surly Kennex is pretty much the best, especially because Dorian is even more
prone to trolling Kennex since it’s technically early in the series. Alas, the DRN model does eventually jump out of their
police car, grabs a guy, whose car rolls over a fire hydrant, which shoots into
the air, hitting a drone, which smashes the hell out of a nearby MX robot cop.
Ha ha, it’s funny because any of the random humans nearby could have been
violently killed!
Turns out Dorian gave the DRN his old cases files back… but
didn’t update them for god knows what reason, so DRN grabbed a guy who was
wanted, but has since served his time. After that, Kennex makes DRN stay in the
car, although eventually Dorian invites him on a raid. Turns out DRN is scared
now, even though he wasn’t really before, and also it has something to do with
him killing a dude who was about to murder a child even though he probably
didn’t have to, although DRN doesn’t say he’s afraid of himself or what he
might do, so who knows. Anyways, he still stays in the car, and at the end of
the episode he has to go back to being a janitor again.
The other thing I really liked about this episode is that
this is the first episode of Almost Human to show any kind of moral ambiguity
at all. The show makes it clear that reusing these synthetic organs is illegal,
but when Kennex and Dorian first meet the mortician, he explains that the only
reason these perfectly fine organs are being destroyed is because the companies that
make them want to keep them limited so that prices remain high. Sure, the mortician is
revealed to be one of the bad guys, but he isn’t wrong here. And when Kennex and Dorian
burst into one of the illegal surgeries just before a woman gets a new black
market whatever, she’s actually quite upset the cops have stopped her life-saving
operation. Almost Human never follows up on either of these things, no social
justice is meted out, and at the end of the episode everyone is fine and happy despite
the fact rich corporations are still needlessly letting people die to service their
profit margin. But hell, at least Almost Human raised some actual issues, even if it didn’t explore them. It’s a start.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Almost Human is there weren’t several complete failures and weird dystopian aspects that the show is somehow
completely unaware of. Besides all the above, here’s a fun list:
If the robot that killed a dude was reassigned to
janitorial duty, what must Dorian have done to get shut down? I would be
shocked if Almost Human had an answer to that question.
The mortician casually letting hundreds of people with the
rigged organs die, when giving
them an extra 30 days would have literally taken only a press of a button.
My favorite scene of the entire show, where the main police
cast sit around a conference table saying, “If we don’t do something, all these people are going to die.” No
one moves from the table. Cut to commercial.
Did they ever catch the secretary who was actually running
the organ ring?
The company that makes the organs decides to replace all
the organs of the people who had illegal organ transplants for free! Fuck everybody who was
waiting in line, the people that broke the law need help!
The DRN robot’s situation is not improved in any way. He
even still has to return to his janitorial job.
Note: At the end of the episode, it’s still against the
law to re-use medical organs, despite the fact they are perfectly fine if
assholes don’t put shit in them. People in dire need: 0, Corporate greed:
1,984,240,024!
And, of course, the aforementioned irony of the robot
being punished for murdering somebody, which Kennex did without qualm or
repercussion two weeks ago. Hell, at least the perp the DRN killed was actually
holding a gun at the time.
This has my vote for the best episode so far, although
admittedly there have only been six, and I loathed two of them, so this isn’t probably
the greatest of honors. And since this was supposed to be episode 3, we know
that it definitely does not build into anything better. But hell, Almost Human
gave us two Michael Ealys, and I’ll take what I can get.
Assorted Musings:
You have a brilliant robot, with incredible technological
capabilities and true artificial intelligence, and when he doesn’t work out as a
cop, you give him a job a fucking Roomba could do? Christ.
I know the MX models are soulless automatons, but is
anyone kind of creeped out how Almost Human keeps killing police officers, even
robot ones, for comedic effect?
The show had DRN have flashing yellow lights in his head
instead of Dorian’s blue lights, but Ealy does such a damn good job playing
both characters I don’t think they were needed. I could always tell which was
which.
Apparently Bitcoin exists in the future. I’m not sure how
I feel about that.
Kennex and the DRN should be murder pals!
John Larroquette guest-stars as the creator of the DRNs in
the next episode, which airs on January 6th. Larroquette’s always
fun, so hopefully that goes well. See you then!
PLBBBBT
