Humans, Season One, “Episode Five”
Written by Emily Ballou
Directed by Lewis Arnold
Airs Sundays at 9 pm (ET) on AMC
Since the beginning of the season, Leo has been single-minded in his search for Mia, a search that finally brought him and Max in contact with Mattie last week. Similarly, Mattie’s initial anger towards synths and their ability to replace humans has been replaced with a genuine level of curiosity and care for Anita, particularly after getting a glimpse of Mia. This week’s episode formally cements Mattie’s turn to an ally of Leo and Anita/Mia, in a strong episode that benefits greatly from bringing some characters together and adding further dimensions to others.
The combination of Niska and Dr. Millican is one that is ripe with possibility, some of which already gets explored in this week’s episode. Despite his proclaimed aversion to synth consciousness, Dr. Millican has proven with Odi that he is capable of displaying love and affection towards a synth, and a degree of warmth might be just what Niska needs after her experiences at the brothel, her perceived rejection by Leo, and her time at the Smash Club. The discovery by Dr. Millican of Niska’s crimes might put a damper in that, but if Niska and Dr. Millican are able to trust each other, it’ll be very promising to see how their relationship develops. Not only will it give Dr. Millican a chance to display his scientific expertise and explore how he feels about displaying affection to a synth who can reciprocate, but it will also give Niska a chance to develop as well. While most of Niska’s experiences have been good synths being victimised by bad humans, the situation in Dr. Millican’s house is the opposite. While not exactly a bad synth, Vera is clearly the one who has the balance of power in the Millican household, which means Niska will see for the first time what such a position looks like. The combination of these factors may be enough to make Niska reconsider her stance against humans and in favour of synth control, which would put her in a very intriguing position going forward.
William Hurt
Leo’s situation also takes a turn towards being fascinating this week. Much like the intersection of the Niska and Dr. Millican storylines, putting Mattie and Leo on the same side is a solid development for the series. Leo’s situation does end on a dire note, and his frustration is understandable, with Max as the only synth freely available to him now. With Fred seemingly fried and Mia apparently lost under Anita’s coding, the ability for Leo to bring consciousness to other synths seems like a far reach. However, the presence of both Mattie and Karen are two wild cards in this situation. Hobb’s mention this week that David Elster wouldn’t have limited consciousness to just a few synths appears to point to the origin of Karen, but Karen’s view on other synths is still unclear. Karen may be going after Niska for self-preservation purposes, or to help a fellow conscious synth, and if it’s the latter, she could be key in helping Leo bring consciousness to other synths as well. If it’s the former, however, that puts her in a unique and unexpected position of being a synth who’s against other synths, which could in turn make her more compelling as a character. Mattie, on the other hand, is unlikely to drop things abruptly, having both met Mia and Leo, and it’s entirely possible she will continue trying to crack Anita’s code to reach Mia. The way she treats Anita this week seems to indicate that she’s not quite as anti-synth as she presented herself in early episodes, and is onboard with the idea of giving them consciousness, which may mean she’ll pick up the flag Leo has thrown down and become the new driving force of synth consciousness.
This episode does a great job of reversing many of the errors of last week’s episode, most notably by shifting the focus to people outside the Hawkins family. Even within the Hawkins family, giving both Toby and Joe more dimension by forcing them to deal with the aftermath of Joe’s intercourse with Anita is a smart move by the writers, allowing the characters to develop beyond the minor notes they’d been playing to date. Hobb’s storyline, despite holding a lot of potential, remains one of the weaker storylines of the series, and hopefully future episodes will turn the focus onto him or make him more active in driving the action forward, rather than being the reactionary element that he now is. Drummond’s appearance at the We Are People rally also holds a lot of promise, and given the two directions he’s pulled in this week, where he ends up is likely to strongly affect things. The two key relationships in Drummond’s life, with his estranged wife and Karen, both rely on him being more accepting of synths, though he doesn’t know it yet. If he continues down the path presented to him by We Are People, he will soon have to make a decision; hold on to his anti-synth ideas, or risk becoming isolated from the only two people concerned about his well-being. The convergence and hints of payoff for a number of plotlines makes this one of the stronger episode of the series to date, and how things progress from here promises to be exciting to follow in the coming weeks.