Almost Human: You Are Here (01×08)
Synopsis: A man is mysteriously murdered by a high tech bullet that tracks a potential victim through CCTVs used to identify people in crowds for directed marketing purposes. His girlfriend becomes a target and John and Dorian – still getting used to being partners in what should have been the series’s second episode – are hard pressed to save her before she tries to throw off her potential killers by erasing her memories of her boyfriend, their life together, and anything she may have remembered that would worry them.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
First, a heads up. ‘You Are Here’ was never meant to be the eighth episode in this series. It was, in fact, meant to be the second. Much like Firefly all those years ago FOX has once again chosen to mistreat one of it’s few, stellar science fiction series by airing episodes out of order and messing with the consistency of the timeline.
It’s obvious from the get go that this was meant to be an earlier episode. We finally get to see a bit of a return to those earlier story lines with the mystery of Insydicate and John’s girlfriend, Anna, once again coming to the forefront. Which is nice. When I did my recap last week that was my biggest problem with the show. They had this whole overarching plot set up and then we saw none of it. It took seven episodes for us to get back to all that when it should have taken just one. I really wished they had aired these episodes in order but I guess the problem there would be that we would have just gone from two episodes of awesome plot to six episodes of cheesy, buddy cop humor mixed with the occasional hard-hitting case.
This time we’re dealing with a man who was mysteriously killed by a bullet from some unknown distance. He was running around shouting that they were going to kill him and they did. Now, this episodes started out with John Kennex in an anger management group therapy session – required, it seems, by the police service. The therapist lays it down raw when John tries to pretend that everything is cool. She brings up the ex-girlfriend’s abandonment and betrayal. So, it’s probably not much of a surprise that when one of the MX units tries to tell him that Dorian is an inferior unit whose theories should be ignored John shoots the unit in the head.
Yeah, hence the anger management issues. And hence the “this is so obviously not supposed to be the eighth episode of this series” feel. The John we all know now isn’t the same one that pushed the MX out of the car in the pilot. Similarly, Det. Paul is way more antagonistic and when he threatens to shoot Dorian in the head and John gets defensive Dorian is all, “See, you do like me!” Which we already know he does because we’ve had six episodes of touchy, feely bromance.
Anyway, the whole Insyndicate thing ties into the mystery of the bullet when we find out that the guy who was killed was working to develop some bullet or something that used CCTVs used for personalized marketing to find people and guide the bullet right to them. His girlfriend and her daughter were being used to essentially blackmail him and she desperately tries to avoid being killed after Dorian takes one bullet for her. (And subsequently spends a portion of the episode speaking Korean and singing K-Pop for Rudy.)
The problem is that she knows what the buyer looks like and that’s not cool with them. She tries to pull an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind moment to erase her memories of her boyfriend – and thus the woman who was talking with him about the tech – but John manages to keep her from doing it at the last minute. He is – for some reason – adamantly apposed to ‘scrubbing’ memories. It will be interesting if we ever revisit that at some point.
In the end, the woman and her daughter are saved. The case is closed. And we get some adorable little moments with John and Valerie Stahl – who apparently people have a theory is an android? I don’t know. I read that a few places and I was like, “Naaaaah.” People are trying to impose way too much of the Decker-was-a-Replicant thing on this show. But it was cute. Apparently the girl and her boyfriend had this thing about leaving each other messages through the archaic use of pen and paper and at the end John uses one of the girl’s pens to write Valerie a note. Cue ‘awwwwww’-ing now. Because awwwwww.
Kurbz + Minka Kelly 4evs.
Unfortunately, all we get is two episodes this time around and now we’re back to yet another hiatus. Three weeks this time. FOX is going to wind up running this damn series into the ground, I swear. It’s just like Firefly all over again.
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