Synopsis of 2×06: Mia returns to the Hawkins family, but who is she, Mia or Anita? Mattie reunites with Leo and helps him with Hester after a catastrophe, all the while considering whether to enlighten him of her revision of Niska’s consciousness code.
So here’s the skinny:
- Dr. Morrow confronts Khouri about Qualia’s development of conscious synth children and decides to quit until he threatens her. His company will mass produce V, since her presence on his servers has made her his property, if she leaves. Morrow questions a group of seraphs about Leo after painting him as a villain and one of them offers to help find him.
- Mia returns to the Hawkins’, but she believes she is Anita and acts as she did when they were her primary owners. Mattie gives them her finished version of Niska’s consciousness code and it awakens Mia once again.
- Mattie meets Leo in the woods and he leads her to their hideout. She meets Hester, saying they don’t see eye to eye would be an understatement. After a failed attempt to enter Qualia undetected, Mattie helps Hester regain control of her malfunctioning system.
- Hester manipulates Max into thinking Leo no longer cares about him and Max changes the encryption code for finding seraphs so he can block Leo out.
- Odi seeks a new purpose, but is unable to find one that suits him. He awaits Mattie in her room with a handwritten letter.
- Karen considers taking on a recently deceased woman’s identity, but Pete calls her over and introduces her to the seraph boy he found. Her maternal instincts kick in instantly. She names him Sam and connects with him instantly.
- Sophie’s condition worsens and she acts more like a synth with every passing day. She notices the mannerisms and imitates them. At this point, she acts exactly like a synth with hardly a crack in her ruse.
- This time, Mia chooses her family of synths over humanity and offers to help Leo free the captured seraphs.
This episode resumes directly where the previous one ended. Dr. Morrow meets with Khouri and discovers his basement of synthetic children. He argues that they are the solution to parents losing their children with no option other than to watch their child wither away.
He knows Morrow’s particular situation, as he refers to her daughter at one point, so he knows exactly what he’s doing by baiting her with this idea. She doesn’t take the bait and decides to quit. Khouri threatens her by insisting that his company will make copies of synthetic children uploaded with V’s consciousness and cut Morrow out of the process altogether.
Laura returns home, but she’s not alone. She creeps into the kitchen and finds Mia cleaning lightly. Only, Mia has reverted to her Anita persona and doesn’t understand Laura’s questions that only a conscious being could understand.
Mattie takes a taxi out to the woods and after meeting Leo, he leads her to his hideout.
Niska stops at a charging station, but the surrounding synths stare at her until she leaves.
Odi is on a journey of purpose. He walks down the street alone, confused and frightened until he walks into a church. He wanders into confessional. He asks the preacher about his purpose now that he has gained self-awareness. He realizes that helping others gives him happiness. Somehow the preacher fails to pick up on the fact that Odi is a synth, thus he is completely oblivious to death and the afterlife.
Karen sits in her car, trying on a new character, Amanda Nielsen. Pete calls and tells her he has a seraph. She asks about it, but he refuses to give more details until she comes over.
Hester watches the silo from a distance. Mattie and Leo come along. Leo introduces them and the tension between them is already thicker than a slice of cream cheese (which would be perfectly tantalizing right now). Hester is suspicious of Mattie, but Leo eases her paranoia and attempts to hide the gritty details of their plan. As much as he considers these actions necessary, he stills knows they might be wrong and he doesn’t want Mattie’s judgment. Still, Mattie remains skeptical.
Niska sees a synth staring at her and when she inquires about it, the synth replies that she is informing the Metropolitan police of Niska’s whereabouts.
Odi comes upon an old man carrying heavy bags down the street and offers his help. The man lets him carry bags, but refuses to let Odi drive him home and accuses Odi of just trying to make off with his car. The lack of trust and frustration just for trying to help is something new to Odi. It hurts him, especially since he believed that helping others was his purpose.
Karen returns home to Pete and he shows her the synth child he found. The child is unregistered and without a name. Karen introduces herself and her maternal instincts unfurl in a matter of seconds. She inspects the boy by hooking them together with a cord. While they connect, Pete finds a death certificate for Karen’s new “character” in her coat pocket. She tells him that the boy’s system deletes memory every 24 hours and all of his other settings imply that he was designed not to leave a trace. She finds one anyway, leading to Qualia. She realizes fairly quickly that Dr. Morrow must have a hand in the pot, so Pete and her decide to drop in.
As the Hawkins sit patiently in their living room, watching, Joe reboots Mia. Sadly, she is still Anita. They decide to wait for Mattie to return home to help, but Toby admits that Mattie is with Leo.
Leo brings Hester back from the failed break-in attempt into Qualia. Hester received a shock from an electrified door and it has plagued her with crippling malfunctions since. Mattie whips out her computer, hooks Hester up and starts working her way through the system.
Karen and Peter calmly barge into Morrow’s office. She closes the computer on V just as they come in and they’re none the wiser. They question Morrow on her work for Qualia, but she confidently holds them off and lies about Khouri’s whereabouts.
Mattie gets a call from Joe. He explains that Mia has returned as Anita and Mattie sends them an override patch to get her back to her usual self. They want Mattie to come home, but she’s not ready to yet. What Mattie says, goes. Never mind that this girl is definitely still in high school. You could say that there’s way too much to be concerned about now with all the recent events, but this girl was defiant from day one.
Hester wakes up and Mattie tells her Leo went out for supplies. They speak about the plan. Mattie disagrees with it and Hester randomly blurts out that she and Leo had sex. Of course it ruffles Mattie’s feathers, especially when Hester’s question a few seconds later reveals that Mattie is a virgin. Not a big deal for most, but a death sentence for high schoolers.
Max is meditating and becoming one with nature, or at least that’s how it seems with him sitting in an empty field with legs crossed. Flash peacefully picks flowers and brings them to Max. See, this is why I’m team Max, not team Leo. Max and Flash are incredibly more tranquil than the others. With that said, I realize that there are times that require darker, less peaceful methods. Max stumbles across a news story on the guard that Hester murdered earlier in the season.
The Hawkins run Mattie’s program on Mia to fix her. A few seconds pass with nothing of note, but suddenly she hops up and gasps violently. Mia’s back. She takes in the environment, but she resembles a serious trauma victim. She knows that Niska is in trouble because an alert was sent to all synths to report Niska at first sight. Ed’s betrayal really begins to sink in for Mia. This will change her.
Leo returns to Mattie and Hester with supplies. Mattie wants to leave because, in her words, Hester “had a lot to say when she woke up.” In other words, Mattie is jealous and frustrated that Leo is so conformed to the plan.
Max calls to speak to Leo, but Hester picks up instead. He accuses Hester of murdering the guard and she admits it. She also claims that Leo knew and forgave her as long as she promised not to do it again. At this point, Hester twists Max’s mind and manipulates him into thinking that Leo is much farther gone than he actually is. In trying to make it unavailable to Leo, Max changes the encryption code they had used to find seraphs.
Mia leaves the Hawkins for her own kind.
Karen, Pete, and the synth child sit at the kitchen table as Pete eats. Karen basically suggests that they back down from attacking Qualia and instead focuses on naming the boy Sam. They connect so strongly with nothing but stares. Although it’s not completely identical and inherently has a much different tone, this scene reminds of a slightly similar scene from Artificial Intelligence. If you saw the film, you know the scene. If not, it’s a great film and you should give it a try.
Back in the Hawkins household, they eat dinner as well. Sophie continues to imitate synthetic behavior. Laura loses her patience and directs a short, yet explosive meltdown at Sophie. Sophie doesn’t even blink. Joe brings Sophie to the kitchen, takes out some eggs, and starts dropping them on the floor. Pretty soon, it has erupted into a full on food fight and Sophie resembles the effervescent child she was before.
Odi sits in Mattie’s room listening to the laughter and waiting for Mattie with a handwritten letter addressed to her. Later on, Sophie awakes in the middle of the night to sounds in the kitchen. She finds Odi cleaning and helps him, imitating his behavior the whole time. The bit of a breakthrough we thought we saw might not have been as promising as earlier believed.
Toby apologizes to Renie and asks for help, but she offers no help because she can see no fault with behaving as a synth and accuses him of being confused instead of Sophie.
Astrid is happy to come home to Niska waiting for her patiently.
V wakes Morrow from her sleep with night terrors and nightmares of the fall Ginny experienced before ending up in a coma. Morrow apologizes and insists that she’s there for her. Morrow has a large amount of guilt over what happened to her daughter and it is easy to see that this is what has fueled every one of her decisions for years now. Morrow speaks to a group of synths she gathered from the silo and makes Leo out to be the villain. A seraph, Veronica, offers to help find him.
Leo, Mattie and Hester sit on the hill monitoring the silo when Mia arrives. Mattie assumes that Mia will talk sense into thing 1 and thing 2 here. Mia does nothing of the sort. As I said, Ed’s betrayal will be the catalyst for her significant change in attitude towards the humans and her own kind. She confirms that she’ll help free the captured seraphs and points out that Mattie finished the code to wake all synths simultaneously. This won’t turn out too good. At least, not for the collateral damage.
What did you think of the latest developments? Do you have any questions? Is there anything you’d like to say? Leave a comment and let us know. We’d love to open a dialogue.
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