Humans Season 1 Episode 1 Recap

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Joe Hawkins activates the family’s new domestic synth, Anita.

Humans is a joint production of Channel 4 in Britain and AMC in the US that focusses on humanlike robots called “synths”, some of whom have become self-aware like Real Humans, which just happens to be the name of the original Swedish version of the show that this remake is based on. The first two seasons are currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime.

Season 1 follows a human family, the Hawkins of London, who acquire a synth when the dad, Joe, becomes overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the house and kids while his wife travels frequently for work. The family mom, Laura, and oldest daughter, Mattie, are suspicious of the new synth from the start, with the mom bordering on paranoid.

Their new synth, Anita/Mia, does turn out to have a past and a family of her own, which has been wiped from her memories. She is a self-aware, conscious synth, made by synth creator David Elster in his later years when he’d become a recluse. Elster made at least four conscious synths, who have become separated and are trying to find each other again, along with Elster’s son/their brother, Leo. Besides the Hawkins, the show follows the conscious synths, the people who help them, and the police who are chasing them.

Episode 1, with catchy title of Episode 1, begins in a room full of deactivated synths, clad only in underpants. One is wheeled out of the room, sealed in packaging. The lights are turned off, the door is closed, and the synths are alone. They do not start chanting “one of us, one of us” because the writers are stronger people than I. One synth, who will go on to become Anita/Mia, does look up through a conveniently placed skylight at the moon. She doesn’t sing “Somewhere Out There” to her lost brothers and sister, so pop culture references are clearly lost on synths, which is a terrible, terrible waste, and may require a return to the factory.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 8: The Last Day Recap

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Desperation begins to close in on all sides as Agents of SHIELD reaches episode 8, The Last Day. We’re closing in on the midpoint of the season and the end of the first story arc. That will bring some kind of change, and it also brings the series’ 100th episode closer. The 100th episode, #12 of this season, is rumored to be an important one for the series and characters, not just the celebration of a milestone.

This episode spends time filling in more details on the True Believers. It shows us more of how Robin’s powers work and how she’s been using them over the course of her entire life to guide the effort to save the world. Mack, Elena and Flint draw closer together as a new family and as leaders of the Lighthouse humans. Everything in the episode involves intense struggle, but by the end Robin is finally confident that she’s in the right place, at the right time, giving the right message to the right person. That alone should be cause for hope.

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Agents of Shield Season 5 Episode 7: Together or Not at All Recap

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The Future of SHIELD

This episode sees the reunion of almost all of the agents, plus the remaining sympathetic future characters (~ish, in the case of Deke). Grown up Robin reveals herself to May, and Gravitonium makes a stunning reappearance after disappearing for four seasons. The future is full of dangling plot threads, from the remains of the Framework to one of the first mysteries the show ever tackled, last seen in the hands of ruthless billionaire Ian Quinn, who stole it from HYDRA. Everything on this show comes full circle eventually.

The episode picks up moments after Fun and Games left off, catching up with the daring escape of Han, Leia and Luke from the evil empire Fitz, Jemma and Daisy from the Kree. They make a quick stop to let Jemma change out of her flowing white Princess Leia garb, which, while fun, is too conspicuous for an escape. Fitz checks Daisy’s condition after her fall to the crater floor. She asks why he didn’t join in the hand to hand fighting, and he replies, with his usual dry wit, “Wouldn’t be fair. I do push ups now. Double digits. So…”

Jemma and Fitz make enthusiastic plans for storytelling, pints and gin when the crisis is over. Jemma’s ear implant let’s out a dizzying high pitched whine. Fitz looks for tweezers so that he can remove it. He finds clamps, and does a delicate removal procedure on the love of his life’s ear canal while Daisy fights a Kree warrior next to him. I’ve missed having these three together, so so much.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 6: Fun and Games Recap

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It was a busy episode on Agents of SHIELD, with two marriage proposals, three fights, including one death match, two executions, one exile to the surface, several reunions, the deaths of three recurring characters, and one inhuman going through terrigenesis. And it’s not even sweeps!

Flint wakes up in the latest corner that he’s been squatting in since Tess chased him out of the Trawler bay. He searches his pack for the odds and ends he’s gathered to sell, and bargains with his regular customers, trying to convince them to part with enough tokens to feed him for another day. Grill seems to have a soft spot for him, and he ends up with a fresh orange slice. He drops it when a Kree guard grabs him and takes him away.

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Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 5: Rewind Recap

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Not another monolith!

Release the ferrets! Prodigal spies Leo Fitz and Lance Hunter have returned! Huzzah!

In the aptly named episode Rewind, we jump back to the end of season 4 and the fateful last meal that the team ate at the diner before their expected arrest. The meal ended with a trip to future space for everyone but Fitz. He’s been MIA for the first few episodes of the season, other than a brief cameo at the end of the previous episode. Rewind follows his adventures and misadventures from the moment of the team’s arrest until he arrives in the year 2091 to rescue the team. He’s had a little help from old and new friends along the way.

This time, we see the diner scene from Fitz’ perspective. He’s just come back from being turned into an evil Nazi Hydra genocidal maniac in the Framework, doing inhumane experiments on inhumans and becoming the lover of supervillain LMD Aida. Fitz is having a hard time shaking the guilt, and living with the realization that he’s capable of that kind of evil.

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Travelers Season 2: Review, Analysis and Speculation

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Updated 7/18/18- What/Who Is the Director, Really?

We made it through another season! Season 2 of Travelers had its ups and downs. Whereas I would have given season 1 an A+, I’d only give this season a B+. There were improvements in some areas. The female characters weren’t treated with as much misogyny, and the show had some stellar cinematography. The cast continued to be amazing, and the new additions kept up the quality. The production values of the show look and sound great, especially considering the size of their budget. It’s the writing that needs to be given more attention next season.

We learned intriguing new aspects of the mythology, but we also went around in circles, repeating the same kernels of information over and over, rather than continuing to reveal more about life in the future and how time travel works. The showrunners say that they don’t intend to have the series physically go to the future because the travelers are trapped in the 21st, but that’s a cop out.

They can still give us a clear picture of the environment and culture that the characters are coming from, explain the Director clearly, and give sensible explanations for their theories of time travel and consciousness transfer, then stick to those rules. Otherwise, the show runs the risk of retconning and contradicting itself every time they think up a new storyline, which is death to serious science fiction.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 12: 001 Recap

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This episode ends another season of Travelers, and mirrors season 1 episode 5, Room 101, with the team’s friends and loved ones being held hostage and abused this time. The companions receive more humane physical treatment from Vincent/001 than the travelers did, but he’s out to destroy their relationships and peace of mind. That way he can make a quick escape while the travelers are distracted with the crisis he’s created. We’ll have to wait for season 3 to find out if 001/Vincent’s plan allows him to get away with hiding in plain sight, and if the companions can forgive the travelers for lying to them.

The cold open consists of a videotape recorded by MacLaren at ops in which he confesses to being a traveler:

“Seven months ago my consciousness was sent from the distant future into the body of Special Agent Grant MacLaren, moments before he would historically have died in the line of duty. Since then I have assumed his life, his work, his marriage, pretending to be a man very different than myself. In truth, I am traveler 3468, one of thousands of travelers around the world who have come from a time when life is all but wiped out, to save humanity. To change the path. I know how that must sound, especially to you, Kat, but it’s true.”

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 11: Simon Recap

 

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This episode we delve further into Simon’s back story and his research with Vincent. We also find out a little more about what Vincent is up to in the present. The travelers search for Vincent with Simon’s help, and things come to a head in their personal lives. MacLaren brings Dr Perrow in on a plan to capture Vincent.

We start the episode at the 2012 gala where original MacLaren and Kat met Vincent, which Vincent mentioned to traveler MacLaren when Mac questioned Vincent. It’s a silent auction, and Kat tells Grant that there’s no way football tickets are worth that much. But it’s for the children!! He runs into Vincent as he steps away to get them another drink.

Vincent stops to chat with Kat, assuming she means that she endowed a research chair when she says that she donated a chair to the auction. Still socially awkward after 11 years in the 21st. Kat explains that she means a literal chair, which doesn’t have any bids yet, so they take a walk over to look at it.

As they approach, Vincent is mesmerized by the series of Simon’s drawings displayed next to Kat’s lovely chair. She informs him that the drawings were done by a patient at the hospital. Visibly moved by the sight of his lost home and people, Vincent buys all of them.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 10: 21C Recap

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In this episode, Marcy takes drastic steps to bring back the memories she lost in the reset, and the show does a drastic retcon of her origin story. While Marcy is taking her ice bath through memory lane, the rest of the team is charged with helping to protect future POTUS 53, currently a sweet little girl under attack by the Faction. When you’re an evil death cult, it’s never to early to assassinate a president.

Marcy begins her ice bath ritual with a quasi suicide note for David, because this show loves to torture him. Not that I mind all that much, since David’s happiness is frequently based on guilting people into doing what he wants. He’s one of those guys whose excessive sensitivity makes every situation about him, and Marcy’s need to recover her past is, of course, actually about his needs instead of hers.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 9: Update Recap

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The travelers move on from the machinations of the Faction in this episode, once again settling into the business of long term life in the 21st century, with all of its risks and rewards. Phillip is given his first historical update, restoring his function as the team’s historian. Trevor and MacLaren face personal tragedies. Marcy and Carly help Phillip rebuild the team’s investments.

Phillip picks up his swag bag as he enters a mostly empty movie theatre and finds the seat labeled with his traveler number. A young woman sitting a couple of seats away asks him if it’s his first time, to which he replies, yes. She tells him it’s her second, and points out a man who’s there for the third time. The man’s face is filled with dread. Being a historian is not for the faint of heart, but we already knew that.

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