Loveday Writing

The next day at work, Aleesha tells Nora that she shouldn’t dump Matteo. Nora tells her that she’s not dumping Matteo, but she’s not getting back with Nathan either. Nora also tells her that Nathan thinks the Ludds might be behind his murder, but Matteo thinks Horizen could be, and she asks her if Horizen could be capable of committing murder. Aleesha dismisses this theory.

In a meeting between the IT and customer service teams, Craig tells the customer service team that the government have recently decided to relax privacy standards after the Ludd attack, which means that they are allowed to screen grab without permission. The IT team are also launching a new software, Mind Frisk, which will give them access to an upload’s thoughts in real time, and thoughts of interest that compromise Lakeview’s security can be flagged for further investigation. Nora texts Nathan, asking him to meet her so she can tell him.

When Nathan and Nora meet up, Nora tells him that she thinks Oliver was perhaps meeting with the Horizen executives on Family Day and she plans on sneaking into Craig’s office to find out more about the Mind Frisk program.

Later, after Craig leaves the office, Nora sneaks in and unlocks Craig’s computer, informing Nathan that the program is stored within VR. When she puts her VR glasses on, she discovers that Craig has an identical office in Lakeview. When Nora finds Nathan’s file, she tells him that Horizen knew he was working on a free upload system. Nora opens Mind Frisk and they discover that thoughts can be searched by word, extreme emotional state, violent language, anti-capitalist language, or by listening in on a specific upload.

Nathan asks Nora to test Mind Frisk on his thoughts, after a humorous and awkward moment where Nathan thinks about how beautiful Nora is, he asks her to search for him as a subject and they find David Choak is thinking about him. Even though Choak has paid for the highest privacy level so no-one can hear his thoughts, Nora disables this setting, and they overhear him talking to someone, who is ultimately revealed to be the assassin that he sent after Nathan. Choak reveals through his thoughts that he didn’t expect to have to upload the assassin and that Nathan is not a threat as he has no memories to tie him to anything.

An angry Nathan wants to go to the memory parlour and enhance all of his memories, however Nora suggests pulling them so he doesn’t get flagged by Mind Frisk – he can’t think of a memory that’s not there. However, Nathan refuses as that would mean going back to the person he used to be and he doesn’t want that. He suggests putting bugs in the Mind Frisk system, however Nora says disabling the system won’t be enough to stop it from launching.

Nathan ends up going to the memory parlour and enhances a memory of him in a waiting room, with Oliver and Choak seeing Nathan and running away. Oliver thinks Nathan didn’t see him but Choak tells Oliver to get rid of him. Nathan also sees the memory of him calling Nora, declaring his love for her, he goes to send it to her but stops himself.

The episode ends with Craig going to his office in Lakeview and Choak’s thoughts being heard by everyone in Lakeview, when Craig enters the Mind Frisk system, he finds a message left by Nora, letting him know that the system has been hacked.

Meanwhile, Luke is boycotting sleep because he believes he’s being watched, and it turns out he’s right when Lucy tells Aleesha that videos of uploads’ dreams are being sold on DreamHub. Later, when Luke hears a camera shutter click as Lucy is screen grabbing him in the bathroom, Lucy tells Aleesha to put Luke to sleep. She tries to push him on his bed only for him to fly out the window and run off. Later, when Aleesha is on her way home from work, someone recognises her on the street from DreamHub as Luke has sex dreams about her. Luke gets so desperate to stay awake he tries to sniff cocaine, only for Aleesha to appear and blow it away. Ultimately, Aleesha ends up tricking Luke by pretending to be open to hooking up with him, and puts him to sleep as soon as he gets on his bed.

Meanwhile, Ingrid talks to Lucy about getting a digital baby. Lucy tells her that there are many levels of digital baby, the highest being merging information from hers and Nathan’s brain scans to create a new human identity, and that she can’t skip levels. After Ingrid lies and tells her that Nathan has given his consent, Lucy gives her an AI simulation of a digital baby, which has the AI Guy’s face. Ingrid instantly struggles with the baby’s constant crying, even paying to get it to sleep, only for it to wake up again moments later. When Ingrid goes in and out of the VR suit, and subsequently, Lakeview, she discovers the baby rapidly ages from toddler, to five-year-old, to a teenager playing loud music and locking himself in the bathroom.

The next morning, she wakes up and finds the AI baby is now elderly and on his death bed. He asks Ingrid for a name and when she struggles and says “No, uh”, he mishears her and believes she’s giving him the name, Noah. He says goodbye, dramatic music plays, and he fades away to Ingrid’s shock and sadness.

Overall, I was surprised by the reveal of Choak being Nathan’s murderer. Choak was the one to suggest to Nathan that he was murdered, no-one else did. This beg the questions of whether Choak shot himself in the foot or whether he deliberately brought it up as a way to keep tabs on Nathan. Also, Choak was alive when he saw Nathan, which begs the question(s) of whether Choak just happened to die shortly after Nathan, or whether he deliberately uploaded himself just after Nathan’s passing? Or is he pulling the same move as Ingrid and pretending to be uploaded?

Despite my surprise though no other suspects, other than Kannerman and possibly the Ludds were offered, so it does make sense as well. I also appreciated the reveal that Choak hired the assassin to do his dirty work and uploaded him into a cheap digital afterlife, which solves that mystery.

I also enjoyed the humour in the Luke-Aleesha and Ingrid subplots and they broke up the episode well when needed.

I’m looking forward to seeing the aftermath of this reveal, and what Nathan and Nora will do in the remaining two episodes of the season.

Stray Observations:

-Horizen’s motto actually is “Don’t be evil. Obviously.” It appears on Aleesha’s and Nora’s coffee mugs.

-Luke did point patrol in Iran.

-Apparently it costs 99c to put a digital baby to sleep.

-When Lucy has the printer make her and Aleesha coffees, it even prints the mugs that the coffees come in.

-The Robin Hood theme is continued in Nora’s message for Craig when she refers to Nathan as Robin Hood. She refers to herself as Black Widow.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “You’re real bossy for an anarchist.” (Nora to Matteo)
• “Please, Matteo, come back, don’t be angry!” “I knew it!” “Ivan, I didn’t fuck your mop!” (Roomba-Ivan-Matteo)
• “I already told you, I don’t know when they are bringing back Cheddar Bog Biscuits!” “It’s not about that, although I do miss them.” (Aleesha-Luke)
• “Do you think Horizen could be capable of murder?” “No, Horizen’s motto is ‘don’t be evil. Obviously’, unless it’s ‘don’t be evil obviously’, like don’t be obvious when you are being evil. Damn that’s crafty.” (Nora-Aleesha)
• “It’s like I always say, ‘if you’re fighting more than you’re fucking, cut him loose’.” “Okay, wait, I thought you always say ‘this red wine is making me sexy’?” “I say lots of things, like ‘don’t dump a live dude for a dead ex-boy toy who almost got you killed.’” (Aleesha-Nora going back and forth)
• “My family is less family and more pack of hyenas on a carcass, with my feelings being the carcass.” (Ingrid to Lucy)
• “Is it a boy?” “It appears to be, but they’ll decide for themselves of course.” (Ingrid-Lucy on the digital baby with the AI Guy’s face)
• “No beddy-bye for me!” (Luke to Aleesha as he’s running away from her)