Loveday Writing

Now that the premiere has come and gone, we can dig into the season.

The episode kicks off with Backup Nathan finding multiple missed calls and an angry voicemail from Nora, who chastises him for lying about Real Nathan’s fate. He sees this as Ingrid tells him she is applying to be a life coach chinchilla for Horizen. It’s later revealed that he and Luke are part of Workload, working as “bag narcs,” the voices of a self-serve checkout reminding customers to pay for their groceries properly.

Meanwhile, Aleesha attends a staff meeting, where she discovers from her new boss, JB, that Horizen hasn’t made any profits until now and with the Workload program (the working uploads), Horizen has a workforce that they own, which means they can start laying off the angel staff. He also tells them that Horizen are testing a new MRI technology which would allow people to back-up their brains without losing their head, and Horizen to charge people a monthly storage fee to store their data.

Meanwhile AI Guy keeps proposing to uploads, using Ingrid’s bouquet, which he aggressively caught at her and Backup Nathan’s wedding. When Aleesha tells him he can’t have a relationship with the uploads as it’s against Horizen’s HR policy, he creates one for himself.

After the staff meeting, Nora asks Aleesha to rehire her so she can go into Lakeview and find Real Nathan. Aleesha agrees to sneak her in and then leaves to do a drop for OMI, during which she has to battle a few hostile agents, using her training from the previous episode. Babatunde tells her that he believes medical experiments are taking place at a private longevity spa owned by Horizen, in upstate New York.

It’s eventually revealed that Real Nathan is being held captive in the spa, with Horizen staff asking him questions to test his memory, which includes what the capital of Florida is, a question that he keeps asking Nora throughout the episode. When Real Nathan projects himself into a vending machine screen at Horizen, he tells Nora that he was taken to a room with a big screen and Backup Nathan was there on VR, both Horizen and Earth authorities made them argue about who got to live, but he doesn’t remember what happened afterwards. When Nora demands Backup Nathan shows her his last memory of the Real Nathan, it’s revealed that the Real Nathan sacrificed himself to save Backup Nathan, and that Oliver Kannerman and JB were in the room with Real Nathan.

Meanwhile, the AI Guy’s girlfriend, AI Girl breaks up with him, wanting to see other people, mainly the AI Bartender. When Aleesha finds AI Guy punishing himself by lying on the elevator floor and having the door repeatedly hit him on the side of the head, she comforts him, with Luke joining them with beers.

The episode ends with Nora showing Ivan and Aleesha the last memory Backup Nathan has of the Real Nathan, saying it was faked. When she restores the original memory, it’s revealed that Real Nathan wasn’t killed via an electric chair like Backup Nathan thought, but strapped to a machine that Aleesha identifies as one that Horizen is testing at their longevity spa. When they look up the spa on the internet, it’s revealed to be the real-life Lakeview, and Nora tells them that they have go there to find Real Nathan.

Overall, I felt that this was a good follow up to the premiere episode as we now know where Real Nathan is being kept, and Nora, Aleesha and Ivan have figured out their next move. I also appreciated further character development with the AI Guy, with his attempts to find love and creating his own girlfriend. AI girl falling in love with another AI Guy, albeit AI Bartender, was hilarious.

Stray Observations:

-Apparently Ivan and Monique are fighting in this episode.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Babe, from the moment you ejected from my ide, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my days doing life with you.” (AI Guy to AI Girl)