Humans And Synths Sort Out Their Alliances

Three episodes into the season, the season arcs aren't so much progressing as inching forward. Athena relocates to Qualia's UK campus to continue her conscious synth research with a larger group of subjects. Niska starts undergoing testing on her claims of consciousness. Leo and Max discover the consequences of Hester's new emotions are mostly variations on anger and hatred. Mia decides the time is right for her to tell Ed her true nature, even at risk of losing her family. And Karen returns to work just in time to get jumped in on a series of cases involving malfunctioning synths. But if the big stories aren't moving along with perceptible speed, Humans is working as a character study. Let's check in on how the characters' relationships stand, from first to worst.

1. Mia & Ed

   After accidentally letting it slip in the last episode that she's not quite like other synths Ed's had dealings with, Mia decides to take a chance and tell him the truth: "I'm just like you, in some ways. Different in others. I can think, sense, feel, care. I can like things. Like people." At first, he can't handle it, and starts to leave, but she persists: "I like you more than anything I've ever seen, or heard, or touched. Everything normal is bigger and brighter when I'm with you. You make everything...more." Who could resist such a declaration? Not Ed, who confesses that he's been having feelings for Mia too, but thought he was going crazy, like some kind of Joe Hawkins. (I'm paraphrasing.) "You don't have to be lonely," Mia tells him.

   

   I don't quite trust Ed not to ruin this like he ruined the business his parents took thirty years to build.

   

   Like, maybe, by being too careless? But for now, it's pretty sweet.

2. Laura & Niska

   Laura goes into Niska's consciousness test with high hopes.

   

   But the process -- measuring Niska's reactions to stimuli like emotional or disturbing film or pieces of music is hard for everyone: Laura is frustrated that Niska hasn't heeded her advice to show her examiners what she's feeling, and Niska is irritated that the dumb humans have decided this is the means by which she's supposed to prove her consciousness: "How is this useful? It's all abstract. What does it prove?...You want me to be more like a human -- casually cruel to those close to you and then crying over pictures of people you've never met." TOUGH BUT FAIR, TBH. Finally, Laura decides to ask Niska why she killed her john. Firmly, Niska says that he wanted her to pretend she was a child, and that he was going to be rough with her. "But is that wrong, if he didn't think you could feel?" asks Laura. "Isn't it better he exercises his fantasies with you, in a brothel, rather than take them out on someone who can actually feel? On a child?" "He was going to rape me," says Niska. "I said no to what he wanted, and he was going to force me to do it anyway. I was scared. And I'm sorry I can't cry or bleed or wring my hands so you know that, but I'm telling you, I was." This seems to change things for Laura's colleague Neha, so the case continues for now. Also: Laura notices Niska playing with the elastic on her wrist that Astride gave her, and gets the idea to look in Niska's effects; in addition to a second elastic, she finds Astrid's phone number in Niska's jeans....

3. Laura & Joe

   Having decided between them that they're just going to decide Joe's synth-infidelity isn't actually a big deal, these two seem to be fine these days.

   

   Joe's back at his old company, working on the line in a lower-status job, but he seems as okay with it as one could be, and is very supportive of Laura and her case. He is slightly concerned that Sophie is starting to display synth-ish behaviours -- in addition to the compulsive shoe-arranging Laura noted in the season premiere, Joe sees Sophie cut herself grating cheese and then determinedly shut down her emotional response to the pain -- and while Laura allows herself an indulgent moment of self-recrimination for being a terrible, insufficiently observant mother, it seems like Joe's picking up the slack, so things could be worse for this couple -- and, of course, were, not that long ago.

4. Athena & Hobb

   Athena journeys to England to try to find out what Hobb might know about conscious synths, but he is NOT into telling her anything; he's under a gag order, he's pretty sure he's being electronically monitored, and he'd rather keep his quiet life quiet.

   

   But Athena's not ready to fuck around, and tells Hobb that if he won't cooperate, she'll just send him an email thanking him for all the information he supplied her. Eventually, he decides he'll take a fat (secret) payout from Qualia to spend on a vineyard in the Dordogne and secretly collaborate with Athena after all. Who says extortion doesn't work?

5. Toby & Renie

   Given Toby's fascination with Anita in the first season, it shouldn't be that surprisingly that he's also drawn to Renie, his synth-identified classmate.

   

   Renie seems fairly receptive to his attention -- if nothing else, she can tell that Toby hasn't been mocking her the way some of their other classmates have -- but if they're going to get anywhere as friends, he needs to figure out that he's not going to get very far with her by trying to ask her about her "performance" of an identity she's trying to embody through and through.

6. Mattie & Odi

   After sneaking the consciousness code out of Laura's closet, Mattie installs it in Odi. And it works! Mattie asks whether Odi feels; he says he thinks he does. That's about as far as it goes in this episode...

   

   ...other than that Mattie pretty much falls in love with Odi as fast and in pretty much the same way the rest of us did. Get you a girl who looks at you like Mattie does Odi.

7. Athena & Vee

   Vee adapts well to her new British home.

   

   In fact, she's adapting so well that she seems like she might be on the verge of figuring out why it is she keeps thinking about one waterfall in particular...

   

   ...which is that she's an AI recreation of Athena's comatose daughter Ginny. DUN.

8. Pete & Karen

   Karen, returned to work, gets right on the case of the malfunctioning synth epidemic, which Pete seems to think is probably an insurance scam, and which Karen can't exactly solve without endangering the rest of her family. So while Pete is very solicitous of Karen, and hurt on her behalf that she can't just be herself with the squad because she has to put on her whole organic-human act, Karen's keeping secrets.

   

   That said, their relationship does reach a new milestone when her booze bag bursts and contaminates her works with beer, requiring Pete to sneak her out of the pub before their co-workers notice how badly she's glitching out. Remember the first time your significant other took care of you when you were sick? It's like that, but with gears and stuff.

9. Hester & Max

   Leo gets part of the story about what happened with their captive when he goes to the barn with a plate of food and finds him gone. Max confesses that he let the guy go; Hester does not add that she went after him and killed him.

   

   The family takes off, leaving Hester in doubt as to who's now in charge. This is hard for me: I certainly agree with Hester that all humans deserve to die, but Max is the sweetest and I hate choosing sides between them! Regardless: Max doesn't know it, but each embodies a worldview diametrically opposed to the other's. Both can't co-exist.

10. Leo & Mia

    Once he finds out the hunter is at large, Leo declares that they have to leave the farm immediately and go back on the run...which is when Mia tells Leo that she isn't leaving, and Hester, who'd been eavesdropping when Mia told Max earlier about her feelings for Ed, goes ahead and puts her on blast.

    

    Betrayed, Leo tries to talk Mia out of her decision: "He, he won't accept you -- none of them can!" "I have to try," Mia tells him. "I want to." Instead of telling her what he's actually feeling -- which is that she's breaking his heart -- Leo says it isn't safe for her to stay in the house, which she accepts. As he starts stalking off, Mia gives him the best possible advice: "Listen to Max."

    

    Ugh, forget what I said before. Let's all listen to Max.