One Of The Biggest Battles On Humans Is Being Waged Inside A Single Synth

Humans started out being primarily the story of the Hawkins family, and its members' responses to the household's acquisition of the synthetic housekeeper/nanny they named Anita. Secondarily, it was the story of Anita's integration into the family, but the scenes from her perspective were frustrating because that perspective was so limited: though we knew there had once been consciousness animating this vessel, it's seemed like it was gone, leaving only the synth factory settings, calibrated for service. What hasn't really been dramatized until this week's episode is that the viewer isn't the only one frustrated: this stunted existence has been torture for Mia, too.

To say it hasn't been dramatized isn't to imply that it...hasn't been implied. Our first view of the synth who would become Anita was her distinguishing herself from the others in her warehouse by gazing up at the moon. Once installed in the Hawkins household, Anita focused on Sophie as the main beneficiary of her care and solicitousness, even past the point of normal carer behaviour when Anita ended the series premiere episode by carrying Sophie out for a nighttime walk. Beneath her bland, complaisant surface, Anita has the capacity to be sensitive to her human masters' feelings, and even to feel fear. All of these anomalies were obviously suggestive of Mia's true identity, but we didn't know whether these few ghostly vestiges that seemed to remain were glitches in her software. Even when Mattie hacked Anita and caused Mia to appear, we couldn't tell how much Mia was experiencing when Anita is in control of their body, but it was comforting to believe we were watching synth DID, with Mia's consciousness safely in sleep mode. Instead, it seems -- horrifyingly -- that it's been more like locked-in syndrome for Mia.

When Mattie hacked Anita episodes ago, there was a technological explanation for Mia's having taken over. But that's not the case in the latest episode: all that's happened is that, while the Anita body stood sentry next to their park bench, Laura finally told Mattie her most devastating secret: the mysterious Tom is her younger brother, who was killed on her watch, for which Laura's mother has still never forgiven her. It's a highly emotional moment for both Mattie and Laura, and continues as they drive home, with Mia in the back seat, chatting in a more relaxed way about what Tom was like. The camera pushes in on Anita's face as her eyes seem to well up...

...and suddenly, with a violent gasp, Mia appears.

Mattie recognizes the person she's seeing for the second time; Laura is terrified, naturally, but the reality of what she's dealing with hits home when she reaches for her phone to call for help and Mia implores her not to: synths don't make requests like that, and from what we've seen, they don't have any concept of deception or concealment. In this confounding situation, Laura tries to cling to what she knows: "Machines can't feel." Mia immediately proves her wrong, demonstrating her sensitivity once again by offering her analysis of what she overheard when Laura tried to explain to Mattie Laura's fraught relationship with her mother. "You fear deep down that you're like her," says Mia. "But you're not, Laura. My brother died too. My son, I mean." It seems as though the moment Mattie and Laura shared was so raw and painful for the two of them that it's awakened Mia's humanity. Anita could let it all bounce off her; Mia had to participate, and reassure Laura. In this moment, Mia had to be Laura's friend. But since Anita thinks Mia is "rogue code," Mia's communion with Laura is brief, and Anita takes over again.

Mattie knows what to do next, and when she and Max find Leo, we get all of his and Mia's backstory: his father, David Elster, created Mia to replace Leo's mother when she proved unable to care for him, that Mia was the first of Elster's special synths, and that when Leo fatally drowned as a child, Elster brought him back as a cyborg. (Leo doesn't say, probably because he doesn't know, what Niska tells George elsewhere this week: that Elster designed her to perform tasks that were a lot less wholesome.) When Leo's revived and brought back to the Hawkins house, he and Mattie perform do some computing that's (wisely) elided but surely cyber-awesome, because it brings Mia back -- apparently for good.

The joy of Mia's reunion with the man she considers her son is short-lived: they still need to find Fred; they still aren't sure exactly what is supposed to happen when all of them are back together; and instead of throwing himself on the mercy of his family and accepting that he didn't only sexually assault a conscious entity who was unable to consent, he also made her tell him how to do it, that FUCKING SCUMBAG Joe dimes out Leo and Max in some misguided plot to get invited to come home again. (I guess? I mean, it doesn't seem like he's motivated by straight-up revenge, so that's the only other explanation that kind of makes sense?) Still, this episode gives us more of Mia than we've ever seen before, and lets us see why Leo would be so terrified at the thought that Mia's soul, essentially, could have been eradicated: she didn't just love Leo when his own mother couldn't, or didn't; she loves Laura the same way.

However, having Mia back, and her time away explained, is not an unqualified good: knowing she's been inside Anita the whole time means she's been conscious for some pretty heinous violations -- one in particular, JOE. Mia's maternal qualities may mean she's more inclined to forgive and briskly move on; I still hope that when the time comes for Niska to cross paths with Joe, she knows what he's about and does what she does best.