Thursday, February 13, 2014

'Almost Human' GifTweetCap: Say NO to Drugs, Kids!

Most of these gifs are available on this Tumblr post. Tell your friends to live tweet the show! You never know when you or your friends may be quoted for one of these recaps! "Perception" is the second episode of "Almost Human" in a row in which we have not had any car-ride banter between Kennex (Karl Urban) and Dorian (Michael Ealy). I'm hoping that's just a coincidence because of the fact that this was originally supposed to be the fourth episode of the series, while last week's was the ninth. If they were originally planning to have non-banter episodes every five episodes, I could live with that. Don't get me wrong; it was an awesome episode! I just miss the laughs.
The episode begins with two girls, high on drugs. Scarlett (Cate Sproule), the first girl, wanders around like someone who is exceedingly impressed by nature, even though she's seeing nature underneath an overlay of math problems her mind believes are fascinating. --I'm sorry, but I prefer separating math from art and nature. If I want math, I'll do some math problems. If I want nature, I'll go outside and climb a tree; no math allowed.
Elinor (Megan Danso), the second girl, makes a bit more sense, as she sees music as pretty lines in the air as she virtually composes a piece. At least she mixes one form of art with another.
Both girls seem to go on overload from what they are seeing. Nature-girl is surrounded by so many bees that she can't create equations for all of them, and composer-girl tries to out-compose Beethoven. Then they each collapse and die.
Meanwhile, Kennex is having Insyndicate flashbacks "again" (remember, this originally happened in the fourth episode, which is why it seems so jarring to suddenly have him revert to old Kennex). He throws around sticky notes to help him work through his memories, including this one which says, "Anna had something for me?" (Anna was his terrorist ex-girlfriend, whom he later remembered may be involved with Insyndicate).
The reason he's having so many flashbacks is because of his continued use of dangerous recollection tactics, which includes drug use. He's now shakin' like a drug addict until he gets his fix! Worse, Dorian and Maldonado (Lili Taylor) both spy him popping the teeny red pill.
One of the girls has a container that is activated by her own DNA. It turns out that both girls were "Chromes" (genetically enhanced), just like Det. Stahl (Minka Kelly), and they both overdosed on drugs designed specifically for them. Another girl, Lila (Sarah Grey), also died with the drug in her system, but not from an OD. She drowned. All three girls went to Mendel Academy.
Maldonado sends Stahl off to to the school to talk with a few people, since she's also a Chrome. Strangely, she speaks with the only other "Natural" at the Academy who is naturally gifted, as Lila was. Lila's goal was to surpass the Chromes.
Meanwhile, Kennex and Dorian speak with a Chrome guy named Marshall (Levi Meaden). Unlike their female counterparts, Chrome dudes are uncooperative douchebags. Another Chrome dude in the other room (Brad Bergeron) mouths the words, "You wouldn't understand." That's because the smug Chrome dudes have a superiority complex.
Later, Dorian and Kennex do actually have a short, completely meaningless car-ride conversation. It's meaningless because Kennex's drugs are giving him some major flashes, causing him to crash the car and injure Dorian's ear.
This forces Dorian to meet with Julian (Iain Belcher), their next Academy student, with a ridiculously huge bandage over his ear.
The drugs were created by a chem printer, known as a "Chemulon." The Chemulon is licensed, with all the data about its manufactured pills backed up to cloud storage. Julian's father is the owner of the printer that created the deadly pills. In fact, Julian is high on the pills, causing his mind to "expand" even more than his normal Chrome mind will allow (which is exactly what all drug addicts believe).
The pills given to the OD victims were 1,000 times the normal dose, but Julian claims that his fancy printer was hacked.
Fortunately, Kennex lets "D" drive on the way back to the station.
The cops find another DNA container in Julian's home. This time, it contains an image stick. Julian resists telling Kennex and Dorian what is in it, but finally de-encrypts it for them using some cool tech and fingerprints.

It contains a video of Lila's last words and suicide.
Her mother, Mrs. Hoving (Anna Galvin), had pushed her to be like the Chromes, but the drug caused her feelings of inadequacy to go overboard. Julian and Lila were in love, but she felt that she would never be able to measure up. When her mother sees the video, she admits to hiring a hacker to create drugs that would kill Elinor and Scarlett. She still blames them for her daughter's death, not realizing that it was really her own fault for being a tremendously bad mother. So long, lady! Now you'll have plenty of time to think about your own inadequacy while you rot in prison for murdering two girls!
Back to Kennex. Maldonado meets with him in a bar to discuss his drug use, and the fact that the memories they are bringing up means he will have to speak with Internal Affairs again. She also warns him to stop with the dangerous recollection tactics, so of course his next stop is the Recollectionist. He remembers something that may be useful, but winds up with nasty globulous blood running out of his nose.
His memory shows Anna (Mekia Cox) giving him a Russian nesting doll. When he gets home and opens it up, there is nothing inside, so he gives it to a hesitant lab tech for some covert testing.
Later, he speaks with the douchiest of all IA Google Glass Assfaces (Peter Flemming) about his Anna memories. He basically accuses Kennex of falling for the enemy, and carelessly handing her classified information.
Partly believing what Mr. Doucheface tells him, Kennex goes home and throws out all his sticky notes about Anna.
But then, he learns something exceedingly disconcerting from the lab tech: the nesting doll is actually a listening device, with nanotech embedded in the lining! So, Kennex didn't just blabber info directly to her, but on the phone in the same room as an innocent-looking gift from her. Even more freaky is that the last upload was seven hours ago! WHAT?!

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