Showing posts with label episode 6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label episode 6. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

'Almost Human' GifTweetCap: Double the Fun and Mayhem with #Doubledor

"Arrhythmia" may be the best Almost Human episode thus far, with double the Kennex-Dorian banter, some serious questions about the morality of future technology, and the perfect balance of humor, solemnity, and ideas that further the discussion of the show once it's over.
The episode begins with a grim look at future health care. Obviously, Obamacare has either failed or been repealed, because some folks are still devoid of health insurance. Another problem is the number of broken hologram doctors, making health care both impersonal and extremely frustrating.
A desperate man who looks as if something truly tragic is about to happen to him begins threatening to shoot live doctors with a gun if they don't help save his life. Not very logical, but he's in a panic to be saved before his death, which he knows will be coming at exactly 9:18. Unfortunately, he's a little too late, since the doctors begin making out what he's saying at about the same time he croaks. With his final breath, he says, "they killed me." Poor guy.
Meanwhile, Dorian and Kennex have some fan-favorite banter in the car, involving Kennex banging on his non-functioning radio like a "caveman," as Dorian puts it. Kennex is undeterred, proud of his brute-force tactics.
Our duo takes the call about the dead guy at the hospital. Upon entering, they notice a second DRN who looks exactly like Dorian. Dorian seems upset that the DRN, who was designed to be a cop, is a mere maintenance tech.
After taking down some mental notes on their new case, Dorian decides to bring DRN-494 (I'll use the lame moniker Dosian from here on out -- short for Dorian 2 in Spanish) for an all-day ride-along. Kennex is fake-worried that Dosian will be missed at work, wanting him out if the car. Dosian says he's off duty, but one gets the sense that he's lying so he can shirk his responsibilities to hang out with Dorian. Kennex refuses to budge the car until Dosian gets out, but Dorian decides to infuriate Kennex into giving in by hijacking the car's controls from his bot-brain.
Double the Dorian is double the fun, just not for Kennex. Both bots begin their mouthy-pops and humorous insults of Kennex.
The double-Dors aggravate Kennex to the blood-vessel-popping point, causing an exasperated Kennex to pull over and demand that Dosian get out. The request backfires when Dosian does exactly that, running straight up to some guy on the street and tackling him. Hilarity ensues when a series of chain reactions lead to an utterly destroyed MX.
Maldonado is furious, ripping poor Kennex a new one for the destruction of the exceedingly expensive piece of hardware. Dorian was the culprit, however, having returned Dosian's case files without an update. The guy Dosian had tackled and believed to be a fugitive had already served his time. Dorian's response? "My bad."
"Jorian" share a special moment when Dorian explains that he wants to "wake" Dosian the way Kennex woke him. Dorian had hoped to be wakened, because he just wanted to exist. He wants to do the same for Dosian.
The guys head over to where the dead man got his heart transplant, but the synthetic heart belongs to someone else who died. While there, Dorian pushes Kennex to donate to kids who need medical technology (such as John's synthetic leg). Kennex agrees in order to make Dorian shutup about it, but Dorian is very nosy, obviously wanting to ensure Kennex shares a percentage of his income that Dorian finds acceptable.
The heart was supposed to have been destroyed at a crematorium, but the tech who works there has been selling off the organs to a man named Oscar for reuse on the black market, and that's not the first time he has done that. Cremation of the future is pretty awesome, by the way. 
Rudy finds that the heart was modified to run for only 30 days before requiring payment to reset the timer. The price doubles then triples until the new owners can no longer afford to pay, and they simply die when the heart shuts off.
The next heart is set up with a tracker for the next resell. Double-Dor have a discussion about why the DRNs were decommissioned during the stakeout. It turns out that they were given a "Luger Test" to determine which ones were faulty, but eventually they were all decommissioned rather than having to be fixed. During the discussion, Dorian shows Dosian all the benefits of his new eyeball, but Dosian accidentally drops it in John's coffee as he's handing it back. Hey, Dorian can warm the coffee AND keep an eye on it... er, in it.
Creepy-looking Oscar takes the heart to a new transplant "victim," then asks to watch while they "cut her." Eww.
The cops stop the transplant procedure, seriously pissing off the woman who was about to receive the heart. Moral questions about the price of a life abound.
It turns out that Oscar is only a courier, and one of the assistants at the clinic that performs the transplants is the boss of the black market heart organization. The organization was cremating the bodies that had the used hearts before reusing the hearts again, but now that the cops know about everything, the boss wants to drop it all. The cremator is in charge of resetting the hearts, but is told not to reset them. As the victims begin dropping off, Dorian and Kennex head back to the crematorium. Dorian stops the douchebag cremator by pulling him through the wall.
In the interest of happy endings, the company with the evil black-market-heart-selling assistant agrees to give each screwed-over person a free heart. Awww.

Earlier, Dorian had tried to convince Dosian to help out with a gun, but he was too terrified to budge. He then relates a story about how he had once broken protocol before being decommissioned. He had killed a man who was about to kill a little boy. The boy, named Philip, thanked him with a big hug. It was Dosian's proudest moment as a cop, and his most human connection.
When it comes time to return Dosian to his job as a custodian, Dorian uses his disco finger to remove all of Dosian's memories, with the exception of his memory of Phillip.
In order to help him feel better after the downer of leaving Dosian back in his janitorial position, Dorian suggests that Kennex allow him to drive the car. Kennex puts on a nice show of being amenable to the idea before slapping it down.
Photo permitted for commercial use from Flickr user Neon Tommy

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Friday, December 13, 2013

'Grimm' GifTweetCap: Demon or Wesen?

Quick note: I'm late once again, but the hilarious tweets are worth the late read. Once again, the pieces were finished last week, but I just couldn't get it published until right before the latest episode. My timing will be much better after the holidays!

 The Grimm episode "Stories We Tell Our Young" was extra creepy, and not really the type of thing the younguns should be watching. The big question was whether the 9-year-old monster of the week was an evil Wesen, or something much more dark and terrible. 
The monster in question is a boy named Daniel who has no idea that he is a monster. From the looks on his parents' faces, however, there is clearly something wrong here. They ominously hand their son over to a Monsignor as the boy voices his fear. We immediately get the sense that an exorcism is afoot.
The parents worst fears seem to be validated when their son turns evil-faced, and begins throwing people around like rag dolls. The Monsignor is killed, and his seminary student sidekick is injured. The only thing missing is projectile green vomit and a spinning-top head.
When Nick and Hank are called to the scene, Nick finds Daniel hiding in a cabinet. He's taken to the hospital and sedated, but that isn't quite enough to keep the little demon-bugs at bay.
Later, Daniel terrifies a nurse who is innocently tending to his meds. That would be a great party trick if it was only a prank!
Unfortunately, it's definitely not a prank in the Grimm world, and even Nick looks as if he's about to pee his pants when he sees the face of the demon child. Hank sees the child's demon-face too, indicating that he is not a typical Wesen (if he's even a Wesen at all).
On a quick side note, Juliette mindlessly puts her shoes in a drawer, which Nick seems to find strange. Now, some people do that regularly, but having the moment stand out seems to mean that something may be wrong with Juliette. Could this be the beginning of a new story arc?
Back to deviled-Daniel. Monroe and Rosalee believe the boy may be a rare Wesen-like creature called a Grausen. Nobody knows what they are, but have speculated that they could be mutated Wesen or actual demons. One thing for sure is that they are always to be kept a secret.
Another sure thing is that any Wesen who does not report the creature to the Wesen Counsel could be in serious trouble. Monroe wants to keep the situation quiet for Daniel's sake, but Rosalee fights him on it. She calls up the Counsel, then gives their hitman the boy's location.
Juliette helps Nick figure out what could really be going on: the boy may be infected with something he picked up during the family's travels. He had only been having a problem for about a year, which lines up with a trip they took in which Daniel swam in lakes and streams that could have contained contaminants.
Just as Nick and Juliette show up to test Juliette's theory, and hopefully, discover a cure, the Counsel beast shows up at Daniel's bedside. Daniel wakes and punches out the hitman before he can do anything, and runs off into the freezing cold forest wearing only his jammies.
When Juliette and Nick locate Daniel, Juliette realizes that the cold may be just what Daniel needs to rid himself of the Wesen-like-protozoa. Sure enough, the sick little creatures begin streaming out of Daniel's nose a few moments later. 
Nick later convinces the Wesen Counsel hitman that he no longer has to kill little children over old wives tales of demonic-possession-Wesen. The boy is cured, and he can go home and rest easy.
Nick then draws up an image, and details his account of the strange demon-possession-booger-Wesen, complete with correct spelling of chemical terms, provided by Juliette.
Meanwhile, Renard claims to be going on vacation to Tahiti, when he's actually off to Vienna to settle family affairs after having his brother killed. For his own protection, his loyalist pal brings him to a "safe house" above a sewer. Renard isn't too happy about the smell, and even less happy about the prospect of traipsing through the narrow sewer tunnel in the event that things go south. 
Well, things do go very wrong when two hitmen try to wipe him out. Luckily, they removed a stair so that any bad guys would trip before reaching them. Renard snaps one of their necks, and his loyalist knocks out the other guy. After escaping through the tunnel, Renard calls for someone to come get him out of there, but what happens next is left for the 2-hour midseason finale. Oh, and Adalind gets to meet the new prince, but his identity is also left for the next episode.
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