Humans episode five

[shallowness]

Leo: Be nice
Niska: I am nice.
Me: cackling.

And lo, one of the obvious consequences of having Pete at her house occurred for Karen as he burst into her bedroom and was rude about her. She’s lucky she seems to be surrounded by terrible detectives. I’d love it if Karen encountered Niska - the cop who is also a replicant synth coming after 'the synth killer'. Also, she has become THE most interesting character, because she isn’t one of the family that Elster made, so how did she acquire consciousness and why did she decide to pass in such a dangerous way if she’s a lone special snowflake? Is she trying to protect other synths or just society?

Of course Leo sent Niska to Gepetto, which is a step up from a brothel, but wouldn’t Vera be more of a problem, really? As it was, she allowed Gepetto to figure out that Niska was a conscious synth (nice flicker of realisation from Hurt).

Meanwhile, there’s a family council over what to do with Anita. Toby clearly thought ‘my age, cool’ when regaled with the news she was fourteen. Laura lying about Tom (dead brother, I’m guessing) doesn’t justify what Joe did and is trying to do, but he failed. Heh, Mattie is about as good a driver as Toby is a cyclist.

What we're learning about Leo are contradictory.

I loved the scene between Niska and Gepetto. Of course Niska likes Nietzche. Although if it hadn’t been Elster who aimed for conscious synths, it would have been someone else... probably in Japan.

Alas, the hacking of Anita wasn’t working – Leo lied about visiting charm school in how he kept putting Mattie’s suggestions about finding Mia down. Was it disdain for her as a puny human? Well, he’s made his own stroppy bed and Mia and Max will have to live in it, I thought.

Pete deserved to hear most of what Jill had to tell him, and apart from the portrait of himself, of her anxieties. Although, yeah, if she wants Simon, she should pay for him and think on what that means. That is to say, I sympathised a bit with both.

Oh dear, the mysterious government types tracked the phone and are wittering on about national security. Love the phrase ‘consciousness proliferation’. (Another scene where you’re going ‘Is that X actor for what’s basically a cameo?’)

But it turned out that it was the sex-having that did for Mia. I thought Mattie might pick up on what had happened, but it was Toby, who had the head start of knowing it hadn’t been him, but really, has Toby shown himself capable of circumventing the age limit? No. Chivalrous in a stupid way is more his style.

The flashback makes it seem like kid!Leo fell for Mia, who okay, would have been a kid herself then. Sweet Max trying to buck Leo up, but he really has been a terrible protector.

Poor Fred.

Ugh, they made me go poor Toby too as his father let him down again. Stop making me feel sympathy for characters I dislike, show! (Well, possibly not Joe this episode. Little sympathy there.)

Drummond had no idea how close he came to being killed at Gepetto’s. (Shouldn't Vera have mentioned Max?)

Ah, picking a black man to give the pro-human speech. Astute.

Maybe not poor Fred after all, I suspect.

A sense of things moving on, with some interesting interactions and consequences to past events. Like I said, it engendered sympathy for nearly everyone, fallible as they are, although I’m siding with the angry ladies over the angry men – and I would like to know more about Karen, the outlier. We deserve more than one cene of exposition that I'll have to rewind to get the girst of - ooh, or she could be linked to another strand that they might leave hanging for a second season...