Author: S.J. Borger

Almost Human continues its strong premiere season with its fourth installment, “The Bends.” The titular item is a new drug made from seaweed (and causes a weird green-y algae growth on its overdose victims) that would be wildly popular if it could be processed with a high enough level of purity (shades of Breaking Bad here, without the, you know, cancer and stuff).

Lom, Rudy Lom

The episode starts with our intrepid lab geek, Rudy Lom, in some sort of about-to-get-violent situation. It seems as if Rudy is undercover and his cover his blown—he releases a steam vent (handy how those are always around, just at elbow height, in these situations) and runs. His pursuers shoot, one getting him in the arm.

We then get the ’24 Hours Earlier’ super-title (we understand the use of the flash-forward, and it wasn’t done badly here, but it seems to be getting a tad overused in television these days. Just our personal opinion.) and go to Kennex and Dorian, eating lunch (dinner?) at a sushi place. Well, Kennex is eating, Dorian is clearly in a hurry to get someplace (where is never established). After declaring he can’t leave until he has eaten everything on his plate, per Japanese culture, Dorian has the chef serve Kennex some sort of clear-ish, wriggling, still very much alive slug thing (having lived in Japan for two years, we can clearly state that that is NOT something usually served in a Japanese restaurant). Tricked by his own words, Kennex eats it.

Ah, male bonding.

Cut to someone we’ve never seen before, with a nifty phone-in-palm device (why doesn’t EVERYONE have these?? Is it new tech? Is it super expensive? He’s the only one we’ve seen with this!) talking to his wife, who clearly doesn’t know he’s in a obviously-where-crimes-happen alley. After lying through his teeth about where he is, Frank Cooper—we find out that’s his name—meets up clearly-not-good-guys. We quickly discover that he’s there to introduce a new cook to THE drug pin of this city, The Bishop. Apparently there’s 600 liters of raw product just waiting for the next Walter White (sorry, we got our shows mixed for a second); the next cook-extraordinaire to brew up the drug.

But things go wrong when the Bishop finds a subcutaneous wire (another piece of cool tech) on Cooper, and bam, bam, both Cooper and his cook buddy are dead.

Because All Dirty Cops Keep Incriminating Evidence In Their Trunks, Uh-Doy

The next morning, Kennex and Dorian are called to the crime scene—a dead cop (clearly Cooper), whose car’s trunk his full of illegal drugs, clearly making Cooper out to be a dead, dirty cop. But wait, no, Kennex was buddies with Cooper (of course he was!) and he knows in his gut Cooper wasn’t dirty. Also, Kennex points out, if Cooper was dirty, why wear a wire?

Of course, all those drugs in the trunk  and multiple dead bodies at what is clearly a drug deal gone wrong is enough for Detective Paul (whose sole purpose so far is to be the one guy who doesn’t like Kennex…), who declares Cooper guilty and then pretty much disappears for the next fifteen minutes of air time.

Oh, we also get some new info on the drug, the Bends. It’s highly toxic, and the Bishop is poised to take over the streets with it (a la The Wire; again, we’re not saying this show is breaking new ground, only that its execution is a lot of fun to watch). This is mostly info-dumped by Detective Stahl (Minka Kelly), who seems to be regulated to that quite a bit. Not that she doesn’t do it well, but we wish we’d see a few more women doing some kicking-ass and taking names.

The Case of the Dirty-Or-Just-Mildly-Dusty Cop

Kennex meets with the widow (was it just us or was there some ‘my-best-friend’s-wife-is-the-woman-I-loved subtext going on with Kennex? We never do find out why he and Cooper aren’t friends anymore…). Of course the widow proclaims her husband’s innocence.

Maldonado meets with Captain Barros, Cooper’s commanding officer, who doesn’t want to believe Cooper was dirty either, but admits that Cooper wasn’t assigned to any official undercover work; Barros does say that Cooper was the type of cop to work something on his own. Nonwithstanding, since Cooper’s financials show suspicious activities, Maldonado is going to have to investigate.

The widow tells Kennex that Cooper went up to their cabin the day he died, so that’s where Kennex and Dorian head. It’s already been torn apart, but thanks to the helpful clue from the widow that Cooper was working on the fireplace, Kennex finds the receiver for Cooper’s wire. Unfortunately it doesn’t prove anything in terms of Cooper’s innocence but it does prove that The Bishop was there, which apparently is a big deal since no one knows what Bishop looks like.

Cue the ‘let’s find a new cook and go undercover and get Bishop plan.’ Except they need a cook…and that’s when they bring in Rudy. Who apparently is a bio-tech, cybernetic, computer programming…chemist. Don’t think on that one too much. A geek is a geek, right? Clearly we all have expert levels of knowledge in all fields related to geekdom. There’s probably a Venn diagram somewhere.

Rudy jumps at the chance to go undercover (a great subtle touch, when Kennex is pitching the idea to Rudy, is when Rudy sees his reflection in a tux, a la James Bond, in the metal surface of his instruments). He even has a fedora ready and waiting.

Time for the “Live Your Cover” Speech

While Detective Paul (who is apparently the undercover expert) drills Rudy, Kennex and Dorian go find a bad guy that can set up a meet with The Bishop.

They find someone relatively easily (Patrick Gallagher of Glee), who agrees to set up the meet after a little kind-of-sort-of blackmail from Kennex.

Rudy holds up under Det. Paul’s grilling, though the fedora gets nixed (though we liked it, Mackenzie Crook can rock a fedora) and the operation is a go—except for one thing. Rudy drinks a nasty liquid (which makes him fart, ha ha bathroom humor) but also turns his whole body into a GPS-locater. It’s in beta, he says, and it’s top-secret.

So, off Rudy goes to his meet, followed by two cockroach-cameras (a lovely bit of tech), where he meets the Bishop and almost blows the whole thing; Dorian has to go in to provide support (but the cover is still intact). Bad guys convinced of Rudy’s nefarious-ness, they agree to take him to the ‘real lab’–but first he has to drink some gross-milky looking liquid—and when he does, his GPS signal cuts off.

The bad guys then take Rudy to the ‘real lab’ after revealing that guy we think is the The Bishop isn’t, in fact, The Bishop. It’s a solid reveal that played out well.

You Dirty Double Crossing Double-Crosser!

Back at the base, Kennex rolls out as soon as Rudy’s signal disappears—but even though no one exited the building, Rudy’s is nowhere to be found; because bad guys, apparently, use sewers. The bad guys and Not-Bishop bring Rudy to a lab and demand he cooks—and he does, creating a product that’s 94% pure.

Meanwhile, back with Kennex, they figure out that the only way the bad guys could have known to have Rudy drink the GPS-signal block juice was if one of the bad guys was a cop. Maldonado puts two and two together, and figures out that Barros is The Bishop.

Sure enough, Rudy (now in a super-secret lab) meets Barros, who asks Rudy how he cooked such a pure form of the drug.

Maldonado called Barros to ‘update’ him, and manages to track the phone to get a location. Kennex and Dorian speed to him.

While Rudy explains how the cooking process is more of an art than a science, the goons are alerted to something-not-right and now we’re back to where we were at the beginning of the episode. Rudy escapes, gets shot in the arm—

And Kennex and Dorian get there. Two henchman are instantly disposed of, then Kennex goes after Barros while Dorian goes at it with Barros’ android, which was a great fight that ends with the bad robot’s (see what we did there?) head getting ripped off his body, spine still attached. Awesome.

All Wells That Ends Up at a Cop Bar

Kennex gets Barros, clears Cooper’s name, and he, Dorian and Rudy go out to celebrate—to Kennex’s cop bar, much to his dismay.

Another really good episode. Seriously, if you’re not watching this, you should be. The ratings aren’t great (though the numbers went up this week) and Fox isn’t known for its generosity with freshman shows and middle-ish ratings. So watch it! Tell your friends to watch it! While not perfect (Dorian is supposed to be ‘troubled’ but he seems the saner of the two, for example) it’s still better than most of what’s on TV, and certainly the world and its characters are intriguing enough—and the episodes are doing an excellent job expanding and building the world—that this show could be one with a lot of mileage in it.

Almost Human airs on Fox on Mondays at 8 p.m.

You can catch up on all the episodes so far on Hulu or Fox.com.

Almost Human is rapidly becoming our favorite new show of the 2013 season. Is it groundbreaking? Not really—but what it does it does well, including playing on tropes and concepts that are familiar without making them seem cliché or—worse—lazy.

With episode three, “Are You Receiving?” we get a standard hostage situation (the show continues it’s good-hearted, um, emulation of themes and motifs by pretty much recreating Die Hard in 2048) but the this show is not so much about the what is happening as it is about who it’s happening too, and Karl Urban and Michael Ealy—not to mention the show’s robust ensemble cast which includes veterans Lili Taylor and Mackenzie Crook (Pirates of the Caribbean)—have an endearing chemistry and are well on their way to forging a great TV partnership.

They Give Great Car Conversation

The episode starts with Kennex (Urban) going about his morning ablations—including the addition of rubbing some olive oil on his prosthetic leg (a nice nod to episode two), which does, as Dorian (Ealy) had promised, stop the squeaking.

Urban is really captivating as Kennex, giving the gruff-cop-everyman-with-a-heart-of-gold his own personal touch, and he and Ealy have already settled into an appealing back and forth dialogue that feels organic and natural; well written repartee and the chemistry of the two leads lend this show a great deal of its charm.

We go to a large, modern-y business building where a security guard brings a package up to the 25^th floor. He flirts with one of the girls—there’s business about a keyed lock versus a bio lock that we thought was going to pay off later but doesn’t—and then he goes back to his desk in the lobby, where he is, sadly, shot by the bad guys. The bad guys then shoot a janitor (bad day to be a minimum wage employee at whatever building this is) and plant a bomb-looking device in the basement. Apparently Fox isn’t too concerned about that whole 8 p.m. time slot, because blood sprayed and everything.

We also learn that the bad guy likes to ask people what their name is before he kills them. You know, because without our manners where would we be?

Back to Kennex, who is being mildly lectured by Dorian about his tardiness in picking up Dorian.

Sidenote: So, apparently, Dorian has an apartment of his own somewhere not in the Police precinct. Which is fine, we just assumed he would just go back to the…lab/basement place or whatever and, you know, hibernate for the night. If he does have an apartment, that was fast. Or maybe there’s a like a robo-hostel for all the cybernetic cops? Now that’s an idea for show!

The two partners engage in some mild ribbing about the use of olive oil and coffee temperature—entertaining, as both actors have solid comedic timing and there is a sense that they genuinely like each other—when a call comes in about a gunshot victim at—you guessed it—our super classy office building.

They Just Walked Right In and Shot Him

Kennex and Dorian get to the building and Dorian is able to pull a sketchy image of our bad guys going up to the 25^th floor from the shattered security system—which means they’re still in the building. As the bad guys have disabled the elevators, Kennex and Dorian start up the stairs.

The bad guys, meanwhile, have rounded up the employees on the 25^th floor—including a young-ish girl who was huddled under a desk. Main Bad Guy (Damon Herriman) has a mildly existential monologue about the importance of honesty before hauling her out with the rest of the hostages and telling Bald Henchman to “start now,” resulting in the triggering of the bomb they had set earlier. Kennex and Dorian run out to see a gaping hole where the lobby used to be.

So there’s nothing like an explosion in the business district to get the attention of law enforcement; while Kennex and Dorian still heading up, Stahl (Minka Kelly) and Maldonado (Lili Taylor) connect in through some weird open-air speaker phone that oddly knows when to turn the mute on and off.

Maldonado tells Kennex to not ascend and to stay and assist with the evacuation, leading Kennex to the old fake-static-to-drop-call trick, which leads to one of our top three lines of the night:

Dorian: Did you just hang up on Captain Maldonado?

Kennex: It was a boring conversation, anyway.

Ha. Funny. Well-delivered, both self-aware and situationally appropriate. And an excellent encapsulation in two lines of what makes this show work: yes, it is unashamedly stealing, but it knows it, and you know it, and it’s done well, with just enough tongue-in-check self-awareness mixed with a kind of geeked-out respect.

The guys keep going up, and Maldonado, on the advice of Kennex, jams all communication signals—including Kennex and Ealy’s phones/wifi/whatever it is, leading the Main Bad Guy to pronounce how predictable the police are.

Sidenote: this is where, we admit, we clued into the it’s-not-really-about-the-hostage-it’s-about-the-money ‘twist,’ mostly because that’s almost exactly what both the Die Hard 1 and 3 baddies say at roughly the same point in those movies. So.

Don’t Overthink the Phone Thing

With all of the phone calls not being able to get out, Dorian ends up getting any calls placed in the building bounced to him. After a amusing interchange with a Portuguese woman (where Dorian speaks flawless Portuguese as a woman), they get a call from a women trapped with the gunman (Dorian, answering the call as Kennex, adds a nice bit of humor just as the show get serious).

The caller—Paige—is hiding in a closet with a view of the hostage situation. As she’s talking to Kennex, the bad guys grab a random hostage—Lou–and execute him, throwing his body out of the window, where it lands feet from the mobile police command center. Turning him over, Detective Paul (Michael Irby), he of the I-don’t-like-you-Kennex attitude of last week, finds a note attached to the front of the body demanding: “No Cops, Stay Out.”

Maldonado initiates hostage protocol. And sends a drone with a phone (which somehow works? Why didn’t Kennex have a phone like that??) and gets Lead Bad Guy’s demands (airlift for escape and a fission igniter).

Using facial recognition, Maldonado identifies Lead Bad Guy as Lucas Vincent, a lieutenant in the Holy Reclamation Army (never a good combination of words).

Lucas gives Maldonado a 43 minute deadline or a hostage dies.

Kennex (another top three line) asks Dorian if a fission igniter is as bad as he thinks it is…and it is. It’s a detonator for a mega-ton explosive device (though why they would have a mega ton explosive and not the detonator, we don’t know).

Paige, meanwhile, is pretty close to breaking down. We find out the young-ish girl hiding under the desk earlier is Jenna, her sister, and that Jenna was only there to have lunch with Paige.

Kennex, trying to calm Paige down, tells a story of a near-death experience he had with his father when they were ice-fishing. It works mostly because Urban excels at that gravelly, hero-of-the-day tone. With Paige calmer, and having gleaned some crucial information from her, Kennex and Dorian continue up the stairs.

Just The Igniter, Ma’am

Back at police headquarters, Maldonado can’t get a fission igniter (apparently approval for that is a much higher paygrade), so Rudy Lom (Mackenzie Crook) offers to make a fake one that could pass an initial scan. Maldonado approves it.

Stahl decants a load of exposition; Holy Reclamation Army is an anti-Western religious group known for taking hostages in order to further their political gains, with no qualms at taking life.

Back with Kennex and Dorian, their leisurely trip up the stairs is interrupted with gunfire—two bad guys have spotted them up above. The firefight moves into a deserted office floor, where Dorian takes out one bad guy and the other one, injured, flees.

Kennex comes up to Dorian and discovers Dorian has been injured—a glancing blow to the head. Dorian, who is glitching a little, still manages to discover that their bad guy—originally id’d as Michael Demerais—has a facemaker (it does what it sounds like)—and once disabled, the bad guy is revealed to be Gregor Stone, not a member of the Holy Reclamation Army, just a petty criminal.

He also finds a small red plastic disc with the word “start” on it; but then it becomes obvious that the gunshot has injured Dorian more than he let on—he won’t be able to walk within five minutes.

Dorian wonders why the gang is going through the trouble of faking identities instead of just wearing masks while Kennex has to try to repair Dorian using an old q-tip (ew) and lying through his teeth about the cleanliness of his tools, leading to our third top three lines of the night, Kennex in regards to the bundle of wires/tendons revealed in Dorian’s injury and being unable to find the “magenta one,” tells Dorian “there’s 50 shades of purple in there.” Ha. In fact the whole trying-to-fix-Dorian-scene was classic.

Back at the precinct, Lom is trying to finish the fission igniter while a newer robot watches. He only has four minutes…

Kennex, who has accidently knock Dorian unconscious, talks to Paige in another effort to calm her down. While connecting wires with (used) chewing gum, we learn Kennex’s middle name is Reginald (his father was an Elton John fan, apparently).

Phone’s Haven’t Gotten Any Smaller, but the Guns Got Huge

The injured bad guy makes it up the 25^th floor to tell Lucas there’s two guys in the building. Lucas tries to bluff with Maldonado to see if they’re cops but she (nicely) calls his bluff and he ends up not knowing—but he still sends three guys to the stairwells with really big guns.

Paige decides she can’t hide out in the closet while her sister is one of the hostages, so she sneaks out when the Bald Henchman’s back was turned and joins the hostages (against Kennex’s advice). She keeps her head though, and manages to plant her phone (with its open line) so that Kennex can hear what happens in the room. She does tell Kennex before she gets off the phone that the bad guys keep going to the window in the corner for some reason.

Lom, the unsung hero of the day, gets the igniter finished and Det. Paul sends it up. Kennex and Dorian, knowing the stairs aren’t safe, are stymied on how to get to the 25^th floor.

Lucas gets the igniter and tells Bald Henchman to send ‘the message to the other crew.’  He also says they won’t be taking the igniter—leading Dorian to realize the hostage situation is a decoy.

Kennex and Dorian figure out that the other crew is outside the building, and the red discs are being used as a reflective/point-to-point communication—and the only thing of value nearby is the palladium depot. Where the other crew is, stealing lots and lots of palladium.

Kennex than gets to say “it’s a heist,” a la John McClane in, well, all the Die Hards. Points to Urban for saying it believably and without any McClane mannerisms.

So, It’s Kind of Like Die Hard. Only with Robots.

The bad guys plant a bomb with the hostages (a light bomb), and Kennex realizes the bad guys are going to kill all the hostages. There’s no way for Kennex to get up the floor in time, but Dorian can—by climbing up the elevator cables. They know it’s a suicide mission, but there’s no other option. Dorian goes up the elevator shaft before Kennex can stop him.

Dorian then gets to be pretty bad ass, punching through the air ducts (ah, where would we would be without air ducts??) and taking out four bad guys before Lucas takes Dorian down.

Lucas goes through his ‘what’s your name?’ spiel and, then, just before Lucas can pull the trigger, Kennex—wearing the Facemaker disguising him as one of the gang—comes in and finishes off the rest of the baddies. He grabs the negotiating phone and tells Maldonado to drop the comm jam—the other bad guys were using it to jam the alarm at the palladium depot.

They do so, and the alarm goes off, trapping crew 2 in the vault.

Dorian disables the light bomb, and yay, day saved.

Paige and Jenna meet Kennex face to face and mutual admiration ensues.

He’s not Injured, He’s My Partner

Dorian and Kennex go back to the station, where they are greeted with applause—a far cry from the last week’s sullen muttering—and Kennex, having completed the I-don’t-like-my-partner phase and firmly moving into the he’s-weird-but-he’s-mine odd couple phase, bypasses Lom’s lecture about fixing Dorian with chewing gum and takes Dorian out for noodles. Aw. They’re buddies now!

On the way to the noodle shop, Dorian admits that when the gun was pointed at his head, he discovered he did not want to die.

That’s intriguing. It’s hard to write a world with robots or any type of AI and not have to grapple with the sentient beings versus human technology moral dilemma, and the writers seem to laying the groundwork for this.

The episode ends with Dorian singing (reasonable well) along with Benny and the Jets. And calling Kennex ‘Reginald.’

All in all, a really good episode. Like all great TV, the experience was more than just a sum up of what happened.

Come back next week for more on our favorite odd couple!

Almost Human airs on Fox on Mondays at 8 p.m.