Episode Title: “Skin”
Writer: Cheo Hodari Coker
Director: Michael Offer
Previously on “Almost Human”:
Any police drama set in the future needs crimes that are inventive in order to catch our attention. Murder, abduction, rape and robbery have seemingly always been around and they probably won’t be disappearing anytime soon. We’ve got a murder and an abduction in “Skin,” but the second episode of “Almost Human” also depicts a new crime: harvesting the skin from kidnapped women to build more realistic sexbots.
Top that, “Law & Order: SVU!”
While the fate of the victims was unsettling, the adversaries in “Skin” were bland and personality free despite their technical devices. The flash masks and DNA bomb were far more interesting than the men who used them. And this had nothing to do with the crime syndicate from the pilot episode.
Even the supporting players in this episode seemed a little lifeless. Richard Paul (Michael Irby) couldn’t even summon his inner a***hole nor did Captain Sandra Maldonado (Lili Taylor) or Valerie Stahl (Minka Kelly) get anything important to do. The only thing that passed for character development on that front was Rudy Lom’s (Mackenzie Crook) inadvertent revelation that he uses sexbots just to find companionship instead of sleeping with them.
Fortunately, our lead human cop, John Kennex (Karl Urban) and his android partner, Dorian (Michael Ealy) are so entertaining that they carry “Almost Human” by themselves. Dorian is particularly interesting to watch because he’s already figured out how to tease John without being malicious about it.
Throughout the episode, Dorian needles John about his need for female companionship and Dorian may actually care about John’s well being. But he’s also having some fun at his partner’s expense when he tells everyone who will listen about the dating profile he made for John and the fact that children and cats don’t like John because of his negative energy. Some might argue that Dorian is over-sharing John’s personal info because he doesn’t know any better. I think Dorian does know and this is his idea of humor.
But it’s not all fun for Dorian. It’s quickly become clear that he’s in a class by himself. None of the other androids have the emotional or intuitive capacity that Dorian has, and this upsets him. Dorian is disappointed that the sexbot named Vanessa (Ella Thomas) has to be deactivated even though she shows some signs of emotional growth. The only thing that Dorian can offer Vanessa before her deactivation are a few empty platitudes that John had shared earlier in the episode.
There are full spoilers ahead for “Skin,” so if you missed the second episode of “Being Human” then you should probably skip this review or else Dorian will scan your genitals.
Even though an android can conceivably last for decades or even centuries, Dorian is aware that he can die and it’s not something he’s eager to face. John’s assurances that Dorian would be remembered by the people he helped does bring a smile to his face. But by the time Dorian watches Rudy take apart the skinned female sexbot it’s obvious that he’s had a vision of his own future and it’s not comforting.
The case of the week begins when Sebastian Jones is secretly observed while trying to determine if a sexbot has human DNA. He’s promptly ambushed and murdered by two men who disguise themselves from the surveillance cameras by using some kind of aerosol spray to disrupt any attempts to record their features. That was very clever.
However, Jones’ killers don’t stop there. They soon kidnap a young woman from a parking garage and leave her son, Victor as the only eyewitness to her abduction.
An early scene in the episode demonstrated that John doesn’t have a way with kids as he tried to compete with Dorian’s ability to impress them. All Dorian had to do was flash some circuitry on his face. But when John stabs his artificial leg with a knife it only freaks the kids out.
All appearances to the contrary, John can have an affinity with children. While his stoic cop persona does nothing for Victor, he still manages to get through to the young boy by modifying his approach. Although the cool giraffe toy certainly helped.
Late in the episode, it becomes obvious that John has no idea how to talk to an android. In a way, Dorian makes things too easy for John by mimicking human behavior. Vanessa’s ability to adapt to human interaction only goes so far and John never seems to understand that he can’t get the answers that he wants by asking her human questions. Even when Dorian tells John that he’s not asking the right questions it seems to fall on deaf ears.
The surprising thing about Vanessa is that she formed an emotional bond with one of the other sexbots even though it wasn’t the intended response of her programming. Whether Vanessa could have evolved even further is rendered irrelevant when she’s set to be deactivated because a robot with human DNA is illegal. A woman was murdered to create Vanessa’s skin, but Dorian clearly isn’t happy that Vanessa will essentially suffer the same fate. He makes a point of being present for Vanessa’s deactivation, but that only seemed to make him sad. As the only feeling android, there’s no one who can really help Dorian carry his emotional burden.
Most of Dorian’s interplay with John is fairly lighthearted and “Almost Human” tends to have its funniest moments when John and Dorian ride in a car together. I loved Dorian’s mockery of John’s suddenly serious toned: “Thank you Detective Stahl.” I wonder if that was something written into Dorian’s programming or if it was a skill he learned himself.
Outside of his interactions with Victor, John also had a small mortality arc this week as he tried to work up his nerve to visit the widow and the son of his ex-partner who died in the battle against the Syndicate two years ago. I’m sure that could have mattered more if we had been given a chance to properly meet John’s partner when he wasn’t on his deathbed or if John had mentioned his partner’s family in the pilot episode. That part of the episode felt a little tacked on and it didn’t have the emotional impact that the show seemed to be going for.
To be frank, this episode was not as good as the pilot. But “Almost Human” still shows a lot of promise. Dorian and John are well defined and compelling. Now they just the stories and the supporting cast to keep pace with them.
