Almost Human: "Arrhythmia" Review

       This show just keeps getting better. I don't know how I'll survive for three weeks without it! But I guess I'll have to console myself with re-runs. I really loved the double dose of Dorian and the Repo Men story line was intense and really reflect the problems with healthcare we face today.

I'm going to have a heart attack!

       If you've seen the movie Repo Men (you know, the new one with the horrible ending?) then you'll find this familiar. Get new bio-tech organs but if you don't pay then you're dead; but instead of someone coming to your house to cut you open and leave you in a tub of ice, someone lets a timer run out and you drop dead. Citizens were dropping like flies on this show. The new hearts people were getting weren't exactly new, just recently used and an under taker would sell them to make some extra cash. That's like the worst re-gifting ever. This really shows that technology may have advanced but Healthcare is still a pipe dream. People on waiting lists for new organs have stamps on their hands, which kind of reminds me of a high end night club: you have to wait in line and it's just as exclusive with little chance of you getting in unless you tip the bouncer big time. Even in the beginning with a hologram giving a diagnosis but it was on the frizz and a guy asked a real person to help she brushed him off. That's worse than phone service and you're on hold with a machine. Of course when a guy comes in with a gun that jumps him to the emergency room.

Ride Along Hell

            I'm seeing double as Dorian sees a fellow DRN model. Poor John can barely stand one Dorian let alone two. For Dorian it was like seeing an old war buddy who after suffering an ordeal is reduced to doing menial labor like fixing a broken hologram. It shouldn't be surprising that Dorian should feel sympathy for a fellow DRN. 

Dorian has an eye for you

      Given his "synthetic soul" Dorian is filled with compassion but that was one of the reasons the DRNs were decommissioned because they already had humans making errors based on emotion and didn't need androids (machines meant to establish logic) to be wild cards. And Dorian's double did jump the gun when he tackled an old suspect in an armed robbery case. John felt he was right in not wanting to be in "Ride-along Hell" but despite John's morose, tough guy act he has a compassionate creamy center as Dorian explains how he has projected his fears and desires about being decommissioned and then being awakened by someone. Dorian and his double bond and Dorian shows us his vulnerable side in believing that it was unfair of "the powers that be" to decommission the DRNs and that the Luger test (I think it was called) was rigged to make DRNs fail. The other DRN tells the story of his real human connection with a little big named Phillip he saved a while back after breaking police protocol and entering the house of an armed shooter. At the end, Dorian takes back all of the DRN's case files except the one about young Phillip. 

That bug will definitely kill you.

           John Kennex is still in resentment of his synthetic leg. As always Dorian calls him on it to John's annoyance. We all know from the start of the series that John suffers as Captain Maldonado said, "a mental rejection of his synthetic leg." His rejection of his synthetic body part is so bad that he has difficulty even donating to a cause that provides synthetic body parts to children in public. Dorian basically has to tease and annoy John into donating just to get Dorian to shut up about it. 

If Rasputin was a bum who did drugs he'd look like this guy.

        Then John and Dorian pay a visit to the city morgue where bodies get disintegrated. John sees a pile of synthetic parts and right away notices the leg. I suppose anyone in John's condition would see that and think, "when I die that'll be all that's left of me" or "that could be me one day"; same thing but you would think about it. 

I'm not sure that's really sanitary.

            The moral dilemma about saving people from getting hearts that will end up killing them is clear and a real issue that can wrestle with one's conscience. When they stopped a heart transplant the woman cried out, "What have you done? I need that heart to live!" Then she said at the station, "You think you saved me? You killed me." And then, "I just want more time with my family." That's harsh. At least at the end the people who are still alive will get new hearts. 

TV's new hottest cops

          Also is it just me or are John & Dorian getting hotter? When John was interrogating the under taker, making him squirm under his stony gaze, my heart fluttered and I swear I flushed. And Dorian in his vulnerable moments I almost forget he's an android and get all giddy.

          So we won't have another new episode until 3 weeks from now. I'll have to console my action-void Mondays with re-runs to satisfy my fix until the next episode. Next episode Dorian meets his creator or I guess "father" and he and John deal with a female terminator. That's an episode worth waiting for!