Almost Human: Favorite Scenes: Perception

The "perfect" designer drug

                  "Perception" was more or less meant to be a Stahl-centered episode but it also focused on John's obsession with revenge and how his thirst for vengeance was hurting him not only physically but spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.

"We wouldn't understand?" Screw you

           1. Further into the episode, you know when you see that your friend is in danger of himself you confront him about it. Dorian was very concerned and somewhat angry at John for carrying on with experimenting with alternate therapies to remember things. There was a joke thrown in there about diarrhea and burritos which sort of broke the tension but it only annoyed Dorian. You know how addicts say they have it under control? John sang the same song. I need them. They help me. I have it under control. You know the lyrics. But we see John take a tiny red pill despite the fact he sees that Dorian is right about the dangerous symptoms of prolonged use. But like a drug addict, John ignores the signs of danger and gulps down a pill. 

We gotta help John.

           2. I loved it when John called Dorian "D" and let him drive. It shows their partnership is on such a level as to allow nicknames not just jokes.

Intervention!

           3. Maldonado is the second person to confront John about his problem. Where Dorian kind of played "Bad Cop", Maldonado confronted John as "Good Cop". Or as a friend. The Captain preferred to talk to John in a setting where he'd be less stressed where as at work John would be focused on the case but in a bar, John's open to taking a beat. John still believed that he was responsible for the death of his squad even though they were Maldonado's men too and she wanted justice as much as John but John still bore the burden alone. Anyone would feel like John in that situation. He felt he should have known better with Anna; that he let his guard down and people were killed. John's the sort of cop that if someone dies even if it's years later on the job, he'll still take it very hard. 

Another high school victim of pressure

            4. Way down the road of the episode, Julian finally tells us the story behind Lila's death. They intercut scenes from her suicide video without sound with Julian's scenes where we see him break down emotionally. He loved Lila for her flaws, that she wasn't genetically altered to be perfect. I loved his line: "When you're surrounded by perfect things, you learn to appreciate the beauty in flaws." So then we see Lila's video which leads into my next favorite scene.

These two were perfect together!

           5. Lila records her suicide note and Mrs. Hoavings is shown the video. The episode took a very dark turn at that point. We saw all the way to the end to when Lila walked into the water and her head disappeared beneath the surface. Ghostly silence and then Julian calling out her name. I appreciate J. H. Wyman's willing to go dark especially in a message about kids in high school who take dangerous pills to stay awake because of the pressure they're under (mostly from parents) to do well in a prestigious school. I also saw Stahl get all misty eyed when Mrs. Hoavings talked about how the Chromes treated Lila like she didn't matter just because she didn't have as much money as them or was born perfect like them. It really tells us that Stahl is sort of a self hating Chrome. She was born into the Chrome world but she never felt she belonged in it and this case really enforced that belief.

Let's see: Need more Bourbon, Ramen, & Olive Oil

        6. Then John sees Mrs. Hoavings's wall of obsession similar to his own. She does a monologue of how her grief led to rage and how that rage consumed her so much that all she thought about was revenge; she stopped living her life. John sees himself and it scared him enough to realize his friends were right about how his obsession will be the end of him; lead him down a dark road of no return.

Wall of Crazy should be kept at work

       7. I know it hurts to think we may never see the truth of the mystery behind this scene but the ending scene we see John put away his wall of crazy then he gets a call from forensics saying that the Russian Doll Anna gave to him was actually a listening device. There was some computer circuitry in the paint (that's just cool) and it has been recording him for a while even after John was reinstated. The shocking part was that the last recording was uploaded 7 hours ago! It sort of opened up the question of what did InSyndicate or Anna still want with John? But still I love that scene because even though John's obsession lead to dangerous therapies that could have destroyed him, they yielded fruit which could have lead John to justify his persistence in pushing himself to the brink of self destruction. 

"You're not just a badge number
& a questionable hair cut."

            8. Before the last scene above, I didn't think much about this scene but the more I think about it the more I like it. John sits down with Internal Affairs. John doesn't seem to be enjoying going over his report for the 100th time (as we've established, John was done with obsessing over his mistakes). But what really got under John's skin was when the investigator mentioned John's father, Kennex Sr. This gave us a bit more insight into John's family history. We knew that John's dad was a cop but we didn't know he was investigated by Internal Affairs. Then John says: "We're done" and walks away without another word. Very bad ass.

John took the red pill...

         Next article will be about "Disrupt."