Well, that was... jarring.
Between Sunday night's premier and Monday night's follow-up, John Kennex and Dorian must have had some major quality time together -- their relationship went from icy to spicy, complete with the banter of an Abbott & Costello routine. I'm surprised Kennex didn't flash a tattoo that said DRN=BFF. That thin blue line must be thinner than we thought.
Turns out, if Internet forums are to be believed (always!), the reason Kennex and Dorian seem so close is because they are. Episode 2 is actually Episode 5. They've had three whole episodes to get to know each other without us. Instead of developing their relationship on the porch under our watchful eyes, they've snuck out into the woods to do God-knows-what and now they're back and absolutely reek of inside jokes and a history we may never know.
The name of this episode is "Skin," though it really should have been called "Sex" because that's what it's really about. Allow me to be a tad cynical here. They bypassed episodes 2, 3, and 4 in order to get to the sex episode. Did the producers just want to make a big splash and snag as many viewers as possible? These people are rich and famous -- what are they so insecure about? I don't know about you, but when it comes to my TV, I need a confident lover. When you skip the foreplay to go right to the final act, it seems kind of desperate to me. Going back to the foreplay is literally anti-climactic. I hope they have a plan here because foreplay is my favorite part. (Hey, the show is about sex -- I'm not a perv or anything.)
Here's why they called the episode "Skin." An evil group of Albanians (people from Albany) were abducting attractive women and using their skin to cover sex robots so that humans have a better sexing experience. It's possible they were using just the DNA from those women, which wouldn't require killing anyone, but the women ended up dead, so I'm guessing they were taking the actual skin in a Silence-of-the-Lambs process that involved very complicated equipment, lotions, and baskets.
Of course, since the episode was about sex, it could have also been called "Women." I hate to be a nag about identity stuff (no, I don't -- I love it! Ha ha ha!), but let's talk about women for a second. In this episode, women were primarily represented in two ways: as sex workers and homicide victims. To a much lesser extent, yes, they were represented as cops. But even here, they were the kind of cops who played house back in the station instead of busting down doors and beating up the bad guys. And speaking of cops, where are the female MX androids? I know they're not all white, but are they all men? Seriously, 2048?
There was a genuinely interesting moment when Kennex was interviewing a black sexbot lady and he asked her, "Who owns you?!" And Dorian was like, "What the hell did you just say?" Haha, no, he didn't say that. But they had a moment! Dorian was offended that Kennex was using language that didn't respect the robot's being, and suggested he ask her, "Where were you born?" instead. But race is clearly the underlying factor here and it was handled pretty darn well! Huzzah!
So they chase down the bad guys and defeat them. No big surprise there. But along the way, three things happened that caught my attention:
1) The Giraffe: That little toy was an unexpected nugget of joy that melted what's left of my heart.
2) Flash Masks: A spray that renders your features so bright that your face is unrecordable by modern camera equipment? It's good to see the Joan Rivers Collection is still going strong!
3) Genital Scanning: This was a funny scene that made us imagine Kennex naked and what his underutilized genitals were like. I'm totally okay with that, but it makes me wonder what Dorian has under the hood. Does he even have a hood? I want more personal stuff like this. It's awkward, but I like it.
Huh. Maybe I am perv.
Beep.