Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Almost Human - Perception


While self-medicating to jog his memory resulting in increasingly vivid flashbacks of Anna (Mekia Cox), Kennex (Karl Urban) works with Dorian (Michael Ealy) to investigate the apparent unrelated deaths of two genetically-enhanced teens. As Dorian connects the two deaths to a third victim who drowned 7 months before with similar drug traces in her blood (and whose records linking her to the other victims have mysteriously disappeared), Captain Maldonado (Lili Taylor) asks Detective Stahl (Minka Kelly) to use her own personal experience as a "Chrome" to help with the case.

Discovering the drug which killed each of the young woman was a highly-specialized designer drug created from an equally highly-regulated chemical printer in the hands of an expelled former student (Iain Belcher) who isn't just a dealer but also a client. His help uncovers the truth about the first death as well as lead them to the grieving mother (Anna Galvin) responsible for the recent pair of murders out of a misguided sense of justice.

The show misses another opportunity to properly explain a not insignificant piece of its universe by failing to do much to explain the Chromes in any real depth. The Chrome students mostly come off like privileges preppy kids, and the episode doesn't touch on how her enhancements help Stahl out as a police officer (despite pointing out the fact that a Chrome serving as one is an anomaly). As to Kennex's visions, they cost Dorian an ear and force the detective to spend some uncomfortable time with Internal Affairs, but they also lead to a discovery of a listening device Anna left in his apartment that has been active since well before his shooting.

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