humans-2-2Niska finds a lawyer; Hester learns more about her feelings…

There’s lots going on in this episode, as we also catch up with what Mattie Hawkins is up to – which involves the return of a face from the past, who it’s reasonable to assume is somehow going to get caught up with Carrie-Ann Moss’ Dr Morrow somewhere down the line. Ruth Bradley’s Karen is also back, as the whole questions of how and what synths feel becomes crucial to the series.

The two plotlines involving Niska and Hester are currently the most engrossing though – Niska’s determination to face justice, but as a person, not a piece of hardware, involves Laura, and brings up a lot of uncomfortable memories for the whole of the Hawkins family. That’s very well counterpointed with Hester’s increased awareness of the way in which humans have treated synths, and there’s more than one very unsettling scene involving her and a human – particularly when an act of kindness by one synth leads inexorably to Hester crossing a line very quickly.

Oddly, where last week’s episode felt like it balanced all the plotlines well, this time it sometimes felt as if things were shoehorned in – the argument between Morrow and billionaire Milo Khoury in particular. Everyone involved gives strong performances – there’s a great scene for Gemma Chan when the café owner she’s been trying to help realises that perhaps there’s more to her than there should be, while Colin Morgan and Sonya Cassidy’s argument about “right and wrong” could so easily have been overplayed by both, but isn’t – but it just felt as if there was slightly too much going on.

Verdict: An engrossing but perhaps slightly overfilled episode. 8/10

Paul Simpson

Leave a comment