Geekscape Recap: Almost Human: Are You Receiving?

Almost Human is rapidly becoming our favorite new show of the 2013 season. Is it groundbreaking? Not really—but what it does it does well, including playing on tropes and concepts that are familiar without making them seem cliché or—worse—lazy.

With episode three, “Are You Receiving?” we get a standard hostage situation (the show continues it’s good-hearted, um, emulation of themes and motifs by pretty much recreating Die Hard in 2048) but the this show is not so much about the what is happening as it is about who it’s happening too, and Karl Urban and Michael Ealy—not to mention the show’s robust ensemble cast which includes veterans Lili Taylor and Mackenzie Crook (Pirates of the Caribbean)—have an endearing chemistry and are well on their way to forging a great TV partnership.

They Give Great Car Conversation

The episode starts with Kennex (Urban) going about his morning ablations—including the addition of rubbing some olive oil on his prosthetic leg (a nice nod to episode two), which does, as Dorian (Ealy) had promised, stop the squeaking.

Urban is really captivating as Kennex, giving the gruff-cop-everyman-with-a-heart-of-gold his own personal touch, and he and Ealy have already settled into an appealing back and forth dialogue that feels organic and natural; well written repartee and the chemistry of the two leads lend this show a great deal of its charm.

We go to a large, modern-y business building where a security guard brings a package up to the 25^th floor. He flirts with one of the girls—there’s business about a keyed lock versus a bio lock that we thought was going to pay off later but doesn’t—and then he goes back to his desk in the lobby, where he is, sadly, shot by the bad guys. The bad guys then shoot a janitor (bad day to be a minimum wage employee at whatever building this is) and plant a bomb-looking device in the basement. Apparently Fox isn’t too concerned about that whole 8 p.m. time slot, because blood sprayed and everything.

We also learn that the bad guy likes to ask people what their name is before he kills them. You know, because without our manners where would we be?

Back to Kennex, who is being mildly lectured by Dorian about his tardiness in picking up Dorian.

Sidenote: So, apparently, Dorian has an apartment of his own somewhere not in the Police precinct. Which is fine, we just assumed he would just go back to the…lab/basement place or whatever and, you know, hibernate for the night. If he does have an apartment, that was fast. Or maybe there’s a like a robo-hostel for all the cybernetic cops? Now that’s an idea for show!

The two partners engage in some mild ribbing about the use of olive oil and coffee temperature—entertaining, as both actors have solid comedic timing and there is a sense that they genuinely like each other—when a call comes in about a gunshot victim at—you guessed it—our super classy office building.

They Just Walked Right In and Shot Him

Kennex and Dorian get to the building and Dorian is able to pull a sketchy image of our bad guys going up to the 25^th floor from the shattered security system—which means they’re still in the building. As the bad guys have disabled the elevators, Kennex and Dorian start up the stairs.

The bad guys, meanwhile, have rounded up the employees on the 25^th floor—including a young-ish girl who was huddled under a desk. Main Bad Guy (Damon Herriman) has a mildly existential monologue about the importance of honesty before hauling her out with the rest of the hostages and telling Bald Henchman to “start now,” resulting in the triggering of the bomb they had set earlier. Kennex and Dorian run out to see a gaping hole where the lobby used to be.

So there’s nothing like an explosion in the business district to get the attention of law enforcement; while Kennex and Dorian still heading up, Stahl (Minka Kelly) and Maldonado (Lili Taylor) connect in through some weird open-air speaker phone that oddly knows when to turn the mute on and off.

Maldonado tells Kennex to not ascend and to stay and assist with the evacuation, leading Kennex to the old fake-static-to-drop-call trick, which leads to one of our top three lines of the night:

Dorian: Did you just hang up on Captain Maldonado?

Kennex: It was a boring conversation, anyway.

Ha. Funny. Well-delivered, both self-aware and situationally appropriate. And an excellent encapsulation in two lines of what makes this show work: yes, it is unashamedly stealing, but it knows it, and you know it, and it’s done well, with just enough tongue-in-check self-awareness mixed with a kind of geeked-out respect.

The guys keep going up, and Maldonado, on the advice of Kennex, jams all communication signals—including Kennex and Ealy’s phones/wifi/whatever it is, leading the Main Bad Guy to pronounce how predictable the police are.

Sidenote: this is where, we admit, we clued into the it’s-not-really-about-the-hostage-it’s-about-the-money ‘twist,’ mostly because that’s almost exactly what both the Die Hard 1 and 3 baddies say at roughly the same point in those movies. So.

Don’t Overthink the Phone Thing

With all of the phone calls not being able to get out, Dorian ends up getting any calls placed in the building bounced to him. After a amusing interchange with a Portuguese woman (where Dorian speaks flawless Portuguese as a woman), they get a call from a women trapped with the gunman (Dorian, answering the call as Kennex, adds a nice bit of humor just as the show get serious).

The caller—Paige—is hiding in a closet with a view of the hostage situation. As she’s talking to Kennex, the bad guys grab a random hostage—Lou–and execute him, throwing his body out of the window, where it lands feet from the mobile police command center. Turning him over, Detective Paul (Michael Irby), he of the I-don’t-like-you-Kennex attitude of last week, finds a note attached to the front of the body demanding: “No Cops, Stay Out.”

Maldonado initiates hostage protocol. And sends a drone with a phone (which somehow works? Why didn’t Kennex have a phone like that??) and gets Lead Bad Guy’s demands (airlift for escape and a fission igniter).

Using facial recognition, Maldonado identifies Lead Bad Guy as Lucas Vincent, a lieutenant in the Holy Reclamation Army (never a good combination of words).

Lucas gives Maldonado a 43 minute deadline or a hostage dies.

Kennex (another top three line) asks Dorian if a fission igniter is as bad as he thinks it is…and it is. It’s a detonator for a mega-ton explosive device (though why they would have a mega ton explosive and not the detonator, we don’t know).

Paige, meanwhile, is pretty close to breaking down. We find out the young-ish girl hiding under the desk earlier is Jenna, her sister, and that Jenna was only there to have lunch with Paige.

Kennex, trying to calm Paige down, tells a story of a near-death experience he had with his father when they were ice-fishing. It works mostly because Urban excels at that gravelly, hero-of-the-day tone. With Paige calmer, and having gleaned some crucial information from her, Kennex and Dorian continue up the stairs.

Just The Igniter, Ma’am

Back at police headquarters, Maldonado can’t get a fission igniter (apparently approval for that is a much higher paygrade), so Rudy Lom (Mackenzie Crook) offers to make a fake one that could pass an initial scan. Maldonado approves it.

Stahl decants a load of exposition; Holy Reclamation Army is an anti-Western religious group known for taking hostages in order to further their political gains, with no qualms at taking life.

Back with Kennex and Dorian, their leisurely trip up the stairs is interrupted with gunfire—two bad guys have spotted them up above. The firefight moves into a deserted office floor, where Dorian takes out one bad guy and the other one, injured, flees.

Kennex comes up to Dorian and discovers Dorian has been injured—a glancing blow to the head. Dorian, who is glitching a little, still manages to discover that their bad guy—originally id’d as Michael Demerais—has a facemaker (it does what it sounds like)—and once disabled, the bad guy is revealed to be Gregor Stone, not a member of the Holy Reclamation Army, just a petty criminal.

He also finds a small red plastic disc with the word “start” on it; but then it becomes obvious that the gunshot has injured Dorian more than he let on—he won’t be able to walk within five minutes.

Dorian wonders why the gang is going through the trouble of faking identities instead of just wearing masks while Kennex has to try to repair Dorian using an old q-tip (ew) and lying through his teeth about the cleanliness of his tools, leading to our third top three lines of the night, Kennex in regards to the bundle of wires/tendons revealed in Dorian’s injury and being unable to find the “magenta one,” tells Dorian “there’s 50 shades of purple in there.” Ha. In fact the whole trying-to-fix-Dorian-scene was classic.

Back at the precinct, Lom is trying to finish the fission igniter while a newer robot watches. He only has four minutes…

Kennex, who has accidently knock Dorian unconscious, talks to Paige in another effort to calm her down. While connecting wires with (used) chewing gum, we learn Kennex’s middle name is Reginald (his father was an Elton John fan, apparently).

Phone’s Haven’t Gotten Any Smaller, but the Guns Got Huge

The injured bad guy makes it up the 25^th floor to tell Lucas there’s two guys in the building. Lucas tries to bluff with Maldonado to see if they’re cops but she (nicely) calls his bluff and he ends up not knowing—but he still sends three guys to the stairwells with really big guns.

Paige decides she can’t hide out in the closet while her sister is one of the hostages, so she sneaks out when the Bald Henchman’s back was turned and joins the hostages (against Kennex’s advice). She keeps her head though, and manages to plant her phone (with its open line) so that Kennex can hear what happens in the room. She does tell Kennex before she gets off the phone that the bad guys keep going to the window in the corner for some reason.

Lom, the unsung hero of the day, gets the igniter finished and Det. Paul sends it up. Kennex and Dorian, knowing the stairs aren’t safe, are stymied on how to get to the 25^th floor.

Lucas gets the igniter and tells Bald Henchman to send ‘the message to the other crew.’  He also says they won’t be taking the igniter—leading Dorian to realize the hostage situation is a decoy.

Kennex and Dorian figure out that the other crew is outside the building, and the red discs are being used as a reflective/point-to-point communication—and the only thing of value nearby is the palladium depot. Where the other crew is, stealing lots and lots of palladium.

Kennex than gets to say “it’s a heist,” a la John McClane in, well, all the Die Hards. Points to Urban for saying it believably and without any McClane mannerisms.

So, It’s Kind of Like Die Hard. Only with Robots.

The bad guys plant a bomb with the hostages (a light bomb), and Kennex realizes the bad guys are going to kill all the hostages. There’s no way for Kennex to get up the floor in time, but Dorian can—by climbing up the elevator cables. They know it’s a suicide mission, but there’s no other option. Dorian goes up the elevator shaft before Kennex can stop him.

Dorian then gets to be pretty bad ass, punching through the air ducts (ah, where would we would be without air ducts??) and taking out four bad guys before Lucas takes Dorian down.

Lucas goes through his ‘what’s your name?’ spiel and, then, just before Lucas can pull the trigger, Kennex—wearing the Facemaker disguising him as one of the gang—comes in and finishes off the rest of the baddies. He grabs the negotiating phone and tells Maldonado to drop the comm jam—the other bad guys were using it to jam the alarm at the palladium depot.

They do so, and the alarm goes off, trapping crew 2 in the vault.

Dorian disables the light bomb, and yay, day saved.

Paige and Jenna meet Kennex face to face and mutual admiration ensues.

He’s not Injured, He’s My Partner

Dorian and Kennex go back to the station, where they are greeted with applause—a far cry from the last week’s sullen muttering—and Kennex, having completed the I-don’t-like-my-partner phase and firmly moving into the he’s-weird-but-he’s-mine odd couple phase, bypasses Lom’s lecture about fixing Dorian with chewing gum and takes Dorian out for noodles. Aw. They’re buddies now!

On the way to the noodle shop, Dorian admits that when the gun was pointed at his head, he discovered he did not want to die.

That’s intriguing. It’s hard to write a world with robots or any type of AI and not have to grapple with the sentient beings versus human technology moral dilemma, and the writers seem to laying the groundwork for this.

The episode ends with Dorian singing (reasonable well) along with Benny and the Jets. And calling Kennex ‘Reginald.’

All in all, a really good episode. Like all great TV, the experience was more than just a sum up of what happened.

Come back next week for more on our favorite odd couple!

Almost Human airs on Fox on Mondays at 8 p.m.