After nearly two months of ups and downs, Almost Human looks to be finally getting into a groove. And while said groove may not completely deliver on the potential promised by the premise and talent attached, it’s certainly a step above the more forgettable hours that plagued the first half of the season.
“Disrupt” begins with the murder of the Bennetts, an affluent couple living in a high-tech, seemingly secure house; rather than the usual futuristic drugs or gang of trench-coated men, however, the cause of death this time around appears to be the house’s malfunctioning security system, which identified the pair as intruders. We quickly gather, from the couple’s limited interaction and the subsequent info dump that follows, that this very security system had previously been responsible for killing a young man who made the mistake of jumping onto their lawn one year ago. With the help of a powerful lawyer, who positioned the unfortunate boy as a reckless juvenile delinquent looking for trouble, the couple was cleared of any charges.
The police department believes that someone had the Bennetts killed on the anniversary of the incident as retribution for the boy’s death. Moreover, the murderer is also targeting the company who designed the security system. This leads Kennex and Dorian once again to the shady L.A. underworld. This time, it’s in search of the breed of hackers that could manage such an infiltration. Their search leads to a high-level, politically minded hacker named Nico, an obvious stand-in for the Julian Assange-style figures in today’s society.
Tracing the premise of the episodes, it’s hard—what with the questions raised about when defensive action becomes flat-out murder—to not draw some comparisons to the controversial Trayvon Martin case. As presented, the controversy surrounding the boy’s death does seem at least partially influenced by the very real national debate surrounding Martin’s killing. The notion is somewhat complicated, however, by the fact that the boy killed here was white whereas the Bennetts are African-American. Perhaps this stands as an attempt by the writers to distance themselves from such comparisons. And honestly, if you really want to draw a strong analogy, the better example would be the 1999 Disney Channel original movieSmart House, in which a top-of-the-line, technically advanced house turns on its owners. That certainly becomes the case in the episode’s climatic battle, which takes place in the heart of the security system company where all the latest models suddenly turn against their creators, Skynet style. And while the overriding battle boils down to two hackers battling over control of the system, the fact that the show places Kennex and Dorian smack dab in the center of the chaos lends the climax some visceral thrills.
Besides the house, however, the episode incorporates several other notable sci-fi/futuristic touches that give the world some real flare. Chief among them is the idea of a virtually simulated rave party that hackers from all across the city participate in. This is especially amusing after the socially awkward Rudy has spent the previous scene building up the party as the epitome of debauchery, only for our characters to discover that it’s basically a more advanced party version of World of Warcraft.