Episode #9-10: Robots are Real: a syllogism

Jeremy:
In the last two episodes you find a progression you only see in shows that take themselves too seriously while simultaneously firing writing staff. It’s not poorly done, it’s just really into itself.
This second half of the show also runs the risk of breaking the ‘no-takesies-backsies’ rule: it features the professor’s wife jumping off a bridge . . . but she’s fine, the robot/daughter exploding . . . and now she’s a ninja, and the lawyer coming to terms with his daughter’s death . . . and now he’s a mafia overlord. If you continue to plot wolf, nobody’s going to continue to believe your denouement is actually a plot peak.
The professor, ever fastidious, has found the weak link in his enemy’s chain: street drugs. Having recently lost his company to the man who threatened to take his company and having recently lost his wife to the solitude of a cabin he seeks the help of the mob to secure his way back into re-establishing a robot/daughter. Ever the conscientious father, he takes the time to systematically destroy his former business associates in order to see the robot program restarted.
The nun, in the meantime, has returned from the headquarters of her order in order to unify her sect. Unfortunately, ‘unify’ consists of corporal punishment. In the nun’s battle against Barnabus you see, at a most conservative level, an apocryphal story.
The progression of the story at this point is similar to drywall mud. Every layer you add it looks a little bit better . . . but every level you add the lower your standards become. So the question remains: do I want these characters to fulfill their telos’ or did I start empathizing with their reality? This, then, is really what the series is about: the question of reality of a human. Can the essence of an individual be trapped in anything but a corporeal body? Does a robot count? It might, if it would be so cavalier as to reassert itself as a 1-ton military endeavour. It might count a lot. How much of the reality of human essence is imposed upon us as others? How much is that imposition is tailored by popular decision? How much popular decision does it take when a giant robot is involved? Very little. Syllogism solved.