S01.E04: The Sex Suit

[AnimeMania]

Nora thinks she may have misjudged Nathan. Nathan and his girlfriend Ingrid are interviewed about the challenges of romance between a living person and an Upload.

Airdate: May 1, 2020

[Anela]

Ingrid is hilarious. "Would you like to see our sex tapes?!" But he's right in that she owns him now. 

This is like a cross between The Good Place, and Black Mirror (where everything is recorded). 

[Avabelle]

I get Alexis Rose vibes off Ingrid.
 

I had a feeling she might be involved in the accident.

[Danny Franks]

I think I'd kind of prefer this show if the angels couldn't physically appear in the afterlife place. The conceit of Nora only being a voice in Nathan's ear would be cool, although maybe it wouldn't be sustainable for an entire season.

The limited afterlife was bleak as fuck. Why would anyone want to be there instead of just dead? Why would anyone want to leave their loved ones in that place?

Do relationships between uploads and living people work? Abso-fucking-lutely not. It's a completely unnatural state. The person who dies is still there, the person who survives can't grieve or move on, it has to be incredibly unhealthy for both parties.

I'd like to think this is where Ingrid's character is going - she's suppressing her grief at her boyfriend's death to the point that she's going to snap.

Nora getting jealous is weird, considering she's so detached about her own sex life. And I still don't buy her character being this hung up over Nathan.

On 5/2/2020 at 2:15 AM, Anela said:

This is like a cross between The Good Place, and Black Mirror (where everything is recorded). 

That's incredibly apt. The uncanny valley way that people react to death, bodycams recording everything, people getting sex performance ratings and having their sex tapes edited by famous directors. The body horror stuff is almost Cronenberg but not quite. Shoulder blade sharpening? The sex suit thing?

I'm sure Ingrid won't ultimately have anything to do with killing Nathan. It's too obvious.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Lean Cuisine testing awful meals on the 2 Gig people sounds about right. Fiesta jalapeno creamed meat sounds terrible, but as one of the few people who genuinely likes krab, I was down to try the artificial crab stir fry.

But only getting to read the first five pages of Harry Potter? That's terrible!

I feel bad that Nathan is stuck placating Ingrid in order to avoid getting deleted or banished to 2 Gig level. He's really at her mercy for his entire existence. His phone works so he is not allowed to call his parents? Maybe they could purchase a plan for him so that he isn't dependent upon her whims. Of course that would be too practical for tv show purposes!

I love that aunt Fran is still investigating. I just hope she stays alive long enough to find out what really happened and tell someone.

The Arnold Palmer/golf stuff at the beginning cracked me up.

 

[Mabinogia]

9 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

But only getting to read the first five pages of Harry Potter? That's terrible!

That is full on Bad Place torture right there. 

[topanga]

On 5/15/2020 at 8:26 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Lean Cuisine testing awful meals on the 2 Gig people sounds about right. Fiesta jalapeno creamed meat sounds terrible, but as one of the few people who genuinely likes krab, I was down to try the artificial crab stir fry.

But only getting to read the first five pages of Harry Potter? That's terrible!

I feel bad that Nathan is stuck placating Ingrid in order to avoid getting deleted or banished to 2 Gig level. He's really at her mercy for his entire existence. His phone works so he is not allowed to call his parents? Maybe they could purchase a plan for him so that he isn't dependent upon her whims. Of course that would be too practical for tv show purposes!

I love that aunt Fran is still investigating. I just hope she stays alive long enough to find out what really happened and tell someone.

The Arnold Palmer/golf stuff at the beginning cracked me up.

 

I'm not surprised that Nathan was affected by it. When he was alive, he and his friend/partner were working on an app to have people create their own upload environments. Without all of the corporate greed and upcharges. 

[bettername2come]

I liked seeing Nathan caring about the 2 gig people and trying to help them. I think they've got a good balance between Nathan being shallow and a decent person who cares about others, which has been done really well ever since he got distracted by his own reflection while playing with his niece. 

"You turned his software into hardware" is a good euphemism.

On 5/11/2020 at 12:19 PM, Danny Franks said:

The limited afterlife was bleak as fuck. Why would anyone want to be there instead of just dead? Why would anyone want to leave their loved ones in that place?

I would imagine for the dead, it's just plain old fear of the unknown. Probably some people who are scared of just being gone and probably some who believe there's a literal hell they might end up in and some Harry Potter is better than none. For the relatives, I'm less sure, but when you see the little girl making the best of it with her paper towel roll, I think it's hard to let go, especially for someone so young. And I'm sure some are thinking of this as temporary storage and how they're going to get rich someday and buy their parents that nice Upload life in Lakeview. 

Is this a monthly payment plan or something you buy once, minus the add-ons? I imagine the former because corporations don't want us to have anything that lasts forever, but for people who eventually have no loved ones left on earth (at least that can afford upkeep on the ever-increasing number of dead relatives to support), who get stuck having to go into 2 gig mode after living a lavish afterlifestyle that's just awful.

[Paloma]

On 5/15/2020 at 8:26 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

His phone works so he is not allowed to call his parents? Maybe they could purchase a plan for him so that he isn't dependent upon her whims.

The family situation was a little unclear, but I don't think his father is alive--there was an uncle, I think. And his mother does not seem to be doing well financially. It's also unclear how the plans work. 

On 5/24/2020 at 9:25 AM, bettername2come said:

Is this a monthly payment plan or something you buy once, minus the add-ons?

Also, If one person (in this case Ingrid) bought the original plan and basically "owns" Nathan, are other people allowed to "gift" add-ons?

On 5/24/2020 at 9:25 AM, bettername2come said:

For the relatives, I'm less sure, but when you see the little girl making the best of it with her paper towel roll, I think it's hard to let go, especially for someone so young.

I agree that the motivation for parents of young children would be that the parents don't want to let go. But if the child is going to be stuck in 2G because the parents can't afford more, that is a worse fate than nothingness IMO. (Can the child in 2G even get calls from the family?) I guess it's equivalent to limbo, if you believe in that.