S03.E02: Episode 2

[Cranberry]

Quote

A grieving Max must face the consequences of his painful decision. Laura discovers she's not being told everything at the Dryden Commission, while Joe uncovers Karen's shocking secret.

[snowwhyte]

It looks like Max is going to jeopardise his relationships with his family for a bunch of synths who are only a few bad days away from turning on him. I understand why he felt the need to send Leo away but refusing his hand was pretty cold.

[dr pepper]

I'm thinking that in the rush to build supposedly safe synths, the corporations were allowed to put in extra controls. This will turn out to include the ability to use any orange as a monitoring device.

[snowwhyte]

I don't understand why there is still a market for synths. The original synths were meant to be safe and they inadvertently caused thousands of deaths. I wouldn't trust the corporation telling me the new synths were safe. 

[jane1978]

So, are the original synths still special and moře advanced, or did the hack made everybody else the same? Because I don´t understand why would anyone stayed in that concentration camp when they can easily hide and live between humans like Niska. Creating a hack which would allow the blue-eye synth connect into a orange-eye charger cannot be that big problem.

Also synths, just create a fake human account and order online from china whatever spare parts you need. That they are in future and had to enter this mum and pop store at the edge of the city to buy what seemed very ordinary elecrician stuff is just beyond beliavable. And again, atleast mask themselves. I feel like the show is trying very hard to show how oppressed and terrorized they are but they act so stupid it´s still hard to rule for them.

Anyway, Niska is still my favorite character and I hope she will get her HEA with her german girlfriend. And I like that new rebel synth girl. I wonder if the cop would really shot her. He seemed very reluctant. Probably helps she was made to look so vulnerable and innocent.

Karen training her "son" to act human was clever but unless he has some upgrade which will simulate growing up I´m not sure what´s the purpose. She will have to move in a year or two anyway. Also, being stuck in the first class forever is probably something he will eventually start to resent very much. So they will have to find a way how to transfer his mind into a different synth body. 

Don´t care about Matts and Max romance and the son continues to be useless. The daughter still looks and acts like a little girl? I don´t know how old is the actress but remembering Hermione on Harry Potter and Aria on Game of Thrones I fully expected she will already be in her rebelious teen girl stage. 

[John Potts]

Don't understand why Max hasn't told his "siblings" why he wasn't awakened on "Day Zero", but was "alive" before that. It's not like they'd gain anything from selling him out.  I get that Mattie feels guilt for the 10000 deaths (or whatever the figure was) but what does Max think he could lose from telling the others?

I do like the fact that the Synths are splintering into factions (so very human!). And Laura is truly courageous to stand up (if not particularly effectively) for Synth rights in the face of persecution.

6 hours ago, jane1978 said:

Karen training her "son" to act human was clever but unless he has some upgrade which will simulate growing up I´m not sure what´s the purpose. She will have to move in a year or two anyway.

I hadn't thought about that, but it's mainly because I really don't care about her plotline! Did like her admitting to her "son" that she was unsure if Joe would betray them or not.

[scrb]

I can't imagine the climate would allow them to live openly among humans.

They would be discriminated against in housing and work -- they're going to have to earn an income to pay for electricity, spare parts.

Of course they're better than any human, especially in many white collar jobs as they could instantly tap into any kind of database to perform STEM jobs for instance.

Max could become a footballer and earn enough to support living expenses for hundreds of other synths.

But with blatant discrimination and resentment, all of this wouldn't be possible.

The other avenue is, Humans would bond with them as the Hawkins family did.  They're suppose to have lively minds and all the range of emotions.  They may not accept the green eyes as quickly as Niska's girlfriend but there are always lonely people.

 Look at how many people consider their pets to be like members of the family.  Sentient robots who happen to be very attractive aren't going to be accepted?

[tennisgurl]

I do wonder how integration with Synths and humans would go in this climate. Maybe it could have worked without the mass deaths in Day Zero, or at least been easier. I feel like it could work, as the Synths all certainly look human, and can act very human if given enough time, and people are quite quick to give anything with a face or a name some kind of consideration. But, with everything that went wrong, it would be a LOT harder now. But still, I think people could get used to it. But, as rebel Synth girl said, how much longer can they wait, if they're already dying?

Still love Niska the most, and I loved her reaction to Mia asking her for advice on how to make the world better, and that Niska actually had some good advice. 

Oh Max, that was cold. I get that he has to protect his people, but turning on his brother, not even holding his hand, was brutal. He turned against his family for Synths that are about five seconds from ditching him anyway.

[marcee]

The synths can't hide among humans because other synths recognize them... and apparently, the police and military have trackers that show when synths are nearby. There's no way to hide the electrical signal they put out. They're in a no-win situation. Even if they tried to assimilate, humans are scared of them - and, as we saw - will beat them to death in the streets. If they fight back, there will be more and more headlines that read, "Synth injures 5 more humans in street brawl" or somesuch. Their only hope is a multimillion dollar ad campaign or reality show featuring "the human side" of green-eyed synths. But yeah, I don't see that happening.

[Razzberry]

I wonder what the deal is with that guy who was in the women's restroom.  He gave some excuse but it sounded lame to me.   Laura's son Toby(?) seems a little threatened by Stanley Orange Eyes, or maybe it's just me.  Also wondering what Ruth Bradley's character is doing raising a child synth, and why have child synths anyway?  They'd have to be upgraded constantly.

Those synth trackers remind me of radar detectors.

[scrb]

IIRC, the Karen character was ready to die, after Pete was killed.

But I think discovering that child synth gave her new purpose, a reason to live.

[scrb]

7 hours ago, marcee said:

The synths can't hide among humans because other synths recognize them... and apparently, the police and military have trackers that show when synths are nearby. There's no way to hide the electrical signal they put out. They're in a no-win situation. Even if they tried to assimilate, humans are scared of them - and, as we saw - will beat them to death in the streets. If they fight back, there will be more and more headlines that read, "Synth injures 5 more humans in street brawl" or somesuch. Their only hope is a multimillion dollar ad campaign or reality show featuring "the human side" of green-eyed synths. But yeah, I don't see that happening.

Laura said most of the fatalities were from accidents.  So in the montage they show an airliner falling from the sky.

Presumably there won't be another awakening like event where synths operating heavy machinery or dangerous things wouldn't suddenly abandon their duties.

I think in a world where millions of synths were built and deployed doing all kinds of jobs, they wouldn't give up synths that easily.  If there wasn't some real benefits and cost advantages to having synths doing all these jobs, they never would have built and deployed millions of them, including in many important jobs.

I guess for the purpose of the story they're trying to tell, it's better to show the aware synths being mistreated badly and humans completely casting them aside.  But I would guess in reality, a lot of the reasons why synths were so popular in the first place would still apply and many people would continue to use them.  Businesses would probably use them to save so much money on having to pay big salaries, though maybe awake synths know what their labor is worth and demanded more money.

More importantly, I think a lot of people would have bonded with synths, even before they became aware.  People bond emotionally with pets so why wouldn't they bond with robots with whom they could at least have conversations?  In season 2, I thought they showed commercials where synths were marketed to lonely singles as being more than domestic help.

 

We're going to have the same kind of discussion about new technology like self-driving cars.  For instance, there have been some big fatalities involving self-driving car technology recently.  But the push is still towards developing SDCs and deploying them, because there's a lot of money to be made and money to be saved.  That and proponents will point out that SDCs will be far safer than human drivers.

So despite the shock of Day Zero with so many human fatalities, there would be people arguing for integrating synths.  Now the solution appears to be orange eyes, who are not woke synths.  So green-eyes are out of luck, though the fact that the govt. is even entertaining giving them some rights could be seen as a win for green eyes.

[marcee]

On 6/15/2018 at 6:35 PM, scrb said:

I guess for the purpose of the story they're trying to tell, it's better to show the aware synths being mistreated badly and humans completely casting them aside.  But I would guess in reality, a lot of the reasons why synths were so popular in the first place would still apply and many people would continue to use them.  Businesses would probably use them to save so much money on having to pay big salaries, though maybe awake synths know what their labor is worth and demanded more money.

 

I think the bigger concern is that now that synths have free will, many (if not most) humans believe them to be very, very dangerous. If your microwave had the ability to kill you at any moment and the free will to do so, many people wouldn't want a microwave in their homes. Synths are faster, stronger and have terabytes? worth of memory. We have to imagine many of these synths were likely "mistreated" when compared to their human counterparts... Some might hold a grudge. All would have potentially damaging information about their human owners. Humans have no idea how or what they're thinking. They're a malfunctioning, deadly, piece of machinery with the ability to explode a person's life with one wrong sentence about something they witnessed; why would anyone choose to hire/work with/have inside their home or business something so potentially dangerous?

[renatae]

I have to say I'm not enjoying this season as much as prior seasons. The green eyes whom I loved (Mia, Max) have become so cold, and everyone threatening everyone else is hard to watch.

[John Potts]

On ‎15‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 11:35 PM, scrb said:

I think in a world where millions of synths were built and deployed doing all kinds of jobs, they wouldn't give up synths that easily.  If there wasn't some real benefits and cost advantages to having synths doing all these jobs, they never would have built and deployed millions of them, including in many important jobs.

I agree. There are regular stories of pets attacking humans in our world - does this mean all pets are destroyed? No. Similarly, cars. I don't know how many people die on the roads every day in car accidents (admittedly, overwhelmingly it's by driver error, not a failure of the car) but people still get in them. Yes, there would be a LOT of people protesting about the use of Synths - but also a lot of people going, "But they're so useful!" It does seem that the Hawkins are almost alone in supporting Synth rights, but there should be (at least) a large minority on her side.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Damn, Max! As the leader, I understand why he pushed Agnes down. Better to hurt one synth's pride than to see all of the killed due to her rebelliousness. I understand her frustration but the problem with letting your emotions get the better of you is making stupid decisions like standing up when there are a bunch of police in riot gear pointing guns at you. Getting everyone at the railroad killed is not going to solve anything or even help in the slightest. I totally get that she's fed up with the way synths have been treated since day zero, but you need to be a lot more strategic to create change.

Since Mia was able to go visit Max and Leo at the compound frequently, why didn't anyone think to have her buy some extra colored contacts in case one of the synths needed to go undercover?

Awww, I hate seeing the group break up again. Max kicked Leo out, Niska is off looking for the bomber, and Mia is driving around in a van.

Ha, Joe does not have a future as a secret agent. Karen spotted him right away.

On a shallow note, I'm glad that Karen's new hairstyle is longer and less severe. 

I would not be surprised if the government is using Stanley to spy on Laura.

Edited October 2, 2018 by ElectricBoogaloo