Almost Human - 1.09 "Unbound" - Review & Speculation

After another bit of a break, Almost Human is back with a very thrilling episode!

Our episode starts of light-hearted with kids visiting the Police Precinct on a field trip, where John takes things a little too far by mentioning a man named Johnny Horowitz, who had his arm cut clean off! This makes the chubby kid in the group sick and vomit!

The second scene is a never before seen android model, which looks a bit of a combination between X-Men's Cyclops, Battlestar Galactica's [re-imaged] Cylons, and Star Trek's (2009 Motion Picture) futuristic Iowan cop. This new bot suddenly guns down a woman buying WHITE TULIPS from a street side flower shop!

MX's arrive quickly on the scene as a massive shootout leaves the bot seemingly inactive on the ground and is then taken to the evidence room...

The android becomes active and immediately proceeds to find that female-robot-head fans might remember from a friendly reminder in our last episode, which extends itself back from criminal Reinhardt and to Insydicate from the Pilot, and removes it's cyclops head with this other more human one. She then is able to easily escape by killing the cop on duty watching over the evidence room. Soon after, Maldonado, Kennex, and DRN confirm this from watching the video footage.

The awareness to the Android head left behind with the one which was taken leads to a story about the female android being called an exclusive model: the XRN. She went on a 3-day killing spree against all kinds of politicians and high ranking officials. 26 cops were also killed until they were finally able to stop her. We also were reintroduced to "The Wall", which was briefly mentioned in the episode, "Blood Brothers", as Ethan Avery attempts to get under Maldonado's skin by bringing up 'The Wall Ordeal". This leads them to android repair man Nigel Bernard.

XRN kills a cab driver and takes the cab to some weird warehouse that seems to house female android bodies and heads, which in themselves appear like the sexbots seen in "Skin".  She basically changes bodies, as we learn later that the other one was a temporary energy source.

John and DRN get to warehouse, but XRN has already left, as we are introduced to Nigel Bernard, who's actually THEE DRN & XRN Maker, Nigel Vaughn! Nigel shares a sort of parental Frankenstein moment with DRN, holding his face in hands. John interrupts to get answers, which Nigel provides including that he sells old parts and repairs androids for a living and that the XRN wanted access to Nigel's former lab that doesn't exit, in which he suggests if he could have some of his lab equipment, which was confiscated after the DRNs' mass malfunctioning, that he might be able to track the XRN.

Captain Maldonado is less than enthused when John makes the request to get an order to release the equipment, but seemingly has no other options and has Valerie process the order.

We then see Nigel's things brought to Rudy's lab, in which Rudy seems to have a major star-struck moment before they get to work on using equipment that would pin point her signature.

The XRN, still using the number 72 cab, has a brief interaction with a young girl and her mother needing a lift, as the XRN forcefully tells them the cab is not in service, despite that the XRN had not allowed it to appear out of service. The little girl tells her she's pretty before the mother yanks her out of the cab and we almost see something resembling affection or warmer feelings from the XRN, as she shows some patients before becoming once again trigger-happy.

Her next stop is a technology company. At this point Nigel and Rudy have been able to pin point her location, but it's revealed that she has stolen 500 DNA Processing Cores! Nigel explains a little bit more about his creation of the synthetic soul, --the drive to create life, passion, and a story, as he shows the gang in the lab a case full of rather small vials. He seems to reflect a bit on his past choices and admits that he wasn't in best frame of mind when he built the XRN or also known as "Danica". The only reason she would want those DNA processing cores would be if someone was planning on building an android army.


Kennex and DRN drop Nigel at the station where he is escorted to sit inside some back room, while they begin to pin point the XRN's next location, which is strangely at a retail and restaurant area. By the time they turn around to go and ask Nigel his thoughts, Nigel gone!

DRN and Kennex catch up to the XRN, who is going after an political figure raising funds for a reelection named James Hart. Things get heated as both John and DRN do there best to fight her, with Kennex being able to stab her in the back of the neck, only to discover that it doesn't have the intended effect and revealing a conspiracy about Nigel's over all motives. John quickly looses the fight when DRN steps in. Even he has a hard time with this model's strength that results a pole going through him, which takes him some time to remove himself from. John also gets back on his feet, as she now has to deal with both of them. Soon she sees John smiling and can't figure out why he is, as she asks, "Why are you smiling?" John replies, "Because I have your grenade pin." The XRN looks down and is suddenly pulled back in blast. We later see John and DRN walk over the rumble, which includes her body and head again detached.

In the meantime Nigel made a run for it. He goes where the XRN had dead dropped the DNA processing cores in a trash can.. Back at the lab it is discovered that he also stole his case of synthetic souls! They all wonder where he would go and if he would be crazy enough to go over the wall? The final shot is Nigel being picked up by another preliminary cylopse bot who takes him to some part of the wall. Cables are lowered by someone unknown from the top and Nigel crosses his heart before he straps himself in and ascends up the wall!



Some Food For Thought
This is probably my favorite episode of the season and even though it would have been nice for it to come sooner, it might not have been a bad choice to push this one towards the end of the season, especially if the last 4 episodes continue to explore some of the roads opened to us.

The Wall

The Wall was actually first mentioned in the fifth episode aired, "Blood Brothers", by the antagonist of the story Ethan Avery. This was the one that was about Avery cloning himself and begins in the court room exploring the death of a fertility specialist in which initially two female witnesses where called to the stand, but one of them was killed while on the stand and the other, Maya Vaughn, a clairvoyant, is able to make a run for it and helps DRN and KNX solve the case of a multiple Ethan Avery's. Avery attempts to make Maldonado feel unattractive for not genetically modifying herself and tries to antagonize her bringing up "The Ordeal at The Wall.".

When I first heard about the Wall my first thoughts immediately took me to the historic Berlin Wall, or also referred to as "The Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" that went up and split Germany in 1961 due to political and ideological differences, as East Berlin became under Soviet occupation in 1945. The Berlin Wall played a significant role in Europe during the cold war. The wall prevented emigration and freedom. Those attempting to go from one one side to the other, where often killed and shot, as there is a "death strip" and watch towers that ran across apart of the wall.

So one theory I have to offer is that this a similar concept, being an iron curtain that divides two very different ideologies. The LA side we have seen still has laws, rules, and regulations. It still appears Democratic, and that leads me to think that the other side might be a "lawless" land, but given that this is a science fiction show, and because this episode has such deep allusions to Fringe (see below for more details), I would hope that it's more than a desolate wasteland or something too close to resembling Bad Robot's and Kripke Productions' Revolution, but that perhaps the technology also runs rampant or half-baked from new technologies mixed with old ones. Another possibility for this  situation could be some kind of nuclear bomb and the wall is also a way to contain that, but this lead to criminals risking their lives to create organizations and technology or maybe we have some mutant porcupine-bat men running flying around with guns?!

Other pop culture references to consider might also be Pink Floyd's rock opera, "The Wall", including the famous song, "Another Brick in The Wall". The rock opera is mostly aimed at protesting the UK's boarding schools, suggesting they were like a fascist imprisonment with lyrics like "We Don't Need No Education. We Don't Need No Thought Control."

And speaking of musical artists as themes and/or theories, a while back I had made a theory that John Kennex father might turn out to be a major antagonist of the series, sudo dubbing him as "Rocket Man" due to the Elton John reference of "Bennie and Jets" off the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, but this was before I knew about John Larroquette's character being cast. Seemingly both characters are comparable to Fringe's Walter Bishops, but looking a little deeper, it may be that Kennex' father is more in line with blue-sided Walter's and that Nigel might be treading red sided Walternate (well at least the first version of him we meet) or William Bell(s) and eventually Windmark. -But I'm thinking there is a history there between John's father and Nigel Vaughn.



Curiously the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album cover features an image of Elton John walking through a hole an ordinary kind of mundane brick wall, which extends itself into an image of the yellow brick road of the bright and magical land of Frank L. Baum's "Oz".

Note: The Wall is also reminiscent to Lost's sonic fence. And actually it has been mentioned in several episodes and not just "Blood Brothers". Check out a complete list from Almost Human Wiki for all of the references!!




Who Is Nigel Vaughn?

One of the other things I liked about the episode was looking at Nigel Vaughn. When with DRN he seemed warm and full of hope. He didn't shy away of being a father figure of DRN, even going up to him and holding his face in his hands, but when we get to the scene where Rudy is admiring Nigel, Nigel seems distant, a little cold, and almost recoiled.  One one hand it's easy to assume given that Danica might have been his solution to paying back the politicians that allegedly wouldn't even let him fix the DRNs and ruined his name and company, that the younger upcoming Rudy could induce a kind of jealousy. Whether it be for Rudy's success or because he sees a younger version of himself (DRN is now living with Rudy too) in Rudy that he has lost to his own reckless ambitions, it's hard to say, but it could also stem deeper in that simply Nigel hates people, but loves machines. (Perhaps he has Anakin Skywalker Syndrome.)

Danica too was a nice treat! Actress and fitness model Gina Carano really shined in this very tough female role. Some of her scenes reminded me of Terminator (so have some of DRN's scenes in other episodes), but also I kept thinking about the actress Lucy Lawless and some of her well known roles, like Xena or Diana. I hope we see Danica via Carano again, since it seems we might have an army of XRNs being build 'over there'.

Some trivia and possible insight: Danica is from Slavic and Latin origin and means "Morning Star" of the name Denmark. Additionally the name is also used in a famous and expensive Royal Copenhagen China Pattern called " Flora Danica" meaning 'The Flowers of Denmark". Flowers continue to be highly thematic to Almost Human. Morning Star could also be a Biblical reference to Revelations: "..and I will give him the Morning Star." Other Christian references have also surfaced, such as DRN's model number pointing to Unical 0167 and the Gospel of Mark.



Bad Robot Factor:
Each week after my review I will bring this section relating to many things Bad Robot in relationship to the episode, as I feel certain Bad Robot often makes a point to reference themselves with similar characters, subject matter, riffs, easter eggs, aesthetics, contrasting situations, & occasionally shared pop cultural references. So this section is to explore the possibility of those things, which may provide some and insight speculation and at the very least food for thought and/or trivia. I also think it's just fun to be able to reminisce!

White Tulip

Lets' begin with the big White Tulip reference. This iconic symbol is known to Fringe fans, as both a sign of hope and forgiveness and the ability to pass that hope along in time. It was highly important to the redemption arc of the [blue-sided] Walter Bishops, who's stories sought to right his wrongs across multiple universes. It is first introduced in the episode of the same name, "White Tulip", where former Robocop actor Peter Weller guest stared as man trying to stop the women he loved from dying by time traveling back and making slightly new time lines with every jump that sadly ended with his own death, but not without passing a a great symbol of forgiveness to Walter, whom also had been wrestling with the horrible truth that this Peter Bishop that he raised as his son, was not the Peter Bishop of this universe, but rather a replica from another in which Walter stole, initially to protect, but that resulted in a revenge story by Peter's real biological father and a universe that keeps deteriorating due to Walter's crossing over.

Note: Peter Weller also appears as an alternate version of Alex Marcus in J.J. Abram's new Star Trek timeline in the film Star Trek Into Darkness. The 2009 film Star Trek is referenced in the first season of Fringe ("The Road Not Taken") and appears as foreshadowing as the final season's plot.

Note: The Insyndiate member Reinhardt is an old German surname meaning "brave council", "strong decision", or "fox".

Note: Observer night club in "Letters of Transit" is very similar to the establishment of James Hart's reelection banquet.



This Means War!
As mentioned earlier in the article, it seems between the "Over There" reference (a name Fringe called the Red Universe(s) ) and The Dr. Frankenstein reference (a name also associated with Walter Bishops), that Nigel Vaughn is meant to embody some of out Fringe's mad scientists, including Walter Bishop(s) or even William Bell, as some of those characters too, especially first three seasons of Walternate, season 4 William Bell, and even season 5's resentful Windmark all bare resemblance in our first impression.

Additionally Walter Bishop due to his heritage had an association with Nazi Germany and Fringe sprinkled quite a few War Time Germany parallels within the series, including references to Casablanca, which might give me credit that the Wall is meant to allude to The Berlin War and that we might be seeing another war story, as even another wave of androids is similar to another wave of shapeshifters (thanks William Bell) Walternate was preparing his war with.

Really John Larroquette's Nigel Vaughn seems quite a typical Bad Robot villain, as he has a lot of the characteristics in being an older, corporate, spiritual, knowledgeable in certain fields, but also very compelling character. He's not only similar to Walternate or William Bell, but Arvin Sloane or Charles Widmore, as all of those characters seek to destroy based on a vision or a need to enact some kind of revenge.

Also mentioned earlier in the article is "Unbound's" association to "Blood Brothers" via mentioning of the Wall, but also that episode featured a women named Maya Vaughn. Vaughn is the surname of Nigel. It's unclear if these two are blood related, especially when you consider that Almost Human has been sprinkling similar names and ideas throughout the course of the season so far (like James Hart, The Florist Lockhart, the episode about bio metric hearts, and the character Reinhardt or Trevor in the chat room and the cop Trevor Cooper). The two also happen to be characters that touch on the soul, as Maya is where we viewers get proof of life beyond death and we see DRN extend himself by pulling evidence from her parents' house fire...Obviously if this man was her father, might this then ruin her credibility, but it could easily be an Uncle or of no relation at all. At the very least it's something to think about.

Note: Vaughn is also the surname of Alias character Micheal Vaughn and in "Blood Brothers Review"  I made comparisons to Kaya (Alias), Rebecca Kibner (Fringe), and Carla Warren (Fringe)...

This episode also mentioned 'Over There' in relation to what's on the other side of the wall. In Fringe we often called that the Red Universe, where there were alternate counterparts to many of the characters from the Blue universe. Haley Myers, the witness that dies while astral projecting on the stand in "Blood Brothers", is sporting a Red Universe Olivia Dunham hairstyle and color scheme, but who's personality is completely opposite to her.

Taxi Driver - What's Your Destination?
Fringe also used the cab and cab driver as a little theme starting with Red universe character Henry Higgins ( a reference to My Fair Lady) and later with Walter through out the course of season five.

In Lost there is also an iconic taxi cab scene with Hugo Reyes and Jacob during the end of season five ("The Incident"). What Jacob gives him is also a kind of cool unraveling of a guitar case with a large ankh inside, which inside that is a written message. (Kind of White Tulip-ish). Kate Austen also steals Claire's cab outside the airport in the flash sideways ("LAX", "What Kate Does").

And speaking of the Danica with child dressed in ballet attire and her mother in a cab scene (along with again the reference to Frankenstein) was a I also reminded of the Fringe episode "Marionette", where a man desperately collects organs to attempt to reassemble and reanimate the love of his life, and ballet dancer, by hooking her to large cables that allow her to mimic her dance formations, but alas he learns this is not the woman he loved, because this creation lacked her soul, as he can no longer see what he once saw in her eyes.

Note: Sun Kwon had broken a glass ballerina figurine as a child on Lost ("Glass Ballerina").


Save Our Souls

When we first meet Nigel he comes with the surname of Bernard. Bernard was a rather good character on LOST, in which he and his wife Rose attempt to represent the idea of taking the spiritual highroad by "retiring" and not getting involved in Island affairs during season 5. Whether Nigel's alias is then a false facade remains to be seen, but given the nature of DRNs (before they go nuts), and like maybe even Walter Bishop, might there have once been a man with good intentions.

Note: Rose comments that some of the sounds that the smoke monster makes sounds very familiar. She is from New York. As it terns out one of the sounds used for the smoke monster was the meter of Cab/Taxi.



To Be Bound or Unbound?
Fringe happens to have an episode title opposite to this episode title, "Bound". "Bound" is Fringe's 11th season one episode and happens to be one of Fringe's rare more action-heavy episodes. This episode starts with Olivia Dunham's abduction from the previous episode "Safe", where ZFT member Michael Loeb gives Olivia a spinal tap. In Almost Human's "Unbound" we see KNX being tricked into giving XRN a shot in the back of the neck. In both cases the victims of the injections are meant to make audiences aware of potential abilities and/or energy, with the difference that Olivia does not want to be apart of the ZFT's Terrorist organization, let alone a reveal she was exposed to cortexiphan, and XRN/Danica is all for whatever Nigel Vaughn is apart of (which could be Insyndicate).

"Bound" is also where we get introduced to corrupt Home Security Consultant Stanford Harris, another ZFT member. There could be a juxtaposition here beginning with James Hart, depending on if the Politicians/Government officials are really mostly corrupt or if a few individuals within are, which might give Nigel some leeway in his motives.

Johnny Horowitz
Although this character sounds like something out of Alcatraz, I'm inclined to think this might be a little shout out to Adam Horowitz, who often co-writes with Eddy Kitsis and has worked with J.J. Abrams on Felicity & Lost. Currently the writing duo work on Once Upon A Time, which has many Bad Robot alumni and reference many Bad Robot works, especially Lost & Fringe. There is even an upcoming episode title (episode 3.18) that seems likely to be in line with Fringe's season 4. There is also something comic about the poor chubby kid not handling John Kennex' retelling of Johnny Horowitz story, which is reminiscent to character Hugo Reyes, which the duo often wrote his episode-centrics for.

XRN

Interestingly we are introduced to this model with a kind of body prototype, who proceeds to become the XRN or Danica by first having the correct head. This is rather reminiscent to Fringe's shapeshifters, especially the isolated creation of Newton, as this shapeshifter, like the XRN's uniqueness relies on his head. It's also curious that her name is similar to DRN's minus the "D" and has been replaced with the letter "X" that might go hand in hand with the concept of a variable, which maybe has to do with changing heads, or some unknown factor in Nigel's robotic evolution, although at the moment it seems like the key is his state mind, pointing to either neurology or emotional transference?! William Bell also became synonyms with the letter X and/or more aptly "Mr. X", as it becomes clearer in season 4 that he is responsible for blue Olivia Dunhams' deaths in many time lines. The name XRN also begs to bring on words in association like "extra" or "extreme".

So did you enjoy "Unbound"? What do think or hope is on the other side of the wall? What do you think caused the wall to go up? Do you want to see Danica or Nigel again? Do you think Nigel is apart of Insyndicate? Any theories about any of this out there? Let us know in the comments below!

About the Author - Darthlocke4

Laura Becker (Darthlocke 4) is a long time commentator, TV addict, and aspiring writer participating with other fans on SpoilerTV. She writes reviews and analytic type articles. Some of her other interests include philosophy, cultural anthropology, reading, drawing, and working with animals, as she grew up and continues to work on her family's horse farm.