Well, things got dark real quick.
A mere two episodes after establishing Dr Finn and Isaac's relationship, The Orville pulls the rug right under us by exposing a dark side in Isaac that, I think it's safe to say, no one saw coming.
After the opening scene of 'Identity, Pt. 1' in which Isaac shut down, I was expecting some kind of episode that would see the crew go on a lighthearted adventure to bring Isaac back online. However, when the crew visits Kaylon, his homeworld, Isaac is quickly brought back by his people - no drama there.
We are then led to believe that the episode would be about Isaac's consciousness as he struggles between the wants of his people and the wants of The Orville. That is until we learn that Isaac is a robot through and through and his programmed mission to observe and report, now done, takes precedence over anything, period. It is time for him to leave despite Dr Finn's plea to stay with her and to remember all the time they spent together. This was heartbreaking, especially considering how fresh their relationship feels.
The episode would then give us a goodbye party scene that was very bittersweet and funny, including Bortus demanding the corner piece of the cake. That just killed me. At this point, I wasn't too sure where the episode was going. Though some foreboding teases here and there that something is afoot within Kaylon made things very curious.
When Finn's youngest child left the ship and found himself underground beneath Kaylon - that is when the story began to take a complete 180.
The turning point in 'Identity' was the first time that The Orville experimented with horror. Watching Finn's kid, and then, later on, Bortus, Keyali, and Finn in the dark cavern walking to the unknown was un-Orville like and pretty darn creepy - the ominous music didn't help, either.
And then the reveal of the hundreds of thousands of skulls piled up miles down the cavern. Holy crap.
I'm sure Captain Mercer and crew wanted answers, but in seeing all those skulls, it is surprising they did not just get up and get the heck out of there, Isaac be damned.
But of course, they didn't, and upon a confrontation where we learn that the Kaylon's decimated their makers, the robots take over the Orville and make their way to Earth.
There was some pretty basic, yet intense action sequences as the Kaylon's massacred some of the Orville crew to get to the bridge. It is surprising how Isaac just goes along with everything, but also refreshing since his character had always been blah.
In an interview with Adrianne Palicki back in December, the actress said that Season 2 would be 'intense.' We didn't see much of that intensity for the first half of The Orville, but this one episode really backed up her words. It will be very interesting to see how this all concludes in Part 2 and honestly, I don't think there is any going back for Isaac in terms of redemption.
9/10
