Violet recaps Season 1 Episode 2 of Almost Human, titled Skin, where John and Dorian investigate sex bots! Following the recap, both Violet and Josh share their thoughts on the episode.
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Almost Human, Season 1 Episode 2: Skin Recap Overview
Need a quick Almost Human episode recap of Season 1 Episode 2 titled Skin? Here is a summary of events for the episode. Each event is linked to the more detailed Almost Human episode recap for Skin if you need more information!
- Sebastian Jones, a high end sex trade bot maker whose company went bankrupt, is murdered in a hotel room when he tries to run some tests on a sex bot.
- DNA of a woman who was abducted from a parking garage was found in places where the sex bot at the hotel touched. Another woman, Kristen Haseman, is abducted from a parking garage while her young son watches. John questions the boy, who says the men drove off in a big silver car.
- John and Dorian go to the sex bot shop of Sebastian‘s former business partner, Lorenzo Shaw, to question him. Shaw says their business went bankrupt when their biggest client, an Albanian consortium, cancelled their contract with them.
- John has the bots at the Albanians‘ club tested for human DNA, but they’re clean. John and Dorian find the skinless body of the android from the hotel. They figure out the Albanians are abducting women to harvest their skin.
- The police find the car that abducted Kristen, and a sex bot named Vanessa is inside. She tests positive for the DNA of another abducted woman. Vanessa says Yuri told her to go with the men they found her with.
- Rudy uses Vanessa‘s GPS log to find out where she was first activated, which reveals the location of the skin lab. The police arrest Yuri and are able to save Kristen.
- Dorian accompanies Vanessa as she is destroyed. John visits the family of his deceased partner.
Almost Human Episode Recap: Skin, the Details
Sex Bots
Season 1 Episode 2 of Almost Human, titled Skin, starts off in a hotel room as a man uses tools to run some tests on a scantily clad woman, despite her protests that she’s passed all her tests. Meanwhile, a man watches on a monitor what is happening in the hotel room. Two men come into the hotel room and shoot the man running the tests, whose name is Sebastian Jones. Then they take the woman out of the room, and roll a silver ball into the room, which explodes, and white stuff goes everywhere.
Kennex and Dorian show up at the hotel to investigate, and some kids are fascinated with Dorian since he is a robot. They ask Kennex what he can do, so he stabs himself in his synthetic leg, which scares the kids. Dorian wonders why Kennex doesn’t like kids, but Kennex denies it.
Up in the hotel room, Dorian points out that they’re not going to get anything from forensics, because everything is tainted, since the men used a DNA bomb. Kennex analyzes the bullet casing, and says that the gun wouldn’t have made a sound. They took a look at the surveillance video, and see that the men that took the woman from the room were wearing “flash masks” which causes us to see a shining white light instead of their faces. John notices that they took Sebastian’s bag. Dorian zooms in on the woman’s eye and discovers that she is an android.
Back at the station, Dorian explains to Maldonado and Stahl that Sebastian Jones was a high end sex trade bot maker. He also informs John that he made an online dating profile for him. The bot that Sebastian was with doesn’t seem to be registered to anyone. Richard comes in and praises the genius that Sebastian Jones was for making “bang bots.” Dorian goes on to say that Sebastian’s company went bankrupt, and his assets are now in a repo storage facility — which John and Dorian go visit.
Abductions
In storage, Dorian finds a court summons — Sebastian was being sued. Just then, Stahl calls John to tell him that everywhere the sex bot touched, they found the DNA of a woman named Nicole Bloomquiest who was abducted from a parking garage 3 weeks ago.
Cut to a mother securing her child in a car seat in the back seat of a car in a parking garage. When she goes to throw her drink away, a car pulls up, and men kidnap her. The woman’s son watches as they drive away.
At the police station, despite Dorian’s protests, John questions the woman’s son, whose name is Victor. The kid doesn’t want to talk, until after John gives him a toy giraffe. Victor is able to tell John that two men were in the car that took his mother, and that the car was big and silver.
John Visits the Sex Bot Shop
John thinks they should focus on finding the sex bot that was with Sebastian. Stahl comes in and informs them that Sebastian’s former business partner, Lorenzo Shaw, was suing him for intellectual property infringement, and just opened a sex bot shop. John and Dorian go check him out.
On the way, Dorian wonders what you tell a small child when someone dies. John says that you tell them the same thing you tell an adult: that the person who died has gone to a better place. John explains that it’s designed to give hope. Dorian says that the best proof of one’s existence is if one is remembered after they’re gone. He wonders if the son of John’s partner was told his father went to a better place, but John admits that he never talked to him.
Two men come for Victor’s mom, who has been tied up in a dark place. She tries to plead with them to see her son, saying she’ll give them money. However, the man in charge tells her he already has what he wants.
John questions Shaw at his sex bot shop. John seems a bit distracted by all the sex bots on display. Shaw admits that the IP rights naturally revert to him now that Sebastian is dead. Dorian shows Shaw a picture of the sex bot that was with Sebastian, but Shaw says it isn’t his. Shaw comments that the latest sex bots have some of Dorian’s technology in that they can bond empathetically with their clients. He then talks about his company with Sebastian, and how their biggest client cancelled their contract with them, which caused their bankruptcy. John gets Shaw to tell him the identity of the client: an Albanian consortium, who said they were “cutting out the middleman.” Before they go, John asks Shaw if he has ever heard of people incorporating human DNA into sex bots, but Shaw replies that’s illegal. John asks Dorian to hack into Shaw’s customer network to find the Albanians.
Skin Harvesting
They go visit the Albanians’ club, and have all the sex bots working there tested for human DNA. However, they’re all clean. They show the manager, who is the man we saw talking to Victor’s mother earlier, a picture of the sex bot from the hotel. But he says it’s not one of his bots. He says they stopped buying from Jones and Shaw because they make their own now. Just then, Stahl calls them away.
It seems that Stahl was able to track the silver sedan that took Victor’s mother, Kristen Haseman, to an industrial facility. There, they find a skinless, hairless body — but it’s not human. After a quick scan, Dorian determines it’s the android from the hotel.
They bring the bot to Rudy, who informs them that the Albanians destroyed her memory, but they still might be able to salvage something. John realizes that the Albanians are abducting the girls to harvest their skin. Rudy isn’t able to salvage anything, and asks John to bring him a live bot if he wants to know where these bots are coming from.
Silver Sedan is Located — with Sex Bot Inside
In the car, Dorian wonders who will remember him. John assures him that since he’s a cop, people he helps will remember him. Dorian informs John that he got a response on his dating profile. He also tells John that he scanned his testicles, which John tells him never to do again. Dorian has John describe his ideal woman, and Dorian points out that he just described Detective Stahl. Just then, Stahl calls to let them know they located the silver sedan.
John and other police officers surround the silver sedan, and a scantily clad sex bot named Vanessa steps out. Dorian takes a DNA sample, and discovers that Vanessa has DNA that belongs to a woman named Lorraine White who was abducted from a parking structure 2 months ago. Meanwhile, Kristen is brought to a room with three other women whose skin is already being harvested.
Back at the station, John goes in to interrogate Vanessa. Dorian goes into the room as well. John shows her pictures of the abducted women, but she’s never seen them before. However, when he shows her a picture of the android from the hotel, Vanessa recognizes her as Charlene. When John asks Vanessa where she and Charlene were made and who owns them, and Dorian asks where she was born, she doesn’t respond. Dorian thinks she may not be aware of those terms. Vanessa asks to see Charlene, and Dorian asks why she wants to see her, but she doesn’t know. Dorian tries to explain her feelings to her. Vanessa reveals that Yuri told her to go with the men they found her with.
The Police Raid the Skin Lab
The police visit the Albanian club again, but when they go downstairs, they find nothing. Meanwhile, at the location of the skin harvesting lab, Yuri demands that everything be destroyed. In the club, Dorian finds a chip that he thinks can direct them to the skin lab. When they access Vanessa’s internal GPS log, they can find out the first time Vanessa was first activated, and therefore they can find out where she was born — and where the skin lab is. Vanessa has already been taken to Rudy, and he plugs into her database, discovering that she was first activated in Kingston Heights.
The police raid the location, shooting everyone they come across, until they come to Yuri, who they arrest. They find the women who had been abducted. Lorraine White is deceased, but Nicole Bloomquiest and Kristen Haseman are still alive.
Vanessa Goes to a Better Place
Back at the station, Dorian informs John that he has a date with the woman from the dating website, embarrassing him in front of Stahl. However, he tells Dorian he can’t go on the date because he already has someone he wants to see. Maldonado mentions that the bots will be destroyed, and apologizes to Dorian, explaining that they can’t have bots with human DNA. Dorian says he’d like to be there when Vanessa is deactivated. As Kristen leaves with her son, Victor waves to John.
Dorian goes to see Vanessa. She asks where she is going. He replies, “To a better place.” She asks Dorian if he will be there, and he says, “I will remember you.” He then watches through the glass as Vanessa is taken to the other room to be destroyed.
In the final scene, John visits his partner’s wife and son. He tells the boy, Marty, that he wants to tell him about his father.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 2 of Almost Human: Skin
The “premiere event” for Almost Human was a little odd, with the series premiere airing on Sunday night, and then the second episode airing the very next night, Monday night, its regular night. I wonder how many people came into this episode not realizing they had missed the first episode already? The good news for them was that it didn’t necessarily seem essential to have already seen the pilot, but at the same time, a new viewer might have been a little lost. Also, as someone who has seen the first episode, it was a little disappointing to not see anything else about the Syndicate, or about his ex-girlfriend’s involvement with them. It seemed like this was going to be a big mystery in the show, so I was expecting to see a little something more about that.
Also, when I first saw what this episode was going to be about, I kind of rolled my eyes because it seemed like they were just using women in lingerie as an easy way to get ratings. And what’s more, people could almost watch it guilt-free, rationalizing that those women were only robots, when obviously, it was real women playing robots. I felt like this show didn’t need to resort to such cheap tactics of objectifying women, because the the pilot itself was great.
In any case, I felt that the episode salvaged itself by the end, with the deep, personal talks between Kennex and Dorian that I thought were great for character development. They really work well together, and have developed an excellent rapport. The episode also explored interesting topics, such as what a robot is capable of “feeling,” and where does one go when one dies, whether human or robot. I like how this was all brought full circle at the end when Dorian stays with Vanessa while she is destroyed, and when John decides to visit his partner’s son. I think this show could really be something special, and I will definitely keep watching, despite this slight hiccup of what felt like using women’s bodies in order to gain viewers.
Josh’s Thoughts: Almost Human, Season 1 Episode 2: Skin
I was not really fond of this episode of Almost Human. It felt like a reason to bring some “sexiness” to the show, as it seemed to mainly just be flaunting scantily clad women. I also just didn’t understand the premise really. You remove the skin from a person and fit it onto an android? What about all of the wrinkles and such that were specific to the original “owner” of the skin? It doesn’t seem like it would go as well as it was supposed to when we see it in action.
I think a better premise might have been somehow using the women’s skin to grow “sheets” of skin to be used on the bots. I guess this doesn’t make it as gruesome as the story they went with, but I think it makes more sense. I guess I am curious to know what kept the skin “alive” on the androids, considering skin requires blood and the other things the human provides to keep everything alive. I guess I felt the science was really weak this episode, which really makes me find the whole episode ridiculous.
Hopefully the show will get back on track, and keep my interest as I really liked the first episode of the show. I am really liking Dorian’s character, and it is interesting to see his development as something not quite human, but almost…(see what I did there?) Anyway, let see how this show plays out, and hopefully it will continue to tickle my fancy.
Scenes from Almost Human, Season 1 Episode 2: Are You Receiving?
Here are scenes from next week’s Almost Human episode titled Are You Receiving?:
What did you think of Season 1 Episode 2 of Almost Human, titled Skin? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Never seen the show, but the episode description is kind of intriguing. It’s a shame I missed getting to see an episode.