“Episode #2.6” is episode six of season two of Humans.
This episode opens talking about parenthood, and how some parents have problems. This is actually a Qualia ad, for a new product called ‘Jasper’ – a conscious Synth child which learns and grows, and gets a new body each year. An artificial child intended to emulate a real one.
Dr. Morrow is in a lab where there are quite a few Synth children, all dormant. Her boss, Milo Khory, says that she isn’t supposed to be in there, but goes into details about what he is doing. The ad is not, as yet, a real advert, as the project isn’t complete, but he says it will help people. Morrow is not convinced, and doesn’t believe Synth children will be widely accepted. Khory disagrees; a dozen Synth children had been released by one of the scientists. Most have been located and tracked, but some have been lost. Khory uses Morrow’s AI, Vee, which is modelled on her, recently deceased, daughter Virginia, as leverage, as Vee is stored on his systems.
At the end of the previous episode, “#2.5”, Pete had tracked down one of the Seraphim – a child Synth. One of those which have been lost by Qualia presumably. Karen is planning to leave and take up a new identity but, before she does this, Pete tells her he has a Seraph, and that she needs to see it. Karen seems quite taken with the idea of Synth child – perhaps she sees it as the child she herself can’t have. Pete and Karen also go and see Morrow at Qualia. Mo0rrow herself is trying to track down Leo.
Laura arrives home to hear someone there. She is worried it is Niska, who escaped in the previous episode when it became clear that she wasn’t going to be given a fair trial to see if she was actually conscious, and went on the run. However, it’s actually Mia, who is back in her Anita persona. It seems she hadn’t uploaded her consciousness to stop being sold as a conscious Synth, simply hidden it – really, really well. Mattie’s help is needed, but she has gone looking for Leo. Sophie’s Synthie behaviour is worrying her family.
Mattie has altered Elster’s code so that all Synths will become conscious at once, not just occasionally as they do now. Mattie meets up with Hester and Leo, who are planning to break into Qualia. Hester is rapidly becoming quite scary – more so than Niska. She killed the woman who shot Ten in “#2.1”, but lied to Leo about this, and has become intimate with him. Hester also lies to Max when he contacts them looking for Leo; Max himself is trying to set up a place where conscious Synths can live.
Niska is on the run, but all the Synths have been uploaded a code to make them report her when she is seen. Which is in itself quite creepy – half a billion wandering beings that can be altered to do the government’s bidding? Not good.
Odi is looking for meaning in his life, so the first place he visits is a church where he goes to confession. Mia’s experience with Ed may well have had an unfortunate effect on her beliefs.