- Title: Almost Human – Simon Says
- wiki: link
With Dorian (Michael Ealy) fighting anger-control issues and mood swings caused by temporary departmental issues allowing none of the androids to be charged to full power, Kennex (Karl Urban) and his robo-pal search for a killer (David Dastmalchian) who gets his kicks by attaching explosive collars on victims (Alessandro Juliani, Crystal Lowe) who he believes have wronged him in the past, forcing them to commit crimes, and broadcasting the entire event live on the Internet.
Foiled by Kennex, and having a grudge against the police, the madman grabs the detective deciding to make Kennex his next victim. With the help of Dorian, who uses his last remaining charge to pacify the suspect, and a little human ingenuity, Kennex is able to defuse the bomb around his neck before he literally loses his head.
Killers who strap bombs on their victims while forcing them to commit his crimes is hardly new (Arrow did a similar storyline just last year also using explosive collars), and I’m not buying the logic behind how a power drain just happens to so drastically change his personality to make Dorian more entertaining. Nor did I believe Kennex was ever actually in any real danger meaning the last ten minutes of the episode were far less tense than if someone else had been put in the collar. Although not a bad episode, in the end there’s nothing all that memorable about “Simon Says” or the mad bomber.
Overall I agree, it was poorly written and there was no real ‘suspense’. While I thought it was humorous the way Dorian was acting, there should have been a better explanation than “low on power”. Plus, is 50% charge really “low” on power?
And it was absolutely laughable when Dorian started losing power so quickly while climbing the building. He went from 17% power to zero in a minute or two — about on par with my iPhone, actually.