Empathy Bonus
Cherise Nuland tells the man who attacked her and Flynne that a hit is out on both of them. The man reassures her that he will take care of it.
Burton tells Flynne to get her mother into the basement. His friend, Reece, tracks the oncoming assassins’ drone to make it look like the boys are still sitting around the fire. They ‘link’ and the marks on their arms glow as they gain the ability to see the drone’s visual feed. Burton and his friends get their guns and begin to take down the men. Meanwhile, Flynne hides in her house. When one of the men enters and tries to get her, Burton takes him down with a shot. Just when they are running low on ammo, Conner arrives and helps them out. ..
Wilf is dreaming. He thinks of a memory, a time when he approached Aelita on behalf of his employer. He tells her his employer wants information on the Research Institute, the place she is currently working at. Aelita is sceptical. Wolf asks her if she is truly happy.
Lev Zubov, Wilf Netherton’s employer, has called him to come over immediately with news that he has built a peripheral for Flynne, as she is their best hope of finding Aelita. After the phone call, Lev’s companion Ash tells him that she doesn’t think Wilf can be trusted with this assignment. Lev tells Ash that Wilf has a strong motivation and an immense capacity for violence. ..
Flynne logs back in and wakes up in a body made for her in 2099. Wilf arrives and introduces himself. He shows Flynne that this isn’t a sim but the future. Quantum tunnelling makes it possible for her to be in this body. He takes her to Trafalgar Square where she takes in the buildings and the giant statues around the city. He proves it is the future by showing her a newspaper with her mother’s obituary, four weeks from that day in Flynne’s timeline. He tells her they have already provided a medicinal drug for the mother’s glioma to the pharmacy in Flynne’s town and paid for it. So Flynne can save her mother and in turn, help Wilf find Aelita.
Flynne returns home to find her mother has already gotten the medication from the pharmacy. She admits that she knew about the glioma and wanted to spare her daughter the sadness. She agrees to take the drug, even though Flynne says it’s experimental. ..
Tommy sees a cup of coffee seemingly floating in mid-air. He pokes around and eventually realises there is a car with some sort of cloaking device.
Flynne tells Burton that they can’t trust Wilf because he has been lying to them the whole time. Burton is angry and says they need to log in so they can figure out what is going on. Flynne opposes this and tells him she will stay here with him.
Flynne wakes up in a house in Notting Hill. Wilf introduces her to Lev (who hired him and Ash and Ossian (who maintain the connection between the two worlds). She finds out that her ‘body’ has an eight-hour sleep cycle and is controlled by AI the rest of the time. They explain that when they come in contact with the past, the past branches off to create a parallel timeline which is known as a stub. The contact becomes the point of separation. Aelita worked for the Research Institute and was providing them with a trapdoor into it.
In a timeline where she is not told what happened to her and her family, a woman finds out that the drug given to her mother only has a 57% success rate. She tells the drug company that once they help her and her family out, she’ll start talking about their missing lady.
Tommy finds a bullet in the car and goes up to meet Burton and asks him about it. Burton identifies the type of bullet but claims to know nothing else. When Tommy questions his friends’ trucks around the house, Burton says they had a drone fight.
Wilf is frustrated with Lev, and he tells Flynne that Lev is not telling him the truth. Lev insists that he knows what he is talking about, but Wilf isn’t convinced.
Flynne tells Burton that the people from the future have sent them a lottery winnings of $250,000. They will use this money to help them out in their current situation. Burton is hesitant to enlist Conner’s help because he knows that Conner is usually drunk. ..
Burton brings up the game Flynne played for him at the beginning of Episode 1. He says that Flynne let the sheep out of the fight zone and was rewarded with a tractor for her empathy. He calls it an empathy bonus and reminds her that there is no reward of a tractor in real life. Flynne retorts that even if there was one, he wouldn’t have found it. ..
Burton tells Conner that he knows what’s going on and asks him to help. Conner insists that he be sober before joining.
Corbell Pickett is trying to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman in a sim when a British man interrupts. He is the same man who attacked Flynne and Aelita. He offers Corbell ten million dollars to get rid of Flynne and Burton. Corbell thinks it’s a joke and leaves the game.
Flynne tries to search the internet for references to Miladros Coldiron or Wilf Netherton but comes up empty. She gets frustrated and her hand gets stuck on the computer mouse. She is unable to move it, so she uses her other hand to pry it off and get it back to normal. ..
Corbell is in bed with a woman when he gets a message saying that he has received two and a half million dollars in his bank account. The woman tells him that she has been working on the project all along and that she knows how to get the money. Corbell is hesitant at first, but then decides to go along with her plan.
Flynne wakes up in the middle of the night to hear noises from downstairs. She calls Burton for help but finds that it is only her mother. Flynne is in the kitchen looking for food and her mother tells her that she was hungry and then reveals that she can see Flynne. Her eyesight is coming back! ..
The Episode Review
We learn more about the world around us and the people who live in it. We see how they interact with each other and their environment. We also get a better understanding of the game that is playing out in The Peripheral.
The visuals in this episode are sleek and futuristic, with a shift in tonal between the rural town in the USA and the gleaming, cyber-punk city of future London. Hopefully, the upcoming episodes will go from character introductions to insights so we as viewers can find a way to connect with those on screen.
