1-2. I Am Also a We.

Nomi and Amanita share a happy moment

 before everything goes wrong.

Running Time: Approx. 54 minutes. Written by: The Wachowskis, J. Michael Straczynski. Directed by: The Wachowskis.


THE PLOT:

In San Francisco, Nomi updates her blog, talking about her past life, raised by strictly religious parents:

"For a long time, I was afraid to be who I am. Because I was taught by my parents that there's something wrong with someone like me, something offensive... I was afraid of this parade, because I wanted so badly to be a part of it. So today, I'm marching for that part of me that was once too afraid to march, and for all the people who can't march, the people living lives like I did. Today, I march to remember that I'm not just a me - I'm also a we."

Nomi doesn't get very far on her Pride march, however. Her eyes meet those of a mysterious onlooker - Jonas. A second later, she passes out on the street.

She wakes in the hospital, with her mother (Sandra Fish) at her bedside, insistently calling her by her birth name - Michael. A surgeon, Dr. Metzger (Adam Shapiro), comes in to inform Nomi that she has been diagnosed with UFLS, Undifferentiated Frontal Lobe Syndrome, which means that her brain tissue is fusing together. He tells her she will experience increasing hallucinations and will be dead in six months unless they perform immediate surgery. But once Nomi is alone, Jonas "visits" her, telling her what she can already sense: Metzger is a liar, and she has to get out of this hospital as fast as she can.

In Mexico, Lito finds that Daniela (Eréndira Ibarra), the young actress he has been seeing for the sake of the press, is becoming seriously infatuated. He tries to dissuade her - But she shows up at his apartment, determined to spend the night. When she discovers his secret male lover, Hernando (Alfonso Herrera), she has a most unexpected reaction...

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Will discovers that camera recordings from the night of Angelica's death have been altered. Before he can follow up on that, however, a federal agent informs Will's precinct about a suspected terrorist: Jonas!


CHARACTERS:

The focus in this episode is on Will, Lito, and Nomi, with most of the others relegated to one or two scenes (in some cases, a wordless piece of a scene). This is a good choice, allowing us a chance to connect to those three characters without other plotlines getting in the way.

Will's interactions with Deshawn (William Burke), the boy he saved, show his innate decency, while also allowing him to reveal a bit about his past as a juvenile delinquent, rebelling against his career cop father (Joe Pantoliano). He also deals with fallout from saving Deshawn, as veteran officers at a cop bar shun him, and his father tells him that if Deshawn goes on to kill a police officer, then that's on Will.

The revelation that Lito is gay is... honestly no surprise at all, though his interactions with Dani are highly entertaining. Outside of the blog speech that gives this episode its title, Nomi actually gets the worst of the three spotlighted characters, being relegated to largely a victim role once she wakes in the hospital.


THOUGHTS:

The series' second episode is slower-paced, but it's also much more engaging. Because we aren't constantly being moved from one character and continent to another, there is a chance to genuinely connect with the episode's three focal characters. Will and Nomi brush up in different ways against the Big Secret Plot, but that is wisely not the focus. The mystery is teased in the gap in the police recording, and Dr. Metzger is balanced as both believably a medical professional but at the same time a sinister figure. But for the most part, the episode defers plot mechanics in favor of building the first episode's sketches into fully-rounded characters.

All three characters are likable, and some parallels are already emerging. Will is in the shadow of his father, just as we saw Wolfgang in the shadow of his own parent in the previous episode. Just as Wolfgang had an obviously terrible relationship with his father, we see Nomi's relationship with her mother - a mother who refuses to even acknowledge her by her current name, and who seems almost relieved to hear from Dr. Metzer that something is wrong with her child, as if clinging to the diagnosis as an explanation for sexual identity issues, and not just blackouts and hallucinations.

The three seem to exist in alternate genres. For this episode, Nomi is mostly in a family drama, attempting to stand up for her own identity even as circumstances pull her back to her estranged family. Will is in a paranoid conspiracy thriller, stumbling across altered evidence while being used to track down a falsely-dubbed "terrorist." Meanwhile, Lito is in a sex farce. The changes in tone complement each other, with Will's investigation keeping the thread of mystery alive, Nomi's family issues granting substance, and Lito's thread lightening the mood at the right moments.

Save for an end chase that leads into another effective cliffhanger, this is not a particularly exciting episode, and at this point I was starting to wonder if it should have been "Sense6" as neither the Kenyan bus driver nor the Korean businesswoman appeared to be receiving any script attention at all (that is very soon to change). But by rounding out three of the characters while still keeping the central mystery alive, I Am Also a We manages to engage emotionally in a way that the previous episode did not, marking a significant forward step.


Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Limbic Resonance
Next Episode: Smart Money Is on the Skinny Bitch



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