Almost Human S1E10 - "Perception" Recap

Two young girls are shown to be high on a new drug but experiencing it differently. One is in the woods and surrounded by bees. The other is conducting a virtual orchestra. Eventually, they both collapse.

John dreams of his ex-girlfriend wanting something from him. He wakes up and leaves himself a digital post-it reminder. He's putting together a dream journal of sorts. He gets called to go investigate the death of the girl in the woods. Detective Stahl is examining the conductress. Both girls are said to have died from cardiac arrest, seemingly overdosing from something unknown. Kennex finds a container in the pocket of the girl he's examining. He is momentarily interrupted by a flash of Anna from his dream. Stahl finds an identical container with the other girl.

The girls, Scarlett Davis and Eleanor Church, were genetically engineered "chromes," just like Detective Stahl. These "chromes" are esentially highly fancy test tube babies with apparently perfect genes. Maldonado wants Stahl to deal with the parents. Stahl tells Kennex that chromes don't get addicted to drugs, with the perfect genes and all, but it doesn't mean they won't experiment. Dorian finds that the same drug compound was in the body of a girl named Lyla, who attended Mendel School just like the other victims.

Kennex has another flash of Anna and pops another one of the pills he takes to help jog his memory. Maldonado sees him take it on surveillance footage and Dorian also knows he's taken it because he checks Kennex's vitals every 72 hours. Dorian warns him of the side effects of the drug he is taking but Kennex tells him to back off, wanting to remember more details about the ambush.

Kennex and Dorian visit Lyla's mother, who reveals that Lyla wasn't a chrome. She was simply naturally gifted and she's one of the few naturals let into the school.

Stahl talks to a girl from the school who was another one of the few naturals at school. The girl can tell that Stahl is a chrome, but didn't expect for a chrome to ever be a police officer. The girl knew Lyla but not the other girls. Lyla wanted to be able to compete with the chromes and it turns out the drug works best on chromes because it expands their minds and is meant to help them achieve their full potential.

Rudy is able to determine that the drug was created using a chemical printer, which the team traces to an expelled Mendel student. Lyla died from drowning after taking one use of it but Eleanor and Scarlett died from overdosing on it. Dorian realises that the dealer must have killed them. Kennex gets flashes of Anna and causes them to get into a little car accident after which Dorian has to wear a bandage on his ear. They arrive at the student's house, Julian, and Dorian scans him and finds that he's high on the super drug. Julian tells them that someone hacked the printer and upped the doses which killed Eleanor and Scarlett.

Kennex meets Maldonado for a drink. She talks to him about his pill popping. Kennex still feels guilt over letting Anna into the precinct, which contributed to the evidence room being raided. Maldonado warns him not to be consumed by revenge and says he'll have to talk to Internal Affairs again.

Kennex goes to see the back alley Recollectionist who he has been meeting with. He gets put in the chair and is able to remember that Anna gave him a Russian nesting doll. He takes the doll to a lab tech named McGinnis, who has been helping him for a while now.

Dorian and Kennex vists Scarlett's dad, who holo-beams in his attorney but he ends up getting rid of him when he decides to be honest. He had wanted to protect his daughter after Lyla's death and says that he covered up the fact that the girls had taken the drug together. Lyla's mother had warned him they'd all pay for hiding the truth.

Julian the drug dealer cared about Lyla. He tells Kennex and Dorian that her mother put enormous pressure on her to be perfect. But when she took the drug, which Julian didn't want her to do, she realised she could never be perfect and she was driven to suicide. He shows them the recording she made after she took the drug. Lyla's mother blamed Eleanor and and Scarlett for exposing Lyla to the drug and hired the hacker who altered the doses. Lyla's mother is devastated after watching the recording, particularly at the end when she walks into the ocean.

Kennex meets with Internal Affairs and is reprimanded for his involvement with Anna and apparently having his judgement clouded. Kennex returns home and deletes his Post-It notes, deciding that this obsession isn't healthy. But then McGinnis calls and says that doll is a listening device. Not only has the InSyndicate been spying on him, the last upload was just seven hours ago.

Almost Human airs on Mondays on FOX at 8PM.