Emotions run high in a solid seventh episode of Brave New World that takes our love triangle into dangerous territory and reveals Indra’s deadly initiative.
Brave New World has arrived at the calm before the storm in “Monogamy and Futility: Part 1.” With only a few chapters left, the final push is gearing up to be an exhilarating affair. Everyone from Epsilons to Alpha pluses — even Gary — are reaching their boiling points, and no amount of Soma will be able to slow them down.
Love is in the air when Lenina and John make it official that they are head over heels into each other, so much so that Lenina gives John back his discount Star-Lord headphones, which he uses to mope around listening to “Perfect Day” on a loop after he catches his love hooking up with an Alpha at a game of hide-and-seek that turns into a mud orgy. At the least, it’s good to see that people still listen to Lou Reed in the future.
Before his heart gets broken, John tells Bernard about the concept of dating, which he attempts with Lenina. They go on a date, and Lenina gives him the Jorah Mormont treatment pretty hard for the most part. In the end, he gets her to sleep with him, but realizes they’re not connecting and asks her to leave. Instead of popping a few yellows to make it all go away, he sits in misery, taking it all in.
Meanwhile, John goes out for a drink and runs into the infected Epsilon. They have a chat, and John gives a rousing speech about being free and having feelings. This causes the Epsilons to go against their programming as they begin to smash their glasses, basically frothing themselves into a proto-riot.
Elsewhere, Mustaffa Mond learns of Indra’s plan for humanity. It’s decided that the best way to maintain stability in society is to convince some of the people to commit suicide, or to kill them. Later, we see her vaguely warn the Director about what’s to come.
And the entire ordeal caps off with John deciding to seek out the assistance of Helm in order to have his emotions taken away. In order to do this, he finally puts a worm contact lens in his eye and becomes part of Indra’s network.
The episode is a great way to set up the final two installments. Indra is about to meet John for the first time, and it will be interesting to see how the rogue program deals with this anomaly. How will she interacts with a savage who sees through her nonsense?
Humans vs AI is one of the most compelling conflicts in all of sci-fi, and while the show has been on a rocky road getting road, and I’m excited to see this final showdown. The stage has been set. Time for the big show.
So far, Brave New World has failed to make the Harry character seem like a threatening antagonist; he seems more like a redshirt Walder Frey, a nuisance everyone knows won’t make it. He feels like an unused CW villain that wandered onto the Peacock lot.
John’s rebellious speech and Mustafa Mond’s rant were both relevant and topical; that’s probably the most thought-provoking the show has been up to this point. Its a shame the series took an entire half-season to get to this place. Now all that’s left to do is stick the landing.
Episode Grade: Beta
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