Hahaha isn't it just.

In case anyone was wondering, my earlier remark about the hoover didn't come from nowhere and it wasn't even intended at the time to be one of those odd side references (standards slipping, sorry) - because there's more than a few Tales From A&E that feature such things...

But after posting I looked up where I had remembered the image from - an episode of American Dad where Steve Smith reveals his wondrous creation Bernice and in looking for the references I now find that Steve's middle name is Anita have we been looking in the wrong place for explanations?

He's probably a bit confused. And it wouldn't be the first time a boss has had sex with an underling and then effectively fired her when the relationship ended. It could mean he felt guilty and didn't want to see her any more and didn't much care if that hurt her. Men can be bastards. In this case Joe probably isn't that bad, but treating her as a machine sure is convenient for him sometimes.


Agreed. And even if he does think of Anita as a machine, he ought to know by now how Laura feels about her.

Well at the time he was chatting to her as if she were a human. She even told him in so many words not to worry or be paranoid about Laura. It doesn't matter what we think of synths - it was convenient for Joe to think of her as a sexy confidant and then convenient to treat her as a disposable machine.

on this topic, the scene where our blonde synth tells the brothel owner "what they do to us, they want to do to you" is treated like its shocking, yeah big shock men want to have kinky or sometime abusive sex with women, this is hardly news,

Also the woman running the brothel was clearly old enough to have been around pre synths so would know the truth of the sex trade, and likely has worked in a "front line" "customer facing" capacity, in a brothel at some stage.

I was sure I had said something about this but can't find the post where (if) I said it... it struck me as being a very unexpected expression of anger which is not what you expect from a robot, and for a moment I wasn't sure if she was going to hack away at the Madam or just shove her in the dustbin.

I'd guess that without the limits of a human saying 'no', the scope of 'what they do to us' is probably far more disturbing than what the Madam might have experienced, assuming she had been on (or near) the game previously instead of always having been a Madam for robots. But that's overthinking it somewhat, for me it was an unexpected intense moment where the need for more blood spillage was denied.

I guess its possible the Madam, was not experienced in the more kinky/fetish areas of the business, but if the gentlemen visiting required toys or props for something, its possible she had to order them in for the synths to use.

Certainly men who like to get dominant, would very much feel they can really do that to a robot, rather than with a paid sex worker, after all the robot wont die, and if she breaks she can be fixed.

However any good Madam should know what is going on in her brothel, synth or not. Even if her only concern is property damage.

I wonder if George will ask Niska to go and look for Odi?

Aah, precious cupcake Odi! I'm afraid I'm definitely guilty of attributing human characteristics to Odi. I hope he isn't still left languishing in the woods by the end of tonight's episode, poor thing has been there far too long already. I have a feeling the outlook isn't good for Odi - no spoilers please, if it's bad I don't want to know!

Hello

Oooh it's a revealing episode!

Wonder how they're going to patch up the bonking-the-synth blip in their relationship

I had to watch last week's episode on catch-up, as I was out for some reason I've forgotten.

Looking forward to this episode. I see that the charred synth we saw last week was a substitute, as was easily predicted or the plot would be limited.

Did Hobb just heavily hint that there were human bits in some of the synths?

That's how I interpreted it.

Oh noes - hope merlin doesn't die

Where's the nurse-bot then? The left-wing version of Teresa May.

He's back!

Ow poor Odi.
He has the functional capacity of a vacuum cleaner now but still.... aww.

knee-capped. Cool.

Killer Synth!

How ungrateful!

Were they stun/electric shotguns? Hobb seemed to be twitching as if hit with a taser and not bleeding - maybe something invented to keep synths in line in a non lethal way?

But he does a mean toast and apricot jam! And looks like an angel fallen out of heaven

I love Odi

Yay, Odi's home!

And apparently Niska isn't the only synth willing to turn violent!

Look like non lethal weapons, he also checked if the guy he strangled was still alive