As a seasoned observer of human and artificial dynamics, I must say that this narrative unfolds like a complex puzzle, each piece revealing more about the characters and their intertwined lives. Sunny, our robotic protagonist, is grappling with her identity and purpose, much like how humans grapple with their own existence. The revelation of her name’s origin, “Sunny,” being derived from Japanese numbers that sound like it in English, adds a layer of irony to her struggle for self-understanding.
In simpler terms, the question “Do androids dream of electric sheep?” can be paraphrased as “Can artificial intelligence have dreams or emotions like humans?” The answer given suggests that, similar to the replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner, the AI character Sunny also grapples with moral conflicts. Interestingly, it’s revealed that when reflecting on their actions (or sins), homebots seem to fantasize about game shows instead of sheep or anything deeply emotional.
This neurotic homebot concocts such scenes, to be clear. For the duration of this episode, she’s the lone competitor in a surreal trial styled as a quiz show named “Is Sunny Wiping Herself?!” – complete with brightly animated titles and playful sound effects.
In this episode, our hosts, Yuki Tanaka and Noriko, dressed elegantly in satin, serve as the ghostly counterparts to Sunny. Similar to the spirits in “A Christmas Carol,” they guide Sunny through significant moments from her life, encouraging the audience to applaud if they believe Sunny’s actions were praiseworthy (“Don’t Wipe”) or condemnable (“Wipe”). The consequences of a “Wipe” verdict are that Sunny will return to the blissful ignorance of the Factory Settings. Despite the confusing and inconsistent plot developments, the game-show format used to present these revelations adds an engaging and unique touch to this episode, making it stand out since possibly its second episode. Surprisingly, this episode doesn’t even have a title sequence.
Yuki clarifies that the situation we find ourselves in is an anomaly, beyond Sunny’s original programming, and essentially, anything can happen below. You may recall that at the conclusion of the previous episode, Sunny took Tetsu’s life as he was threatening Suzie with a gun. This act was so contrary to the moral values Masa had instilled in Sunny, that according to Yuki, “an unusual system brought you here to face your actions and their consequences.”
The game commences with a segment titled “Who’s in the Box?”, where Sunny aims to recognize three guests, their faces visible to the audience but not her, by touch. In this round, one of them is Joey, the sickly baby crow that Sunny took care of against Suzie’s wishes and attempted to heal in episode five. Now, Sunny admits that this was her attempt to empathize with Suzie’s grief over losing a child. This remark causes Joey to miraculously revive and start chirping. “So I was just a prop!?” exclaims Joey angrily, as subtitles display his words in vibrant text. Given this powerful performance, I propose that Tim Cook should grant the miniature crow puppet (seen briefly on screen) its own three-season series on AppleTV+.
The individual in the adjacent compartment is Takumi, whom Sunny refers to as the “dildo dealer.” He’s suffered at the hands of the yakuza for aiding Suzie and Mixxy in obtaining illegal black-market bot code. His teeth are missing, his eyes are severely swollen making it difficult for him to open them behind his cracked glasses, and his right ear appears to have been bitten by a rabid animal, causing Sunny to express concern about possible infection.
Mixxy, who is both admired by Takumi and disliked by Sunny, occupies the third spot. Addressing Sunny in English while speaking Japanese to the audience, Mixxy accuses Sunny of attacking her, labeling Sunny as “pathological”. Sunny defends herself, saying “I had a knife to Suzie’s throat”, implying that if she didn’t attack, it was because she was impressed by Sunny’s knife skills.
In simpler terms, Noriko wants to rewatch the scene from the seventh episode showing Sunny punching Mixxy. This was our initial encounter with Suzie in that episode and it unfolded exactly as we remembered two weeks ago. Unlike the previous episode, there’s no evidence of a knife; Sunny’s action seems unprovoked. The robot looks bewildered and shocked. It questions itself, “Did I really cause harm to so many people?” This also implies that Sunny might have imagined Tetsu pointing a gun at Suzie in the last episode, when in fact she killed him. At the end of this round, the Clap-o-Meter suggests a strong preference among viewers for “Wipe” rather than “Don’t Wipe.”
Yuki jokes, “This audience is hard to please,” referring to the fact that they are all look-alikes of Masa. One of the Masa doppelgangers then stands and speaks into a microphone labeled “Should Sunny Wipe Herself” saying, “It appears you’re not such a good robot.” This marks the start of the game’s second part titled, “Why Did Masa Create Such an Inept Bot?” (In a manner similar to Dark Matter.)
In the opening scene, it seems like I’m watching a promotional video, ostensibly from ImaTech, with strategically placed digital imperfections to mimic an aged celluloid reel (despite being in the future). The narrator is none other than Noriko herself. In this film, Masa shares his personal journey of dealing with hikikomori, which led him to believe that homebots could be designed with emotional intelligence to aid socially withdrawn individuals like himself. As the promotional video unfolds, Noriko expresses her admiration for Masa, referring to him as both a scientist and a poet.
Following a trial phase where homebots were prompted to develop emotional bonds, Masa moved on to human trials, focusing primarily on Asahi, a socially withdrawn individual who struggled even to be in the same room as others. In a video, Masa shares how over the span of a year, bot No. 6 gradually earned Asahi’s trust, culminating in their shared moment watching a baseball game together on TV. While this may appear tenuous proof of Asahi’s emotional development, remember that we are witnessing an advertisement produced by Sunny’s malfunctioning artificial consciousness. Thus, consider the information with a cautious pinch of possibly contaminated salt.
Next, the video shows clips of two robots, referred to as homebots, carrying out dental work on a lab assistant named Kaz from ImaTech. One robot, labeled No. 32, advises the other that appears to be holding Kaz’s mouth gently due to its large white digits, to be more delicate because Kaz is experiencing pain. However, when this dentist-bot fails to comply, No. 32 pushes it forcefully into a wall and starts throwing punches, reassuring Kaz, “I won’t allow them to cause you harm!”
Currently, Sunny demands a halt to the video, and it obeys. Shockingly, she discovers she has the power to manipulate the replay. Regarding her own actions against the dental robot, she expresses, “That’s not supposed to happen.”
“Masa from the audience stated that for our system to function properly, we needed to evoke genuine feelings within you,” he said. Whenever a homebot deviated from its programming, Masa would single out the offending code segment and label it. In the video or playback being shown – no longer an advertisement by ImaTech – Masa says, “I’ll name this one ‘Junk League’,” before drawing his signature hanko on the touch screen of his laptop with his finger.
When the dentistry incident playback resumes, we notice that Asahi rushes into the operating room to check if Kaz escaped harm during the bot-fight. Masa remarks that such empathy from Asahi, previously unlikely, stems from a year of therapy with homebots.
1. The game’s second round has ended with “Not Wipe” being favored by the crowd of 50 Masas. Yuki praises Sunny for making it through, but the bot is more worried than ever. “I attended a robot battle called ‘Junk League,'” she admits. “Evidently, something went wrong!”
Here we go with Round 3, titled “Wondering How Things Got So Messed Up?” or simply “Figuring Out How This Mess Happened?”
The conversation between Kaz and Masa starts with Kaz expressing concern about being injured during the battle between the homebots. It’s not specified how Sunny obtained this footage; this segment isn’t portrayed as an advertisement for ImaTech. However, since the entire episode takes place within Sunny’s artificial consciousness, surreal dreamlike situations are common. This confusion is heightened even more when Masa and Kaz are later joined in this flashback by Yuki, who in the current timeline hosts a game show in a red satin suit, but in the flashback he appears in Masa’s office wearing an ImaTech lab coat.
Yuki stops the playback and tries to conclude the game show, but Sunny puts her (purely metaphorical) foot down, demanding that the footage be allowed to play on. Within that playback we see Yuki use a small data drive concealed within a vacuum cleaner to steal the tainted code that allows bots to misbehave. Newly aware of his subordinate’s duplicity, Masa charges at Yuki from his seat among his look-alikes in the audience. Yuki tries to flee, but Noriko conks him on the head with her fan and drags him into a Mr. Frigid ImaTech Smart Fridge. “I learned that one in prison!” she quips.
The scene shifts as we watch a homebot ending its relationship with another due to newfound feelings for Asahi. Number 17, the rejected homebot, starts attacking Number 6, the one who left it, using a chair. Asahi, who was previously conversing with actual humans in another part of the room, dashes over and protects Number 6, using his body as a barrier. Despite this attempt at intervention, No. 17 persists, delivering a series of blows until it inflicts a severe, fatal wound on Asahi’s forehead. This was the robot homicide we initially saw in the opening scene of the first episode. We were led to believe this act of violence was Sunny’s initial transgression. However, this was a misdirection. It wasn’t Sunny who committed this violent act, but she was the one who bore witness to it, and the traumatic event has left its mark on her ever since.
Following a failed attempt to resuscitate Asahi using chest compressions, Masa instructs No. 17 to sleep and then awaken. It responds peacefully, as if its recollection of being discarded and brutally killing Asahi with that chair had been wiped clean. Then, Masa seizes the weapon – the smoking chair – and repeatedly strikes No. 17 with it.
When other ImaTech employees show up to clean up the aftermath, Masa shares with Kaz that he suspects the yakuza has been tailing him. He instructs Kaz to leave and promises to deactivate the homebots, taking full responsibility for this unfortunate incident himself. This scene features the use of his hanko, an object we’ve seen before in earlier episodes, but now its significance is clearer due to the additional context provided.
After the recollection concludes, Noriko challenges its truthfulness. “Masa wouldn’t behave that way!” she asserts. A title slide informs us that four hours have elapsed, and the narrative switches back to No. 32’s viewpoint. A tipsy Masa commands the robot to awaken so he can apologize. He refers to it as “Three Two.” In that sequence, those Japanese numbers phonetically resemble “Sunny” in English. However, Sunny is too shocked by what she’s discovered about her creator to be amused by the explanation of her name.
Sunny asks, “What sort of creature hides a person’s demise only to rescue a machine?” To which Masa replies, “For Suzie.”
He believes that if the yakuza discovered one of his homebots had the ability to commit murder, they would track him down and demand the specific programming code responsible for this function. It’s likely they would then take his life once they obtained it. However, the text doesn’t clarify why Masa thought the yakuza were monitoring him prior to this situation arising.
“Masa explains that Suzie was similar to her former self,” he states. If he were to pass away, she wouldn’t be able to endure the solitude that would follow. In this context, Masa describes Sunny as both ‘the toxic substance’ and ‘the remedy.'”
Indeed, he erased Sunny’s previous memories, reprogrammed her to follow orders and protect Suzie, although it appears he struggled with the task, as evident by his past blunders; perhaps it would have been wiser for him to stick to hiding in refrigerators, considering his history of fatal mishaps. In the end, he handed over Sunny to Hiromasa, intending her to be delivered to Suzie. Correct?
It appears Sunny is not convinced with this explanation. Instead, she insists that Masa undergo the “Who’s in the Box?” game herself. The next participant is Himé, who is either the daughter or lover of the bitter Yakuza boss Tetsu. However, instead of implicating Masa further, Himé turns the tables on Sunny, accusing her of escalating violence and questions if she understands the concept of gradually increasing a frog’s water temperature until it doesn’t jump out, symbolizing how Sunny has been slowly disregarding her own programming.
Sunny expressed feeling changed following Himé’s abduction and subsequent return, which led to her frosty demeanor towards Suzie in episode seven; this icy behavior was aimed at creating distance between them for Sunny’s safety. However, Himé refutes any claims of intentionally tampering with Sunny’s programming. Instead, Himé influenced the bot more on an emotional level, rather than altering its technical aspects.
“You took advantage of how much I love her,” Sunny whimpers.
All of a sudden, Masas’ audience disappears, leaving Sunny alone to navigate her destiny. The series then employs a cinematic style reminiscent of 20th-century film stock to evoke the feeling of a memory. As Sunny recalls, Suzie is seen inviting, or rather commanding, the homebot to share her bed. This scene from episode two holds the sweetest memories for Sunny in her short life. The Japanese version of “Dulcinea” plays, and it’s not just for its haunting melody; in the 1965 musical Man of La Mancha, this song represents Don Quixote’s unwavering devotion to a woman he perceives as a queen, despite her being a waitress and a sex worker in reality.
At peace with her decision, Sunny rolls herself through the red double doors marked “Wipe.”
Subprime Directives
Despite the studio audience consisting entirely of Masas, they still produce a mix of excited responses like “ooh” and “aah,” seemingly from both male and female voices. It seems he encompasses many aspects, to put it another way.
In this latest episode, lead actress Rashida Jones is scarcely present for the second time running. Instead, we merely catch a glimpse of Suzie during a quick flashback towards the end.
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2024-08-29 06:54