Who is a clone?

Blood Brothers is an effective procedural whodunit. It established most of the pertinent facts quite early on, so in fact it was no big mystery that the antagonist Ethan Avery used clones to commit his crimes. The episode can thus focus more on unraveling the reason why he was clones in the first place and on stopping his schemes. This set-up allows ‘Blood Brothers’ to switch into a higher gear early on. Like many TV-shows these days Almost Human is a fast paced and tightly written shows that uses up its 43 minutes at a lightning pace.

Though from the preview I suspected that detective Stahl would feature as the episode-centric character it was in fact Captain Maldonado. We learn from the antagonist Ethan Avery that she has not been Captain for that long and that her career advancement has been slower than expected. What viewers learn is that she is determined and not easily gives in to what other people want. It may not show much of her background story but it does show what we can expect from her in the future. Personally I do hope we will get our ‘Stahl’-centric episode soon. After Rudy and Maldonado her character is still a bit of a mystery. Even before Rudy and Maldonado got their turn we knew more about them than about Stahl. The last scene of the episode is between Stahl and Kennex and offers at least the promise of stormy cop romance.

The episodes concludes with the death of the clones of Ethan Avery. Ethan tried to cover up their existence by murdering people connected to the cloning program but as such merely attracted the attention of the police. Even the kidnapping of Detective Stahl can’t turn the tide for the clones. Rudy manages to project Captain Maldonado and Avery at the drop off point where Stahl is being released with a hologram. The clones inevitably figure it out but Dorian and Kennex manage to take them out. The only major slight of the episode occurs next when Dorian manages to topple over a minivan driving at high-speed. The last clone is killed but at the cost of ‘jumping the shark’. The real Ethan Avery no longer has any bargaining chips and is convicted of murder.

Almost Human continues its quirky humor. This time after being confronted with a naked robot that looks like Ken (from Barbie and Ken) Kennex questions Dorian whether he has anything in his pants. Dorian coolly shows what he got to Kennex in the squad car. When Kennex questions Dorian what he does with ‘it’ Dorian replies about as much as Kennex does. Such an awkward moment and oblique reference to Kennex’s sex live are effective bonding scenes. Not just between Kennex and Dorian but especially between Dorian and the viewers.

The episode also features a psychic with an interesting back story, I won’t talk too much about her as it would spoiler too much. However, she did make some oblique references to Kennex’s encounter with the terrorist known as ‘The Syndicate’. I hope Almost Human will get back on track soon by involving The Syndicate more because this whole thing with showing episodes out-of-order is starting to feel too contrived.

Score; 8.6 / 10. A bit melodramatic and the ‘jump the shark’ scene are the only blemishes of an otherwise effective procedural.

Source; http://www.fox.com/almost-human/