TV Review: Almost Human Season One Episode Nine "Unbound"

Empty Lighthouse is a reader-supported site. This article may contain affiliate links to Amazon and other sites. We earn a commission on purchases made through these links.

This was the best episode of Almost Human so far. Now, if you read any of my other reviews, you'll know that there have been some interesting episodes.

However "Unbound" has weaved into the procedural element of the episode two of the most interesting serialized stories throughout the season: what the group N'Syndicate (Syndicate? InSyndicate?) wanted in the evidence room, and Dorian's past.

It all starts off with a mugger in the streets who is shot by Mx's and turns out to be a robot. After brought to evidence, it seemingly comes back from the dead and steals a woman's robotic head. It turns out the robot who was shot had a secondary power source, which Rudy explained would require it to find a new body to survive. It eventually does, and attaches the woman's head on. Turns out it is MMA star turned actor Gina Carano.

She's a XRN, a more soldier like bot created by Dorian's creator, Dr. Nevil Vaughn (John Larroquette) who created him after his contract with the police to create DRN's was terminated following the DRN's malfunctioning. However, Dr.

Vaughn didn't account for the XRN (which he calls Danica), to go rogue and kill 26 cops the first time.

So now when Danica has restored herself, it gives a nice ticking clock for Dorian and John who realize Danica is stealing DNA equipment to manufacture as many of the XRN's as possible.

John and Dorian have to find out who is behind it, and stop Danica.

Interestingly, Dr. Vaughn has more interaction with Rudy in this episode than with Dorian. They kind of admire each other.

Dorian admires all the advanced work that Dr. Vaughn has been able to accomplish, and Dr.

Vaughn is jealous of the fact that Rudy was able to stop and keep his own lab and not have his life fall apart - which Dr. Vaughn experienced first hand.

With Dr. Vaughn's help, they're able to track down Danica's "signature" in Rudy's network.

John and Dorian track her down as she starts to shoot up a building with a councilman in it who turned out to be the councilman in charge of decommissioning the DRN's, and ultimately ruining Dr. Vaughn's life.

There was some impressive and exciting fight choreography between Dorian and Danica, which reminded me of the late NBC show Chuck in a lot of ways.

I was impressed with Michael Ealy's ability to keep up with Gina Carano in particular, who has obviously a lot of training.

John and Danica's last fight was great too - John pulling the pin on her grenade and kicking her across the room with his synthetic leg was a nice way of utilizing what was on screen to finish a fight.

"Still anti-synthetic?" was a great way for Dorian to put the icing on the cake.

There was a great twist halfway through this fight with Dr.

Vaughn being the one who wants to create more XRN's, as he steals the synthetic souls from Rudy, and recovers the stolen DNA cores before zipping over the wall and out of sight.

I'm glad he'll be back at least for another episode.

Dorian's connection to Dr. Vaughn comes at the end of the episode, when he and everyone else realizes he's a traitor. Dorian is upset because Dr.

Vaughn told him he did nothing different when he created both Danica and Dorian, so Doiran thinks he is capable of mass murder as well. John reassures him that Dr. Vaughn was in a different space when he created Danica.

Like I said before in Chicago PD reviews, procedural shows will never fully hide the fact that they are procedural, but they operate the best when they hide it the best they can. So much serialized story helped mask the "homicidal robot" procedural element - Almost Human would do good to try and link more cases to serialized elements in the story. It won't happen most likely, but the episodes are ultimately a lot stronger when they do. Scandal is a good example of mixing serialized story and procedural elements.

When it's a pure standalone episode, it's fine. But when they mix it with some character history or stories specific to the show, it is a thing of beauty.

Almost Human is no different in this regard - Unbound is by far the most incredible episode yet in an already great first season. Hopefully they finish season one strong and get renewed.

Photo Credit: Givememyremote.com