Will To Power
Episode 4 of Another Life Season 2 begins with alarms wailing aboard the Salvare. As we soon come to find out, this is all a big simulation. A cool-headed AI called Gabriel is here, and he was actually scheduled to fly out with the ship before William took over. Back in the present, Niko confronts Iara and claims she’s responsible for getting rid of the tether. She vows on her life she’s not responsible but Niko is not so sure. In order to properly incriminate her though, Niko needs evidence. She puts Richard and Dillon on this task, determined to figure out the truth. The duo begin checking through the console logs and start meticulously poring over her processing data. It causes Iara immense pain, even for an Ai, and she writhes in pain in the air. During a momentary respite, she admits to breaking the tether and disappears from view. When Niko finds out about this, she doesn’t believe Iara’s confession is genuine given it was made under duress. Instead, the attention turns to the other AI – William. While the gang search through William’s history, Niko speaks to Iara, who tries to gain the Captain’s trust. After all, Iara highlights a good point – she could have left at any time but decided not to. When Niko returns to see Richard, she finds out there’s a deep-rooted bit of programming stuck in William’s coding. And as they take a look, William transforms into Gabriel. Now, it turns out William is an inferior version and an earlier failed attempt at integrating emotion into an AI. According to Gabriel, William is the one who’s unstable and responsible for what’s happened with the severed tether. Gabriel doesn’t stop there though. After teleporting around the ship, he riles up Iara, hacking her memories and tapping into the Achaian side of her personality and preying on her vulnerabilities. At the same time, Cas finds a habitable planet nearby and decides to head down to take a look. With half the gang out of commission, Gabriel hacks into the oxygen supply and locks onto a new trajectory directly for the Achaia home world. As they jump, Cas and the others are left on the planet alone. Now, further flashbacks confirm that actually Gabriel is the one who’s emotionally unstable and William was the one who took over. Iara comes to the rescue, saving William and making sure Gabriel is forever tortured and kept at bay. However, the two AIs continue to wrestle for control. There’s only one solution – a hard reset.
The Episode Review
The fourth chapter of Another Life switches things up as it seems like William isn’t the one responsible for cutting the tether – Gabriel is. Only, how have we not uncovered this guy before this chapter? Anyway, the detour to a habitable planet feels a bit left-field and an unnecessary diversion too, while the main drive of the story – the AI situation in the wake of the Achaian threat – has a good amount of screen-time to flesh it out. The show is still not without its issues but this chapter is at least an improvement over what we’ve seen so far. The Achaian threat is still lurking out there and our heroes are not out of the woods just yet. With the group fractured and the future of the Salvare still unknown, the ending leaves things wide open for the rest of the season.
