“It’s about finding the bug.”

The third episode of the series is a look at both normalcy and the unconventional, a look at what happens when one person seems to rejoin society for a few hours as the other operates in his own bubble. I’m talking, of course, about Elliot and Tyrell, two people who are damaged in one way or another and who go about their days in unique fashions. By taking us through their lives in this episode, the show shades in additional aspects of their characters and creates a connection that will inevitably be further developed.

One simple fact that connects the two–and pretty much everyone in the world, as Elliot suggests–is that they both have some type of bug. Being human simply means that you have some type of weakness, some bug of sorts that can be exploited at any turn. Even the robot-mannered Tyrell has holes to be poked somewhere, and we begin to see bits and pieces of that when he ends up paying a homeless man to let him beat him up. As Elliot has realized, the only way to protect himself is to close himself off, to “protect the bug, protect the source code”. After all, as he observes early on in the episode, people rely on other’s mistakes to interact and relate. They try to connect to and laugh with and care about the people who populate their lives, but that in itself might be a bug waiting to be fixed or taken advantage of. As we grow and move on with our lives, the bug is always there, upgrading to “the next version” as our surroundings and perspectives change.

This is all nicely summed up by the dinner party sequence, which is definitely brilliantly put together throughout the episode. We start with a hilarious Starbucks/gym membership/stupid Marvel movie montage, and we end with Elliot once again being pulled back into the fold. In between, he and Gideon share a fairly poignant scene in which the latter says: “I care about you.” It’s a really nice moment for the two of them, but what follows is a clear reminder of just how not “normal” Elliot is. In the end, the bug is going to be found whether he likes it or not, and it remains to be seen how he’s going to deal with it.

GRADE: B+

OTHER THOUGHTS:

-Yet another one of those “turn on the TV and have it be on the channel you want at the exact time you want” things.

-USA can show gay sex scenes? I haven’t even seen many of those on pay cable. Also, pregnant BDSM!

-For me, the Angela-Ollie subplot is the weak point of the series thus far, but I’m still holding out hope that it takes a more interesting turn after this week.

-I like Shayla a lot, which means something bad will probably happen to her. This quote from her is also relevant to the episode’s themes: “I’m not talking about the stuff you can find online. I’m talking about the real me.”

– “When a bug makes itself known, it can be exhilarating…like you just unlocked something.”

Photo credit: Mr. Robot, USA