Sex Machina

I think this episode is my least favorite so far. In many respects I cannot fault it philosophically but overall it is a mixed bag.

I'm glad that they are moving away from being a Rick and Morty clone and toward exploiting their best asset: Reagan. Oh...Reagan...<3 It's hard not to have a little crush on her despite her slightly-too-Hobbesian values but I cannot say I don't sympathize that she is surrounded by idiots in one of the smarter countries.

The theme is love and dating and I commend the show for having nuanced message in which the pressure to form unplattonics relationships is toxic but where making them on your own terms and working on yourself can still be good things.

The central concept of the ostensibly perfect artificial mate (with apologies to Pygmalion) has certainly been done with a few unique touches before more or less going the predictable route.

The subplot with dumb guy and Army guy (I haven't committed their names to long-term memory yet) doesn't tie in thematically but of course it doesn't have to; that's how subplots work. I found it overall annoying. I dig how they make fun of how frivolously people label other people sex-offenders but it's still as predictable as the A-plot with the same familiar morals of how your awful personality will shine through your good looks and vice versa.

This show really wants to show you how much it has researched the contemporary young person with its usage of dating apps and terms like "mansplain" and "bechdal test" but they're lazy jokes that are all based on the reference.

On that note: there is a palpable smugness about this episode that was in the previous three episodes as well. Yes, I KNOW the government or any other centralized power structure will cheat and lie to you. Orwell (rest his soul) was doing that before VHS was a thing. You need to great interesting stories FROM that. Use the premise as a spring board not just use examples of the premise as a sort of joke-cow you can milk and milk. But it's early episodes yet I guess...

One other thing that struck me was the Rick and Morty style malice that never quite goes away. Now I like R&M I really do but I wish these shows would take the tiniest-eeny-weenciest leaf out of Family Guy's book when it comes to antagonistic humor.

FG just knows how to make a vicious comment palatable by combination of balanced character dynamics or where the punching-bag character is too under-developed for us to care. But either way we always feel that the writers are mocking the bullies, not the bullied. Imagine how horrible FG would be if Meg was the protagonist!

Reagan is a character that I think deserves a better show though the show can easily become this. But a lot of it at the moment just isn't self-aware enough and often rubs me the wrong way in the wrong way, if that makes sense.

I also didn't like the extraction jokes.

We thought that "Sex Machina" was clever and had a good pace.

So: the Earth really is flat?

The betting board has 5:1 odds that Reagan marries a hologram.

Reagan: "I'm gonna go home and shop for a casket online".