He’s In Refrigerators – The series begins with a brief scene of a renegade Home Bot killing several people before being ordered to sleep.
Elsewhere, Suzie Sakamoto (Rashida Jones) and mother-in-law Noriko Sakamoto (Judy Ongg) meet with a Crisis Manager (Akiko Iwase) to provide physical descriptions and details about Suzie’s son and husband. Suzie is irritable and frustrated throughout the meeting and has trouble recalling details while Noriko is the exact opposite. When Suzie is asked if Masa Sakamoto (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and her young son were traveling with a Home Bot, she openly admits to hating robots and that one killed her mother. Noriko quickly corrects this by explaining that Suzie’s mother died in a self-driving car due to user error.
Suzie eventually steps away to get another cookie but doesn’t get much of a reprieve due to Noriko’s insistence that they get a good seat for the hotel’s tear-seeking ceremony. During the ceremony, The Handsome Man (Tadashi Watanabe) claims that a single tear can relieve a hundred years of stress and pain. In order to invite these tears, he suggests they call the phones of their loved ones who were on Flight 405. One of the grievers immediately points out that the call will go directly to voicemail. The Handsome Man claims this is the intent.
One by one the Handsome Man goes around the room until he arrives at Suzie. She immediately refuses to participate, claiming that she cried the whole ride over to the hotel. With his and Noriko’s insistence, she finally makes the call which just rings out instead of going to voicemail. Noriko later tells Suzie that this is a sign that Masa could still be alive, but Suzie is doubtful.
Later that evening at a bodega, Suzie sees a report (Katsuhiro Yokoi) about the continued search efforts of Flight 405. Upon returning home, she learns that she has a surprise visitor, Yuki Tanaka (Jun Kunimura) awaiting her arrival. Yuki offers brief condolences before introducing himself as Masa’s colleague. Things take an even stranger turn when he unveils his gift, Sunny (Joanna Sotomura). This eventually leads to her learning that Masa didn’t work in refrigeration and explicitly programmed Sunny to match Suzie’s preferences. Suzie reluctantly agrees to take the gift but does request to know how to turn it off, which is apparently accomplished with a simple sleep command. Suzie immediately puts Sunny to sleep and stuffs it in the closet when Yuki leaves while she hits the wine hard and tries to call Masa again.
After a good cry, Suzie returns to the living to find Sunny waiting on her with a drink in hand. Suzie’s first response is to ask Sunny how it got out of the closet. Sunny’s response is that she isn’t sure but she won’t do it again if it upsets her. Suzie puts Sunny back in sleep mode.
That same night, Suzie attempts to track Yuki down at what appears to be a company Christmas party. The first young female patron she encounters appears to know Yuki but takes her to a much younger man. The young man explains the discrepancy by pointing out what a common name Yuki Tanaka is. Before Suzie can leave, the young man asks what division she works in. After revealing herself as Masa’s wife, it turns out that the young man knew Masa and describes him as a real stickler that you did not want to disappoint. It is only after the young man says that Masa is one of those people you hope gets hit by a bus that he realizes how badly he’s stuck his foot in his mouth.
When Suzie returns to the main lobby, he notices a Home Bot emerging for a side door. The door leads her to what appears to be an underground lab with several portioned sections, fronted with clear glass. The section that draws Suzie’s attention is eerily reminiscent of the room from the opening. This is confirmed seconds later when she enters it and discovers faint traces of blood splatter.
Startled by her discovery, Suzie finds herself at a cocktail bar where she meets Mixxy (Annie The Clumsy). Being that this is Mixxy’s first night as a bartender, they both appear awkwardly out of place. Although Suzie lies about just breaking up with Masa, they do appear to genuinely bond. Suzie tells her about her fears of living alone while Mixxy tells her about her hair falling out due to stress. Mixxy also casually admits to screwing her Home Bot, which leads Suzie to learning that there is a whole underground network of hackers, dedicated to tweaking the Home Bot software. Suzie becomes freaked and returns home in a hurry when Mixxy claims that you can literally make Bots do whatever you want.
When Suzie returns home, it’s revealed that someone is remotely monitoring her movements. At home, she immediately puts Sunny in a bot-sized back and takes it to the pier where she attempts to throw it into the rushing water below. She has trouble lifting it over the railing and simply leaves it there.
After struggling to fall asleep later that night, Suzie spends several hours researching Masa and thinking about their time together with their son. She eventually falls asleep and is woken the following morning by Sunny, with a tray of cookies. Suzie immediately jumps out of bed and races to retrieve a bat from the closet. Just as she is about to hit Sunny, the robot makes an intimate gesture that Masa would make. This is where the episode ends.
Sunny Review
I must say this is a very intriguing series. It’s much different than I would have imagined. When I first heard about this series, I was expecting it to be more like that older AMC series, Humans, where the bots were indistinguishable from humans. There is something refreshing about the awkwardly out-of-place appearance of the bots. I see some potential here but hold most of my harsher critiques for at least a few more episodes.
That said, the premier accomplished what a premiere should. Whether or not they build on the momentum, we’ll see. I do like the small village setting of Kyoto and hope to see more about the unique customs of the Japanese. I give the episode a 5.6 out of 10.
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