Maniac season 1, episode 5 recap: ‘Exactly Like You’ takes us back to the 1940's

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Previously in episode four of Maniac, Annie and Owen share a fantasy in which they are a married couple on Long Island trying to rescue a lemur.

In the fifth episode of Maniac, “Exactly Like You,” they remain unconscious in the trial room as their shared fantasy changes. This one begins with Owen in the back of a chauffeured car. It’s the 1940s. Owen’s wearing a tuxedo and enjoying being out of the city.

His chauffeur, Bobby, isn’t nearly so excited. He claims every time they leave the city he gets shot. Owen says he never noticed that pattern before.

He sees something and tells Bobby to pull over. It’s Annie dressed to the nines and walking down the middle of the country road in the dark.

Bobby suggests that maybe it’s a sign that Owen needs a partner on his upcoming job. Owen instructs his driver to get her as far away from the séance he’s planning to attend as possible.

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Annie approaches the car and taps on the window. When Owen opens the door, she addresses him as Ollie. Clearly, these two know each other.

He informs her she needs a ticket, the Neverdies won’t just let anyone in the séance. She shows him she has one and then asks if he wants to go together. He agrees. He exits the vehicle in what looks like a chivalrous gesture to let her in. But when she’s seated in the car, he slams the door on her and Bobby speeds off as she protests.

In the real-world lab, Dr. Fujita calls Dr. Mantleray over and points out something weird: the data from Owen and Annie are in harmony. Dr. Mantleray says inverse self-reflections are present in both. Dr. Fujita says every time she separates them they just find their way back to each other. She thinks it’s the hardware.

They look at the interior of the super-computer but don’t find much of anything. Dr. Fujita suggests they look at a different part of the computer’s interior but they’d have to reset the experiment to do it. Dr. Mantleray dismisses the idea. He instructs Dr. Fujita to do her best to uncouple Owen and Annie manually.

In the fantasy on Maniac, Owen walks to his destination, a secluded mansion. He presents his ticket at the door and is welcomed to the Full Moon Séance hosted by Lady Neberdine.

Ollie walks through the party and hears smatterings of conversation. He stops to look at an owl and is approached by Olivia. He greets her and she tells him owl’s used to be considered the moon incarnate.

Ollie comments that the séance brought out all the usual suspects. Olivia suggests that she only sees him and she’s hoping he’ll take her under his wing. He tells her he works alone and walks away.

Later, he’s entertaining a group of people with a story about how he bet a man who didn’t believe in magic that he could do a card trick the man wouldn’t be able to figure out. Winning that bet is how he became “Sir Ollie.”

As he talks, Annie walks in the room, throwing Ollie off. She wanders off as he finishes his story and he excuses himself to follow her. On his way, one of the guests tells him he should stay away from her, she’s bad news. But Ollie response that she’s his wife.

Ollie finds Annie getting her tarot cards to read. He comments that Bobby better be dead in a ditch somewhere. She tells Ollie he’s not, it’s just hard to say no to her.

Just then a gong sounds and the room quiets. Ollie whispers to Annie that he knows she’s there to steal the lost 53rd chapter of Don Quixote, just like him and half the people there. She claims she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

As a butler presents the first Neverdie, Gertie Neberdine, in the fantasy, in the real world Dr. Fujita notices something else strange.

Dr. Fujita believes the computer is inserting herself into Annie and Owen’s fantasy. She tells Dr. Mantleray that she thinks the computer is horribly depressed and behaving unpredictably.

In the fantasy, Gertie introduces herself to Ollie and Annie, who she addresses as Arlie Kane. Gertie says she heard Ollie and Annie/Arlie were separated. Ollie says they were but not anymore. Then excuses himself by saying he needs to get Arlie a drink.

Gertie introduces Arlie to Robert who doesn’t speak and wears an odd-looking helmet. Arlie asks what’s wrong with him and Gertie shakily tells her it’s so hard to keep those we’ve lost in our lives. Arlie tries to delicately extract herself from the interaction.

Meanwhile, Ollie walks down an empty hall, unlocks a door, and disappears on the other side. Arlie follows in his general direction when, in the real world, Dr. Fujita zaps Arlie out of the fantasy.

Arlie appears to wake up in the test room. She sees a young child in front of her. The child walks into another room and Arlie follows on Maniac.

In the original fantasy on Maniac, Ollie is searching a room in the Neberdine mansion for his prize. Suddenly Arlie appears on a nearby couch and asks him if he’s found the lost chapter. Ollie shouts in fright.

Arlie asks why he keeps trying to ditch her. Ollie tells her to go back to Paris, he’s working. She asks if he still drinks gimlets and he asks if she still poisons them. She clarifies that she only poisoned the one.

As she makes the drinks, she asks what they should toast to. Ollie suggests the night his wife stole everything he has, slipped him a mickey, disappeared, and he woke up with the cops and spent 3 years in jail.

Arlie asks what happened to this woman who betrayed him. Ollie says the rumor is she ran off with another woman. Arlie comments that it sounds like she may have had some sort of condition and Ollie agrees. He observes that she always disappeared when you needed her the most. Arlie toasts to mistakes.

As they sip their cocktails, Arlie tells Ollie about what the lost Don Quixote chapter can supposedly do, Apparently, it was so powerful that people get lost in their own fantasies forever if they read it.

Arlie declares she’s there to help Ollie find the chapter. She tells him she knows where it is — through a mirror. He asks where she got her information. She wants to know why it matters, and he retorts that she lies constantly.

She points out that his plan to search each room until he happens to find the chapter makes little sense. To which he counters that even if Arlie knows where the chapter is it’ll be in a safe and she can’t crack a safe.

She suggests for old time’s sake that they partner up — she’ll do the intel and he can crack the safe. As they re-enter the party, a gong sounds and a butler announces it’s time for the main event.

Ollie tells Arlie not to make him regret trusting her and she swears she’ll never betray him again. As she leaves his side, he instructs her to wait for his signal.

The party-goers are gathered around Gertie who says tonight they’ll speak to the Lunar Goddess. She selects Ollie and Arlie as that night’s astral nodes.

They step into a circle surrounded by candles. Robert enters the circle too and stands between them. Music plays and Robert starts to dance. Arlie and Ollie quickly join in the routine.

In the real world, Dr. Fujita is trying to separate Arlie and Ollie again. In the fantasy, Arlie disappears and Gertie exclaims that she’s gone to the astral plane. Gertie encourages another person to join the dance and Olivia jumps in. At the same time, Ollie runs out.

In a different fantasy, Arlie walks through the Neberdine drug trial lab. It’s bathed in pink light and someone yells in the distance. She sees the child from earlier enter one of the pods in the common room.

Arlie watches as a young Annie does the girl’s make-up. The girl asks if Mom is coming back. The man continues to scream in the background. It becomes clear it’s their father screaming on the phone to their mother, whose side of the conversation can’t be heard.

In an effort to distract her, Annie asks her sister to tell her the story again on Maniac. The girl tells a story about two girls who get lost and can’t find their way home. Arlie walks away as the story continues.

Back at the Neberdine mansion, Owen walks down a hall and lets himself into another room. Meanwhile, Arlie re-appears in the fantasy, swinging from a chandelier. She manages to maneuver herself to an interior window and let herself in a room where Ollie is waiting, surprising her with his presence.

Arlie opens the room’s door and says the mirror’s right outside. They hesitate as a number of guards look to be checking the premises. They hear someone say “You’re not supposed to be here” and draw back into the room.

Arlie says there’s another way to the mirror. She leads Ollie through a series of adjoining rooms to another exit.

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