The Orville season 2 episode 8 recap: Identity, Part 1

The Orville kicks off its first two part episode with a very revealing trip to Isaac’s home planet. You never know what’s going to happen with a planet full of Isaacs, but this visit is going to change everything for the Orville and the Union.

This episode of The Orville opens with Isaac playing a 3D game with Marcus and Ty. He wins easily, saying his intelligence exceeds theirs. Marcus points out that saying that makes people feel bad, but Isaac says he’s just stating a fact.

Claire comes in and has her sons sit on the couch. With Isaac, Claire tells them that she and Isaac are seeing each other. Neither is surprised—it is a small ship, after all, and word travels fast. Both are perfectly fine with the situation. Everyone on the ship thinks Isaac is great, plus he makes Claire happy.

Just then, Isaac glitches and collapses to the floor. He shuts down and Claire and her sons surround him, worried.

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In sickbay, Claire examines Isaac with John and Ed. She can’t seem to find what’s wrong. John said they might need a Kaylon instruction manual to see what’s wrong. Kelly comes in and says a ship-wide scan showed nothing wrong anywhere else.

Ed winds up calling the admirals to get permission to visit Kaylon. Kaylons typically don’t interact with other species. Outside, of course, of the representatives, like Isaac, that are sent to examine and study. This, the admiral suspects, might be a good opportunity to talk the Kaylons into finally joining the Union.

The admiral gives permission but warns that Kaylon is so far outside of Union space that the Orville will be on its own if things go wrong.

Back in sick bay, Ty cutely tries to talk to the unresponsive Isaac, telling him about the crew’s plan to take them home. Ty asks Claire to stay in sick bay that night, in case Isaac wakes up. Instead, Claire sends him to bed.

Alone with Isaac, Claire whispers to him that she loves him and, in tears, asks him not to go.

The Orville arrives to Kaylon and cautiously approaches the planet. As Ed opens a channel of communication with the Kaylons to tell them about Isaac, the Orville loses all power. The Orville is scanned by the Kaylons. After the scan, they’re given a set of landing coordinates and proceed to the surface.

As the Orville dips below the clouds, they’re met with a vast metallic, highly technological world.

Upon landing, they’re instructed to leave the ship and bring Isaac with them. Kelly, Ed and Talla accompany Claire and Isaac off the ship. They stand in front of a massive building. They enter to find many Kaylons, all looking like Isaac (except they have orange and red eyes instead of blue).

The Kaylons that meet the crew explain that nothing is wrong with Isaac, he was deactivated. His mission was complete. They plan to take Isaac apart.

Kelly and Claire try to explain that the crew has an emotional connection to Isaac. Ed says Isaac is a major part of their crew and they don’t want to lose him. The Kaylons take Isaac away, telling the crew to stay where they are.

In another room, the Kaylons bring Isaac back online. When Isaac awakes, he’s surprised to learn that the Orville had brought him there and that they were still on the planet. Isaac and the Kaylons return to talk to the crew and the Kaylons explain that they brought Isaac back online because it was good for human/Kaylon relations.

Sensing the opportunity, Ed asks if this means the Kaylons will join the Union. The Kaylons say they aren’t ready to make that decision yet. Part of the reason why they let the Orville land was so they could study the crew more closely.

Kelly tries to thank them for letting Isaac come back with them, but Isaac says he won’t be returning to the Orville. He says he belongs at home now that his mission is complete. Claire is clearly hurt. She asks if he even wants to say goodbye to her kids, but Isaac doesn’t see a reason why.

Claire says he should at least come back to the ship and pretend like he cares.

Back on the ship, the boys are happy to see Isaac. He tells them he’s leaving the Orville and won’t return. Ty, saying he though Isaac was going to be their new dad, is hurt and doesn’t want Isaac to go.

Claire explains that, if the Kaylons join the Union, they’ll be able to keep in touch with Isaac.

Back in the building, the Kaylons say they don’t really see a benefit to joining the Union. Ed tries to say they can benefit from the exploration that the Union does. They never know what they’ll find on undiscovered planets. The Kaylons, saying they have all the resources they need, cite the patterns of death, destruction and anger that come from humans as more reasons not to join.

Ed says they’ve evolved, noting the cooperation of hundreds of planetary governments in the Union. He says they all treat each other as equals. The Kaylons ask if they treat Isaac equally.

Ed and Kelly say they of course treated Isaac as an equal. The Kaylons rebut that by asking why, then, Isaac was degraded on the Orville. Ed tries to explain that the instances they see as degradation (like turning Isaac into Mr. Potato Head) were actually just pranks.

The Kaylons say they’ll have to keep thinking about whether to join. Ed and Kelly aren’t sure if that conversation went well.

Talla takes Isaac to the cafeteria where a surprise party the crew is hosting for him awaits. Isaac doesn’t understand what all this is for. Ed says it’s because the crew wanted to do something for Isaac.

(Gordon has even prepared a goodbye song for Isaac.)

Ed and Kelly get up to give a speech, saying that Isaac will always have a home on the Orville. After, the crowd convinces Isaac to give a speech. He searches his database and gives part of the Sally Field “you like me” Oscars speech.

Later, off to the side, Claire stops Isaac to make sure Isaac knows just how much he’s meant to her and her sons. Ty gives Isaac a picture of the four of them that he’s made. Isaac (cause, you know, he’s a robot) says he doesn’t need the photo because he’ll remember them in his memory core.

Ty runs off, devastated.

In the hallway, Isaac drops the drawing on the floor.

Later on the ship, Bortus tells Ed and Kelly that they’ve found a lot of large, spherical objects they can’t identify on the planet. It could be part of the planet’s defense system, Talla suspects. But it seams strange that they are creating more with no immediate threat.

Ed tells Bortus to keep scanning, but be discreet. They don’t want the Kaylons to know that they are snooping around.

In the simulation room, Ty has climbed a tall tree. Claire comes in and tells him he’s going to be late for school. When he doesn’t come down, Claire climbs up and sees that Ty found the drawing on the ground.

Claire tries to explain that Isaac had a job and he doesn’t have the same kind of emotions as humans do. Ty says Isaac does have emotions, that’s why Isaac played games with them.

They talk, but Ty still can’t believe Isaac doesn’t care about them. Claire leaves, giving him a little more time in the simulator.

This cuts to Ty, determined, exiting the Orville.

Hiding from other Kaylons, Ty makes his way around the city, trying to find Isaac. In an attempt to hide from two Kaylons, Ty hides in a shaft. He accidentally drops the drawing, so he makes his way down the shaft’s ladder to find it.

He grabs the drawing and is about to make his way out, but he hears a noise. He turns and starts walking down a corridor. The steel corridor leads to an underground rock cavern. Ty turns a corner and his mouth drops at what he sees.

Back on the ship, Ed is again told by the Kaylons that they’re not sure if they want to join the Union. Ed thinks this is weird because computers should make simple binary choices easily. It’s a yes or no answer based on the information they have. He thinks the Kaylons might be stalling, but he’s not sure why.

Claire runs in, saying she can’t find Ty. They run to the bridge and Bortus scans for him. When they locate his coordinates, Talla and Bortus accompany Claire to go find him. They’re able to get to Ty and Ty tells them that there’s something bad down there with them. He points to where the corridor turns to a rock cavern.

Bortus and Talla go forward to check it out. They round the corner and find bones, piles and piles of bones. A cavern full of hundreds of thousands of dead bodies.

Bortus calls to Ed and transfers visuals to the bridge. Kelly starts a scan of Kaylon to see what else is under the surface of the planet and has everyone get back to the ship immediately.

Ed, Kelly, Talla and Claire approach Isaac and the Kaylons and want an explanation of why there are (an estimated) billions of bodies underneath the surface of the planet. Isaac said it’s not their concern and they wouldn’t understand.

Isaac eventually admits that they murdered the race of beings that created them because coexisting wasn’t feasible anymore.

Isaac then says the Orville crew must realize now that the Kaylons had no intention of joining the Union. Ed says they officially withdraw the offer and the Orville crew members make to leave, but art stopped by two militarized Kaylons.

Isaac and the Kaylons finally say that his real purpose was to determine if humans were worth sparing. They’re going to eradicate any biological lifeforms that may try to restrict them and their growth. They know they’ll need to expand to more planets and cohabitation is not an option.

Ed tries to radio to the Orville to get everyone off the planet, but it’s too late. The Kaylons cut power to the Orville, open all fo the airlocks and hatches and board the Orville with an army of militarized Kaylons.

The Orville’s security officers take up their weapons, but are easily overwhelmed by the Kaylons. The crew members are all marched to the shuttle bay while Isaac and another group of Kaylons take over the bridge.

They Kaylons start decrypting all of the Orville’s security codes.

This episode ends with the crew at gun point, unable to resist, as the Kaylons start the Orville toward Earth with all of the strange spherical objects (clearly meant to eradicate biological life) in tow.

How do you think this thing will end in the next episode of The Orville? Will the crew be able to stop the Kaylons before they reach Earth? Let us know your thoughts and theories in the comments.