Another Life season 1, episode 5 recap: A Mind of Its Own

Niko leads a landing party to investigate the Artifact on the alien moon in episode five of Another Life. They return to the Salvare with even more problems.

In episode five of Another Life, a landing party from the Salvare fly to the alien moon to investigate the Artifact they’ve found. According to their coordinates, they’ve landed close to the tower but there’s no sign of it. The moon has a breathable atmosphere, which is a welcome change from the recycled air aboard the ship. But the crew does not realise that there’s something beneath the surface – and it’s following them.

First Contact

Niko, Cas, Sasha, Zayn and Bernie find the Artifact and Sasha immediately starts going through the governmental processes of first contact. Realising Sasha’s speech will take a while, Niko orders Zayn and Bernie to gather food resources while she and Cas have a heart-to-heart.

Cas hasn’t been completely open with Niko and Niko confronts her about it. She isn’t quite prepared to hear what Cas has to say, though – Cas was in love with Ian, and Niko killed him. So that’s that.

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When Niko discovers that parts of this moon Artifact are scattered around, she decides they should take a sample back to examine it. As she and Cas hunt for a piece, Niko apologises to Cas for killing Ian and taking him away from her.

So, are the Another Life showrunners not planning to address the fact that Ian was a grade-A jerk, poor commander, worse first officer and, oh yeah, attempted murderer? Why are the creators of this show so hung up on the characters’ feelings, rather than focusing on how these characters would actually react in the situations they’re in?

The two of them find a piece and head back to the Artifact. Along the way, Niko tells Cas about breaking the rules and carrying out an affair with Hudson on the Pilgrim, which means Niko is familiar with the situation Cas was in. Too late now, isn’t it?

Things Go Wrong

Bernie and Zayn’s hunt for edible plants goes nowhere – everything they taste is disgusting. Then Bernie freaks out at the sight of a bug (understandable) and impales his leg on something on the surface. The leg immediately gets infected and Zayn has to treat it with some stop-gap measures.

Sasha, alone with the Artifact, temporarily gives up on his governmental procedures. Big mistake. He starts hearing echoes of his speech before being pulled into the Artifact by someone.

Niko and Cas end up in a beautiful forest which seems to send them into a drug addled state. They start being ‘honest’ with each other, which basically means they’re really mean and cutting about the other’s abilities to lead. Not sure where the whole idea of Niko being a controlling-micromanaging-leader who ‘abandoned’ her daughter came from, but that’s what the writers want us to believe she is. Cas, apparently, is insecure and incompetent, according to drug-addled Niko. There’s too much telling in Another Life, rather than showing.

The two of them finally make it to the Artifact, in time for Bernie and Zayn to reach them. Sasha appears as well and they rush to the shuttle. Except, they are intercepted by giant CGI bugs. Sasha stands immobile as one stares him down – luckily for him Cas is a crack-shot and kills the bug before it hurts Sasha. The crew take off as another bug tries to reach inside the shuttle.

Salvare Antics

While the landing party have been living it up on the surface, Oliver, Javier and August have been acting out the worst kind of romantic subplot ever – the love triangle. Oliver and Javier fight over August before she finally decides to choose both of them. Well, that’s one way of subverting that trope.

Meanwhile, Michelle – bored out of her mind on the bridge – has been helping William learn more about being human, all of it through a game of solitaire. William seems to be enjoying himself.

When the landing party returns, Bernie is taken to the medical bay, while Sasha asks Michelle if she has any plans? She doesn’t, so they return to her quarters for their clandestine romance. All’s going well till Sasha starts seeing visions of himself. That kills the mood.

Unknown to the crew, a small bug stowed away on the shuttle and has now crept into the ship systems. While William delivers his hypothesis about the chunk of Artifact Niko brought back, he goes offline, a fire breaks out and the systems go haywire.

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On Earth, Erik leaked his findings about the Artifact to Harper in the hopes of getting the world involved in cracking the code. Dubois is furious about this security breach because now their enemies – the Russians and Koreans, of course – could make contact with the Artifact first. She’s willing to see beyond this indiscretion if one of the armchair scientists succeed; if not, Erik will be spending the rest of his life behind bars. Erik and Harper meet one of the respondents – Marcus has figured out that the sound wavelengths the tower has been sending actually form the shape of the Artifact.

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