The Girlfriend Experience Season 3, Episode 4 recap: Shuffle

The Girlfriend Experience Season 3, Episode 4, “Shuffle,” hinges on Iris’s increasingly uncanny relationships with her clients as she continues to hone the perfect girlfriend experience. The episode opens with Iris lounging in bed with Georges. She notices the wedding ring on his finger, and he tells her about how he and his wife grew apart after being together for so long.

Iris tells him she noticed the version of him in a recent television appearance was a deep fake. She could tell because the fake didn’t let his pinky lift, all prim and proper while drinking. Georges seems amused. He segues into a new topic, asking Iris if he could have her for a full 24 hours, day and night.

With Paul, Iris is much different, less poised and more prone to anger. They’ve established a shorthand and easy chemistry. Paul gifts her a pair of gold earrings and requests they meet more often. Iris suggests she contact her booker, but Paul gives her his personal number, just in case.

Before leaving Paul’s apartment, Iris catches a TMZ-style broadcast on television of a reporter hassling NGM CEO Christophe (Frank Dillane), who mentions his tech goals being forged by society’s collective mind. Paul asks if Iris knows him. She says no, but he’s “making her really mad.”

Iris’s other client this week is Zaheer (Sia Alpour), a wealthy Saudi Arabian man used to getting what he wants. Zaheer wants to call Iris something other than “Cassie,” so she tells him her real name. They fool around in his car, and then the date turns into a street race with another thrill-seeker.

After meeting with Zaheer, we see a strange, dream-like sequence with Iris meeting Emcee and chatting with her at NGM. She suddenly wakes in the backseat of her car. It’s unclear if the meeting really happened. Leif warns her that a black SUV has followed them. Iris requests he holds off on investigating but keeps her in the loop if it happens again. Is the V having her followed? Or someone from NGM?

The Girlfriend Experience Season 3, Episode 4 recap: Iris’s father’s illness catches up to her.

Between juggling her duties at NGM and the V, Iris finds time to meet with the spokesperson for an experimental Alzheimer’s treatment and study (insert Meredith Grey flashbacks). The organization is a global effort with a focused, interdisciplinary study and holistic approach. They have a lengthy waitlist.

In the early hours, Iris gets awakened by a call from her dad. He doesn’t realize what time it is in London compared to America. Iris hops on Facetime to chat with him and her sister. During the call, Iris’s dad fails to recognize her. He speaks fondly of his daughter, unaware of who Iris is.

The Girlfriend Experience Season 3, Episode 4 recap: A call with Tawny doesn’t go how Iris had hoped.

Tawny returns this week for a phone call. She calls Iris to vent about a client. Tawny feels upset that she crossed a line with him. Whoever this client is, put her on a leash and treated her like a dog. Tawny says she’s covered in bruises from walking around on all fours. Iris advises her to stop seeing him if the situation isn’t serving her. “Someone grew up fast.”

Iris tries to get Tawny’s advice about how she’s using her clients to study human behavior for her AI project, but it doesn’t go the way she planned. Tawny questions if Iris is recording her clients, reminding her that it is their job to turn a blind eye to any skeletons these clients might have. Iris changes the subject.

Later, at work, Iris and Hiram get to the topic of desire and trying to find a strategic way of making their AI understand it and appeal to its users. Hiram introduces the concept of shuffling, a random ongoing function, like a playscript. Once you press play, it’s impossible to predict what comes next. It keeps you wanting more, an ideal asset to an AI simulating desire.

On her way out of the office, Iris receives a notice that she’s been “summoned” to the NGM offices.

New episodes of The Girlfriend Experience Season 3 air Sunday nights on Starz.