Episode 2 recap: Wolves Around the Corner

Sir Arthur and Patience

Episode 2 opens in the lower labs, where Olivia, in a preservation suit, finds the wreck of Sir Arthur — the giant robot from the pilot — and beats its face with a broom for failing to bring Gwen home. Her new AI assistant Patience promises to take care of things, reminds her of a board meeting, and mocks her once she has left.

Gwen then narrates her own version of events: she "went for a swim" and met two very nice, oddly familiar friends. Her file notes on them are funny and pointed — Andi was let go for an aggressive streak, and Frankie does "odd jobs" for a boss with a "legitimate business".

Krash's workshop

Andi's arm is set in a cast while Sparky, now their "business partner", worries about how to sell a droid that talks only in quotes from old movies and holo-shows and gets violent. Andi points out that Gwens are not supposed to be capable of violence at all. Sparky moves them to a room under his club, which doubles as a mahjong parlour and a place for guns and other "exotics", and introduces Isaiah, better known as Krash — his underground doctor and a Tamagotchi collector.

As Frankie and Andi argue about how to handle Sparky, Gwen hears echoes of an old fight between Orville and Olivia over a board meeting. Wired into the bench, she realises she is being taken apart again, panics, sprouts blue tentacles and escapes through a vent. The two tie Krash up so he cannot tell Sparky; he frees himself in seconds by dislocating his thumb.

Armend

In the club, Gwen dances with a waiter robot and slips into a fairy-tale daydream, until a park officer named Armend corners her in a bathroom, gloating about the promotion he will get. When he makes a crude joke about her body, she turns his own gun on him and shoots him.

Frankie and Andi follow her trail of blue fluid, find Armend bleeding and, when he fights back, knock him out with drugs Andi finds under a sink. Andi insists Frankie accept that Gwen may be dangerous. Armend wakes too soon and shoots up the club; in the fight he stabs Frankie. Gwen, seeing him as Orville, tears into him with her tentacles and rips off his prosthetic arm.

On the roof, Gwen briefly sees Andi as Olivia before recognising her. Andi explains her theory: this Gwen behaves far beyond any standard unit, so she may be the original mould — perhaps the very Gwen they met as kids. Back at the workshop, Krash tells Frankie that Armend is dead. He will clean it up, but if Sparky finds out, he cannot protect her.