The Peripheral – Season 1 Episode 1 “Pilot” Recap & Review

Pilot

Episode One of The Peripheral starts in London in 2099, the year of the show’s premiere. A man is sitting on an outdoor bench. A little girl comes towards him. He asks her what trouble she’s been in.

She, Aelita responds that she got herself into trouble. They discuss how she saved him. Aelita affirms that she is in fact she is saving the world, but it’s not the one she saved. She bids farewell to the guy she names Wolf. She blinks, and the girl’s face turns blank.

A brief scene shows the table that holds the white model of a home with its surroundings, as well as its inhabitants.

We move into the Blue Ridge Mountains in the USA in 2032. Flynne Fisher is a housekeeper who helps in the home. She provides her mother, who has lost sight, a cup of coffee along with some medications. When she realizes that some of the pills have gone missing, she walks to the trailer that is located outside their home and asks her sister, Burton to inquire about the pills. He is playing a video game using the VR headset. He informs her of an important event coming up that will allow them to earn enough money to purchase more medications. He hands her his headset, hoping she can be the winner for him.

Flynne joins the game as her brother’s character. She is able to win the game and finds a map others weren’t able to locate throughout. She instructs Burton to transfer the cash to her.

In the following days, she rides around the town and takes cash via ATM. In the process, she encounters Tommy who is the sheriff of the town. They talk about his wedding and he informs her that he’s requested that wedding decorations be printed in the print shop where she is employed.

In the print shop, Flynne’s friend Billy Anne teases her about still being in love with Tommy. Two shop employees present her with the ornaments Tommy requested. They realize that there’s an additional model of the bride One of them breaks the figurine. Flynne is later able to find the damaged figurine and takes it back.

The boys then hand her a box they bought from Burton. It contains a machine inside and was paid for by a Colombian company known as Milagros Coldiron.

In his home, Burton says he’s been asked to be a beta tester for this simulation after he reached level 100 in another game. However, it wasn’t him but Flynne who had made that happen. Because they’ve been offered an amount of money to test the device, Flynne agrees to test the device. Burton wears it for her, and she starts counting back from 10.

When she opens her eyes, she’s inside Burton’s body, on an automobile. It’s an iridescent city with massive statues towering over it. A voice in her head invites her to join the simulation. When she states she can feel everything the voice says she’ll also be capable of feeling the pain. She must follow whatever is instructed by the voice to keep her place in the world.

The voice leads her to an extravagant event at Buckingham Palace, hosted by an organization called R.I. or Research Institute. The voice leads her to an individual by the name of Mariel and asks her to bring ‘him’ home. Flynne is in Burton’s body and is able to convince him. In the vehicle, the voice instructs her to remove the glass ampoule out of her purse and place it in Mariel’s nostrils. Flynne does this and is swarmed by the vehicle driver who is a robot, but she is able to overcome it. The voice in her head muses on the potential power that it holds in introducing words into Flynne’s brain, similar to seeds. Flynne is driving her car to an endpoint. After she says “I’ve arrived,” the wall that is in front of her appears and she enters to find a woman sitting there. This is the woman whose voice is in Flynn’s head for a while. She informs Flynn they’ll be back tomorrow.

Flynn emerges from the simulation and gushes about how real it is. She gets a bit dizzy upon standing up and decides to for her mom’s medicine. In an establishment, she glances at four people and two of them come to her outside. She offers them money for one pill, however, they claim that it’s not enough. They ask her for additional services after an elderly man with just one hand steps out of the bar. Conner joins his monowheel in the larger vehicle and then demands that the men give Flynne the medication. Conner and Flynne go home.

The other guys go back to the bar to be greeted by an old man wearing a suit waiting to greet them. He provides them with a dressing down because they were victimized by Conner.

At home, Flynne is able to see her father lying on his back in discomfort in his truck. The marks are etched into the skin of his back and arms that appear softly glowing and appear to be the reason for the discomfort.

Each morning Flynne cleans up her hair for her mother. Her mother tells her that Burton has given her his pills to ease the pain. the anxiety.

In the next scene, in Burton’s trailer, Flynne apologizes for accusing Burton of stealing the pills. She logs on to the sim in awe however, she is ushered into the surgery room, in a state of disarray and in a coma. The woman from earlier is in the room and she informs her that Flynne cannot leave the simulation without her consent. They begin the surgery by taking out the eyeball of Flynne, to replace it with one that they removed from Mariel. The woman advises Flynne to restrain her heart and control her thoughts to cope with the suffering. Flynne does just that, and she is allowed to rest.

When she next awakes, she discovers her in a vehicle, in a car with another woman. The woman leads her to a building and utilizes her new vision to enter the building. They enter a room with an upside-down pyramid suspended over the top of the ceiling. The woman discusses gifting Flynne a present and advises that she should put her eye off her, and not Marian’s towards the lens. Flynne does this and then jerks off from the pain caused by the laser piercing her eye. However, the woman is pushing her head to the side.

A man suddenly comes in and asks her to take good charge of him as the man is out to kill both of them. Flynne attempts to help to escape, but the man puts her hands off her behind. He is using a gun that uses sonic strikes to hurt the woman and force her to divulge her motives. Flynne takes her hand and watches the skin peel away to reveal a robotic arm beneath. She assists the woman who escapes, however, the man shoots at Flynne. In her own world, Flynne wakes up and promises to never access the sim ever once more.

The next day, Billy Anne tries to cheer Flynne up. Flynne confesses that she has an attraction to Tommy. She then discusses the sim and suggests that it’s actually a location where she is an artificial body.

In the printing place, Flynne gets a phone call from Wolf who attempts to warn her about a possible danger, but she cut the phone.

A policeman also spots two suspicious vehicles and pursues the two cars, but they vanish. As he reaches the stop sign vehicle, a man draws his gun from behind and orders him to stop at the center of the roadway. An invisible force knocks down the policeman to the ground. It is one of the cars that are cloaked in darkness.

Flynn has decided to close her print shop after the lights go off and Wolf’s voice can be heard in all the machines surrounding her. Wolf claims that her life is at risk and has an offer in the amount of $9 million for her.

Burton and his former military buddies are gathered around a campfire as Flynne arrives to tell him about what transpired. They initially think it’s just a joke, but when they take drones to investigate suspicious people, they find a bunch of suspicious individuals advancing toward them.

The Episode Review

The Peripheral begins by delivering a slow and leisurely episode that introduces the futuristic environment. Flynn along with Burton are two compelling characters, while the 2099 characters are encased in suspense to keep you watching. The opening sequence of the show is enhanced with iridescent lighting that is appropriate for a tale like this. I believe we can anticipate breathtaking images and set pieces in the episodes that are to follow.

The episode is long, so it is best to allow viewers to slowly absorb the entire information — including the time zone differences, the many characters as well as the technological aspects. After we’re familiar with Flynn and the world she lives in, we are able to go on to other thrilling things.