Who Is Max?
After the incident with Max, we begin episode 4 with him awakening alone in a white room tied to the chair. While he pleads with the Hatfield’s to let him go, behind the screen Tom and the others discuss whether to place Max in a medically-induced coma to study him. While the family remain undecided on what to do, Lawrence sits down with Max and talks to him about the incident in the woods. However, as he gets closer Max lashes out and headbutts him, causing Lawrence to fall on the floor. Meanwhile Danny struggles to fit in without The Feed switched on, eventually seeing him succumb to temptation and turn it back on, lashing out at a couple of boys he bumps into on the way home, resulting in him beaten to the ground. Meredith visits Sue and tries to find out who’s behind the hacking attacks while Kate heads in to the pawn shop, as agreed, and follows the man into the back with the intention of finding someone who can remove her and Beatrice’s implants. There, she meets a group of resistors; men and women without The Feed switched on fighting back. Here, they talk about The Feed’s influence before hurrying out the back as police arrive. Sensing they’ve been ratted out, the resistors grab Kate and take her outside with them, narrowly avoiding the clutches of the police. With a table now infront of him, Tom decides to try and get through to Max by making him relive his past memories before the farm. A fearful Max tells him he’s afraid of ending up like Anton and Sarah but Tom manages to catch him out, mid-conversation and as Max’s demeanour changes, we see he’s been well and truly hacked. Lawrence enters the room soon after and proceeds to ask Max just who he really is, before he and Tom attempt to rattle him, mentioning Anton and Sarah’s death. Outside the room, Tom questions what’s happening and mentions that Sarah and Anton were the triggers for him, debating whether to use this in the future. It’s a difficult situation, and one that ses Tom talk to Eve about the option of putting Max into the aforementioned coma. Eventually Kate makes it to the secret doctor who talks her through the steps needed to remove the implant. Mulling things over with Tom, the two discuss whether to go through with the procedure while Max is sedated. Ben meanwhile has difficulty deleting his AI projection of Miyu, realizing to his horror that he may well be the one who caused the initial breach. While he panics, Tom and Lawrence work together to figure out what was in Sarah’s stream to make her snap the way she did. As Tom is hooked up to the machine with Sarah, Kate decides to go ahead with the procedure for removing her implant without him present. With more invesitgative work and a lot less action this time around, The Feed instead doubles down on its drama and tension. Half the episode is taken up with Max’s interrogation and seeing Tom manage to outfox the hacker, peeling away the layers of deception to reveal a cold, alien Max is arguably the highlight of the whole episode. As we begin to dive into the cerebral reasoning behind exactly what happened with the various different hacks, the drama looks set to continue going forward.
