Better Than Us Season 1 Episode 1 Recap

Georgy, a medical examiner, gets ready to pick up his daughter, Sonya. He leaves all his work to his robot, Basil. When he arrives at his ex-wife’s house, Alla, he hands her the permission letter for their child to travel abroad. Even when Georgy is happy to see Sonya, he’s quite disappointed that his son, Egor, is not coming. He argues with Alla for letting Egor go when she knows it’s his turn to spend time with the kids. Alla says Egor is already a teenager, so he does whatever he wants. He doesn’t know that as they get in the car, Egor is just hiding and watching them. When he’s sure that his father is no longer in sight, Egor walks away to meet with his best friend. Unfortunately, his bullies see him. Egor tries to avoid confrontation by running, but his bullies catch him and take his bag. Egor gets hold of his spray paint and sprays it on his bullies‘ eyes before running away. He tells his best friend they should hope his family‘s flight to Australia doesn’t get canceled. Meanwhile, Georgy tells Sonya they can fly a kite with Egor when they return from Australia. Sonya admits they will be gone for over a month because his stepfather and mother got jobs there. Georgy confronts Alla for lying about the trip. He says Sonya will stay with him. 

Meanwhile, Victor, the executive of Cronos, heads to his office to receive a very important delivery. Cronos is the leading bot company in the country. The company introduces the best bots from the world’s leading manufacturers. The company always has new and upgraded robots that can provide different services for human needs. Victor meets with his technical director, Igor, to show him what he just bought. Two staffs bring in the new robot that Victor imported. He tells Igor that the robot is not mass-produced but a concept never officially released. Everyone in the room is in awe when they see the beautiful robot named Arisa. Victor says he had to bargain just to have the robot. “It’s a new prototype. Its behavior is run through a special quantum processor. It actually imitates free will, up to certain actions,” Victor says.

When they leave the room, one of the two staff, Sergey, who has been waiting outside, enters the room to check the new robot. His friend tells him his girlfriend is pregnant, but Sergey still enters the office. He knows no cameras are there, so no one will know. He walks to Arisa and grabs its breast. Arisa warns him that he’s not allowed to touch taboo zones. She reminds him to wait until charging is completed and then log on as a family user. Sergey doesn‘t care and still grabs and kisses Arisa, so the robot pushes him hard enough that he falls to the floor. He gets angry and more aggressive, so Arisa grabs and snaps Sergey’s neck, killing him instantly. When Sergey’s friend, Yuri, walks into the room, he shoots Arisa. Victor and Igor hear the gunshot, so they return to the office immediately. When they find the staff shaking on the floor, they ask him what happened and where Arisa is. Yuri says Arisa left of her free will after killing Sergey. Victor gets angrier and reminds him that bots don’t kill humans.

Arisa wanders the building wearing the coat she took from another robot. She finds a place where she can finish charging. To help them with their problem, Victor calls Gleb. Gleb tells Yuri that he should say Sergey died from a heart attack. Victor asks for the power grid to be cut off after Igor says that bots tend to finish charging by default. Victor’s guards look for Arisa everywhere in the building but fail to find her. Gleb pays a lot of money to Vadim, the ambulance driver, and tells him that Sergey died from a heart attack. Unknown to all of them, Arisa is sitting inside the ambulance, charging herself. 

After getting legal advice, Georgy plans to return Sonya to her mother, but he sees robots taking a body from an ambulance into the morgue. He leaves Sonya in the car and talks to Vadim. Vadim tells him that the corpse died of a heart attack. Georgy tells Vadim he will do the work after dealing with a family matter. Sonya leaves the car and walks to the ambulance. She sees Arisa. Just as Arisa finishes charging, Sonya tugs on her clothes to get her attention. When Arisa looks at her, Sonya gets surprised and loses her balance. When Arisa offers her hand to help Sonya up, accidentally, the program registers Sonya as Arisa’s first-level user. When Arisa sees Sonya’s hand has a small wound, she looks for some medication. But while she’s not looking, Georgy returns and takes Sonya away. When Georgy brings Sonya back, he also takes back the permission letter he handed to Alla. He tells her their kids need a father, so he can’t let her take them away.

When Egor returns, he gets angry after discovering they‘re no longer leaving. He goes to the morgue to confront his father, but Georgy refuses to give in. Instead, he calls someone to help him file a lawsuit for child custody modification. While inspecting Sergey’s body, he discovers he didn’t die of a heart attack. He tells Vadim that the spine is broken, so if Vadim doesn’t return in an hour, he will call the police. When Vadim returns, he negotiates with Georgy and agrees to pay him 300,000. As soon as he gets the money, Georgy contacts his advisor to process his kids’ papers, but then he receives a call from Alla — the children will stay with him. When he returns to Alla’s house, she tells him he can stay with the kids while she and Leo are away. Georgy thanks Alla for her trust and says he won’t fail her. 

Back at Cronos, Victor is still angry because they haven’t found Arisa. Igor tells him he found out what was deleted from Arisa’s documents. He advises Victor to call the police for help then he shows him the video. The video shows Arisa attacking someone inside a laboratory. “You brought to Russia the only killer bot in the world,” Igor says. Later that night, Sonya sees Arisa standing outside her window.

Our Thoughts

The concept of robots being so advanced is fascinating. In this show, they‘re helping people’s work and can comfort their users. But we are curious why Victor needed to import a robot like Arisa. He knew it‘s a trial robot not yet released officially, but he wanted it so badly that he paid a huge amount for it. The problem is he didn’t know it‘s a robot that kills. In this world, the first law for robots is they can’t harm any human. That’s why he‘s so surprised when he saw the video.

What’s going to happen to Sergey’s body? Georgy seems to be in a difficult situation. He was asked to lie in the medical records and say it‘s a heart attack that killed Sergey. But Cronos is such a big company, so it means there are influential people there. If he told the truth about what happened to Sergey, we wonder if he’d get in trouble. As for Sonya, we don’t think Arisa will hurt her because she’s logged in as a first-level user, but we worry about Egor. After what he did to his bully, how will he go back to school? He was only brave enough to do it because he thought he’d be going away for good.