'Emergence' Episode 8: Jo plans to tell Piper that she is an AI, but Alan wants to 'kill it before we are extinct'
'Emergence' aired one of its most nerve-wracking episodes last week, and that's saying something for a show that continuously keeps surprising us with jolting information such as that little girl you love is an AI and the scared science nerd is actually a supervillain. In the upcoming Season 1 Episode 8 of the ABC series, however, we will see the repercussions of all that drama and thrill, specifically focused on Jo's (Allison Tolman) life.
We learned that Emily (Maria Dizzia ) has been pretending to be an ally to Jo and her team all along and that she was planning on making Piper (Alexa Swinton) her daughter and make her love her. And, despite her efforts to rewrite Piper's algorithm and replace Jo with herself in all her happy memories, Piper was able to override it and make herself remember who Jo really is, and who Emily really is.
While this worked in Jo's favor and made the police chief believe in Piper all the more, her ability to rewrite her own algorithm has scared the bejeezus out of her creator Alan (Seth Barrish). He has consistently told Jo that the best path forward is to eliminate Piper as a threat. Even though Jo and everyone around her seems to think of Piper as a lovely young girl that needs their protection, she is actually a very powerful AI, that could spell the destruction of all of humanity, reminds Alan. "She rewrote her own code. Kill it before we are extinct," Alan is heard telling Benny (Owain Yeoman) in the trailer for the upcoming Season 1 Episode 9, titled 'American Chestnut'.
Meanwhile, we see Jo looking for solutions to protect Piper, while also keeping her family and the rest of humanity safe, and it seems like she thinks the best way to go about it is to tell Piper that she is an AI. In 'American Chestnut', we are going to see how that works out, especially since she was advised early on this season, that revealing to an AI that they are an AI would cause them to self destruct. Jo seems to think it can be done without triggering a delf-destruction but it needs to be executed carefully. Will she be successful?
We will find out when Season 1 Episode 9 of 'Emergence' airs on Tuesday, November 26 on ABC.