'Future Man' Season 3: A quick recap of what happened so far on the Hulu sci-fi show
When Hulu's 'Future Man' launched in 2017, it had quite an intricate premise. It was raunchy and fun for sure, but you had to be clued well into the sci-fi genre for it to make much sense to you. An underachieving janitor named Josh Futterman (Josh Hutchinson) was visited by two hardened warriors from the year 2162: Tiger (Eliza Coupe) and Wolf (Derek Wilson), while he was playing the video game, 'Biotic Wars'.
The warriors believe that he has the power to right the wrongs and the ability to rectify the future where a world is run by beings called 'biotics'. The truth is that the Biotic Wars and the mutant bug monsters at the center of his favorite game had actually become a reality in the future. And so, the first season scraped against the gritty certainties of an apocalyptic war, along with some orgy jokes.
The first season was quirky and laced with foul humor, and played out in an engrossing fashion where the leads hopped from one timeline to another. At the end of the season, Josh was successful in his mission and saved the future timeline. The main villain was Stu Camillo.
And so, it seemed that it would be difficult to find a new path to tread in the next season. Yet the writers did not disappoint and decided to add a few more twists to the bewildering tale.
In Season 2, it turns out that Josh did not save the timeline, but altered it instead. At the start of the season, Josh returns to the year, 2162, which is entirely different from what he remembers it to be. He is kidnapped by the agents of 'The Pointed Circle', who want him to bring Stu down. Tiger and Wolf are trapped in different storylines, where they realize that though the Earth is similar to the previous timeline as they see familiar faces with different names and memories, but on a different tangent in other aspects. For instance, there are space ships gearing to colonize Mars as the burning problem of climate change has struck viciously and Earth is reduced to a scorching desert.
The three characters have to navigate their way through three different complex storylines. At the outset, Josh is being held captive, while Tiger is compelled to interact with the biotics at a facility called The Mons, where humans are busy getting ready to leave for Mars. Wolf is in The NAG (The New Above Ground), which is populated by humans who refused Stu Camillo’s (Haley Joel Osment) cure in the previous season. Stu is dominating over the Mons and has been obsessed with Tiger after the day they spent together in the first season.
To add to this confusion, Wolf is mistaken for his alternate timeline counterpart Torque, while Tiger is accosted by her doppelganger, Ty-Anne. By the fifth episode, the trio finally reunite and decide to take down The Pointed Circle. In the middle of all this, they have to sort out their own interpersonal dynamics as a wedge between Josh and Wolf grows.
Meanwhile, Stu grows more sinister and has devious plans, including trying to involve Tiger into his simulation. His true plans are revealed: He doesn't want to take people to Mars, he wishes to upload them into a digital realm forever. Josh decides to shut down Stu once and for all.
While everything seems hunky-dory for exactly around two seconds, the protagonists are imprisoned for messing with time a little too much and are sentenced to 'death by entertainment', in the year, 3491, as the subjects of a Running Man-like game called the DieCathalon, a possible joke on 'The Hunger Games', which is Hutcherson's biggest film. Tiger, Wolf and Josh are slated to compete on The DieCathalon, a dangerous reality competition show hosted by Susan and sponsored by blood diaper company Ultra Max.
This sets up the premise of Season 3. So what's going to happen next? Watch 'Future Man' Season 3 on Hulu on April 3.