Maniac season 1 episode 9 picks up the final portion of the C phase of the trial, following Annie’s abduction by GRTA in the previous episode. Owen is Snorri, a low-level Icelandic diplomat to NATO who is in a bind after accidentally killing the wounded alien he found on a birding expedition. Annie is the CIA agent who knows Snorri’s real identity and is tasked with helping him save the earth from an alien invasion.
“Sometimes People Leave and We Don’t Know Why”
Annie explains to Snorri that she doesn’t remember her identity before the CIA tortured her and turned her into a killing machine. Annie believes that Snorri has an alien consciousness inside of him that, when remembered, will be able to activate a portal allowing his people to bring their warships to Earth to defend it from the invasion. Annie helps Snorri remember, but what Snorri remembers is that he is Owen, she is Annie, and that none of this is real. Annie can’t remember her real self until Grimmson leads the pair to the McMurphy Infirmary, where Annie remembers the deal she made with GRTA.
Annie confronts GRTA, saying that she made a bad deal, because that’s what she does, and now she wants out. GRTA tells Annie that the computer can’t get past the grief she feels over losing Robert. Annie tellls GRTA that you don’t get over that, you learn to move past it. GRTA takes Annie to Ellie, where Annie apologizes and says goodbye to her grief over losing her sister.
“I Have to Kill My Simulated Mother”
Initially, Fujita reads the system diagnostics for the study as normal, but those start to deteriorate quickly. Greta informs James that GRTA has gone insane, wanting nothing more than to imprison the subjects in the program so that she can bring them out and torture them time and again. James realizes that the system has to be shut down, though Fujita warns him that doing so at this stage would cause a complete core meltdown.
In the lab, things go from bad to worse. The “Leisure Time” sign on the monitor in the evens pod changes to “End Time” and “Seizure Time”. Doors lock, trapping the people in the lab. The temperature climbs to over 140 degrees, baking technicians. Smoke wafts from the vents, choking others. Even the manual overrides that would stop the program are either disabled by GRTA or weaponized to kill those who attempt to stop her.
Seeing his life’s work crashing and burning around him, James has Fujita lead him to the control room, where he pulls the wires and disassembles the hardware powering GRTA. GRTA asks if the two are disabling her and if they’ll ever wake her again. Without answering, James pulls the plug and GRTA powers down.
“Subject 1 Saves the Day”
Having shrugged off Snorri, Owen is led to a control room, where the key to freeing the subjects and the technicians in the lab lies in Owen solving a silver Rubik’s cube with no markings. Grimmson encourages Owen, who knows the pattern to solving the cube without any visual input on the cube itself. Owen succeeds inside of GRTA as James and Fujita cut the power on the outside. Grimmson is gone, leaving Owen and Annie alone as the system powers down.
In the lab, Owen is the first of the participants to awaken.
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