The Peripheral Season 1 Episode 1 Review: Pilot
The Peripheral Season 1 Episode 1, “Pilot,” introduces us to Flynne, her family and friends, and her life in 2032. Her brother, Burton, makes money off of helping rich people survive in video games, which is an absolutely hilarious job but a great way to make money.
The Peripheral Season 1 Episode 1 is slow to get going. I kept being surprised by how much of the hour I still had left to watch, but things really pick up during and after Flynne’s second time logging into the Sim. By the end of the episode, you’re dying to see what happens next.
We spend a lot of time in 2032 meeting various people in the town Flynne and Burton live in, which is part of the reason the episode starts out so slowly.
Right now it’s hard to understand why we have to spend time with drug dealers. It seems pointless to follow them around and witness their boss threaten them.
At least by the end of the hour, they are hanging out with Burton, so perhaps there’s hope that they will integrate themselves into Flynne and Burton’s storyline and become a bit more relevant. Maybe they will become more useful as the people trying to kill Flynne get closer.
The episode takes an extremely dark turn when Flynne logs into the Sim for the second time.
Sure, the Sim having a more nefarious purpose is to be expected, but what isn’t is the brutal torture/procedure Flynne undergoes — I could not watch the eye surgery — and the intense fight where Flynne rips off her hand and then is killed.
It is a lot to take in, and in some respects, the show is smart to introduce this element early on in the season. It lets us and Flynne know what kind of world she’s stepped into, and that these people have absolutely no respect for her — or, well, they think him — in the Sim.
This sounds messed up, but the darkness is intriguing.
If this is what happens in the first episode, it’s hard not to be curious as to what is in store for us and Flynne as the season progresses. Although, we can skip anything that resembles that surgery because I cannot endure that again.
Another unexpected bonus of the brutality is that it doesn’t go unnoticed by Flynne. She starts to put the pieces together that it doesn’t seem likely the Sim is an actual video game meant to be sold to the masses.
For someone as well-versed in gaming as she apparently is, it would’ve been aggravating if she didn’t think what she went through was odd. So this is a great way for Flynne to start questioning what she knows to be true about this Sim.
Her reasoning is sound; she doesn’t immediately jump into “this is real,” but instead focuses on how nothing that she has done in the Sim is something that makes sense if the game was going to be sold.
While we love our himbos, there’s something to be said about having an intelligent main character, especially when you’re watching a sci-fi thriller.
Not only is the show not treating us like we’re stupid, but Flynne is able to figure things out and make connections, which will surely come in handy as she delves further into the mystery surrounding this Sim.
Overall, The Peripheral has a slight pacing issue, but the series has enough going on that’s working to get us to overlook that fact. One hour in, and it’s easy to love Flynne and Burton. We are invested in them and this mystery they’ve found themselves in.
Stray Thoughts:
- I have a lot of questions about the giant statues in the future.
- I hope Conner becomes a bigger part of the story; I love him.
- The fact that this is set in the future and the main characters have Southern accents brings me joy.
- The technology is super cool, especially whatever that one girl does to make their area soundproof.
What did you think of this episode of The Peripheral? Will you keep watching? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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New episodes of The Peripheral premiere Fridays on Prime Video.
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Allison Nichols
Allison is in a love affair with television that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. Slightly damaged fictional characters are her weakness. She loves to spend her free time curled up with a cat and a show to binge-watch. Allison is a Tomatometer-approved critic (Rotten Tomatoes).
One thought on “The Peripheral Season 1 Episode 1 Review: Pilot”
Hmm…
Quite a heavy “Mary Sue” in the character played by the actress in latest “Tom & Jerry®” feature production.
There are multitudes of ways where the artificial-bounds of text-only communication can get misinterpreted for the bad, so I would try my Best that I won’t come across as some “un-pCsJw” curmudgeon.
I guess that is so because in the fictional Appalachian county, the neoliberalism-envisioned Sheriff department is so full of integrity in his glorified-cameo that he spots pairs of ‘suspicious men’( WGBH’s MAG described the cavalry as “imposing men”; the very same descriptor was invoked for Atticus & 3 others( including but not limited to, said Sue’s god brother-in-law Jasper[ Pickett]) before their introduction[ minus said GBIL] in the scenes where Flynne “Mary Sue” Fisher gets into the bar to engage in black-market drug trade outside) and follows them, only to get instantaneously killed by retired State terrorists now working as neo-age, freelancing contract-killers.
Hope we get to see something just as equitable from Burton, as well. Otherwise, barring 2-3 moments — this episode rankled me as much as that Mary Sue gets oh-so-rationally “rankled” by her elder-brother. Hopefully, the followup to cliffhanger would give us an ample opportunity — but I’m afraid the oh-so-innovative promotion technique of shoehorning a sneak-preview( “Next[ Time] On..”) mid-credits spoiled the answer to the predictably inevitable gun-battle.
So..
You have:
A) A sheriff who is genuinely there to “protect and serve” but not as much trained to escape getting killed instantly.
B) Guns are very handy tools for self-defence. Who knows when and how you need it? Just bring all of the machine-guns, automatics to semi-automatics — for a drunk as fuck bonfire.
C) Ohhh.. Waiiittt! Did I just answer my own question as to why she is a Mary Sue? They are taking great-enough risk by making the Deputy Sheriff her still-unresolved crush since decades. I guess they would trample over that by retconning this all by shoehorning a scene with her and Wilf somewhere in dystopian Greater London having a “bow-chika-bow-wow”( bonus virtue-points for enraging anti-“mIsCeGeNaTiOn” types) even during a supposedly Human Civilisation-rescuing mission where every second is precious to the extent that she can’t control her own
avatarperipheral.Regardless of whatever they do to needlessly justify the runtime of freshman season, hope her imperfections start appearing just as soon instead of following episodes made to depict from her perspective, with the audiences simply being expected to take her words at face-value “‘cus she’s the SHero! Don’t you get it? Why would a protagonist, and that too: A SHero, would have mistaken-beliefs about her very own [bio-]family?.!”
Appreciated that the show managed to avoid all of those Appalachian/hillbilly/Southerner stereotypes[.. yet!] — at the very least.
Interesting to note that it was filmed in part on-location at the NY state without evergreen brib.. errmmm.. tax-credits/-incentives/-rebates. I guess it must be those shots like skycraper that till-then unknown adult ciswoman with “Burton Peripheral”/“Easy Ice”( that’s what happens when accessibility-in-media is outsourced to multiple vendors without any expectation whatsoever) entered after getting “his” eyes replaced with Mariel’s, Floor -95 below the surface?
Speaking of.. Ahh.. Welp! If not the frequent strong-language, at least they spared us from substance use( save for the “celebration/sorrow culture” of liquor, ‘course — 🥃🍸🍺 for the Big Alcohol! 🍻🥂) and “gorno” in that particular, non-consensual eye-transplant sequence which was very icky to watch even without a trace of blood.( “Eye surgery” comes across as a criminal-euphemism.)
A full-on body horror, nonetheless.
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