You know how Two was originally planned to be an android instead of the bio synthetic whatever, right?
do you have any thoughts about them changing it? Im rewatching rn and I think Two being an android would have been a much more shocking/y reveal in ep 11 and would have really added some spice to the androids identity crisis.
Hmm! Really interesting question. I think I prefer her being more human, to be honest? The purported reasoning behind the change (‘a machine couldn’t be a romantic interest’) is really stupid, but it still might be a better play overall. It does depend on exactly how mechanical she was going to be, but if she’s anything like the Android (even with the upgrade), I don’t really see how she could’ve kept that hidden for weeks in close quarters. It’s not just ‘weird zombie bite wound’ that would be an issue, but literally any cut or nick would immediately expose her, and given how often they’re in fights, that seems problematic? And even assuming she doesn't need to 'charge' like the Android, a lack of need for sleep + food + water would give her away pretty fast, so I just don't see it working as well as a reveal multiple weeks in. Either the crew would have already been major-league suspicious by then, or she would've had to be taking steps to conceal it the whole time (which, to be fair, would have had its own kind of impact!).
But those are more practicalities, I suppose. From a character perspective, I think I still prefer her being more human, because it offers more of a spectrum of machine-humanity instead of being dichotomous? It puts Two in a unique spot where she can sort of ‘pass’ as human a lot easier in a variety of situations, whereas the mechanical androids have to work a lot harder to conceal their origins. So her position is a little less precarious, but it’s also very contingent on her not calling attention to it- e.g. she can’t effectively advocate for the simulants in S3 without revealing that she’s one, because otherwise she’d lose what little leverage she has and just get destroyed with them.
And I think it’s also a nice character move to have her not fully understand some of the Android’s struggles, and question whether the Android actually ‘feels’ anything (over Five’s objections). She wants to believe that true personhood and emotion come from having a human brain, because otherwise there's genuinely no difference between her and any other android off the shelf, and she does not want to confront what that would mean for her. So she can be both uniquely sympathetic to their plight (as someone who could be subject to the same classification in an instant if somebody rats her out), and also view them as 'other' and want to distance herself from their struggle a bit due to her own difficulties in processing what her non-humanity means for her. Which I like!
But all that said, her being more mechanical could have led to equally interesting routes. The audience is very clearly meant to view Two as essentially human and deserving of human rights- hence why we see her experiencing human connection and emotions and reactions long before we learn about her backstory, and why the show and all the protagonists treat her as indistinguishable from the other humans. So having her then revealed as fully mechanical would be big for the Android's arc, since it highlights human compassion being contingent on one's degree of conformity to social expectations- that people view Two as more deserving of rights solely because she expresses emotions in a way that's more legible to humans, while other androids with the same capacity are ignored unless they conform. But we do still wind up getting exploration of that with the upgrades in S2, so at least it's not a complete loss.
Would be interested to hear more of your opinion on it, if you want to share!
(Also going to tag @elderly-worm as an android-opinion-haver who might have a take)
