Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Electric State’ takes the audience to an alternate timeline where the 1990s are defined by the war between robots and humans. In this world, due to the efforts of Walt Disney, robots were introduced into the household of humans as early as the 50s, and soon, they took over all the labor work from humans. For years, they functioned really well, but one day, they decided that they were done with the exploitation of their species and took to the streets. Their protests fell on deaf ears, and eventually, a war ensued. At first, the humans suffered heavy losses, but then, a new tech called Neurocaster was brought forth by a tech mogul named Ethan Skate, which changed the entire game.
With Neurocaster, the humans won the war within three weeks, which was the end for robots. Or so it seemed. A couple of years later, a teenager named Michelle discovers that her brother, Chris, who was supposed to have died in a car accident years ago, is actually alive. He is being held captive somewhere, and while he cannot physically escape the place, his consciousness has managed to sneak out by taking refuge in a Kid Cosmo robot. The mission to save her brother and get him back fuels Michelle, so she is ready to fight against the most powerful man in the world. However, victory comes at a cost, and Michelle has to pay a heavy price for saving the world. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Why Does Michelle Unplug Chris from the Machine? Does He Survive?
In her quest to find Chris, Michelle discovers that her brother is the reason behind the triumphant success of the all-powerful Neurocaster. It is his mind that has been powering the mainframe, leading the device to function at full capacity. However, over the years, Chris and the machine have become symbiotic, which means that if they are unplugged from each other, neither will survive. This puts her in an impossible situation. If she unplugs Chris, the Neurocaster will fail, Skate will be exposed, and the world will be a better place. But if she doesn’t do it, she will never be able to free Chris, and he will be left in a perpetual state of limbo where he is neither alive nor dead but simply a tool for Skate to exploit to keep the Neurocaster functioning.
Chris tells her he is ready to move on to ease Michelle’s dilemma. He cannot imagine spending another day in this state, and he knows that if nothing is done about it now, he will be forced to live like this for a hundred years. He has already spent too much time like this to endure it for an eternity. He assures his sister that he has had the fortune of walking the world beside her and seeing it for all its ugliness and beauty. This is another reason he cannot be stuck in this form and must be allowed to die. Despite not being able to accept the thought of losing her brother all over again, Michelle has to accept that this is the best and only way forward. Otherwise, all the death and sacrifice, especially by the robots who fought and died for her, would be nothing.
So, Michelle unplugs Chris from the machine, and with his life support gone, he passes on from the mortal realm. Or so it seems. In the film’s last scene, we find the Kid Cosmo robot thrown into a wasteland. At first, it seems to be dead. But then, as a dog drinks water, we see the robot’s reflection in it, suggesting that there is life in it still. Considering that the robot had housed Chris’ brain all this time, there’s a chance that a spark of electricity was left behind. Earlier in the film, Chris tells Michelle about two bodies coming in contact with each other and staying connected till the end of time because their electricity has crossed with one another’s.
Then there is also the fact that his brain was unlike any human’s. The scene where he solves a problem in minutes, which took Einstein three days to understand, shows how rare a brain he has. It is so powerful that it powers a device that keeps all the Neurocasters alive. When part of his consciousness escapes with the Kid Cosmo robot, the Neurocasters start to malfunction and require all Chris to work at full capacity. Could it be that as Chris died, he left part of his consciousness inside the robot to allow it to function while his body was allowed to die? After all, wasn’t that the function of the Neurocaster, to allow a person’s consciousness to be at two places simultaneously? While other people couldn’t do it without the machine, Chris’ brain was more potent than that, and he found a way to keep himself alive in the robot, which means he can now reunite with Michelle for good.
What Happens to Herm? Does He Die?
When Michelle embarks on her journey to find Chris, she seeks help from a smuggler called Keats and his robot, Herm. The duo takes him into the exclusion zone and later follows her into battle at Sentre’s Seattle HQ. While she sneaks into the building, they fight the battle outside and keep the bad guys occupied long enough for her to do her job. Things get pretty rough for them as many robots die during the battle. Herm, too, takes heavy fire, and eventually his system shuts down. In his final words, he tells Keats that he is going to sleep, which leads the human to pour his feelings out and confess his love for the robot.
Losing Herm would be a truly heartbreaking thing, but then, it turns out that, like Chris, Herm, too, has a few cards up his sleeve. He was the kind of robot that came in many sizes. When he enters the battle, he is like a Russian doll. When his outer form is destroyed, the inner form emerges and fights. When that is destroyed, another form crawls out and fights, and so on. While Keats knew about it, he didn’t know where these forms end. He thought that the form that Herm had with him was the last one. But when the battle ends, he discovers another form inside it, which is much smaller in size but no less witty and lovable.
Do the Robots Win? What Happens to Ethan Skate?
All the robots ever wanted was their right to have a dignified life. Humans saw them as nothing more than machines built to serve them. However, the more artificial intelligence developed, the more robots realized that they were being treated as slaves, and they did not want that. It was humans’ refusal to give them their rights that led to the war, which robots would’ve won if it weren’t for Chris and his superpowered brain. The war turned the robots into villains, if they weren’t already seen as such, and people like Ethan Skate became the saviors of humanity by helping win the war.
By the end, however, Skate’s true face comes to light, and it becomes clear that he doesn’t care for humans either. If he did, he wouldn’t have exploited Chris like this. He also wouldn’t have allowed other humans to be killed for his profit, but he did. It takes some time for the world to see it, but they do see it eventually. We see this shift in perspective with the Butcher’s sudden change of heart, where he does not kill Mr. Peanut in the heat of battle, and calls Skate worse than robots. When Michelle unplugs Chris, all the Neurocasters are shut down, bringing the robots to a level playing field and giving them the advantage they needed all along.
When Mr. Peanut confronts Skate, he doesn’t kill the man single-handedly responsible for the death of thousands of his people. He uses the human’s newfound vulnerability as the tool to get a new treaty signed between robots and humans, which puts both parties on equal grounds and gives robots the respite they so desperately need and deserve. Then comes Michelle’s video, where she reveals the truth about Skate and how he used Chris. This prompts the law to hold Skate accountable for his crimes. He goes to prison, and the world is free of Neurocaster. Michelle encourages people to go out and form connections with each other because that is what makes them human. As for the robots, they have a chance to live the life they want on their terms. Even though it is a long and winding road ahead, especially when it comes to finding a permanent common ground with the humans, there is finally hope for them.
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