Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for Sunny S1E7, “There’s Been a Shift” (written by Ken Kobayashi and directed by Colin Bucksey)
In the premiere of Sunny, Mixxy (Annie the Clumsy) told Suzie (Rashida Jones) about a homebot killing a politician. At least, that’s the rumor. Sunny S1E7 begins by disproving it, as we follow Councillor Ito on his jog before he returns home and asks his homebot to make him some pancakes.
Hime (You) stands at the top of the stairs and pushes the bot into Ito so that he falls to his death. Then, Hime wipes the homebot. Later in the episode, when this incident comes up, Hime says it was an experiment, which does make me wonder if there was more to what she did to Ito’s robot than I gathered. Regardless, this particular murder was not enabled by Dark Manual code, and we might even wonder if the Dark Manual contains the relevant code for making a homebot a killer.
I suspect that Hime and her father have at least been thinking that it does, and since Hime should have her hands on it now, we should find out. Unfortunately for Hime, her father died before she could complete her mission. Thus, her rival, Jin, has taken charge of the yakuza. Hime thinks that Jin killed her father and seems prepared to make a move against him, but I’m not sure I care all that much.
The more interesting storylines in Sunny remain those centered around Sunny (Joanna Sotomura), which is only fitting. The morning after the events of S1E6 sees the homebot still out of service. But, when Mixxy leaves the room to change her clothes, Suzie shakes Sunny in a move that’s reminiscent of slapping the side of a tube television set, and Sunny comes online to her sleep mode.
Mixxy has to go to work and advises caution about waking Sunny up all the way. They don’t know what the yakuza did to the homebot, after all. Yet, after Mixxy leaves, Suzie can’t help herself. She wakes Sunny up, only to find that Sunny seems to be mad at her.
Sunny denies this, of course, but the bot is surly. As Suzie says in the line that gives S1E7 its title, there’s been a shift. Instead of being almost overly friendly to Suzie, Sunny just wants to watch TV.
When Noriko (Judy Ongg) calls from jail, however, Sunny is happy to talk to her and seems back to the bubbly robot we’ve gotten to know up to this point. So, it seems like she’s just mad at Suzie. Yet, when Mixxy returns and yells at Suzie for being a bad friend who basically got Mixxy fired from her job, Sunny punches Mixxy in the gut. That’s a move that might seem protective of Suzie, but it’s also something a homebot is not supposed to do.
Suzie and Mixxy take Sunny to a robot tech, who can’t find any illicit code that would enable violence, but who does find a tracking program. One tracker is on Suzie, another is on Noriko, and a third is in an apartment complex across town.
Back at Suzie’s house, Suzie takes all of her clothes off trying to find the tracker before discovering that it’s in her wedding ring. It’s not clear exactly when it was put there. Suzie seems to think that Sunny did it while she was in the shower that day, but the existence of the other trackers makes me wonder if this was something that Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) did before he died/disappeared.
Regardless, Suzie and Mixxy set off to investigate the third tracker, with Suzie hoping that it’s Zen (Fares Belkheir). It isn’t. Instead, they find the man (Jun Kunimura) who brought Sunny to Suzie back in S1E1. You’ll recall that he identified himself then as Yuki Tanaka, but when Suzie went to the ImaTech office looking for Yuki Tanaka, she was directed to someone else entirely. My suspicion at this point is that the man is Masa’s biological father, Hiromasa Matsumoto, but S1E7 ends before we can find out.
Back at Suzie’s house, Sunny wakes up of her own accord, which she shouldn’t do. The music is ominous and the credits roll.
More Things That Happened
Noriko seems to be settling into her carceral accommodations fairly well. She enjoys playing shogi with the other ladies, but there is one of them who is antagonistic towards Noriko, threatening bad consequences if the others find out Noriko got locked up on purpose. Of course, Noriko did get locked up on purpose, even if we don’t know exactly why. Does this other woman know that, or is she just following a hunch?
Relatively early in S1E7, Suzie tries to call Dee, as she has done several times over the course of the season. As with those previous attempts, the call goes to voicemail, but this time Suzie actually leaves a message. Later, while Suzie is in the other room getting dressed, Mixxy sees a reply from Dee by text on Suzie’s device. It basically says that the fact that Suzie is having a hard time doesn’t change what she did, that they aren’t friends anymore, and that Suzie should not contact Dee again. Mixxy deletes the message without Suzie having seen it.
I think Mixxy is just trying to protect Suzie from the harshness of Dee’s message, but I’d guess that this will cause a conflict by the end of the season. Beyond that, I’m wondering what happened between Suzie and Dee in the past. We don’t even know who Dee is beyond this information that she and Suzie used to be friends, so it’s an intriguing wrinkle to the story.
First, though, Suzie and the man folding laundry need to talk.
See you next week.
