Episodes 1 and 2 of The Peripheral introduce siblings Flynne and Burton Fisher who find themselves amidst a bigger war when Flynne enters a simulated reality. The series is based on the book of the same name by William Ford Gibson.
The Peripheral Episode 1 Recap & Ending Explained
In London in the year 2099, Wilf Netherton (Gary Carr) is seen having a conversation with young Aelita West. It seems Aelita helped Wilf navigate through some tough times. Aelita now plans to save the world, but it doesn’t seem clear which world Aelita is talking about. Bidding farewell to her friend, Aelita logs out of the cyborg, known as a peripheral, that she was controlling.
In 2032, Flynne (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Burton Fisher (Jack Reynor) live with their ailing mother, Ella Fisher. To get by, Flynne works at a 3D printing show while Burton plays VR games. Although Flynne is more skilled than Burton at the games, she has consciously chosen not to be a part of a world that’s not even real. Despite her friend Billy Ann Baker’s (Adelind Horan) insistence, Flynne also ignores Tommy Constantine, a local cop who likes Flynne big time.
When Burton gets his hand on a cutting-edge VR device that he needs to beta test for a big company, he pushes Flynne – the better player among the two – to play in his avatar. Flynne agrees to try it for the money she can earn for her mother’s expensive medicines.
As Flynne wears the device, she is transported into a simulated reality. Unlike any other VR device, Flynne can feel every sensation that Burton’s peripheral experiences in the sim. A woman’s voice, which is only audible to the wearer, leads Flynne to a high-class social gathering.
At the party, Flynne’s peripheral is tasked with kidnapping Mariel Raphael and transporting her to the woman she’s been talking to all this while. But before Flynne could find out more about the person, she is made to leave the sim. After exiting the sim, Flynne feels some dizziness, yet she heads out to get the medicine for her mother.
When the local dealer Cash refuses to give the medicine to Flynne easily, a friend of Burton from his time in the Marine Corps, Connor (Eli Goree), comes to assist her. Connor is an amputee who has lost two legs and an arm. Yet, he manages to scare away Cash and his friends. This doesn’t go down well with Corbell Pickett (Louis Herthum), a powerful figure in the town.
On returning home, Flynne notices Burton trying to cope with the pain emerging from his haptic implants. Later, she comes to know from her mother Ella that Burton has been giving her pills to her.
Upon logging back into the sim again, Flynne finds her peripheral on an operating table as the mysterious woman from earlier is getting Flynne’s peripheral ready for enucleation. The peripheral’s one eyeball is exchanged with those of Mariel.
Flynne’s peripheral then accompanies the woman to a secret facility where the woman, who is revealed to be Aelita West (Charlotte Riley), forces Flynne’s peripheral to undergo a data transfer. Soon after, the duo is attacked by a man named Daniel who injures both Flynne’s peripheral and Aelita. Flynne realizes that her peripheral is a robot internally. While Aelita manages to escape, the attack forces Flynne to disconnect from her peripheral.
The next day, when Flynne wakes up, she wonders why the designers of the sim have designed the avatars in such a way that they look like robots from the inside. She even starts doubting whether she was in a sim or something entirely different.
Flynne returns to her job at the printing shop. However, her day is disrupted as she gets a call from Wilf Netherton, who informs her that all her assumptions about the headset are wrong. He strongly suggests that Flynne log back into the sim immediately, revealing that Flynne’s life is at risk.
Flynne returns to her home to tell Burton about the bounty that’s been placed on her. Just to be sure Flynne wasn’t joking, Burton decides to use his drones to check the perimeter around the house. To Flynne and Burton’s horror, they discover armed men roaming in the dark, confirming that Wilf Netherton wasn’t lying. In 2099, Daniel informs Cherise Nuland (T’Nia Miller) that he has put out a hit on the operator of the peripheral.
Burton decides to defend his family against the attackers with the help of his friends – Carlos, Leon, and Reece, who all are veterans of the United States Marine Corps’ elite Haptic Recon force. With some assistance from Connor, who comes to the rescue, the group manages to kill all the assailants.
The Peripheral Episode 2 Recap & Ending Explained
Later, in a flashback, Wilf and Aelita are seen arguing as Wilf attempts to convince Aelita to come to meet his employer, Lev Zubov. Back in the present time, Lev tasks Wilf with getting Flynne to log back into a peripheral built by his team. Although Lev’s partner Ash questions his decision to task Wilf with such a big responsibility, Lev makes it clear that no one is more motivated than Wilf to find Aelita.
Back home, Flynne decides to log back into the sim to find out why her family was attacked. On doing so, she finds that this time, she’s inside a peripheral that looks just like her. Flynne is greeted by Wilf, who tells her that she is not inside a sim but what’s called a peripheral.
Wilf presents the reality in front of Flynne. Flynne has been transported to London which is 70 years into the future through a technique called Quantum Tunnelling – a form of data transfer. Unlike time travel, Flynne is not physically present in London. To make Flynne believe that she is really in the future, Wilf reveals that her mother is going to die on 22nd September. Wilf also hands Flynne a cure for her mother’s brain tumor before she leaves the peripheral.
In 2032, Flynne confirms what Wilf told her through her mother, who discloses that she has been given 6 weeks by the doctors. Thereafter, Flynne divulges everything she knows about the peripheral to Burton. Despite Burton’s insistence, Flynne decides that she will be the one going back into the peripheral.
On connecting to the peripheral, Wilf debriefs Flynne and introduces her to Lev, along with Ossian and Ash – the technicals who maintain the connection between the two worlds. He tells Flynne that Lev hired him to find Aelita.
Flynne discovers that a parallel timeline called stub was created when a party from the future established contact with the past. Until that moment, everything was identical in the two timelines.
Aelita used to work in an organization called the Research Institute. Lev Zubov paid Aelita to gain access to Flynne’s stub through RI’s facility. With Aelita going missing, Lev stands to lose the connection. However, the group doesn’t reveal why they are chasing access to Flynne’s timeline. Flynne offers to help Lev and Wilf find Aelita in return for help to save her mother from dying in case the cure given by Wilf doesn’t work.
While Flynne was talking to Lev and his friends in the future, Burton was busy distracting Tommy Constantine who arrived at his doorstep, tailing the trace left by the mercenaries from the future. After Flynne’s return, she tells Burton that Lev would be sending some money to them. To not attract suspicion, the money is transferred through a lottery ticket to Leon, Flynne and Burton’s cousin.
At the local bar, Corbell Pickett buys Flynne, Burton, and Leon a few drinks to congratulate them on the lottery win. However, as Flynne hates the man, she doesn’t respond with similar pretentiousness. But she does request Flynne to visit Connor and ask him to camp around the house. Flynne and Connor used to be good friends, but they haven’t been on great terms lately. Despite the tensions, Flynne agrees to seek Connor’s help given Connor keeps himself sober while camping around the house.
On the other hand, inside a sim, Corbell is paid a visit by Daniel who tasks him with killing Flynne and Burton Fisher. Although Corbell dismisses Daniel by taking it to be a trap at first, he realizes it’s a real contract when his account is credited with USD 2.5 million.
At Flynne and Burton’s house, everyone wakes up in the middle of the night upon hearing some noise in the house. But when Flynne finds her mother walking in the kitchen, she’s shocked to discover that the medicines from the future are working as Ella can see her daughter despite having lost her eyesight long ago due to the tumor.
The Peripheral Episodes 1 and 2 Review
Time travel and simulated reality are both tried and tested concepts in fiction storytelling. The Peripheral’s first two episodes lurk in the same shadows for much of the run time before divulging a couple of secrets about the world it depicts. Chloë Grace Moretz and Jack Reynor play unfortunate siblings who get entangled in events that are way larger than their otherwise uneventful lives.
Just like the key characters, Flynne and Burton, the audience is also kept in the dark with few insights into world-building. The series presents two shades of reality; one in which the characters are suffering from known troubles while in the other, greater threats await them. It is in this mystery, the strength of the peripheral lies as the storyline somewhat manages to evoke a certain curiosity around the possibilities presented thus far.
Yet, while The Peripheral contains traces of many similarly set-up stories, it does not become clear what uniqueness it brings to the saturated genre. However, a ray of sunshine does emerge in the form of some interesting characters presented through the course of the 2-hour premiere. The Peripheral’s success will largely bank on its ability to make something coherent out of the convoluted presentation until now.
Rating: 3.5/5
The Peripheral is now streaming on Prime Video.
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