The Darwin Incident

Episode 12

Sure, this episode of The Darwin Incident does more legwork developing the new status quo of the series. And that even means there's a bit more time for it to settle back into its awkward political pontifications. But holy cats, if we're talking about awkward, there's really only one thing to lead with here, huh? Chances are if you're clicking over to read this review, whether you've been following my write-ups for The Darwin Incident or not, you're probably most interested in my thoughts one part of the episode: the moment when Charlie stiffly turns to Lucy and matter-of-factly asks her if she wants to mate.

Look, this subject had been necessarily broached, at least a little bit, a few episodes ago. There's been the tacit possibility of romantic and/or sexual attraction in the Charlie/Lucy duo dynamic, if nothing else, on account of proximity, and if you read the lyrics, it's all up in the theme song. And look, The Darwin Incident is a series with sociopolitical ambitions that's predicated on the presence of a hybridized species. It honestly only makes sense that at one point it would cross the threshold of directly addressing pseudo-interpecies relations.

But of course, the execution is as much of a dry thud as virtually any of The Darwin Incident's attempts at provocative resonance. Never mind that, apart from the aside acknowledgement, Charlie and Lucy's relationship had never previously put forward the kind of sparks or tension one would expect of writing that kind of connection. If this episode hadn't point-blank revealed it this way, I'd never have believed anyone arguing for that reading of the pairing. Yes, part of that is this episode revealing that Charlie's a late-bloomer who didn't actually start puberty until a week ago, but the generally detached regard for the relationship then applies to normal teenage girl Lucy as well.

But that general dryness has always been the way of The Darwin Incident, beginning and ending with Charlie's own matter-of-fact way of stating his cases. More than anything, that presentation is what makes it fall so flat when the humanzee asks his human friend if she wants to do it as they do on the Discovery Channel. It almost feels obligatory—there's nothing in the direction or the character performances that communicates the audacity of the ask. If I just posted screencaps of this scene, people would think I was doing a shitpost with fake subs! Maybe that's the joke? That Charlie has the same visible emotional investment in asking a girl if she wants to get it on like Donkey Kong that he does in witnessing a school shooting or the deaths of his parents? I'm not asking for him or Lucy to act overly scandalized over the concept, but they have to at least acknowledge the out-there-ness of this potential situation.

It's neither a dramatically relevant nor entertaining-in-its-absurdity handling of such a scene; it's simply cursed. The only thing more cursed is Lucy's momentarily imagined possibility of what a fully-human Charlie might look like.

This episode orbits around this dissonant indecent proposal. I already mentioned the plot point about Charlie suddenly hitting puberty, which also seemingly nets him a boost to his physical and mental capabilities, making for arguably the weirdest power-up seen in an anime in a minute. Charlie brings up the subject following Lucy's kindred-spirit confession that she's a child of artificial insemination. This rounds back to the foreshadowed secret Rivera taunted Lucy with back in the arc where she was kidnapped, and the way she treats it like such a nothingburger here really flies in the face of her concerned reaction then. It almost feels like things weren't fully set when that part of the story was written—as if some of The Darwin Incident that wants to be a tightly woven thriller is actually more made up as it's gone along.

I never thought I'd say it, but it made me grateful whenever the episode focused on Phil instead. Phil might not be so bad—he enjoys beer and steak on the weekends, and in this episode, he manages to become a good cop by turning in his resignation after being pressured on account of the whole "harboring a fugitive humanzee" thing. Funnily enough, this episode confirms that Phil's politics might actually be closest to Charlie's. Phil also believes that Charlie's life and struggles are singular and shouldn't be tied to broader animal-rights contexts that could be extrapolated from it. It is an individualist/Libertarian streak I'm not crazy about (we live in a society and all that), but it is interesting to see in this contrasted context after the series previously showed how Charlie's now-dead dad Bert could soundly squash that notion, given the chance for discussion. Everyone's still got growing to do.

Granted, that growing now involves Charlie asking the only girl he's ever said more than ten sentences to if she wants to share a banana split with him, but I suppose these are the pratfalls I wander into when I ask that The Darwin Incident make space for more character-focused downtime in between its arcs. I'd have been down for a hypothetical version of this story moment that actually engaged with the necessary emotion and complex mental hurdles that would come with such a proposition. But this series has no interest in that, just blurting it out to act as an awkward anchor alongside approaching additional advents. Part of me almost wants to respect the show for just going for it, but the way it goes about it reflects so many of The Darwin Incident's worst tendencies: just coldly putting points out there for provocation value, then interfacing with them in the most minimal way possible.

Rating:

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The Darwin Incident is currently streaming on Prime Video.

Chris's favorite ape is probably Optimus Primal. He can be found posting about anime, transforming robots, and the occasional hopefully more salient political commentary over on his BlueSky.