“Humans” Sneaked In One Of The Best Queer Subplots On TV This Season

Humans is a show that poses Westworld-esque big picture questions about the blurred lines between artificial intelligence and humanity, with love — romantic and familial — at its heart. It also explores themes of discrimination and acceptance, holding up a mirror to our own society through powerful metaphors. Oh, and while you weren’t looking it sneaked in one of the best queer subplots on TV this season.

Humans takes place in a future where realistic-looking humanoid robots (called Synthetic Humans, or Synths for short) are commonplace — they do service and factory jobs, and they’re even common in households for cleaning, cooking, and basic childcare. Though they look believably human, and they feature an adaptive artificial intelligence, they’re really just computers in a pretty package.

That is, until now. One maverick scientist made a band of conscious Synths, and the first two seasons of the show follow their journey of staying safe from those who wish to shut them down forever, and trying to figure out if they’ll ever find their place in this world. With the help of the Hawkins family, which includes Laura, a tough-as-nails lawyer; her husband; and their three kids. I could write a whole thesis on their youngest, Sophie, and the way she started to mimic Synths more and more as the episodes went on to try to shut down her own feelings and keep the chaos from hurting her precious little heart, but we’re not here for Sophie, or any of the Hawkins’, really.

We’re here to talk about Niska.

Niska from Humans

I knew there’d be a queer storyline in season two, but I didn’t know who it was between, and yet Niska is who I fell in love with in season one. Every conscious Synth had a different reaction to being awake, and Niska’s was largely a defensiveness, and for good reason. Her creator, the scientist who built them, the one they call their father, treated her like a sex robot even though he knew the scope of her consciousness. And even her brother, the human with synthetic parts, the only hybrid among them, left her in a brothel to be a sex slave until he found somewhere “safe” for them. As if somehow she was safer in there than on the run.

One day a man came into the brothel and wanted her to act scared, to act like a little girl. This was Niska’s breaking point. She said no, and when he got violent, she got violent right back. He got under her skin, and she’s metal under there, so she snapped his neck and used his hand to escape.

Though Niska has as many feelings as the rest of the conscious Synths, she has learned all too quickly that expressing her feelings leaves her vulnerable, and being vulnerable can be dangerous. So she builds walls, like any traumatized human might, making her seem at a glance like the most robotic of the Synths. Funnily enough, the person who elicits the most emotional response from her is Sophie, who Niska recognizes as the first person to accept her for who she is, full stop.

At the end of season one, Niska sets off on her own journey; she dyes her hair and puts in contacts to hide the synthetic color of her eyes, and tries to navigate the world as a human. I’m not sure what exactly she was looking for, but in the beginning of season two, what she found was Astrid.

Niska and Astrid walk side by side

Astrid and Niska dive headlong into a romance, Astrid trying to figure Niska out little by little — the bandage she never removes from her side (her Synth charging port), who hurt her in the past — without realizing Niska is trying to figure that out for herself, too.

Overwhelmed with her feelings for Astrid, Niska goes back to Laura Hawkins and says she’s ready to turn herself in for the murder she committed, but she wants to be tried as a human. She, the most seemingly unfeeling of the lot, wants to pave the way for equal rights for conscious Synths. This will be especially important because they now have a code that can wake up Synths; it’s currently rolling out slowly, but could be a mass awakening someday, and Niska is willing to sacrifice herself to make sure their lives were better.

During the trial, where Laura’s task is to prove that Niska did indeed think and feel like a human, Astrid is called in as a last-ditch effort to get Niska’s readings to show feeling the way the opposing lawyer wanted them to. Astrid has no idea before being brought into court that Niska is a Synth, and much to Niska’s surprise, she doesn’t care.

Realizing there’s no way this trial ends in anything but her being shut down, she breaks out of holding and hides out with Astrid. She tells Laura she tried to be selfless and it failed, and now she has something worth living for.

Niska holds Astrid's hand

There’s something beautiful in the way she reaches for Astrid’s hand. That urge isn’t something she was programmed with — in fact, most affectionate touching was programmed as inappropriate by anyone not designated a Synth’s “primary user” — yet when a group of conscious Synths were broken out of an evil corporation’s lab, many of their first instincts were to reach out for each other.

And Laura understands. It’s not fair to put the social acceptance of conscious Synths all on this one girl. She’s been through enough. But ever since Laura first met the eyes of a conscious Synth, she knew they had more humanity in their heads and hearts than some humans made of flesh and bone, and she’s going to keep fighting for them.

And they’ll need her, because more Synths are “waking up” and even before there were conscious Synths, there were Synth-free communities, and radical anti-Synth groups. But she’s ready to be a Synth ally; she’s ready to do the work to change people’s minds.

The last scene we see Niska and Astrid together in takes place on a train platform. They’re ready to get the hell out of dodge, but Astrid can see that Niska is thinking about her family, worried about them. Niska’s voice is near desperate when she says, “I won’t lose you again.” Astrid laughs lovingly; she realizes now she’s the first person Niska has ever been in love with. “No wonder you’re so intense,” she jokes, eliciting a rare smile from her girlfriend.

Niska smiles at Astrid

Which honestly isn’t that different from a person who comes out at an older age. You’re like a teenager again, you have to start all over. Suddenly all the conversations your friends had when you were younger come back to you, finally translated into a language you understand. All the cheesy love songs make sense.

Astrid tells her to do what she has to do for her family, just to make sure she comes home. Niska is feeling another new feeling for the first time — this sense of anxiety that she might not be back. She never cared before, she’d run right toward the danger. But now she has something, someone to live for.

Astrid sends her off with a kiss and hopefully that’s not the last we see of her.

Niska and Astrid kiss goodbye

Astrid and Niska remind me a bit of Nomi and Amanita on Sense8. Just like Amanita, Astrid was surprised to find her girlfriend tangled up in a web of life-and-death chaos, but also like Amanita, it didn’t change how Astrid felt about Niska. She was on her side no matter what.

Of all the relationships on Humans, Niska and Astrid’s was the only one — Synth or not — that survived and thrived. Mia had a boyfriend who SHUT HER OFF to sell her on the black market. Laura’s husband wanted to move them to a Synth-free community. Leo slept with a Synth whose wiring was a bit twisted and she proceeded to try to murder him; plus, another Synth/human relationship that ended in death. The teenage son did have a cute relationship, but Niska and Astrid’s was definitely the best adult relationship. And the issues weren’t what you would expect — it wasn’t a Synth/human scandal, it wasn’t a woman/woman scandal. It was Niska running away from her feelings (which had more to do with feelings being new than anything else) and Astrid not letting her. It was a surprising happy place amid the carnage, and even though so many people — humans and Synths alike — didn’t survive the season, our lady-loving ladies miraculously did.

Niska and Astrid under a sheet on the couch

Humans left a lot of avenues open for another season, which is good because it was just renewed for eight more episodes set to air in 2018. I’d love to see more of Niska navigating the world of dating and having feelings — and what will surely be persecution from people, who are outwardly against human/Synth relationships, once conscious Synths are the norm. It’d be nice to see Niska and Astrid bumped into the spotlight (as long as that doesn’t also put them in any crosshairs).

Sci-fi and fantasy are where our stories thrive. Think about what survived the Bury Your Gays purge of 2016: Supergirl, Orphan Black, Wynonna Earp — and now Humans. It’s unfortunate that we can’t turn on any TV show in any genre and have the same amount of hope that a well-written queer storyline will appear, but I’m thankful there’s a genre where we continue to shine. Stories like Niska’s give me hope that there are people out there who do want to tell our stories, and who can tell a meaningful stories, even as a subplot, while still managing to avoid all the worst tropes. Whether or not our future involves Synths, conscious or unconscious, I hope it involves more stories like Niska and Astrid’s.

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Valerie Anne

Just a TV-loving, Twitter-addicted nerd who loves reading, watching, and writing about stories. One part Kara Danvers, two parts Waverly Earp, a dash of Cosima and an extra helping of my own brand of weirdo.

Valerie has written 596 articles for us.

38 Comments

  1. oh this is a great summary! and astrid is the cutest and i love love love everything about this show.

  2. This is a well written and well cast series. I’m looking forward to Series 3 already. Hope you all enjoy it too.

  3. Awesome.
    ‘Real Humans’, the Swedish TV-series ‘Humans’ is based on, has a lesbian couple as well. Their storyline is pretty depressing, though. Not only do they spend most of their screentime arguing and splitting up due to their differing opinions on Synths, they are repeatedly subjected to one of the Synths’ strong homophobia based on the fact that the couple ‘can’t have children’ (even though she herself cannot give birth, either).
    One element I do like, however, is the fact that one of the women in the relationship is a priest. This adds an interesting and positive view on the combination of (organised) religion and homosexuality, which is refreshing.

    The way they are treating the (very different) queer storyline on the British show seems 200% better, though. Bravo.

    • P.S. Forgot to mention that both women in the relationship are human. Come to think of it, I’m also pretty sure they’re married. Or at least they were at the beginning…

  4. Thanks so much for writing about this show, Valerie! Having watched both Westworld and Humans, I really prefer Humans for its exploration of some similar issues, but with much less gratuitous violence and nudity.

    One minor thing – you said that “Sci-fi and fantasy are where our stories thrive. Think about what survived the Bury Your Gays purge of 2016: Supergirl, Orphan Black, Wynonna Earp — and now Humans.” Unfortunately, scifi shows also gave us our deepest wounds – the deaths of Lexa on The 100 and Root on Person of Interest, plus I know there were others on shows like The Walking Dead. Genre doesn’t protect us :(.

    • I agree, but in my experience, we still have a higher chance of finding complex, meaningful storylines in genre than we do anywhere else, as opposed to Very Special Episodes. Shondaland excepting.

      • Yeah, I do agree with this as well – partly just because scifi/fantasy is a better domain for complexly written female characters in general, but also specifically because in recent years, genre on mainstream (U.S.) television is more likely to have queer female characters than, say, comedies or dramas (as you say, with the exception of Shonda Rhimes’ dramas!).

        At the same time, I think Zahra below makes a great point about how it’s a specific subset of scifi shows that have (so far) done well with queer female characters and f/f relationships, and that perhaps the common factor is less the genre of show and more the fact of having a significant contingent of young female viewers (besides The Fosters, there’s also Pretty Little Liars on Freeform).

        But whatever the reason, I definitely appreciate having Humans in the mix, and hope Niska and Astrid will continue their story in S3!

    • Genre doesn’t protect but I’d say it’s the one where we’re more like to say the wlw survive too – it gives us hope – which is perhaps why it can be why it also gives us our deepest wounds.

      • I LOVE genre, especially sf and fantasy, but I have to agree with wevelian: genre doesn’t protect us. There’s a long, long, and very painful history of sf and fantasy especially being overtly homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic (not limited to including our story lines only to do TERRIBLE things with them). Much of that is historically linked to how male-dominated genre has been.

        What’s distinctive about the shows you mention is that they have relatively small niche audiences and cater to young and female audiences, two demographics more likely to support wlw and their story lines, or at least not to react badly. Genre shows (outside procedurals) tend to have niche audiences, but who makes them up is even more important.

        A show like The Fosters, which also relies on a young, mostly female and increasingly non-white audience, is just as important. All the more so because most of the genre shows you mention try to offset their niche nature by catering as much as possible to white audiences.

  5. This is a fantastic review, Valerie. Thank you. Can you tell me how bloody this show is on a scale of one to Game of Thrones?

    • Well it’s definitely not Game of Thrones bloody, because it doesn’t get very bloody very often (Synths, conveniently, bleed blue, so it’s less gruesome), but when it DOES get bloody, it’s decently bloody… I should start writing these things down when I watch…

  6. This wasn’t even on my radar, and now I’m really looking forward to checking it out. Thanks for writing about it!

  7. I’m so glad you liked it!
    I’m a little surprised it’s getting a third season; without getting too spoilery, that ending seems very series-finale-like.

    • I 100% agree, when I first wrote this post I said that it felt open enough to warrant a third season but also final enough to be a satisfying forever-ending. I’m really intrigued to see what S3 will look like!

    • While I agree, there are enough open threads it could be picked up – just like the end of s1. I guess because it’s joint funded between Channel 4 and AMC and broadcast at different times (it was broadcast here in the UK several months ago) they have complicated negotiations about renewing it every season.

  8. So I’m gonna go watch this show now. But more importantly, the thumbnail photo for this article is almost identical to the thumbnail for your Wynonna Earp article from a couple days ago, and that brings me great joy.

  9. Awww yisss I love Humans. I can’t get enough of this show. I’m excited for season three.

  10. The moment when she laughed and said “ohhh, I’m your first relationship, no wonder you’re so intense!” was just so perfect.

  11. Humans altogether is great, imo. The synth vs humans, the synths awakening and how they cope/don’t differently from it and the humans learning to live with synths, allows for a full-filling show to get your teeth into. It’s really well shot as well, so it doesn’t feel cheesy like some sci-fi stuff can. It feels overall like a good body of work both visually and also in the plot/narrative/character offerings, so I don’t think you’d be wasting your time checking it out, if haven’t done so already. Nistrid is a lovely bonus (good dynamic + attractive actresses) to what is my ideal type of viewing experience (a great show that has solid writing/narrative, well conceived characters and plot, and a diverse cast as near possible when possible. The women overall in this are great too (not that the men aren’t), but Niska, Mia, Laura, Karen, in particular, held most of my attention, and Sophie’s rather amusing too. If you’re a Merlin or The Fall fan, then Colin Morgan is in this.

    While the series 2 end seemed poetic enough (in a strange way) to be a good ending forever, I also think it will be very interesting to see how they explore what will be to come in s3. I know what I’d like to see, but won’t go on about it now. Maybe if you recap the next series I’ll blabber on then.

    Niska and Astrid (and in fairness Call The Midwife too) are the only shows at the moment that I have really liked the non straight females, not just as the couple but also as individuals, and they’re very contrasting couplings, but both made me happy (at least at the end of both series wrap-ups).

    The person asking about blood, this is in no way bloody like Game of Thrones is, it’s more ‘normal’ or reasonable in its violence/blood quantity, unlike GOT that seems to like overbudgeting on fake blood use from all the gore it contains.

  12. Not gonna lie: I’ve been crushing on Niska/Emily Berrington since Season 1. Giving her a queer relationship is like the cherry on top. That aside, I think she’s a really complex character.

  13. “The last scene we see Niska and Astrid together in takes place on a train platform. They’re ready to get the hell out of dodge”
    Are they going to Hogwarts? They should totally go to Hogwarts because Hogwarts will always be there to welcome them home.

  14. I really liked Westworld at first but then around episode seven or eight I became “meh” about it

      • Like does HBO realize that showing people getting their heads blown off is literally the most boring way possible to explore humanity’s capacity for cruelty?

      • Agreed. But I will keep watching as long as Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual is on.
        She was super hot dressed as a cowgirl

  15. Awesome review! Watching Humans is a family event for us. So when I started reading this, I thought the new season has begun. I texted everyone “Humans is back!”. My sister responded, “Whaaa? That was fast!”

    That’s when I realized I had premature elation. The article made me too excited for next season.

  16. I totally lost interest. Queen plot is in every show produced since 2006. Now someone “coded” it in the machine(s). I get its fake but that was toooooooo unoriginal.

      • OR maybe it’s about how pretty much ever show features a royalty storyline. The Queen of Daxom, the Princess of Purgatory, The Royal Clones, etc etc

    • It wasn’t actually explicitly coded though? At no point did any of the characters say “Our father made you gay”.

      The implication behind Niska and the other synthetic being conscious is that they can develop the same traits that organic humans can.
      Season 2 was wonderful because it showed that the conscious synthetic were just as complex, nuanced and *diverse* as organic humans.

      In many respects (and this applies to both season 1 and 2), synths come across as being *more* human than the organic characters, because they are so flawed and conflicted and real, and Niska’s sexuality is part of that.

  17. I binge watched season 1 and 2 because of this review and I don’t regret a thing. The world it presents and the stories it told had me hooked instantly and I think its because of how you enter the story through this very simple family and you learn through them. I think it makes a better entry point to the themes the show is trying to convey than westworld just because it was easier to relate to. Also Niska was immediately my favorite the second she broke out of that brothel. I loved watching her character development over the 2 seasons and I hope good things are to come for her and Astrid in season 3.

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