Another Life – Season 2 Episode 9 “What’s Bourne” Recap & Review

What’s Bourne/What’s Left Behind

Episode 9 of Another Life Season 2 starts with Niko and Richard blasting off at hyper-speed, using the power core obtained to fuel their trip back home. When the ship does eventually slow down, the pair zero in on the location of this latest Artifact, with Niko convinced that this must be held on a planet with breathable oxygen because the other planets they’ve visited have done too.

Meanwhile, Zayn, Dillon and Bernie are all captured after broadcasting a video about them at the government base. It’s caused quite the ruckus and while they’re interrogated, Cas and Eric manage to find their way aboard the Salvare. Or at least the half that’s made it back to Earth at least. As they hunt for William, our AI companion happens to be off with Seth.

Niko and Richard make it onto another planet and Niko’s theory about the oxygen holds true. That’s lucky! As they continue on together, weapons in hand, they begin to examine some strange ruins. Symbols up on the wall show spider-like people and below, hidden under glass, are the corpses of the fallen. It appears as if this is a graveyard of some description.

Before they can dwell too much on this, a door opens in front of them and a blinding light beckons the pair to drop their weapons and head through to the other side. This has an adverse effect on Seth, who clutches his head in agony.

In order to quell this though, William decides to double-cross Eric and encourages him and Cas to join Seth in the lab. Eventually armed guards show up, not taking no for an answer.

With Jana’s life on the line, Eric agrees to let Seth add an implant into his head. One of the spiders comes crawling out across the table, while Seth incapacitates his body while he projects into the ship with Niko and Richard. He shows a doorway straight across to Earth, opening the bridge to let the pair through.

This all happens to be William’s plan though, who hacks into the Achaian spider in order to buy Niko and Richard some time.

While the pair fight inside the implant, Niko and Richard make it through the doorway back to Earth in one piece. As they make their way through and rejoin the others, William makes it back safe and sound too. In the process, he manages to thwart Seth’s threat completely.

However, the Achaia are on their way to Earth, having somehow found their way through courtesy of a wormhole. In order to stop them, Eric and William trade ideas about using a neutrino weapon. However, it’s far from complete.

As they work together to try and fix this aboard the Salvare, an Achaian ring heads straight for Eric and William, eventually blowing the ship up completely as those on Earth can only watch in horror.

The Episode Review

So Niko and Richard finally make it back to Earth after following their breadcrumb trail of sub-quests. However, they’ve also brought the Achaians with them it would seem, leaving doubts over the safety of everyone on our planet.

Most of this season has been gearing up for the Achaians vs Earth fight but unfortunately it doesn’t look like we’ve got much time for actual fighting this season. If there is any at all, that is.

Much like the first season, a lot of the issues here stem from the characters who just aren’t very likable. This season has done absolutely nothing to quell those doubts, with all the supporting characters completely disposable and no emotional resonance with anyone who has died this season.

While an improvement over the disastrous episode 8, Another Life is still not great and with only one episode to go, will this one end on another cliffhanger? We’ll have to wait and see.