Unnatural Humanly Connections to the Inhuman

In my humble opinion, I believe that the purpose of ‘Be Right Back’ is to show its viewers that our society is entirely too dependent on technology. From the start of the episode, Ash is shown on his phone almost the whole time he is on camera. During his last scene (as a man), he is shown to be interacting with his phone as he backs out of the driveway. Following his departure, it is revealed that Ash found his way to an early ending. With this occurrence of misfortune, a negative connection between humans and their interactions with technology was presented early in the episode.

As the episode progresses, technology is shown in an evolutionary manner. After Ash’s death, his girlfriend, Martha, becomes desperate and finds a way to email ‘Ash’. She finds a computer program that collects all of Ash’s social media posts, text messages, emails, etc. and uses that information to generate responses that mimic the way Ash would say them. The more Martha interacts with this program, the more dependent she becomes to it. In fact, during one scene she drops her phone while communicating with ‘Ash’ and reacts in a terrified manner thinking she may have killed ‘Ash’ again. The program reassures her that it is okay, and it then suggests that she try out this new method of communicating with ‘Ash’.

Martha decides to take this next step, and she orders the upgrade for her Ash mimicking program. Later she receives her package, which contains artificial human parts and the ingredients needed to turn the prosthetic parts into a functioning robot. She assembles her new ‘Ash’ and becomes shocked at how much the robot resembles her deceased boyfriend. Though at first cautious, she eventually develops a weak connection to the artificial life. (It seems, though, that her connection with the messaging program was much strong than that with the robot.)

Martha ends up engaging with the robot sexually shortly later, and it seems to her that she’s gotten her old Ash back. Shortly after, however, she notices more and more how inhuman the new Ash is and her feelings of being attached to “Ash 2.0” soon subside. The dependence she once felt towards the technological version of her boyfriend are turned into feelings of regret. She eventually gets too creeped out and she failingly tries to get rid of the robot. Her feeling that a part of Ash is actually in the robot prevents her removal of the artificial being, and she ends up being stuck with it. Her dependence on technology left her in an unnatural and undesirable predicament.