Is Ash2 Really Ash? And Why Martha Rejects Ash2

If you had the chance to bring back someone you loved, would you? The answer to this question seems obvious; most of us would immediately respond to the question with an emphatic yes. However, everything may not be as it seems. In Be Right Back, we see a mourning woman order a nearly-identical robot simulation of her recently deceased boyfriend. However, she very quickly finds herself hating the android as much as she loved the original Ash. Where does her anger come from? What is it about the reproduction Ash that so repulses her? And can we really say that this android is truly Ash?

When Ash2 is first activated, Martha is overcome with emotion at seeing her beloved again. However, joy is far from the emotion we see expressed in her behavior in this scene. She is at first shocked, and perhaps even disturbed. She mentions that he looks like the original Ash (Ash1) “on a good day”. She also cannot decide whether she is bothered by the fact that Ash2 doesn’t have fingerprints. Martha seems more shocked and confused about how she feels about this android than she seems relieved to have her loved one back, or even that she holds any love for this machine at all.

As time progresses, Martha attempts to re-establish her former life with Ash2 attempting to fill the place Ash1 held. However, despite their combined efforts, nothing seems to sit quite right with Martha. She becomes increasingly more disturbed by the differences between Ash2 and Ash1. Ash2 doesn’t breathe. He cuts his hand on glass and neither bleeds nor seems to feel any pain. While having sex, he shows no personal investment in the proceedings beyond performing his duty of imitating Ash1. Eventually, Martha becomes so disturbed by his so-close-but-not-exactly-right performance of Ah1 that she comes very close to destroying Ash2.

Martha got sucked into the program because the original computer software was a good enough imitation of Ash1 that she truly felt that Ah1 was still there, barring the occasional misstep of Ash2. However, as time went on and she delved deeper into the program, she became increasingly aware of the important aspects of Ash1 that were missing in Ash2. Ash2 not only failed to display certain behaviors that were characteristic of Ash1, but failed to truly emulate human life at all in his complete disregard for his own feelings… if he even had any to begin with. I think it is likely he didn’t, only possessing the means to replicate the physical behaviors that accompany emotions in humans – or organic humans, perhaps I should say. I feel, and to an extent I think Martha would agree, that due to these significant differences, we cannot say that Ash2 is the “real” Ash, as in Ash1.

By the end of the episode, Martha was aware of enough difference between Ash1 and Ash2 to no longer find comfort in Ash2’s presence, but neither could she see enough difference to make herself let go of the android. The episode ends with her stuck with the ghost of her love, not quite alive but not quite dead either, haunting her attic and refusing to let her truly move on with her life, even a decade later.