A way that technology can't help

In ‘Be Right Back” couple Martha and Ash move into a new home ready to commence their lives together. Unfortunately, on a day out, Ash passes away leaving Martha alone full of grief. At Ash’s funeral, a friend tells Martha that she could sign her up to a program that she used to help her get over her loss. Martha on the other hand, did not care to hear about the program nor accept the woman’s offer for the program.

A while after Ash’s death, Marth receives an email from the lady from the funeral saying that she had signed Martha up for the program. Seconds later Martha sees that she has an email from “Ash” but proceeds to ignore it. Martha later then finds out that she is pregnant with Ash’s child.  With what seems a like a need to at least tell “Ash himself” the news, Martha opens the email from “Ash” and tells him. Using information from Ash’s social medias, the program mimics the way that Ash would talk explaining as to why Martha got hooked.

Ash, the program, then tells Martha that there is a next step where they could both talk to each other on the phone. Agreeing to it, Martha gives the program videos of Ash that it later uses to replicate Ash’s voice. Once hearing Ash’s voice again Martha becomes obsessed. She tries to, what seems like, remind program Ash of old memories that they both shared as well as keep him up to date with what is happening to her. When Martha breaks her phone causing her to lose “Ash” again Martha rushes to get a new phone, you can then see just how attached she had become to the fake Ash.  

“Ash” then tells Martha about an expensive upgrade that she could make. Once accepting to this upgrade as well without thinking about the cons, Martha then receives a robotic version of Ash. When robotic Ash begins to move around and interact with Martha she then begins to fear robotic Ash proving Masahiro Mori’s hypothesis about the uncanny valley. After trying to live with robotic Ash like as if he was the real Ash, Martha then begins to realize that robotic Ash will never be like the real Ash then sending him into the attic.

As Martha talked to robotic Ash throughout the episode, she kept hoping that he would become just like the real Ash. The problem was that robotic Ash only had the real Ash’s memories that were given to him from social media and videos from Martha. Not having every memory and experience that Ash had, robotic Ash would not have the lessons and emotions that the real Ash had making robotic Ash just a replica of social media Ash. Having a version that version of Ash Martha was not able to get over Ash because she had to keep bring up memories to remind the fake Ash. Even though she ended up putting him in the attic, Martha would then never be able truly find peace because he would always be there.