'Extrapolations' gets its hands dirty

Earlier this month, I wrote about the Apple TV+ show Extrapolations for The Nation. It's a science fiction show that projects how the world might change in the coming decades due to unabated climate change. I argued that, for all its ambition, Extrapolations was deeply insular show, conservative in its perspective and unable to address structural issues. To put it bluntly, the show is too white, too rich, too first-world-problems.

But one episode interrupts the show's unequal geography. Written by Rajiv Joseph and directed by Richie Mehta, "2059 Part II: Nightbirds" is the only episode that spends extended time in the Global South. It's the only episode that feels lived-in, that takes breathing hazards and heat mortality as a constant presence in peoples' lives.

The hour opens in Mumbai and follows a driver and a bodyguard, Gaurav (Adarsh Gourav) and Neel (Gaz Choudhry), transporting a package across Northern India that turns out to contain super special secret seeds. The package doesn't matter so much, because for half the episode they don't know what it is. For the other half, what matters is that it is a package of hope.

As I argue in the review, nearly all of Extrapolations takes place indoors and behind glass windows, but the characters in "2059 Part II: Nightbirds" negotiate the outdoors as a matter of course. Gaurav stays out of the open streets until the sun sets, ending the day-time curfew, and he sneaks an extra drag from the oxygen tank kiosk (it is a pay-for-each-pull system). The warehouse where the two men meet is suspended in a layer of fog. A layer of dust and grime streaks Gaurav’s truck, accentuating the passing LED lights when they hit the highway, blurred and vibrant. As they drive, the camera stays with the men, set at odds but slowly understanding each other, a string of Christmas lights outlines the interior cabin.

It is a world alive to the outside. But the outside is deadly. Gaurav sucks on his portable oxygen tank through a worn and filthy mask, but Neel needles him, insisting that his nanobot inhaler is a cleaner experience. When they stop from their travels to escape the daylight, they rest in hyperbaric sleeping bags. Gaurav’s is held together with duct tape. Even the safety of vehicles is tenuous, vulnerable to the midday heat. They track the wet bulb temperature with devotion because exposure is deadly. Too much time in direct sunlight empties a man like a dry shell; that is, if he survives.  

At one point Neel chides his companion, speculating why Gaurav got chosen for this critical job when all the other drivers had been killed or spooked by their contractor’s enemies. “You’re so insignificant,” Neel says, “no one knows you exist.” These protagonists aren’t scientists, researchers, representatives, or tech innovators, they are two strangers trying to finish a job and get by. The seeds are special, but what resonates in this episode is how the characters interact with their environment, how they connect under deadly conditions, how their sacrifices for each other help them stay attached to the world.

Joseph and Mehta's episode does not redeem the rest of Extrapolations. It throws into relief what the rest of the show fails to be. But, even outside the context of the rest of the series, it is an episode worth watching.