Netflix’s Human Resources season 1 recap guide: Episodes 1 to 10

Human Resources episode 7, “International Creature Convention”

“International Creature Convention” is going to be a potentially polarizing episode as it gets pretty crazy and dark in some scenes. The setting is, as you might guess, an International Creature Convention held over the skies of North Korea in a floating Radisson Hotel for some reason.

The convention is the first time Rochelle and Emmy have been around each other since Emmy saw Rochelle and Dante making out. Instead of confronting Rochelle, Emmy acts super passive-aggressive toward her and tries to force Rochelle to tell her the truth by constantly making digs at Dante. A guilty Rochelle struggles to juggle Emmy and Dante. Rochelle wants to be a good friend, but she also can’t deny that she’s got real feelings for Dante.

Further complicating things is Pete, who asks Rochelle out for drinks. Poor Pete gets left in the lurch by a distracted Rochelle who is too wrapped up in Dante’s orbit to notice that Pete has feelings for her.

Then Dante shows up at the convention out of the blue and tells Rochelle he loves her, forcing the Lovebug to make a decision. She enlists Walter’s help and, through song, he and his on-and-off-again conference fling Simon Sex (Jemaine Clement) make Rochelle confront her feelings. Does she love Dante too, or is she just in it for the sex? If she loves him, then maybe betraying Emmy isn’t as bad since she’s doing it for real love.

Rochelle tells Emmy the truth, that she’s in love with Dante, but it backfires spectacularly. Emmy can’t believe Rochelle thought telling her that would make her feel better and calls Rochelle self-centered. Rochelle and Dante being in love is a slap in the face to Emmy since it means Dante didn’t care about her at all.

The tension between the pair boils over during the award ceremony when Rochelle receives the prestigious Dolly Parton award. Emmy loses her cool completely and goes on a heated tirade, resulting in her transforming into a raging Hateworm. And since she’s drunk, she ends up throwing up all over everyone in the room. Ick. It doesn’t seem likely that these two can make amends anytime soon.

Elsewhere at the hotel, Lionel meets a beautiful Shame Wizard named Asha (Lupita Nyong’o) who immediately propositions him for sex. But their little hookup turns weird really fast as Asha starts berating him and shaming him. Since they are Shame Wizards, Lionel gets into it, but before they can actually have sex, they’re interrupted by Asha’s husband Arsalan.

Arsalan and Asha get into a heated fight that turns violent. For all intents and purposes, it looks like they might have an abusive relationship and after Arsalan leaves, Asha begs Lionel to help her escape from the relationship. She convinces him to murder Arsalan.

Together they go to the roof and Asha gives Lionel a gun, but when Lionel shoots Arsalan, the entire scheme is revealed to be a ruse. Arsalan was wearing a bulletproof vest! It turns out the married couple is just super kinky. They like pulling elaborate stunts with, I’m assuming, random men at events. They tie Lionel naked to their bed and start fooling around in front of him and slapping each other and then they try to coax Lionel into a threesome.

Arsalan tells Lionel to hit him. Thinking they want more violence, Lionel grabs the gun to shoot Arsalan again, but he’s no longer wearing a bulletproof vest. Thinking he actually just killed someone, Lionel abandons ship and rushes out. It’s later revealed that Arsalan survived, although we only have Lionel’s word for it, so who knows?

Again, Maury and Connie end up having the sweetest storyline in this episode. In a surprisingly heartwarming arc, the pair say “I love you” to each other for the first time. Connie gets irritated because Maury keeps saying it to just about every random person in the hotel, yet he’s never said it to her. Unfortunately, when they do say it to each other, the resulting sex is terrible.

They realize it’s better for them to not say I love you, but to “f**k each other like they hate each other,” seemingly reaching a new understanding in their relationship. I know it doesn’t sound sweet written out but I swear it’s cute in context! Especially at the end when Maury emits a moony sigh and tells Connie, “I just hate you so much.”

Human Resources episode 7 soundtrack

• Walter and Simon’s song to Rochelle: “Are You In Love? (Or Just An A**hole?)” by Jemaine Clement and Brandon Kyle Goodman feat. Keke Palmer
• End credits: “Eternelle” by Brigette Fontaine

Best jokes and stray observations from Human Resources episode 7

• “Oh damn thats a sad way to start this episode.”
• “He seems to be listening to a Mariah Carey album from start to finish and I don’t feel comfortable interrupting that.”
• “FYI your ice cream sucks.” “That’s butter.”
• “Now that we said I love you, I don’t want to destroy your a**, I want to protect it.”
• I love that Lionel is reading a book titled “How To Be Lonely” after everything.