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

Human Resources episode 8, “The Light”

Human Resources episode 8 is an interesting installment because it reflects the best and worst parts of this show. We finally find out why Sonya got fired and it’s probably my favorite part of this entire season. Yet the other half of the episode might be my least favorite plot of this entire season. It’s definitely weird to have these two in one episode together.

Let’s start with the storyline I thought worked incredibly well and is a standout from this season for me.

After everything that happened at the conference, a depressed Emmy seeks solace from her former mentor at The Mistake Factory. Seeing as Emmy is drunk and not likely to remember much of their conversation, Sonya finally agrees to tell her how she got fired.

It all started six months before when Becca and Barry were looking into alternative birthing plans. Barry found Claudia (Janelle Monae) a doula known for working wonders on the many people she’s helped throughout her career. Becca and Barry are immediately charmed by Claudia and, surprisingly, so is Sonya. She even glows while they’re meeting her and, somehow, Claudia sees her light. At first, Sonya dismisses it as a mistake.

She consults with Walter who tells her that it’s not possible for humans that aren’t their clients to see them. It must have been some sort of fluke. But then it happens again. Claudia can see Sonya. That starts their whirlwind romance as the two fall passionately in love with one another. At first, it’s pretty great as Becca benefits from getting to know Claudia too and practicing her meditation techniques. Sonya even takes Claudia into the magical realm between worlds—the one Gil and Joe landed in during the first episode—and shows her the stars.

The celestial specter of Claudia’s birth sign Aquarius, gives her a horoscope, telling her she is destined for “greatness or madness.” After that, it starts to become apparent why it’s not a good idea for creatures and humans to be together. After seeing the stars, nothing on earth can compare. Claudia starts to become a little manic in her obsession with Sonya and Sonya realizes she cannot bring Claudia to her world.

Instead, she considers leaving her job behind and staying with Claudia on Earth. Sonya’s obsession causes problems with Becca, too, as she tries to convince Becca that she doesn’t love Barry anymore and should leave him for Claudia, resulting in Becca kicking Sonya out of her house. When Sonya returns to Claudia, she sees her in a disheveled state obsessing about how no one in the world will ever feel the kind of love she and Sonya have.

Sonya realizes that Claudia is probably sick, hence why she was able to see Sonya in the first place. She seems to have a mental illness, which corresponds with the “madness” part of her horoscope. As she falls deeper in love with Sonya, Claudia stops taking care of herself. She refuses to eat or sleep, saying all she needs is Sonya and her love.

If they stay together, Claudia will get increasingly worse and might never lead a normal life. And Sonya feels she has an important purpose in bringing joy and life to new mothers and parents. Ultimately, Sonya convinces Claudia to move on and start over fresh with her sister. It’s heartbreaking.

Emmy is astounded that Sonya went through all of that. But Sonya is okay with it. Her experience with Claudia was unlike anything she ever had in her millions of years of existence and it reminded her what love is. Even the pain was worth that feeling and the short time spent with Claudia.

And we find out that Sonya did see Claudia one more time. She went to check on her in her new home and used her glow to draw Claudia to the window. But while Sonya could see her, Claudia could no longer see Sonya, proving that she has gotten better and healed from whatever she was going through in the past. It’s so sad! I admit I teared up a little during that final moment.

So bearing all of that in mind, you might be able to understand why the other part of this episode just didn’t do anything for me. It’s about an illegal c*ck fight in the backroom of The Mistake Factory. Yes, actual penises fight each other. When you realize what Human Resources is capable of, it makes the endless d*ck and masturbation jokes feel boring in comparison.

And not only that, but we already know the Big Mouth/Human Resources universe has self-mobile penises running around so it’s not like it was anything we hadn’t seen before. The main joke was that they modeled the fighting c*cks after Rocky Balboa, Apollo Creed and Clubber Lang. It was just like, “meh.” Every time the episode cut to those scenes I was annoyed because I just wanted more of Sonya’s story.

The episode even lampshades it in-universe with Sonya saying, “I can’t believe they’re gonna pan away to a c**kfight.” I will say, I enjoyed Rick’s song, but I think I’ve established that Rick is a dark horse contender for my favorite characters on the show.

Human Resources episode 8 soundtrack

• End credits: “You’re the One That I Want” (Grease cover) by Julia Stone

Best jokes from Human Resources episode 8

• I love that they actually showed the Grinch hanging out at the bar after Emmy told Sonya the rumor about why she really got fired.
• Subtle Peacock promo!
• “I wanna glow-a on Jason Momoa.”
• Not a lot of jokes I loved in this episode as it was (mostly) more serious in tone and the subplot that was played for laughs didn’t do much for me.