Sonnie's Edge

**Sonnie's Edge (❤️❌🐍)** is the series premiere and the first episode of the first volume of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS.

3 Symbols:

1. Heart
2. Cross
3. Snake

## Episode Synopsis

In the underground world of "beastie" fights, Sonnie is unbeatable -- as long as she keeps her edge.

## Plot

In a dystopian cyberpunk future, a scarred and traumatised young woman and her ragtag group partake in gruesome death matches where engineered beasts mercilessly tear each other apart to death for entertainment.

Sonnie (Helen Sadler) has a beast and is an undefeated fighter, considered to have some sort of secret ace. Dicko (Time Winters) attempts to bribe her to rig the fight, but Sonnie refuses. Sonnie fights in the arena, and is victorious again.

Sonnie then meets Jennifer (Hayley McLaughlin), Dicko's mistress, and implies the secret to her success is something other than what people think. In an erotic scene the first twist seen is that Jennifer betrays Sonnie and stabs her in the face with a knife-hand glove apparatus. Sonnie seems to get tricked and killed by this deception but just as Jennifer and Dicko believe that they have killed her, Sonnie one-ups them and reveals that she had fully switched places with her fighting-monster and proceeds to kill Jennifer and Dicko (supposedly) where it cuts to black and Sonnie can be heard whispering: "Are you scared now?"

## Cast

* Helen Sadler at the Internet Movie Database as Sonnie
* Hayley McLaughlin at the Internet Movie Database as Jennifer
* Time Winters at the Internet Movie Database as Dicko
* Omid Abtahi at the Internet Movie Database as Wes
* Christine Adams at the Internet Movie Database as Ivrina
* Hakeem Kae-Kazim at the Internet Movie Database as Simon
* Braden Lynch at the Internet Movie Database as Announcer

## Trivia

* This episode is based on the short story of the same name from Peter F. Hamilton's book, *A Second Chance at Eden.*
	+ A sequel to the story, called "Sonnie's Union", was released on March 2020 in the anthology *Made to Order: Robots and Revolution*. However, *Love, Death & Robots* did not pick it up for season 2.
* In the original story, it was revealed that Sonnie's body had been damaged in a car crash and the story of her assault by the estate men was fabricated, while in the episode, the assault happened but was revealed not to be her main motivator.
	+ According to Noshir Dalal, one of the pre-viz crew members of the episode, "Dave Wilson's (the writer/director) original script did have mention of the accident. The changes may have come at the request of higher-ups, or it may have simply been an issue of not enough time."
* In the original story, Dicko does not appear to witness the assassination attempt on Sonnie, and the story ends just before Sonnie attacks Jennifer, seemingly leaving both Jennifer and Dicko's fates ambigous at the time.
	+ However, in the sequel story "Sonnie's Union", it is revealed that Sonnie does indeed take out both Jennifer and Dicko soon after.
* The episode has a number of details hinting at the ending reveals:
	+ Sonnie may be wearing a hood to cover her head device.
	+ Khanivore moves in her tank, which indicates she is already connected to Sonnie.
	+ Though it may just be symbolic, Sonnie walks on glass, which may indicate her human body can't feel pain.
	+ When Wes connects Sonnie to Khanivore, it can be seen on his device that the connection is actually being severed, and he hits a skull and crossbones icon which causes Sonnie's head device to turn from green to red.
	+ Unlike Simon, Sonnie is completely still during the match because she's not in her human body at that point.
	+ Normally beastie drivers can sense their surroundings but when Khanivore was stabbed, Ivrina shouts to Khanivore although Sonnie is next to her.
	+ Sonnie still wears her head device after the match.
	+ When Sonnie follows Jennifer into her team's truck, she closes the door on a glowing human-shaped outline, presumably for her body to rest in when her affinity link is off.
	+ Jennifer says she's with Dicko for "Security." This has a double meaning that she is security for Dicko, not the other way around.
	+ Sonnie's head device is still green after her head is smashed, but it's red once her voice is coming from the speaker. Her body twitches before the device shuts off, indicating the remaining connection was failing, as the device was already separated from her head.
* Regarding the soundtrack, composer Robert Cairns explained "I liked the idea of toying with signals and the glitches within the signals" because "Everything Sonnie experiences as a human is, due to the affinity link, just a signal."

## References

1. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story\_fbid=2696492463769658&id=126372347448362
2. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/LoveDeathAndRobots/comments/b38q8w/truths\_about\_sonnies\_edge\_spoilers/eiy1dgt/
3. ↑ https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/love-death-robots-season-2-composer-interview