Created by Scott Smith, “The Peripheral” is a sci-fi series based on William Gibson’s science fiction novel of the same title. Explaining the plot of “The Peripheral” is indeed an exhausting task since it is a labyrinthine story with hundreds of timelines and fictitious technologies. This is a story about Flynne Fisher (played by Chloë Grace Moretz), a North Carolina resident who lives with her ailing mother and her brother named Burton (played by Jack Reynor). Flynne utilized a new virtual reality (VR) headset that was initially thought to be a gaming simulator, but it turned out to be a futuristic world where technology had wiped off the human race and people were now using android forms known as Peripherals. The situation is not as straightforward as it seems, though, as we can see from the series that there are characters from many timelines acting for various reasons that will ultimately result in a catastrophe. So let’s travel with Flynne to get the minute details about “The Peripheral.”

Spoilers Ahead

What Is The Peripheral? 

The story begins in London, 2099, when an adult Wilf Netherton meets his sister, a young Aelita West, and they discuss rescuing the world. We later learn that Aelita’s body was an android called the Peripheral, which was basically controlled by its user. We are then introduced to Flynne Fisher, who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with her ailing mother, Ella Fisher, and her brother Burton, who plays virtual reality games to pay his bills. We quickly discover that, like his brother, Flynne is also skilled at V.R. gaming. Later, we meet Billy Ann, Flynne’s best friend, and Tommy Constantine, a police officer. Billy Ann mentioned that Burton generally made his sister play the games, and the billionaires who paid him didn’t even realize it was a woman. Though Flynne was not interested in the recognition, she claimed that she only had one world, one existence, and she had to live in it. However, we are soon exposed to a whole new realm of virtual reality, where we will hear a lot more intriguing things that are associated with future timelines. Burton showed Flynne an experimental V.R. headset that he received from a Colombian company. Flynne knew that it was a “sim,” yet it was considerably more lifelike than a video game. In this game, Flynne controlled a model of Burton and transported it to the 22nd century in London. These devices are known as peripherals since they have no sensory activity unless the user controls them. Flynne was practically living in her brother’s peripheral version, and the A.I. was telling her to bring a character named Mariel to the adult Aelita West, who was the A.I.’s voice. After Flynne woke up from the simulator, she began to feel its side effects on her body.

We are introduced to Corbell Pickett, a powerful narcotics manufacturer in town. When Corbell’s men began arguing with Flynne, Burton’s former Marine Corps squad mate, Conner, stepped in. Conner was a triple amputee who had been a crippled in a blast, but despite that, he was a skilled fighter. Flynne returned to the peripheral and found herself in the operation theatre, where Burton’s peripheral eye had been replaced with Mariel’s, allowing Aelita access to a green colored inverted pyramid. However, forcing the peripheral to scan his eye hurt him as much as it hurt Flynne’s eye. Flynne could sense the Peripheral’s physical harm even after Aelita and the peripheral were caught by a guard named Daniel, sent by Cherise Nuland. Since this time travel was more like transferring awareness from the past to the future, it might be hypothesized that part of the data from the future may also be transmitted to the past, which is why Flynne could feel the effects of her Peripheral’s pain from injury.

Why Was Lev Zubov Finding Aelita? What Is Stub?

Meanwhile, someone from the future (probably Cherise Nuland) had hired a bunch of mercenaries and sent them to Flynne’s house to kill her and her family, so Burton was ready to confront them with the support of his marine pals. Each Marine has a cybernetic device fitted with them, which allows them to communicate with one another. But the mercenaries hack their devices, and one of them breaks into Flynne’s house, but Burton kills him. Since the Marines’ ammo ran out, Conner rushed to their aid, killing all the soldiers. As mentioned earlier, Flynne got to know from Wilf that Flynn’s family was in grave danger, and Burton was set to send his sister back to the game to gather information about the person behind the attack on them. Meanwhile, we learned that Cherise Nuland revealed herself to be the perpetrator behind the attack on Flynne by Daniel, which she monitored and probably controlled through the dark web. Wilf’s recollections reveal that he encouraged Aelita to deliver her information to an employee of the Research Institute or the Metropolitan Police of Greater London. This employee to whom Wilf was referring was going to pay Aelita a large quantity of money in return for information, but Aelita refused to assist Wilf with that. The employee they were referring to was Wilf’s boss, Lev Zubov, who was basically a klept (meaning thief). Lev Zubov notified Wilf about the impending danger to Flynne’s family, so he and his technicians developed a peripheral of Flynne, who may assist Wilf in discovering his sister Aelita. Flynne, on the other hand, was returned to her new peripheral, which spoke with Wilf, and he informed her about the entire time travel idea and that it was not simply a gaming “Sim.” Wilf explained their data transfer technology, which they dubbed “quantum tunneling.” Wilf notified Flynne of her mother’s death in four days’ time because she couldn’t believe the city was the future London with just greater sculptures atop the skyscrapers. Wilf provided her with medicine intended to treat glioma in order to earn her trust. Flynne began to trust him after he showed her an obituary about her mother’s death in a newspaper of Flynne’s timeline. She returned to her present and gave her mother the drug. But as she returned to the future to join Lev Zubov’s brunch, she came to know about many things, but the reason behind the attack on her family still remained unclear. She came to know about the “stub” which was a timeline branching. Wilf and Flynne were both from separate timelines. Their timelines were identical until they contacted each other and when Wilf attempted to reach Flynne’s future, his past caused a branching which was known as a parallel timeline or a “Stub” in short.

Lev Zubov was using Flynne to discover Aelita West, who used to work for the Research Institute and had access to Flynne’s stub and was getting paid for hacking it. However, because Lev’s technical team couldn’t locate Aelita who had stolen some vital data from the lab of R. I. They were concerned that they might lose access to the data. After hearing all of this, Flynne indicated that she was not interested in Aelita’s treachery with R.I. and that she would not assist Lev and his staff in locating Aelita until she knew her family was safe. Constantine, on the other hand, found the invisible car from the future. He was even closer to discovering the firefight and the heaps of dead victims in Burton’s garden, but Burton deceived him into ignoring it. On the other hand, in a sim used by Corbell Pickett, Daniel met him and paid him 2,500 dollars to kill the Fisher siblings. Ella, on the other hand, was finally able to see, and her total recovery demonstrated that the medicine from the future was successful, prompting Burton and Flynne to gain trust in Wilf Netherton.

What Was The Haptic Drift? What Did Flynne’s Side Effects Mean?

Burton had feared that if his sister was using the sim to gather information, she would share it with her closest friend Billy Ann, and that’s exactly what Flynne did. All of this she discussed with Billy Ann. Though Billy Ann was harmless and just a close friend of hers, her husband Jasper was a trusted friend of Corbell Pickett, who was later hired to gather information about the Fishers. Flynne returned to the future timeline in London, where she told Lev and Wilf about how she abducted Mariel, the assistant manager of R.I., whose eye had been transplanted onto Burton’s Peripheral. She informed them that they were caught by Daniele while Aelita tried to flee, but Burton got severely beaten up. Lev Zubov was a Klept  who intended to collect something from R.I. that Aelita might have stolen, so Aelita’s betrayal prevented them from obtaining that data. In exchange for Flynne’s data, they told her about Corbell Pickett, who was after Flynne’s family to kill them. Flynne returned to the present and told Burton about Pickett. Burton went straight to Corbell and threatened him that he could kill him if he even thought of causing harm to him and his family. Corbell, on the other hand, did not appear to be easily terrified by Burton’s warning since he was, after all, a strong, rich man of the town who had ruthlessly gained his place and perpetrated a series of horrific crimes. But Burton’s bravery was intended to convey that he was aware that Corbell was a wealthy and powerful man, but Burton could be strong enough to beat him since he was not alone and had a connection with all of histhe Marine Corps friends who had the same cybernetics fitted in their wrists. These cybernetics assisted them in uniting their strength and feeling each other’s emotions, resulting in a united power that gave Burton the strength to battle anything. We’ve witnessed a flashback to Wilf and Aelita’s childhood when they had a strained connection with their foster parents. When Wilf asked her foster mother when the last time she saw Aelita was, Mrs. West replied in riddles, exactly like Aelita had mentioned about “the last snowfall”. Daniele, on the other hand, was threatened by Cherise, and she murdered Grace because she assisted Aelita in learning about certain specific information regarding R. I.

Burton educated Flynne about haptic drifting, the link that allows Burton’s body to function as a unit. He described it to Flynne so that she could be careful about the drifting; otherwise, she might understand the physiological behaviors that may appear to be an emotional attachment. Finally, Wilf understood that the last snowfall meant the death of John Snow, a 17th-century physician who invented anesthetics and medical hygiene during the cholera outbreak. This clue brought Wilf and Flynne to the operating theater where Burton’s Peripheral had been operated on. Meanwhile, Daniele and an android attacked them once more. Though the two vanquished Daniele, it looked like the struggle had seriously harmed Flynne’s physique. Finally, we observed that the time travel had done serious harm to Flynne’s body, and a blue mark began to emerge around her eye. As the symptoms may simply indicate, the more data transferred over the peripheral, the more injured the user will be.

What Was The Jackpot? Was Aelita Alive?

Lev informed Wilf that his DNA was all over the crime scene, so MET police might come by to inquire about him at any time and that Daniele was dead, so the Met could prosecute Wilf for murder. Another thing to note is that Aelita was most certainly dead because she couldn’t survive in a hazardous environment without her immunity-boosting implants. Flynne was suffering from severe damage to her body, and her physical health was suffering as a result of the timeline of traveling. Cherise had come to Lev to threaten him about the data that Aelita had stolen, and if it was not recovered, Lev would be in grave danger since R.I. had a technology that could utilize anyone’s DNA to locate them. So Cherise stole Lev’s cup, which contained his DNA, from his sight. Finally, Flynne informed Wilf about Lev Zubov’s existence in her timeline, where he was murdered, and his house was burned down in a fire, which perplexed Wilf, but he assured Flynne that there might be two Levs with no connection between them. Flynn discussed with her brother and Conner taking control of the futuristic London timeline, but since it wasn’t simply a game simulation, she couldn’t discover a method for controlling it, so Burton recommended she learn about the timeline’s restrictions in order to take control of it. But for that, Flynne had to transport her consciousness to the future, something Burton didn’t want her to do too frequently because he could see his sister getting sicker by the day. Finally, Flynne learned about the jackpot when she got to the future. The jackpot was a series of cataclysmic events that began with an electric blackout and progressed to the blood plague or pandemic, which caused environmental devastation such as droughts, starvation, antibiotic failure, and so on, resulting in the deaths of 7 billion people. Finally, it concluded with the terrorist attack that occurred in North Carolina, where Flynne and her family reside. So the question is whether this was a disaster caused by the Fishers or Nuland or whether it was an apocalypse that had occurred in every timeline.

Who Was Bob? Why Did Cherise Want To Kill Flynne?

Aelita learned that R. I. was using stubs to practice behavioral modulation through the implants that everyone possessed. Since her former lover Grace had shown her the interior of the R. I. lab to introduce her to the process, she learned about it and broke into the facility with Flynne to take it. As the covert technologies of R.I. were highly confidential, Cherise Nuland murdered Grace for displaying them to Aelita. Meanwhile, in the Fishers’ timeline, an elderly man named Bob was confronted by Daniele, who was resurrected by Cherise. Daniele threatened to kill him and his daughter if he did not kill the Fishers. According to the command, Bob was given a sonic gun to kill the Fishers, but he was apprehended by Sheriff Constantine. But on the way, Constantine was hit by an invisible car, and Bob was taken to Corbell Pickett, who bound his neck with an electric collar. But, in the absence of Corbell, while his wife, Mary, was supervising Bob, he made a smart move and smashed their aquarium, causing a minor flood in their home. While Corbell’s wife was preparing to deliver an electric shock via Bob’s collar, he touched her, and she fell unconscious, but Bob was on the loose again, so he killed Mary and was ready to complete his deal so that his daughter could live a decent life. Actually, Corbell intended to kill the Fishers himself for the large bounty from Cherise Nuland; therefore, he didn’t want Bob to do it for him, driving him to lock Bob up with the electric collar, which finally failed to hold him back as he was too smart to be locked up in this way. Flynne approached Cherise and questioned why she was pursuing her to murder her and her family, to which Cherise said that Flynne had stolen some critical data that belonged to R. I. and that if she helped to retrieve it, she would be freed. Cherise was lying to her to get her out of her way, but Flynne didn’t back down, and after a battle, Cherise had to succumb to Flynne’s skills and fell unconscious toon the floor. But we shouldn’t assume Cherise was dead since she was an underground boss who needed to be safeguarded, and for that, she might never have appeared in person rather than in her peripheral. Aelita had undoubtedly taken something vital from the green cone, which may have been kept in Flynne’s peripheral android, and Cherise Nuland was chasing her and her entire family in order to kill them all. Ultimately, Met police detective Ainsley and her assistant Beatrice (who probably was Ainsley’s daughter) came to Lev Zubov’s place to interrogate him and his assistants, so they presented the newly made peripherals Flynne, Burton, and Conner in front of them. On the other hand, Constantine finally gets an idea that his boss Jackson is working under Corbell and hits him with the invisible car to deliver Bob to the hands of Pickett.

Was Aelita A Neoprime? Where Was The Stolen Data Stored In Flynne?

Flynne learned that Aelita was a Neoprime who had taken the data from the R.I. lab because she intended to create new technologies while destroying all the older ones. Ash and Ossian, Lev Zubov’s assistants, were also Neoprimes and learned that the stolen data from the R.I. lab had been downloaded into Flynne’s head as a bacterial infection, which is why Flynne was experiencing convulsions, and her hands began to become paralyzed. Meanwhile, Lev Zubov had discovered this for the first time, and he threatened to kill Ash and Ossian if they did not reveal the reason why the information had been withheld from him. Consequently, Ash was forced to admit her true motivation, revealing that she would acquire the data and give it to Neoprime, who would then destroy it. Ash told Nuland of this, and she determined not to leave anyone alive in Fisher’s family in order to obtain the data from her head. On the other side, Flynne’s mother, Ella, once more fell ill and was unable to see anything again, so with Reece’s assistance, she went to see doctor Dee Dee. However, Bob had arrived there, and instead of killing Flynne and her brother, he murdered Reece and captured Ella Fisher. When Flynne and Burton got there, they fired one shot from the outside, killing Bob and saving their mother. When Tommy got to Pickett’s, he discovered that his boss, Jackman, had given him the go-ahead to arrest Flynne and Burton, which he was unable to execute. Instead of putting up with this, Tommy resolved to murder Jackman and Pickett. Pickett, with the help of a sonic cannon, tried to kill Pickett, but he had survived and slipped into a coma, while Jackman was already dead as Tommy had killed him with a normal gun. When Flynne, Burton, and Conner visited investigator Ainsley, she drove them to a facility where Burton and Conner were given a combat practice assignment while Flynne learned more about R.I. and the steps involved in manufacturing their stubs. She learned that, in the future, she would marry Tommy Constantine and have children, which was funny and shocking for her at the same time. But she also learned that her brother would lose his life in battle. She asked Ainsley if she could sever the link between her and her stub, but Ainsley didn’t respond. When she returned to her timeline, she saw Constantine and learned that the missile silo would explode within days. As soon as possible, she traveled to the future, where she learned from Ash that Aelita had downloaded data that was a microbe within her brain. Wilf later ran across his sister Aelita, who told him about her grand scheme. She told Wilf that Klept had a genocidal plan and had implanted the devices in the survivors. But she collected all the survivors and took out their implants just as she had hers taken out, and she was still able to adjust to the environment. She was then going to gather together all the survivors and launch an attack against Klept.

Was Flynne Dead? What Did The Post-Credit Scene Mean?

Ainsley met Flynne and struck out a deal with her to save her timeline from a major genocide that Cherise was planning to carry out in order to get the bacteria out of Flynne’s head. Flynne asked Ainsley for one favor so that she might cure her mother of the fatal illness, but Ainsley was powerless to help and claimed that Ella had just 554 days left to live. Flynne, however, was aware of the genocide and made the decision to leave her timeline in order to avoid the disaster. She then begged Ainsley once again if she could disconnect her stub, but she was unable to do so; as a result, Flynne had to pass away in her stub in order to connect with another. So she went to the auxiliary outpost and discovered a time branching with several timeline branches, but she picked 2032 and smashed the clock so that Cherise wouldn’t know about Flynne’s activities because there would be no synchronization of time and location. Flynne described her plan to Conner, who unwillingly accepted the idea that Flynne would have to kill herself to rescue her timeline from a bigger catastrophe. So, in the North Carolina woods, Conner had pulled the trigger to kill Flynne, and we witnessed just a gunshot, indicating that Flynne was not yet dead. Another Flynne awoke in 2032 in front of investigator Ainsley in a future London, and according to Ainsley, they were about to get their job done. In a post-credits scene, we see Lev meet his father’s Russian associates, Kyrill, Nikolai, and Artym, who make fun of him for being unable to handle Klept’s current situation. They then threatened that if Lev wasn’t able to kill everyone within a certain amount of time, including Flynne, Wilf, Burton, Ash, and Ossian, Lev’s father would arrive and take over the responsibility, which would be a deadly situation.

Final Words

From “The Peripheral” Season 2, it may be anticipated that Flynne will work for the MET police department and detective Ainsley in her new 2032 stub, where the details of her family’s existence or information about Burton are still unknown. Additionally, Aelita is organizing a massive rebellion with the Survivors with the intention of removing the information from Flynne’s head, but no matter what, Cherise Nuland wasn’t an easy player that she would give up the game easily, and with their handful of technologies, there would come out a certain scheme to relocate Flynne Fisher again. We assume Lev Zubov to be considerably more active, while Corbel Pickett’s potential return to normalcy presents a significant obstacle for Constantine in season 2. However, with the announcement of two more seasons of “The Peripheral,” we may anticipate that season 2 will feature more strong adversaries and difficult situations, which is going to be a very exciting journey.

“The Peripheral” is a 2022 sci fi thriller series streaming on Amazon Prime.