Review: Cupertino, "Harper" | Season 1, Episode 6

“The world is run by almighty AI now.”

As I’ve mentioned in the past two reviews, this latest episode of Cupertino is something special. Largely, that’s because CBS chose to eschew its typical Sunday-night programming in favor of airing a new installment coupled with two repeats of this big new legal drama. I maintain that it’s at least strange for the new episode to air in the 8 p.m. hour, but CBS is promoting this show as much as possible, which I do appreciate. Thankfully, “Harper” is particularly memorable even beyond just the novelty of it airing at a different time on a different night.

Even more than in previous installments, the title character is both extremely important and not at all present. She doesn't say a single word of dialogue and, in fact, she doesn't even leave the operating table at a San Jose hospital. "Harper" has a two-pronged premise; one of those is potentially the most serious setup this show has utilized so far, because of how tangible it is. Harper is a young woman prepped for a life-saving liver transplant. There's a viable liver ready to be surgically transferred into her body, and if she doesn't get that organ in the next 4 hours, she's going to die. But the other half of this episode’s setup is as goofy as possible: what if the lawyers arguing over who should get the viable liver in that brief timeframe are stuck in a city-wide traffic jam and have to make their cases over Zoom?

Just as “A.J. & Buddy” had a built-in urgency because of the time-sensitive details surrounding its titular clients, the same is true for “Harper.” Even if the generally caffeinated energy of Cupertino wasn't present this week, we see frequent title cards so we understand exactly how much time is left in the liver's viability. Will it be placed into the body of Harper, who coincidentally happens to be one of Christy’s roommates? Or will it go into the body of the elderly Albert Ensler, a very rich venture capitalist with fingers in plenty of pies and money to burn if he needs to bribe hospital administrators? “Harper” is largely not too concerned about the grim reality that one of these people will have a happy ending, and the other one is going to die. Midway through the episode, Ensler's wife makes an ill-timed argument that her three children would lose their father. Of course, once we learn how Ensler skipped the line, it's rendered effectively moot. But either way, someone's going to lose in the worst way possible in this case.