'Room 104' Review: 'The Internet' Takes Us Back To 1997

"The Internet" opens with a series of quick shots inside Room 104. There's one of the alarm clock, one of a desk lamp, another of the TV. You get the idea. This seemingly mundane montage is actually quite jarring, because we've never seen these objects before in Room 104. In fact, this appears to be another motel room entirely. But it is Room 104, just not the one we're used to.As a titlecard clarifies, this story is taking place in the summer of 1997. Our protagonist is Anish (Karan Soni), an aspiring novelist who's landed a meeting with an impressive New York agency. His plan is to hole up in Room 104 for a few days, banging out the rest of his book before his Friday pitch meeting. But Anish soon discovers a major flaw in his plan: he left his laptop at his mother's apartment.He calls his mom Divya (Poorna Jagannathan) several times, leaving increasingly panicked voicemails. She doesn't pick up all night, which gives Anish little to do but huff and watch evening news reports about Ellen DeGeneres. When Divya finally returns his call the next day, she has no idea that Anish left her so many messages. She doesn't understand how her answering machine works, which bodes ill for what Anish is about to ask. He wants his mom to open his Word doc containing his book, copy the whole thing, and then fire up his modem so she can email it to him.That doesn't happen.Anish's request turns into an unmitigated disaster. His mother has obviously never used a computer before, and struggles to even locate a folder and open it. When Anish asks her to use the command keys to select all and then copy his text, she accidentally deletes the whole book. He screams, she screams, and it all ends with an earth-shaking revelation: Anish is adopted. This is a pretty devastating one-two punch, but Anish uses the loss of his book and this newly discovered family secret to begin writing a new, better novel.

Since "The Internet" is devoid of ghosts and cult priests, the episode's only mystery is Anish's parentage. This is a revelation no viewer could reasonably anticipate, so it takes the audience completely by surprise, just as it does Anish. The story slips out in a moment of frustration, when Anish and Divya are having a very typical argument about expectations. Divya wanted Anish to "be somebody," meaning a doctor or lawyer, not a writer. Anish wanted Divya to be more excited about his book, but condescendingly implies his immigrant mom isn't smart enough to get it. Divya complains that Anish is "just like her," which forces a long overdue conversation about her son's real mother, Vetha. She was a smart teenage daughter of immigrants, with a bit of a wild streak. She wound up pregnant and disowned, so Divya took her in. But just like her parents did to her, this teen mother abandoned her child mere months later, leaving Divya to raise the baby boy as her own.Anish realizes he never truly understood his mother, which leads him to a brainstorming session for a new book. This one doesn't have a snooty title like his last one, "Gently Through the Current." It's simply a story about a new mom, his mom, and the sacrifices she makes for a baby that isn't hers. In a final creative flourish, Anish imagines his first page typed out onto the ceiling, just as it would appear on a computer screen.