WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 1 of Solar Opposites, now available on Hulu.
Hulu's Solar Opposites may be a bunch of random sci-fi adventures gone awry as Korvo, Terry and their alien kids try to assimilate with humanity, but the series does take time to make a sociopolitical statement here and there. A big one comes in "The P.A.T.R.I.C.I.A. Device," which addresses gender politics, something that's become so touchy the youngling, Yumyulack, decides he wants no part of it in a meta part of the episode.
Yumyulack knows things will get heated when Korvo and his partner, Terry, build a robot called Patricia that acts as a maid, wife and mom. Little do they know it's actually a killer robot ready to be unleashed, and when it goes berserk, it actually aims to kill off toxic masculinity.
Patricia is built when Korvo and Terry become obsessed with man caves. However, after spying on their neighbor, they decide they need a nagging wife, and so they plug a bunch of TV wives into her programming, creating not only a nurturing mom for Terry but also a wife that can't stop ripping on Korvo. They take to her so much they want to invite her to the man cave to spend time with them, not realizing this will mess with her algorithm.
At this point, she malfunctions and turns into a killer, rampaging through the town and murdering husbands. The primary targets are those with pool tables, foosball tables, fridges of beer, propane tanks and whatnot, leaving the aliens to lure her to the "biggest and stupidest" man cave there is -- Dave & Buster's -- so they can take her activation ring off. They know all the arcade games there, plus the testosterone-driven crowd will attract her rocket-shooting, acid-pouring, laser-blasting and explosion-loving self and leave her distracted with all the douches, farts and overall hostility around.
And so, she flies over, ready to slaughter everyone in "murder mode," as her calculations indicate the planet must be purged of nearly all men. But the deus ex machina comes with the alien "daughter" Jesse, who's been tasked with creating a glass ceiling to break through to show she can shatter the patriarchy. Her school project hasn't been going well, though, because the football and lacrosse teams are diverse and inclusive, and the town on the whole embraces equality. It's no surprise, as they're cool with the alien family, leaving Jesse's panicking because other girls in class are becoming firefighters and such. This means they're passing with flying colors, and as Jesse's an overachiever, she freaks out.
Jesse wants an A+ and corners her teacher, Mrs. Frankie, at Dave & Buster's during the attack and is told if she helps stop the robot, she'll get the grade. Just as Patrica's about to murder her "fathers," Jesse stops it in an epic speech about gender issues and tells the robot she can choose: she doesn't have to be mother or wife. She can be neither or both if she so chooses.
It backfires, because now Patricia wants to kill everyone, not just men, but it provides Korvo and Terry ample time to slip the ring off and deactivate her. There's something to this interaction, as Jesse chose her sex when she crashed on Earth. However, Yumyulack's advised her against this choice, knowing males would have it easier. Nonetheless, she breaks the patriarchy Terry and Korvo created, becomes a freedom fighter in the process and gets her grade after impressing her teacher and saving mankind from certain death.
Starring the voices of Justin Roiland, Thomas Middleditch, Sean Giambrone and Mary Mack, the eight-episode first season of Solar Opposites is currently available on Hulu.