Lazarus Ep 6 Review
Have you ever heard the phrase “Drinking the Kool-Aid?” It became popular in the aftermath of the Jonestown Massacre, an event in which almost a thousand Americans from the cult of the People’s Temple killed themselves in mass suicide via poisoned drinks. While the drinks weren’t made with Kool-Aid, but a different brand, the phrase still has the same meaning: buying into a idea that is incredibly stupid and self-destructive. I.E. trying to kill yourself because a deranged cult leader says so. Unfortunately for Lazarus, their next lead on locating Skinner has to be in one such cult. And everyone there is about to drink the Kool-Aid.
It should also be noted that this marks the first episode since the pilot where a character doesn’t open things with a monologue.
An AI Cult
Having come up with no leads about Skinner for the umpteenth time, Lazarus changes tactics again. They find an old article about how Skinner once visited this Neo-Luddite commune that worships this AI called Naga as a god. They think it’s a good hiding place for Skinner, but since they can’t hack into Naga, Elenia and Leland have to sneak in.
This cult worships an AI. Seeing as what’s happening irl in the current year of 2025, yeah this would totally happen by 2052. #LAZARUS #Toonami pic.twitter.com/uK4A27ZvRU
— Goldy-RiSA (@GoldyRiSA) May 11, 2025 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The twist: this cult, Tower of the Truth, is where Elenia grew up before, perhaps wisely, running away. It gets even crazier, though, when it’s revealed that Naga the AI was based on the brain patterns of Dr Skinner. And because they didn’t know to leave well enough alone, the scientists at MIT that created Naga added in a desire for power and need for control.
Artificial intelligence has long been a staple of science fiction, but for every example of one that doesn’t go nuts, there are multiple examples of Hal, Skynet, Ultron, and the Absolute Solver. With AI starting to get more and more powerful in recent years, there is a legitimate concern that they could go mad with power and destroy humanity. It’s why the Three Laws of Robotics are a concept, and why people are urging AI not to be abused. And unfortunately for the Tower of the Truth, Naga’s creators did the exact opposite by giving him a god complex. And in an effort to prove its own divinity, Naga plans to have the entire cult commit suicide by immolation. It’s having them drink the Kool-Aid and go full Jonestown!
This is Why Need to Not Be Dumb With AI
The entire episode is more or less a cautionary tale about two things: the dangers of unethical AI, and the dangers of living a life isolated from any outside information. While the Tower members aren’t wrong about the world being filled with a lot of bad things, shutting themselves off from life means they don’t understand why trying to commit mass suicide is a terrible idea. Then again, Skinner suckered most of humanity into drinking another kind of Kool-Aid in pill form, so…
Fortunately for Elenia and Leland, they manage to convince one of her only friends in the cult to save them, and Lazarus is able to stop the drinking of Kool-Aid before most of them die. The only casualty is the leader of the cult, an Ex-MIT scientist who became obsessed with Naga in the first place. As for Naga, he survives, only to get told off for being nuts by Axel and likely destined for deactivation/execution.
Things aren’t a total loss, though. Lazarus managed to recover Naga’s memory banks, so if the AI had any other contact with Skinner, they can find it. It’s probably going to be another wild goose chase, but maybe we’ll be surprised this time. At least we won’t have to worry about the Kool-Aid anymore!
Preview for ‘Lazarus’ Episode 7! pic.twitter.com/b9xXWa9enC
— Lazarus (@LazarusAnime) May 11, 2025 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
