"Welcome to The Underground, where the rejected are respected and the best case has no place."
The Underground
is a Machinima set in Portal 2. In the undergrounds of Aperture Science Laboratories, where defective products are thrown, an Interview Sphere creates a show for defective personality cores. Hilarity Ensues.
While initially cancelled in 2013 after six episodes, in early 2021 the series abruptly returned with a new episode. Soon after, remastered versions of the previous episodes were uploaded, followed a few months later by another one.
The Underground contains examples of these tropes:
- Body Horror: The Friendship Cores are two cores that have been smashed together, making them this by Personality Core standards. Interview Core is very clearly terrified.
- The defective turrets Anthony and the Band also qualify.
- During Episode 7, we're introduced to The Pit, a location where cores considered unusable for the Mainframe's mysterious plan are sent to be rebuilt into robot slaves. The lyrics of the song put it in best:
You want to live? Don't hold your breath.This isn't life, it's living death. - Black Comedy: Episode 4.
- Butt-Monkey: Anthony. Hoo boy.
- Call-Back: The Interview Sphere is sifter number 7.
- Demoted to Extra: Anthony.
- The Eeyore: Anthony.
- Insufferable Genius: The Ego Sphere.
- Logic Bomb: The Protocol Sphere considers himself to be perfect. According to his protocols, being thrown in the incenerator means you are defective.
- Many Spirits Inside of One: The Interview Sphere can take on several personalities, one of which is the Therapeutic Voice Processor.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: The Protocol Sphere.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: The Paranoid Sphere.
- Punny Name: The Fritz Brothers Band is made of defective turrets.
- Rimshot: Courtesy of Anthony and the Fritz Brothers Band whenever the Interview Sphere makes a joke. Subverted at one point in Episode 2, when Anthony can't make the cymbal sound due to one of his guns falling off.
- Shout-Out: The Elite Sphere has lots of hats.
- The Shrink: Interview Sphere's Therapeutic Voice Processor guides the Friendship Cores through couples therapy.
- The Reveal: Quite a few following the first episode, which is straightforward enough, establishing the rough premise of a talk show taking place in the bowels of Aperture. Guest comes in, guest talks, guest is taken away, simple enough. Episode 2 is when it becomes clear something else is taking place behind the scenes...
- Near the end of Episode 3, when the Interview Sphere is talking about their merch line, there's some sort of bot side-stepping out of frame from behind a cardboard cutout, with no real explanation or acknowledgement until...
- Episode 4 reveals the fate of the Paranoid Sphere and what was lurking in the shadows of the prior episode; a party escort bot, a concept from the first Portal that was never seen, but was patched into the game some time after release. The glimpse of more walking around after grafting the Ambition Sphere to the Mainframe implies this is the fate of every Sphere that winds up there. This episode also reveals that the Mainframe is further sifting out Spheres that land in it's lair, as the Ambition Core winds up attached to it while others like Paranoia and Protocol have been sent to...
- Episode 7 marks the series' triumphant return in 2021, along with the debut of "The Pit", a song written for the series a decade ago by Harry Callaghan, that never saw final animation until 5 years later, and then another 6 years as it was originally conceived; a haunting, unnerving song describing the terrible fates of numerous Aperture robots, and the even worse ones that await those that wind up The Pit. We're treated to yet more of the Party Escort bots, whom have since Episode 4 taken the Elite and Friendship Spheres into their growing ranks, who appear to be tasked with numerous things down there, including the messy and patchwork building of yet more Party Escort Bots using defunct and rejected Personality Spheres.
- Episode 8 gives us a better look at what happens to the Spheres that join The Mainframe. A computer read-out tells us that whatever purpose this Sphere grafting serves, there are no time or condition restrictions, and besides Ambition, Ego, and now Optimism, there are two remaining slots for The Mainframe to fill. Of those three, they match something in the range of below 50 percent.
- Episode 9 gives us a horrific look at the Companion Cube, a variant of the Weighted Storage Cubes the Paranoia Sphere talked about in the very first episode. Whether or not any of this is true is up to debate, as it is implied to be a form of hallucination or nightmare the Interview Sphere is experiencing. But a more clear cut reveal comes at the very end, where the Interview Sphere is not sitting at his usual desk; but hooked up to a set of computers that read out "Defragment..."
- Episode 10 gives us several, and is the furthest deviation from the show's format thus far;
- The entire episode is shown from the perspective of the Protocol Sphere, who we last saw falling away into The Pit, after being rejected by The Mainframe. We find out he was the second Party Escort Bot to be constructed following Paranoia, who themselves are present and constructing Protocol's new body before his very eye.
- We finally get more from The Mainframe, who over the course of the episode is relaying instructions to Protocol, and keen Portal fans might recognise the cadence and speech pattern of his voice...
- This episode all but confirms it later on, when Protocol is walking by a corridor that leads to a door marked "STAY OUT" and a slashed painting. A painting we've seen many times before... The Mainframe is (or is at least heavily implied to be) the remnants of Cave Johnson's consciousness uploaded into a computer.
- Elaborating on the ending of Episode 9, it's revealed that that wasn't even the first time the Interview Sphere has been wired up for defragmentation, and it certainly won't be the last...
Ego: "Defragmentation? How many times has he been reset?"Mainframe: "As many as it takes. You got a problem with that?"Ego: "I'm only saying... Cores aren't really designed to be reset so many times..." - While we don't explicitly find out what The Mainframe's plans are, we know now that he's very close to seeing it through. And that the Interview Sphere has been a greater part of it than any of us could have ever realized.
Mainframe: "He can't know why he's here. Not when I'm so close..."- Episode 11 continues the trend set by Episode 10 as the Storyteller's tale, which is essentially a retelling of Aperture's history with a fairy tale aesthetic, implies (if not outright confirms) that the Mainframe is indeed the remnants of Cave Johnson trying to regain everything he's lost.
- Talk Show: A spoof of one.
