Michelle’s decision to kill Christopher in The Electric State is the emotional heart of the movie, but was it really the only option? Throughout her journey, Michelle was determined to find and rescue her brother, refusing to believe that he was beyond saving. However, when she finally reaches him, she learns a painful truth—Christopher is no longer just a person but the core of Sentre’s entire system. His consciousness is deeply tied to the Neurocaster network, and separating him would mean the end of his life. This revelation leaves Michelle with a devastating choice: let Christopher remain trapped in a digital prison for over a hundred years or end his suffering by shutting down the system, killing him in the process.
At first glance, it seems like Michelle truly had no choice. Christopher himself insists that there is no way to transfer his consciousness into another robot, something he had previously done with Cosmo. He claims that Sentre had placed safeguards to ensure he couldn’t escape again, meaning there was no way to remove him from the system without destroying him. This argument pushes Michelle toward making the hardest decision of her life. She doesn’t want to lose Christopher, but she also realizes that keeping him in this state is cruel. Knowing that his continued existence allows Skate and Sentre to control people through the Neurocaster network, she ultimately decides to pull the plug, ending Christopher’s life and bringing down Sentre.
However, the movie’s final scene casts doubt on whether this was truly the only solution. At the end of the film, Cosmo is thrown into a junkyard, only to come back to life, hinting that a part of Christopher’s consciousness may have survived. This raises several questions. If Christopher was able to transfer his mind into Cosmo before, why couldn’t he do it again? If Sentre had truly prevented him from escaping, then how did this fragment of him remain? These inconsistencies suggest that Michelle may have acted too quickly, believing she had no other choice when, in reality, there might have been a way to save him.
One possibility is that Michelle didn’t fully explore all her options. She was under immense pressure, with Skate’s forces attacking her friends outside. PC, the robot assistant of the late Dr. Amherst, was also urging her to act fast. With everything happening so quickly, Michelle may not have had the time to consider whether Christopher could still be saved. If they had delayed their mission and studied Sentre’s technology further, could they have found a loophole to extract Christopher without killing him? The movie never explores this possibility, instead rushing toward an emotional but possibly unnecessary sacrifice.
Another factor to consider is that Christopher himself told Michelle there was no way out. But was he truly in a position to make that judgment? He had been trapped inside Sentre’s system for years, mentally and emotionally exhausted. He may have simply believed that escape was impossible because he had given up hope. If Michelle had more time to work with him, perhaps they could have discovered an alternative solution together. The fact that part of him seems to have survived in Cosmo suggests that Sentre’s control over him wasn’t as absolute as he believed.
Ultimately, Michelle’s choice to kill Christopher feels final in the moment, but the film’s ending suggests that things weren’t as clear-cut as they seemed. While she believed she had no other choice, there were unanswered questions about how Sentre’s system worked and whether Christopher could have found another way out. The emotional weight of her decision is powerful, but the inconsistencies in the film’s logic make it difficult to say with certainty that it was the only solution. If Michelle had been given more time, she might have been able to save Christopher without sacrificing him, making her decision even more tragic in hindsight.