We start with Terrence wgho apparently has a miserable
job in a fast food restaurant dealing with some awful people.
Except when he goes home he prints out news stories of all of the men who killed their families after spreading the deadly flu and lays them out. On each he puts a large sum of money in the denomination of the country they news is from and a passport. He also pulls out a gun – all from a Network-style yellow bag.
Over to the gang or what is left of it – Ian is
determined to get Grant back while Becky is sensible and points out how
dangerous Pietre is – and how Ian certainly can’t take him on with a curtain
pole; but also Pietre being so deadly means he probably doesn’t want Grant or
them dead – or they would be.
Becky and Ian also have the dead translator to deal with – or dispose of – with it’s own little moral quandary. While doing that, Becky sees the news of Ian’s brother’s death. And Ian being suspected of it. Ian has an amazingly well acted response of shock and horror and grief (especially since his mother thinks he did it).
The next morning Ian bricks up the translator into the
walls and Becky has a little horrified moment about the whole thing. Either
because of Deels syndrome or her own guilt, she hallucinates the dead man
talking to her and playing gross games with the hole in his head. She goes to
Ian and discusses her disease – basically that it will get worse, her medicine
isn’t great and at some point she will want to choose suicide while she is
still capable of it: and she wants him to help
And at Michael’s house he and Jessica have taken Milner
hostage. Michael is shocked to realise who Milner is and talks about what a
killer she is while she comments on a news story as tensions around the world
escalate, going her usual doing what must be done route – and adding that Jen
and Alice (hostages meant to keep Michael in check) are going to die because of
him if he doesn’t free her. The news also shows Jessica the news about Ian’s
brother’s murder.
While Jessica decides to go after her dad and Ian, Michael
is worried about Jen and Alice. Jessica advises him to go visit and carry a
mobile – he protests that they always search him. So she tells him to shove it
up his arse (quite seriously), also that he shouldn’t use a big one.
He takes her advice. But as he leaves he runs into Ian with a knife, his protests and Becky’s gentle words talk Ian down who is obviously rather overwrought. They sit and talk and bring Michael up to speed with what they learned from Anton and Michael’s knowledge about who Mr. Rabbit is
Leah gets the kidnap photograph Jessica took – and shows it to Wilson. The problem now is that Milner leads – through secrecy and convoluted means (hence why no-one knows who Mr. Rabbit is) and Leah knows… some of it. Wilson decides they can use that; they are now Mr. Rabbit.
Just to make things more complicated for them, Geoff,
their politician tool, is watching their machinations destroy his career and is
rather irate about it – he sends a blackmail demand to Leah. Leah and Wilson
consult Geoff about the silly demand and he, of course, advises they pay it for
the sake of Janus. Wilson and Leah are not fooled for a second.
But following the clue from the picture Jessica sent,
Wilson finds where they are and is able to send armed police to track down Ian,
Becky and Michael.
With Wilson there they realise how deep Wilson is, how he
knows about all the deaths that will come from the actual virus and he is still
going ahead. When Ian reveals he knows about Milner being Mr. Rabbit, Wilson
has Lee leave (he’s lurking in the background in case torture is needed). Using
that shocking revelation and Ian’s rage over his brother dying, they send the
Utopia page that Phillip/Anton altered to Wilson’s people to analyse to try and
reveal the eugenics changes Phillip put in Janus.
While they wait, Wilson tries to be friendly. Becky’s
contemptuous look could have made a rhino skulk off in shame. He tries with Ian
but, given the whole brother murder, that doesn’t go well either
Leah returns looking rather upset. Because the page does
show the adjustment Phillip/Anton made and something worse.
This is an organisation willing to kill hundreds of thousands to force the human race to sterilise itself possibly among racial lines. “Much much worse” is going to be freaking apocalyptic.
Of course, they could be lying because stopping Janus
requires them finding Milner to stop her/it.
First they have to help Michael get Jen and Alice out –
which begins with him sneaking the phone to them. Then the plan all goes to pot
because of Alice’s fear of heights but it works out when they incapacitate and
threaten the guard (he isn’t intimidated by Michael. Jen, however? Jen can do
intimidating. And stabbing).
Garth is with Pietre and Anton and Pietre gives him his
cover story; he also disapproves of Grant talking about killing – Grant claims
he’s just like Pietre, Pietre denies this but refuses to say why. They walk off
into the winter countryside Pietre is
enjoying his father/son outing with Anton – and so is Garth. With Pietre.
Pietre also disapproves of Garth’s swearing – so garth does it more to random
passers by which provokes Pietre, with more of the difficult Garth trying to be
like Pietre. This confusing father/son emulation relationship just becomes more
heartfelt and poignant when confused Anton decides that Garth is his son, Pietre.
Milner is still Jessica’s captive and tries to get under
Jessica’s skin – it seems to work to a degree… but it’s a dangerous game to
play.
Pietre has Garth pretend to be him to communicate with
his father (which, yes, is uber creepy) and learns that Phillip/Anton left
Pietre because he “wasn’t human.” The questioning is interrupted by Jessica and
Milner – Jessica pointing a gun at Pietre’s head and asking “where’s dad?” Oh
Pietre’s face to know his sister is back!
She has Garth hold Pietre at gun point (which Pietre isn’t
happy about – they’re family! Awwwww, Pietre, you murderering monster, how a
school shooter makes me want to hug him and take him home I don’t know)
Jessica goes to see Anton/Phillip and cries, asking what
he did to her. He recognises her, greets her and hugs her even while she pulls
a knife on him for touching her – but when he says “I love you” she drops the
knife.
Milner decides to work on Pietre – who is poleaxed watching the affection between his sister and his father (the father who just said he was a monster) and how much Jessica ruined everything.
They try to talk to Phillip/Anton to get details of the adjustment but he has sunk back into confusion – and Jessica trusts Pietre enough to give him a gun. Alas, they also decide to let Miolner speak alone to Phillip/Anton since it makes him rational (Milner briefly tries to get into Grant’s head but Grant is a bit too full of anger for it). There he reveals what he did – he began with an almost scientific approach to picking which race he wished to be spared Janus – picking one with the lowest rate of long term diseases like cancer. But in the end, emotion won out and he chose his own race – Roma. Milner’s still on board so long as it keeps going to plan. Which means moving on with the plan
Phillip/Anton returns to Garth and takes the gun – Garth runs.
He then goes to Jessica and Pietre who are having sibling bonding moments. He
shoots Pietre. He yells at Jessica to run, then fires at her as well. She falls
down a ridge and disappears. Phillip returns to Milner, frees her and kisses
her.
Jessica runs with Pietre and tries to keep him alive
Wilson catches up with Milner and Phillip and he tries to
convince Milner to reverse the command to release Janus because of the lack of
random selection. She refuses, she doesn’t agree with the racial selection, but
thinks it’s still best to go ahead. Except there’s also another problem he didn’t
mention. Janus has a side effect - it stops the Russian Flu Vaccine from
working. So the plague they’re unleashing to get everyone vaccinated won’t be
stopped by Janus. The only people who will be saved from this devastating,
weaponised flu that Milner has already unleashed on the world will be the Roma.
He says he did it for Jessica because he loved her so much. Milner protests
that they tested it – but they tested it on Jessica who is, of course, Roma.
Wilson gives her a phone so she can stop it… she takes
the phone and sets it in motion. Because to bring about Janus she’s willing to
see hundreds of millions die. Wilson can’t tolerate it and points a gun at her
she points out she’s the only one who can stop it – so he points the gun at
Phillip. Milner steps in the way
And she’s shot. Not by Wilson, by Grant. He disarms Wilson, has him on his knees and prepares to execute him – when Ian jumps in the way. Between his words and Phillip’s desperate grief over Milner’s death, Grant lowers the gun and cries in Ian’s arms
Back to Terrence from the beginning of the episode, who
got the call from Milner. He leaves his job and takes his bag of dofferent
identities and money
Anton, Pietre and Garth is a wonderfully complex and
difficult group. We have seen how much Garth is hurting, how scared he is, how
lost and even how guilty – then along comes Pietre. Tough, invincible, icily
calm at all times, powerful – everything Garth wants to be at the moment. Garth
latching on is really understandable and excellently portrayed. Especially
since it plays into Pietre’s own wounds, his insecurity about his father (who
always seemed to prefer Jessica to his damaged son) and desperately trying to
connect with him
3 very hurting, confused and rather lost people seeking a
connection and it was done so well. And creepily. And there’s Grant all ready
to become Pietre, to follow in his footsteps – when Ian intervenes
And Pietre may be a murderer who has killed children but
I still want to hold him and tell him it will be all alright.
Which is part of the very powerful acting on this show which sells every moment of pain (like Ian’s grief and Garth and Jessica) every moral conflict (Milner and Wilson) and a whole lot of creeping dread (Becky) and just terrifying creepiness (Jessica and Pietre) so very well – and helps sell the whole conflict and difficult complexity of this show in general.
Wilson’s morality is an interesting part of that. He has
accepted a brutal and horrific ends justifies the means. Like Milner, he
genuinely thinks he is saving humanity from itself, that all the appalling
things he has done, that she has done, is justified by the result that will save
them all. With the ongoing hints of a grim future in the news, we can see they’re
not just scaremongering when he covers the horrendousness of the future of
scarce resources
But it is worth wondering where he draws the line. He
agreed with thousands dying from the plague. He agreed with hundreds of
thousands. But draws the line at millions. What is the upper limit of
acceptable death in Wilson’s vision of saving the human race? How many people
is it ok to kill? Aren’t his lines very arbitrary?
Now to the grossness that cannot be talked about as just
moral depth and complexity. It is grossly not ok to draw direct comparisons
with the holocaust – to invoke the concentration camp number on Anton’s arm –
and then turn him into the perpetrator of mass, racial genocide. Appropriation
is never ok, but it’s a special kind of sickening to make
the victims of such horrors the perpetrators of it (also, given the huge
diversity throughout the Roma diaspora and the numerous Roma and Sinti groups
within, I’m also leery as to how much that would work).
It’s not even just the mass sterilisation which would be
appalling enough, but it’s outright wilful, engineered murder. Having genocide
victims be the instigators of world wide racial genocide is not even close to
ok.
