“A Time to Be Born…”

Oh my god, what the hell. A time to be born indeed.

This episode Teresa fiiinally goes into labour. Separated from Xander, who is still under quarantine, she must rely on Jana & co. to help her.

Jumping to Katie who is also in quarantine, we see her come to blows with the cowardly Cannerts. Revealing the true origins of the disease and name-dropping the original Patient Zero allows us to see the normally cool and collected sort of fella reveal a tiny glimpse into something almost sinister.

It’s getting good.

With a small handful of episodes remaining you can see the episodes begin to try tie up all these incredibly long loose ends. Some of them are stretched just a wee bit too much, particularly the strands surrounding Lommers, who has successfully made it through quarantine with Lex.

With Katie in quarantine, she discovers that the strain of the virus has adapted and now takes longer to reveal itself through symptoms. With 6 hours left of her 48, she quickly realises she’s not out of the woods yet. As Jake comforts her through the glass, she’s afforded some nice one-to-one time with Quinn. More revelations. We discover that she and Quinn’s father were both drug abusers, which is strange considering she now works with young children as a teacher…I thought there were rules against that, but she seems nice so I’m sure it’s fine.

We catch up with a lot of characters this episode, Thomas, the kid, is still in quarantine but doing fine; the Paisley gang are now pals with the deceitful cop still running the grocery store; and Leo Greene is back on the scene.

First things first: conspiracies. It is now apparent that Lommers is one of, if not, the head honcho for this whole thing. The episode started with Lex and Leo reuniting and both enthusiastically sharing the news that Lommers has a home in Nantucket. Problem solved. An eager Leo wants to press on and share the news with the public but Lex knows best, and after local press stunts knows that Lommers can’t be attacked with the public on her side.
So much happened this episode you guys. I can’t handle it.

So, Lommers decided to be ‘truthful’ and show the public the disease’s affect on the soldiers from the National Guard, with the public developing an ‘understanding’ for the cordon. Lex also discovers that the chief was working with the cop who happened to fall into the cordon.

After Lex and Leo discover all this links back to Lommers, Lex decides to confront the Chief. And what does he do? He admits it – to protect Muslims so they are not tarnished with the brush of Syrian Patient Zero. Thinking he did good at sending that other cop in to destroy evidence at Greene’s diseased friends house, it’s down to Lex to inform the Chief that this is not the case. Surprisingly the Chief gets totally onboard, with absolutely no resistance. Nice to see he is actually a lovely man, swayed by a psycho woman.

And this whole time we have Teresa going into labour (super nice, weird touch when they make a heart rate monitor out of paper drinks cups and balloons!) and Katie stuck in a cell.

So there we are, things all coming along nicely and then David turns up. Remember, that married guy who got Jana’s friend Suzy pregnant, then left in that episode I didn’t watch? That guy. But he’s sick and causing a huge commotion, stressing Teresa out who is just trying to have her baby.  Suzy, lying, tells him he has to go and informs him she isn’t pregnant to make him leave, which is so depressingly sad when the elevator closes so slowly and we have to watch his sad face disappear. Off to die alone somewhere like a sick cat. God, it’s bleak.

Somehow Jake busts in with a  fresh delivery from Paisley Gang leader, who is a father and therefore concerned for Teresa. So lovely. Oh yeah, and Jake can deliver babies. Is there anything this man can’t do?!

He even managed to recover his FULL uniform, despite dumping it in the trash last week.

Ok so we knew it was going to happen. We just knew it. And even when we thought maybe it wasn’t, we still knew.

Let’s talk about Katie.

This episode has to be one of the best. The pace, the REVELATIONS, the groups banding together for a common cause (Teresa and the miracle of Life), the physical contact in helping Teresa, which has been non-existent, should really be dwelt over. This is the first time in 10 weeks of this show where we finally see people physically engage with others, helping and hugging, it just focuses the viewer on how important physical contact between humans is, and how weird it is when that is absent.

Back to Lex for a moment ( I forgot about this bit but it’s actually pretty important). Lex and Greene want to take Lommers down. Greene gives Lex a ridiculous two hours to solve their problem or he will publish an article about Lommers and her shadiness. Lex unconvinced anyone will take it seriously decides to meet Lommers and asks her to resign. Interesting exchange where Lommers shrugs him off, until he drops the Chief in as someone who will testify against her. Asking her again to resign she reluctantly says she will call a press conference the next day, and resign. Well, there’s definitely more to this side of the story. We don’t have motive, kinda leaving us hanging here, and we don’t even know if she’s top dog, despite Lex’s presumptions. I am curious to see how that’s going to pan out.
Ok, and Katie.

With an exuberant Jake returning to Katie, in a scene reminiscent of that in Dirty Dancing when Johnny comes and gets Baby out of that corner, that way he walks with such power and integrity, (is hot), we are hooked on every word. Jake tells Katie he is happy because he helped deliver a baby, and with cheesy chat about teenage pregnancy and Katie wishing she had had him there, he drops the whole ‘maybe for the next one’ line. Which should be disgusting but somehow I, the viewer, am finding this incredibly endearing.

And then they go and spoil it all.

Which we knew was going to happen, and this show went and sucked gullible me in and had me believing in fairytale endings.

Well, you won’t find one here. We should stop looking. But really. The build up was beautiful and I hate them for it.

Katie coughs. We see Jake’s face. Maybe it was just a cough. An innocent cough. Please.
The camera pans round and we see the horror in his face, and we see the blood on the glass.

This won’t be pretty.

Verdict

I’m a bloody emotional mess. I am in shock. Well played those guys. I almost take it all back.

In fact, I’ll take it all back if we can just have Jake and Katie be okay.

Whilst most of the story is coming together, tragically beautifully, there are still a few wee jarring moments and some quick ways out for some of the characters. However! At this point if they’ve been focusing mostly on the Teresa Baby narrative and the Jake and Katie thing, then I forgive them. An enjoyable episode, playing up to our expectations (I suppose it was the only way it could go), but still managing to shock me is impressive. Crap. I’m so angry. They’re so beautiful together and they’ve not even had sexy times. Absolute crime.