“With Silence and Tears”

First things first, apologies in the lateness of this review. If you must know, I had two men in my bathroom all day when I was supposed to be writing this up. That was only marginally more frustrating than this episode.

Day 6.

Wee catch-up:
Exposing the weak point in the cordon seems to be the main narrative this episode as Teresa’s boyfriend Xander (Demetrius Bridges) makes several attempts to cross over to be with her. Communications are still down and Katie is still stumbling upon the countless dead bodies in the hospital. With several narratives all vying for attention, Containment continues to be a bit hit and miss.

After watching a special cordon-only news channel in which everyone is assured the infection rate is dropping, Jana gets inventive and uses an aerial to try contact her beau, Lex who is getting to grips with being the mouthpiece for Lommers, battles with his conscience. Again!

Successfully communicating for 30 seconds with Jana, Lex sends drones to check in on her. So romantic.
Finally residents seem to be taking the cordon a bit more seriously, having stopped their partying ways – even the gangs robbing Teresa’s bitch of a mother’s store are obeying the rules; we’re back to 4-6 feet. Very considerate.

The main narrative this week is again rushed, particularly following Xander’s attempts to cross the cordon. This part of the story would have benefited from being a bit more considered and in allowing some other characters to fall by the wayside we could have focused on this romantically desperate display, which is far more interesting. Instead, the show bypasses the main action and leaves it to easier story-telling devices to inform the viewer of the action they’ve missed.

I’m enjoying Greene more this week though. After Lex shoots at Xander when he makes it through the cordon, Leo Greene visits Lex, questioning his loyalties: “You’re going to be on the wrong side of history, is this who you really want to be?”. No offence to David Gyasi, but he does this really weird pout this whole episode.

Xander successfully manages to get beyond the barricade with the help of Greene, who too has a personal motive for getting him on the other side, as we see Xander send a video via catapult over the wall of shipping containers to Greene, clueing him in to the fate of his two friends. It’s worth pointing out that Trevor St. John is one of those beautiful criers.

If you’re against animal testing and cruelty, you probably won’t enjoy all the screen time the lab rats get this week. (I’ve tried to find some facts about this show using animals and can’t find anything. If anyone does, can you mail me a link). If the show could stop advocating the use of testing on animals, that would be great. There’s a hint that a potential cure is “tangled up in bureaucracy”, let’s hope they reach that before they use any more rats.

With a fast pace set in the first few episodes we have not really been able to grasp any of the major personalities. An attempt to peel back and expose some emotional depth backfires when Jake and Katie try to have a deep and meaningful conversation. Too bad the script here is truly awful. The clichéd script, in its familiarity, shouldn’t hurt this much to watch. Chris Wood does a poor job in conveying any emotion; but then, who could when it is this bland?

Verdict

This episode, like my writing, is a bit of a jumbled mess. Some parts lost me when I got caught up with the poor rats and I think Jake never even got shirtless. It’s losing me. If they could just dedicate more time to one aspect of the plot instead of trying to hit all the story beats at once, I would feel a bit more connected to the show. I’ll continue to watch, I feel somehow invested in it, which I’m sure the makers are hoping will mirror everyone else’s thoughts.