This is the episode where the group spins out of control. All of the emotions and tensions that have been building all season, both positive and negative, come to a head. Individuals act on their feelings, for better or worse, and, while some actions are beneficial, others are mistakes that can’t be taken back. The group will be changed forever because of the events of this day.
Keep Your Friends Close is Patrick’s episode, and the cold opening gives us a taste of Patrick’s life before the plague rain. He was a slacker who messed up everything in his life: He couldn’t keep a job, or a girlfriend, and everyone had given up on him. His boss at the fast food joint says that he’s started five fires, among other complaints, so he’s fired. His girlfriend wants someone who nicer, more ambitious, and generally not him. She breaks up with him. His social worker says he’s her first hopeless case. Patrick doesn’t listen to any of them. He sits and fidgets with a lit lighter instead.
In the present, Patrick and Martin sit next to some water and throw stones into it. Patrick worries that the outside world won’t be any nicer than the quarantine zone. Martin thinks that it has to be. Patrick says that they never would have met if it weren’t for the zone, so he can’t hate it. Martin replies that traveling together doesn’t make them friends.
They have the Strangers map and radio with them, and can tell from their communications that they’re growing closer. As they’re getting up to go back to the group, they see an infected dog. Dogs are carriers of the plague, but it doesn’t kill them. Martin is about to shoot the dog when Patrick throws a rock at it to drive it away. He says he’s trying to stop killing everything.
Martin shows the map to Simone and explains that the Strangers are making a systematic sweep of the entire zone. They will sweep through section three, where the survivors are, soon, so the survivors need to move on. Simone feels they should skip the next bunker since getting some distance is the priority. The bunker is too close to where the Stranger are, and it might be empty any way.
Beatrice and Rasmus are giggling together over in the corner that Rasmus sleeps in. They distract Martin, who gets so annoyed that he decides they should all just move on to the bunker right away. This starts an argument. Rasmus says the he can’t move because of his infected wound. (The medical man at the mansion told him to rest for a week.) They decide that Beatrice will stay with Rasmus and the others will go to the bunker. Then everyone will meet back at the abandoned house.
While they’re figuring things out, Patrick jokes that they’ll have to cut off Simone’s hand if she stays behind with Rasmus, because it’s the only way they can get access to the bunkers without her. No one else thinks it’s funny. I didn’t think it was that bad, but it does make you wonder if he’s thought of it for real before, so that he could just get rid of her.
Rasmus is the one who suggests that Beatrice stay behind. When Beatrice agrees, Martin signals for her to follow him outside to speak privately. He tells her to be careful with Rasmus, because Rasmus likes her. Beatrice asks him how he feels about that. He looks at her intently, understanding what she’s asking, but says, “I don’t know.” Whatever answer she was looking for, that wasn’t it. She finally gives up on him, and says that he and Simone get along well. They talk about their relationship in the past tense, looking back fondly, but knowing it’s over. They agree that they weren’t right for each other, and he tells her to take care of herself.
As soon as everyone leaves, Rasmus takes the bandage off of his wound. It’s almost healed completely. No swelling or redness, and only a small scab. You’d never believe it was a bad infection so recently. Rasmus says it doesn’t hurt, either. Beatrice realizes that he lied about his wound because he felt like taking a day off, despite the dire situation they’re in.
Rasmus is very proud of himself for figuring out a way for the two of them to be alone for the day. They enjoy the weather and the outdoors. Rasmus draws her. Beatrice leans forward to kiss him, but he discourages it.
Then he reaches for his ever-refilling Morphine box. (Weren’t only about 8 pills in there when Simone took it from the boy in Copenhagen?). Beatrice talks him into going without.
Martin, Lea, Simone and Patrick walk down a steep hill on their way to the bunker. Martin and Simone hang onto each other so that they don’t fall. Patrick walks behind everyone else with a sour look on his face.
The bunker is built under a tall water tower. It might as well have a giant DANGER sign on it. Martin tries to go in slowly and stealthily, using military protocols, but Patrick can tell that the Strangers have already been there and gone. He becomes impatient and rushes ahead down the stairs. The bunker is empty, but someone lived their recently. There’s still some food, children’s drawings, and other personal items.
Patrick starts eating the bunker food right away, but Lea and Simone tell him he shouldn’t eat the family’s food, because then they’ll starve. Patrick says it’s not his problem, but does eventually stop eating and switch to getting drunk. Lea and Simone go look around the bunker to investigate whether the family is really gone for good.
Flashback: Patrick’s father gives him a car, then tells him to travel somewhere far away, and not to bother coming back.
They all search the bunker. Martin finds a drawer with dozens of sets of car keys and pairs of glasses. Patrick finds a pile of forms. Lea and Simone find a child’s bedroom with the stuffed animals left behind. Patrick finds the bunker’s tablet.
He watches videos of the experiments that the doctor assigned to the bunker was doing on innocent human victims. He injects a father with the plague virus using an Apollon syringe like the one Simone has. Frederick watches from a view screen and asks if the man’s immune. After a minute the man begins to writhe, then dies. At least Frederick looks uncomfortable as the man dies.
Frederick asks if there are any other subjects and anything left in the syringe. The doctor says that there’s an 8 year old girl and shots left. Frederick says to go ahead and inject her. The doctor hesitates, but Frederick does not. In the background, the little girl is screaming for her father as she watches him die.
Simone stops the video. Patrick says there are hundreds more like it, and they’ll become test subjects themselves if they don’t get out of the bunker quickly. Simone insists that they were experimenting on people because they were looking for a cure. It’s about immunity. Patrick doesn’t care. They’re killing people. And now the group is going to walk into Apollon headquarters.
Sometimes, Patrick makes a lot of sense. If only he weren’t so belligerent while he’s making it.
The argument escalates until Martin breaks it up and sends Patrick to another room. Simone is deeply troubled. She asks Martin why the Apollon scientists are doing things like this. He says he doesn’t know, but it doesn’t have anything to do with her.
They prepare to leave, but it’s started to rain. They have to stay there until the rain stops, and hope that the Strangers and Apollon doctors can’t go anywhere either. Patrick keeps pounding down the hard liquor. Simone stands watch outside. When Martin offers to stay with her, she tells him she wants some time alone.
Beatrice and Rasmus watch the rain and the sick dog from just inside an open door. Rasmus’ shaking from the morphine withdrawal has gotten worse. He admits to Beatrice that he thinks about the pills all the time. She tries to distract him with conversation.
Martin confronts Patrick to find out why he’s so upset. Patrick was hurt when Martin said they weren’t friends earlier. Martin doesn’t remember what he said, but he’s sure he didn’t mean it that way. I couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious. For Patrick, it was too close to what he’s heard from everyone else in his life, but Martin couldn’t know that.
Flashback to Patrick sleeping in his car near the beach when plague rain comes. When he wakes up, everyone is dead.
Patrick joins Simone outside and offers her a drink. She declines. He asks if she ever wishes she’d stayed in the bunker. She says no. She never felt safe there. She was scared out of her mind the whole time.
She says she’s not scared in the same way now. Patrick says of course not, she and everyone else have each other. She has Rasmus and Martin, Beatrice has Rasmus and Martin, Martin has her and Beatrice, Lea has God, etc. But he doesn’t have anyone. He’s falling into full on drunken pity party mode now.
Simone tells him that he’s got all of them, but he dismisses her. It’s not the same. He’s not close to anyone.
Beatrice teaches Rasmus to dance. They don’t notice that the roof above them is beginning to leak. We’re teased for an endless amount of time by moisture collecting on the ceiling and coalescing into drops. Beatrice asks Rasmus if he’s ever had sex, and if he’d like to. Then they kiss. That’s when the drop finally falls onto Beatrice’s cheek. It’s all very biblical. Must punish the harlot who’s about to sully the virgin prince. Rasmus throws her on the floor. They’re both frozen in place, stunned.
Patrick goes to stand near the outer edge of the shelter provided by the water tower. Simone follows him, gets right up close, and says that no one should be alone. Patrick leans forward and tries to kiss her. She pulls away and asks what he’s doing. He throws the question back at her and says she was looking at him. Simone comes close again, trying to take his arm and guide him back inside because he’s drunk. Patrick becomes defiant, telling her to stop touching him, saying she doesn’t know him, then quickly shoving her off of him, out into the rain.
“You don’t know me.” The argument of choice of immature people who have no valid points to make. He knew it, too, so he threw her several feet into the toxic rain. I don’t think he consciously meant to kill her, but part of him has wanted to get rid of her since Martin left the second bunker for her. He was drunk enough to let that part take over for a moment to save him from embarrassment. It’s the way he operates. Act like a jerk until he gets thrown out, but find a way to blame it on someone else.
As soon as Simone is out in the rain, Patrick realizes he’d better finish the job before she has a chance to tell Martin the truth. He yells for Martin to bring the rifle quickly. Simone continues to stand in the rain, stunned.
Beatrice becomes angry. She’s not ready to die. Rasmus doesn’t understand. He thinks that because she didn’t die right away, she won’t die at all. She tells him he doesn’t understand. But Rasmus is a magical, romantic prince. He says that they’ll die together, and kisses her again. They have sex, which means that he’ll definitely get infected by her.
Meanwhile, the second he’s at the top of the stairs, Patrick the Toad screams at Martin to shoot Simone. Patrick claims that he found Simone already out in the rain. Martin hesitates. Patrick continues to frantically scream. Lea tells Martin not to shoot. She says they don’t really know if this rain is toxic. Martin has the gun aimed, and tears are falling from his eyes, but he’s frozen in place. Lea puts herself between the gun and Simone, and slowly backs out into the rain toward Simone.
Patrick continues to yell for Martin to shoot, Simone yells for Lea not to put herself in danger, and Lea repeats, “Don’t shoot,” over and over. When she reaches Simone, they grab each other and run inside. Patrick is busy trying to grab the rifle from Martin in a last ditch effort to silence Simone over an embarrassing kiss. Which turned into an attempted murder.
So much for Patrick’s attempt to stop killing everything. Pretty sure something just died, even though it wasn’t Simone.
If the rain were going to affect Simone, it should have by now.
Lea just became an actual angel.
That was an intensely powerful scene, especially combined with Rasmus and Beatrice’s scenes.
Lea and Simone rest in the bunker’s med bay/containment room. Lea tries to make light conversation. She says that she’s glad Simone is there, so that she’s not alone with Martin and Patrick. Simone says that she just wants to see Rasmus again. Simone asks why Lea helped her. Lea says that it was the right thing to do.
Martin and Patrick sit within view of the women and wonder what they’re talking about. Why, you, of course! What else could it be??? Martin wishes that he had gone out to Simone in the rain. Patrick knows enough to stay still and quiet, but he’s without remorse.
Rasmus and Beatrice lie next to each other as they fall asleep. They wish they’d met sooner. (When Rasmus was 14 instead of 16?) Beatrice asks him to sing her a lullaby, so he does.
Martin finally asks the obvious question, just as Patrick decides they can’t wait any longer to leave the women behind to die. Martin wants to know why Simone went into the rain. He goes to the containment room and asks her, but she doesn’t answer. She and Lea watch both men warily as Martin becomes more agitated. He’s calmed down enough to figure out that of course Simone wouldn’t just go into the rain for no reason.
Martin wonders if maybe this rain isn’t dangerous. Patrick insists that it is. Martin points out that they don’t know much of anything for sure. He decides to let Lea and Simone out. Patrick fights him, still insisting that they’re infected and dangerous.
Infected, probably not. Dangerous to Patrick? Definitely.
Patrick admits that he pushed Simone, just as Martin opens the door to release Simone and Lea. He leads them outside, where it’s still raining. Martin walks straight out into the rain. When he doesn’t get sick, he becomes ecstatic. Lea and Simone run out to join him. They dance, play and get drunk. Martin kisses Simone. She kisses him back.
Later, Martin and Simone are getting ready for bed and Simone’s so drunk that she’s vomiting. There’s still a lot of giggling. Martin’s got it bad, because he still wants to kiss her even after she’s been sick. She confesses that her dad was the evil scientist in the videos, and thinks they shouldn’t go to Apollon after all. Martin tries to respond, but just can’t. He decides to table this one until the next day, given all of the drama they’ve already dealt with. He can only handle so many Shakespearean level tragedies at a time.
The next morning, Martin wakes up early and tells Patrick to pack his stuff, then leads him outside. He banishes Patrick from the group. Patrick is shocked that there are any repercussions for his actions from the day before. Martin says that Patrick tried to kill Simone. He can’t let that slide.
Martin goes back inside the bunker and closes the door. Patrick calls for him to come back out, then walks away when there’s no response.
Martin has come full circle, from inadvertently killing his unit and running away from facing the responsibility, to taking responsibility for a group of people, no matter what, making the hard calls, and putting his own life on the line as one of them.
Flashback to when Martin and Patrick met: Patrick’s car breaks down in front of a deserted garage. As he’s kicking the car in frustration, Martin appears from inside, points his gun at Patrick, and says he thinks the car is dead. Patrick asks why Martin is pointing the gun at him. Martin asks why Patrick is driving a lousy car, then asks for a light for his cigarette. Patrick agrees, as long as Martin doesn’t shoot him. Martin says he hasn’t had a smoke in a long time. Patrick says he can keep the lighter, since Patrick has two. Martin says that it’s a good thing he met Patrick, then. Patrick smiles. He says that no one’s ever said something like that to him before.
It seems that Patrick is only capable of loyalty to one person at a time. Simone said nice things to him, too. Then he threw her in the rain.
Rasmus wakes up in the morning and notices that he’s alive. The sick dog is nosing around Beatrice. Rasmus chases him away, and tries to tell Beatrice that they survived the night. He rolls her over, but she’s dead. Rasmus is distraught. He picks up Beatrice, to carry her somewhere, just as Patrick reaches the house.
Patrick realizes she’s dead and runs away, so that he won’t get infected. He doesn’t pay attention, and gets captured.
Rasmus finds something to use as a pallet, and drags Beatrice’s body to the bunker. This seems like a bad idea.
Lea’s God is apparently the God of Deus ex Machina.
Recklessness kills in the apocalypse. This is why so few kids survive the early years.
There is no doubt left that Simone and Rasmus’ dad has become ruthless, no matter what his ultimate goal is. If they know there are uninfected people in the quarantine zone, shouldn’t there be a system for getting them out, after spending a period of time in containment to make sure they aren’t sick? Instead they’ve written those people off, so they’ve become dead men walking and the perfect subjects for human experimentation. As with the Jews in Nazi concentration camps, it can become easy to rationalize that it doesn’t matter what happens to someone who’s going to die anyway.
The cult from episode 5 must have been started by the scientists who were assigned to the nearby bunker that Simone couldn’t find. It looks like each top level Division 45 scientist had a bunker near their home. The doctor had hers; she probably lied about moving around, since she said the Strangers were also using the bunker and not bothering her. They must have actually been bringing her the subjects of her experiments, and she probably used her patients, as well. Frederick had his own bunker, where Simone and Rasmus lived for 6 years. The scientists that were meant for the empty, untouched bunkers probably died before they could get there.
The doctor said she was going to let Frederick watch his children die and turned on a screen, but we didn’t see it start up. Based on the video of the experiments, she must have actually had access to him. Had Simone and Rasmus remembered what she said, it’s possible that they could have made contact with their father then.
Rasmus is young, self-absorbed, immature and now addicted to his morphine pills. He was a handful even as a child, now he’s a sheltered teenager who’s never had to work or think about anyone else, since Simone took care of both of them. He doesn’t understand that there are serious consequences for things. Like many teenagers, he lives in the moment. He’s also been crushing hard on Beatrice and distracted by her attentions. Unlike Lea, who fully understands Karen’s sacrifice, I don’t think Rasmus even understands that his mother died to keep him alive and Simone jumped in front of a gun to protect him.
This sounds like I think Rasmus is a terrible person. I don’t. He’s very young and overprotected, and that’s dangerous in this world. He has a sweet side, as the characters point out. But life can make the sweet side go underground, while the other characteristics take over. I think it’s too soon to tell whether he’ll grow out of his self-absorption and impulsiveness or they’ll be his defining traits, as they are with Patrick. Now he’s had a serious tragedy befall him, which will be the first test of his character since he was a young child.
Will he blame himself for Beatrice’s death? His father? The group for leaving them alone? Will he accept that it happened and move on, learning to be more careful in the future?
Speaking of Patrick, the show continues to round out his character, which is unusual for the type of person that he is. They’ve made him understandable, and you can see that he’s trying to grow. He doesn’t have the same capacity to mature that Martin does, so he takes steps forward and backward. I don’t know if he’s redeemable in the eyes of the group or not. Simone didn’t die, and he has contributed to the group in the past, so maybe he is. But I’m not sure he has the self control to make any redemption stick long term.
How will Martin take Beatrice’s death? He’s had mixed feelings toward Rasmus all along. He can sense that Rasmus is reckless and immature, but tries to give him a break because he’s young and he’s Simone’s brother. Martin was also jealous in the beginning. I’m not sure if that’s gone or not.
Did anyone in this group have decent parents?
Lea took Karen’s sacrifice to heart, and remembers Simone jumping in front of Martin’s gun to save Rasmus. Now, it’s her turn to save someone she cares about with a leap of faith. In the past, she’s had trouble knowing who to trust, but her instincts are improving, and she’s growing stronger and more self-confident because of it. I love watching her blossom as the season goes on. Martin as well.
I was also enjoying watching Beatrice’s character growth, but I guess the characters are going to be picked off one by one for the pain they can bring. Her energy will be a loss to the show and the group, and as a fellow brunette, I have to speak up for letting the dark-haired women live!
As predicted, Rasmus is immune to the virus, and holds the key to the cure in his body. Does Frederick think he’s dead, or did he decide to spare his own child from any more experimentation, thus subjecting hundreds or thousands more people to it instead? Would a blood transfusion from Rasmus make the rest of the group immune?
How was Rasmus able to get a badly infected wound, but then have it heal quickly? Shouldn’t he have been able to avoid an infection to begin with? Did the cult actually develop a cure, but they haven’t shared it? Did the medical man slip it to Rasmus when he worked on Rasmus’ wound?
Images courtesy of Netflix.
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