The sans serif font of horror tells us we're on Day 3 of this mystery outbreak. Alan's found Julia passed out in her shower – nice touch with the red towel to remind us that she's now swarming with infection – and Julia claims she just passed out while showering. The flashbacks to Peter's belching a bellyful of black crap into her mouth seem to suggest that she's (understandably) repressing what happened to her.
Then Alan goes and takes a walk around the empty, spookily-lit lab, just to freak himself out a bit. It pays off richly, as he hears a noise, turns around, and finds himself face-to-face with Peter. (Who, by the way, is looking even more disgusting that before.) We see Peter's neck pouch begin to thrum wildly – I'm going to make a wild guess that this is where the black infectious goo is generated – and then he whispers, "Help me," before passing out.
So! Good news! Peter's no longer on the lam spitting his plague-snot in unsuspecting people's orifices.
Meanwhile, Sarah appears to have developed a grave tremor in her hand. She stands around looking like a Margaret Keane painting while my girl Doreen takes care of business by asking people to kindly report when they start spewing black mucus, then talking down a nervous scientist who wants antivirals and wants them now. Then Doreen heads over to Sarah and mutters, "They're scared – get that. But sometimes I just want to yell at them, you know? We're not the enemy here."
Then some editor decides the viewing audience is comprised of idiots because the minute the word "idiot" flies out of Doreen's mouth, the camera zooms over to Hatake ,Daniel and Balleseros, and the music gets ominous. Two of the three of them are freaking a bit over the pending pandemic, but Hatake is fairly calm. He loses his cool only when Alan wheels Peter into isolation and begins ordering tests.
Hatake points out that the base is dealing with a highly infectious lunatic who appears to have Spiderman's nimbleness and taste for chopping up people for RFID chips, and that he's not comfortable merely keeping Patient Zero sedated in the isolation chamber. And thus we are introduced to another horror convention: the abandoned, physically remote institutional facility. In this case, it's called "Level R," and we're supposed to be okay with it because it contains "early labs and [residential] quarters." The plan is to park Peter and/or other dangerous infected people in a former lab which sports three-feet-thick concrete walls and crazy-reinforced steel doors.
Naturally, the question of why you'd need such a remarkably secure facility comes up. Why, research with nuclear reactors, of course! So now we also have the prospect of radiation mutating this ridiculous pathogen even further. Hoo-ray. Anyway, Alan thinks it's a fine idea to physically isolate the vectors (i.e. goo-spitters) and disease sufferers down here. In separate areas, of course.
A few floors up, Julia's having more flashbacks, then imagining what she'll look like when she's fully infected. Once that spell is over, she resorts to the hackneyed trope of mirror-talking: "Get it together, Jules. You don't get sick."
Alan tells Hatake he's like to move all 23 infected people down to level R, and he'd like food, water and bedding for 40 people because "this thing will get bigger before we achieve containment." (The pessimist in me thinks that Hatake should set up an isolation area for 40 and use it for the few in this base who aren't going to be wiped out by this thing.) Hatake's all, "ON IT," and everyone's feeling good about having a plan right when they run into the fugitive Dr. Sulemani, who is looking much the worse for wear with that big black ring of goo around her mouth. She begs for help, and everyone's like, "We are fine with helping you, just stop walking toward us," but Sulemani continues to walk toward them and finally, Daniel demonstrates his irritation with people who don't listen by shooting her.
Alan's step is to save Sulemani's life, because he's just that much of a swell guy. After he's got her stabilized and moved to the isolation unit (because I guess they think a bullet wound will slow her down? Since Peter's vertical leaping business apparently made no impression?), Alan politely lets Daniel have it for shooting a plague victim, and Daniel's all, "My job is to protect Hatake. I have nothing to apologize for." Hatake attempts to step in and take responsibility for Daniel, but Alan overrides him all, "I'm the senior scientist here so I'm responsible for everyone!" As Hatake refrains from rolling his eyes, Alan gives an edict that may come back to bite him in the ass later: "You tell your security that this is the last time lethal force is to be used on one of my patients!" Or else he's going home. Hatake refrains from saying anything, so Alan huffs off.
More of Julia freaking out, this time at Peter's bedside. Oh, I just hope she manifests symptoms already. Then she and Peter can devolve into spitting lizards and run off to find some sort of weird arctic pond in which to hibernate until the climate shifts so dramatically, they're awoken in the 23rd century to provide sequel fodder in Helix II: More Helices.
Alan distracts Julia from her lizardy devolution to call a staff meeting. Everyone loves the idea of isolating the volatile ill people on the incredibly-secure floor ("Sick people go down, healthy people come up") but they do not love Alan's order: So that the infected are contained and the healthy population remains so, it's necessary to test everyone to see who's infected. As this is a new pathogen, there is no off-the-shelf product available. So guess who's on the hook for devising a brand-new, quick and accurate test for Narvik-B in to no time? Good thing Sarah's confident in her many, many degrees conferred in her comparatively short life, because she's about to use them all simultaneously.
Meanwhile, my girl Doreen is sequencing the virus found in her monkey, because if she can provide the full genetic sequence of the virus and help prove that it's passed from monkey to human, the team is one step closer to finding the original pathogen and creating a vaccine. No word on why they can't basically do the same thing with Peter, who is their known Patient Zero.
Alan trots along the corridor, where he runs into Daniel. The security chief lets him know that science and medicine are all very well and good at deterring plagues, but you know what stops 'em cold? Shooting the infected. And he has no problem with that.
Sarah and Julia are dickering over testing approaches – Sarah has decided to ignore the order Julia gave about testing enzymes because she thinks she knows better – and the argument is derailed only because Sarah's right hand is shaking wildly on its own. Sarah claims she's probably just exhausted.
Balleseros and Doreen talk basic virology: She explains to him that "'Curing' a virus is a relative term. We need a treatment to help the infected folks get better and a vaccine to prevent anyone else from getting infected. That sick monkey is just the first step down a long ro – where the hell is my monkey?" Her dissection table is completely clean. To add insult to injury, the place reeks of formaldehyde, which kills any living organism left behind. Balleseros basically body-blocks Doreen from heading up to Hatake's office and breaking him over her knee in a quest for answers, and unfortunately, he prevails. I have decided to preemptively hate him because he's probably behind thwarting Doreen's science and he'll probably be the one to (try to) kill her. Balleseros, switch to Team Doreen!
And what do you know, in the time it took for me to type this, Balleseros is all, "I had a colonel like Hatake, and you had to resort to ‘creative' measures to get things done. What if I could get you another monkey sample?" Oh my gosh, what is his endgame in showing Doreen the field of fallen monkeys? Because you know that's where he's going to find his monkey sample.
Julia blah blah flashbacks blah blah talking to Peter blah blah losing her mind.
Doreen can only feel pity as she looks at the monkey field – "These monkeys were running for their lives." And then she calls Balleseros on his excuse-making for how he found the monkey field, and tells him he can either be honest and work with her, or get used to his own company. As she walks off, Balleseros calls out, "There are people in the army, myself included, who are wondering if this outbreak was an accident." Doreen asks why Hatake would unleash this nightmare on purpose and Balleseros hands over a bag full of frozen monkey parts with, "Why don't you help me find out?" Cynic that I am, I think Balleseros is playing Doreen by appealing to her sense of civic duty.
So, good news! There may be one of the two remaining fugitive scientists already on Level R. I look forward to seeing who gets to him first, Alan or Daniel.
Meanwhile, Sarah's nailed the test. She's found a way to attach glow-in-the-dark jellyfish genes to the white blood cells that are reacting to the virus, and she's got three positive results from known infected people and three negatives from three security guards. Julia hands Sarah a swab and asks her to show her, using Sarah as a control, but Sarah's being weird about it for some reason and asks Julia to swab her instead. Julia should be freaking about this, but she goes ahead and does it, but Sarah flounces off. Again – weird that Sarah's got issues with her test being taken. You'd think that she'd be dying to show off how well it worked. Julia does the swab test on herself, stares at the test tube, then pockets the clear (negative) result.
Oh, good – it's the beardo with the short panic fuse from last week and he's attempting to pull a "Here's Johnny!" on some guy named Duchamp behind another door. He can't be reasoned with – "the SODRA's in there and they're keeping it from me!" – and finally, some security guy takes him down with a taser. Beardo's dragged off to be reunited in isolation with Sulemani, and Alan lets Duchamp know he can come out. When Alan attempts to ask Duchamp what Beardo was going on about with SODRA and the cure, Duchamp surfs away on a wave of sketchy denials.
Doreen has just put a few cell samples in a petri dish, and she's explaining to Balleseros that they'll put everything in an incubator and wait … when the cells go BONKERS and make a giant black abstract sculpture that takes over the entire incubator/sterile workspace. Doreen instantly freezes it/poisons it so it will stop growing, and she gives Balleseros a "What the WHAT?" look.
Cut to the two of them doing a walk-and-talk down the hall while he guilelessly asks questions like, "So it wasn't supposed to grow like that?" Doreen's all, "You could say that," and she's about to tell Alan what's what when Balleseros intercepts again and says seductively, "Don't tell anyone. If Hatake gets wind of this, it'll be the monkey room all over again." Doreen sighs, "I still don't trust you, but when you're right, you're right." YOU'RE BACK ON THE LIST, BALLESEROS. I trust him not one whit and hope he gets locked outside in the monkey field during a blizzard and Doreen gets the last laugh by walking out there regularly to dump steaming Erlenmeyer flasks of her own pee on the corpse.
Alan has gone to Hatake to ask about SODRA, Hatake tries to stall by saying he needs to consult with the board of directors once the satellite comes on, and Alan's all, "I plan on taking this to the New York Post once the satellite comes on unless you start talking." So Hatake rolls his eyes, sighs, and explains, "SODRA is an antiviral treatment with an astounding rate of cure. Nearly 100%." Alan wants to know how we're defining "cure" here – total viral elimination with no harm to host cells? Yes, that's how we're defining it. And Alan realizes, "You've been growing lethal viruses for the purpose of developing a cure-all." "SODRA works. In all animal test cases, the viruses were killed. The only problem is the mortality rate," insists Hatake. And going by Alan's reaction, a 75% mortality rate is a problem indeed.
So Level R's ready. The plan is to herd everyone down there, test everyone, and whoever tests negative can come back up to the non-radiation-riddled, non-abandoned part of the base.
And now, the testing sequence. Nearly a third of the base is infected. Alan decides that so long as they're rounding up people, why not throw Beardo (aka Bryce) and Sulemani in with everyone else? Balleseros is all, "Really? Two people with a known track record for crafty escape plans in a room full of panicky infected people? That's a thing you want to do?" but Alan pooh-poohs him. Then he walks off to listen to Julia validate his decision to seal panicky sick people in an isolated level of the base.
So, Daniel goes up to get Sulemani, and she attacks him like a crazy person. She's making inhuman noises and she's got super-strength and super-speed now. As Daniel recovers from being tackled by the madwoman, he looks inside the isolation room where she was and sees that she viciously killed Beardo.
More of Sarah being all shaky and stumbling. Julia asks if she's infected and points out that the combination of shaky hands plus refusal to take the test do not look good. Sarah spitefully, self-righteously swabs up. She's clear.
Before the two doctors can get into some sort of serious fight – on the plus side, this is yet another conversation that was passing the Bechdel Test – Daniel comes in and, under the pretext of looking for Alan, manages to panic everyone by mentioning that Dr. Sulemani's on the R level and she's been killing people. Cue the mad rush to the elevators.
Everyone shuts up for a moment only when they hear an inhuman roar-squeal and see Sulemani knock a security guard halfway down the corridor before leaping to crouch over his torso and begin gnawing at his face to infect it. Julia watches in horror, finally, fully realizing that she had indeed suffered a traumatic experience in the shower and she's infected by Patient Zero.
Somehow, Daniel manages to drop his gun. Sulemani looks up, sees Julia standing there looking like fresh meat, and sprints toward her. Only the bullet Alan's fired stops her in her tracks. (What I love is how Daniel silently takes the gun back without even one glance of reproach.)
Alan goes to grab Julia all, "Let's get upstairs" and Julia shows him the black mucus she's just spat into her palm as she says, "I can't." We get everyone's reaction shots and Balleseros is almost smiling.
Cut to Hatake asking what happened and where Julia is, and Alan breaks the news that Julia's infected. Hatake blinks, which is basically the equivalent of anyone else dropping to their knees as they tear out their hair and shout, "Noooooooooooo!"
Daniel looms behind him to implore that Level R stay quarantined and Hatake chokes, "Leave them down there? With no food or water?" There's a week's worth of supplies – and another horror convention (a limited resource set to run out in a compressed period) supplied to us. Alan backs up Daniel and says, "We – I have lost control of this situation. We need to seal it off." Hatake is all, "BUT JULIA IS DOWN THERE" (only a lot more restrained about it) and Alan says, "It's only until help arrives. When the satellite com link goes operative again, I'm calling in the army for backup." We see Balleseros all, "Wait – what?" and something tells me the satellite uplink is about to be permanently downlinked.
We cut to Sarah in her quarters knocking back some unlabeled pills, then taking off her thermal top to reveal a big, ugly scar stitched down the length of her spine.
Then we cut to Doreen coming in to keep Alan company as he watches Peter. Alan rattles off the people who have died under his watch (274 and counting) and he says, "I could live with 274 because it was the disease that killed them. Not me. Until now. I not only killed someone with my bare hands today, but it's very likely – Julia is very likely --." Doreen cuts off the pity party (yay) but she does not give him an update on how her day went (boo).
We see Balleseros outside by the satellite array, getting ready to prove me right once again.
On Level R, Julia's wiping her hands on her white coat before taking it off, then she pulls out her test – which is still negative. Horrified, she rushes over to the other test kits and sees that many of the positive tests are now clear – and vice versa. Julia frantically tries to call out, and right as she gets ready to tell Alan that the tests don't work, Balleseros manages to blow up the entire communications array. There's neither interior nor exterior communication now – and the infected are mingling freely with the well throughout the base.
Lisa Schmeiser is an Oakland-adjacent reporter, editor and blogger. She regularly tweets here, blathers about comics here, and posts the oddball personal piece of writing here.