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On their journey to the radio beacon Joyce, Sam, Daniel, and Johnny run across what appears to be the wreckage of the Siberia helicopter. There are no bodies there, which can be either reassuring or worrying, depending on how you look at it. And the morning, there's snow everywhere! It's quite pretty, but the Siberians don't see it that way. Sabina gets people mad at her when she reveals that she stole a bunch of supplies and hid them in a cave. And Miljan's started talking about killing Irene, because she's a liability. But first, a group heads out to the producers' camp to scavenge for winter clothing and food. Which they should have done the first time they were there, really.
There's a treacherous river crossing on the way to the radio beacon, and Sam's foot breaks through the ice. This, of course, develops into frostbite immediately, and eventually he falls down a hill and can't go on. Johnny and Joyce find shelter by a fallen tree, where they can get a fire started but Sam's not doing at all well. This expedition has taken two days already, and they're still not at the beacon. They do a lot of walking.
At the producers' camp, Esther finds the key to the Revealer and doesn't tell anyone. When they get back to the camp, she sneaks off and does something. Then the horn starts up, and everyone runs out. Miljan pounds on the Revealer like a fool, and then he pouts when Neeko stops him. The pouting turns homicidal when Miljan tries to strangle Irene, which gets him tied to a chair in one of the cabins. Then Esther claims to notice the Revealer key, so everyone has access to matches, vodka, sleeping pills, and a Dostoevsky novel. But when Esther takes water to Miljan, he somehow knows that she stole something, and he threatens to tell everyone. This probably has something to do with the way everyone wakes up the day with a headache to find that Irene is missing. Neeko finds something disturbing in the other cabin, but we don't learn if Miljan is missing or just dead.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The trek to the mysterious tower (by Johnny, Sam, Daniel, and Joyce) takes a break so Joyce can drink some water. Daniel suggests that maybe the blackened area they saw was caused by an explosion that put so much debris in the air that the sky turned a weird color. That nearly sounds plausible, but refraction of light doesn't explain why the sky was so bright. Nobody buys his theory, although it's probably no sillier than whatever the truth turns out to be. Johnny gets distracted and runs down the hill to check something out. He's found a wrecked helicopter door! And it has the "SIBERIA" logo on it. That's worrying.
Joyce manages to find the rest of the helicopter's wreckage strewn around some trees. Daniel thinks it must have fallen out of the sky, which sounds logical. Helicopters live in the sky, right? There are no bodies, which seems weird. Joyce finds something to examine, which lets Johnny confab with the menfolk. He says it's going to be dark soon, so they need to find shelter. We see that Joyce is crying over something labeled "Jonathan Buckley."
Morning in the camp. It's cold in the cabin. Irene is having a bad time, and Annie soothes her. The discussion mostly centers on how crazy cold it is. Miljan can't open his cabin's door, which turns out to be because there's like three feet of snow out there. Neeko insists that it isn't possible, because it was "boiling hot" yesterday. They should have had someone on the last episode mention how hot it was at the time! That would make this much more interesting from the audience's point of view. They could have worked it in while they were carrying all that wood for the signal fire.
The away team wakes up huddled under a lean-to made of helicopter parts. They are also beset by snow! Joyce suggests starting a fire, and Sam says it's too wet. Johnny says to start walking, because they're closer to the beacon than they are to the settlement. The beacon is that tower with the blinking red light that they're looking for. Nobody really knows what it is. Although it's clearly a radio tower.
The camp looks pretty all covered with snow. Esther is shivering and is not in a position to appreciate nature's beauty. Annie reports that Irene is not doing well. Irene asks Annie to pray for her. Annie claims she doesn't know what to say, but she comes up with some rhyming couplets about the Angel of God. She explains that she "used to be" religious. The boys come over with the blankets and mattresses from the other cabin. Sabina is apparently missing, which they should really be used to by now.
Neeko tells Irene the away team will bring help, which Miljan thinks is stupid. He already thinks it's time to put Irene out of her misery, which nobody else is willing to put up with. Neeko accuses Miljan of wanting to play God. His plan is to sit and wait for the others to come back. I don't think they have enough food to wait out the winter. In fact, they might not have enough food to last a day.
Sam is having trouble getting through the deep snow. The team gets to a clearing and they can see the beacon in the distance. It looks just as far away as it ever did, and there's some forest in the way. Johnny insists that they keep moving. He thinks that if they make it by night, they'll be all right. I don't know what he expects to find when they get there. He apparently believes that radio beacons normally have bed-and-breakfasts attached. Maybe they should have brought that radio from the producers' camp so they could hook it up to a giant transmitter or something.
Sabina comes into the cabin dressed in winter clothing and carrying bags of supplies. Esther gets angry at her for having all this stuff and starts shouting at her. Lady, I can understand being a little mad, but Sabina's going to save your life with these supplies, so lay off a little. Neeko gets Esther to shut up a little. Sabina explains that she was going to win the game by stealing supplies from the cabins and hiding it all in a cave. Esther is, of course, angry at this.
But Sabina's decided the game is irrelevant, so it's time to share the loot. Sabina doesn't have extra winter clothes, but she says there are some at the producers' base camp. Oh! They could use snow shoes! I know they have some because they keep being used as scene breaks. They're stuck up on the walls like it's a TGI Friday's or something.
Sam looks like he was not physically ready for a long walk through knee-deep snow. And now the expedition is stopped by a river! It's not frozen solid, so they can't get across. Johnny suggests they walk along the bank and hope to find a narrow spot, This seems like a lot of work to reach something that has no guarantee of being any help.
Irene is lucid now, although she mostly just talks about how grateful she is to Annie. She makes Annie tell her about the prayer she said, and it turns out that Annie used to be Catholic, but now she doesn't believe in God. I don't care about either side of that revelation, but both of them act like it's a big deal. Annie thinks that the things that have happened to them somehow prove there's a God. She does not explain her reasoning.
More walking has led the away team to a part of the river that's covered in snow. Johnny carefully sticks one foot out, and you can hear the ice breaking before he even puts any weight on it. I think this is a bad plan! But I also think there probably isn't a good plan available, so what the heck. Johnny throws his backpack across the river, so I guess he's committed now. He walks carefully and gets across. I think you're supposed to get low and spread your weight around, not stand straight up. You're definitely not supposed to all walk across the same spot the way they're doing. Move a few feet left or right, you know?
Sabina brings people to the producers' camp. All the tents are covered in snow, and the first one they check has some backpacks and blankets and general winter supplies all wrapped in plastic. They find a cooler of food, too! This is stuff that Johnny should have grabbed the first time he was here. Sabina opens a card that starts playing music. And then Esther finds something labeled "Revealer Key" which sounds like an excellent thing to have. She does not tell anyone that she has it, because this show believes that the audience has an inexhaustible hunger for people hiding things from each other.
Everyone has crossed the river except Sam, the heaviest one. He starts to walk across the river exactly where everyone walked. It starts to crack, and he runs across. I feel obliged to point out that the camera crew is apparently standing in the middle of the river. Actually, they're standing on both sides of the river, too. Sam gets across, but his feet are wet. He doesn't care and says that everyone should keep moving.
The team leaving the producers' team hears a wolf or something, then they run across Miljan's totem pole. He tells them to keep walking and hustles them past it. If I promise that everyone understands that Miljan has a weird connection with the totem pole, and that everyone further understands that he wants to keep anyone else from studying it, can we get on with it? Because it doesn't count as plot development when you just repeat the same scene in every episode.
More walking through the snow by the away team. They hug each other. Sam's having a lot of trouble, which is probably because frostbite is setting in. Finally, he falls down and rolls down a hill. Everyone runs down to him. He insists that he's okay, and he does seem fairly coherent. Johnny insists on seeing his foot, and it doesn't look good. Did you ever see The Way Back? I mean the movie from a couple of years ago where some guys walked across Siberia, not the comedy about...whatever the comedy's about. My point is that The Way Back had some great injured-foot makeup. And now here's some more injured-foot makeup. Never mind.
The producers' camp team gets their stuff back to the camp, although Esther is lagging behind. She claims that she has to pee, which is her diabolical excuse to slip away from them.
Sam insists that he can walk. No one else thinks that he can, but they also don't want to just stay where they are until they freeze or starve or whatever, so they start to stand him up. But he can't stand, so he tells them to leave him. They could try making him a crutch out of the trees that are everywhere.
Back at the cabin, there's some discussion of getting the stove working. Miljan is getting frustrated with a can of food and starts hitting it. And then the Revealer hoots up! When people run outside, Esther is to the Revealer, and she claims that it just started up for no reason. Miljan runs out and starts pounding on it with an axe like he's an ape at the beginning of 2001. Neeko says it's titanium, which it obviously isn't. That's just stupid, Neeko. Get a grip on yourself. Miljan runs off, shouting. We see him go into a cabin. Then he comes out and very calmly goes into the other one. The fixed security camera shows Miljan and Annie in the cabin, and Miljan takes a rope and starts to strangle Irene. She stops him and shouts for help, which is a good response.
Now Miljan is trying to choke Annie, but Neeko has gotten there and he's a huge, muscular dude so it's not much of a fight. He throws Miljan out in the snow, and Miljan is laughing in a really fake way. I don't buy this performance at all. Neeko gets him on the ground and starts pummeling him, and Sabina pulls him off. In fact, she uses a little kung fu throw to get him down and in a chokehold. That's nice work. I like how they've set up Sabina as being a great fighter here.
Miljan is tied to a chair in one cabin while everyone else is in the other one. Sabina sits in there with him. Neeko sits on the Revealer outside in the snow, looking into the distance. Esther comes out and sits to Neeko. She says they need to get out of there. Neeko agrees, but he doesn't know how that's possible. All he can think of is that they have to get the Revealer open.
Sam is unable to even sit up. Daniel and Joyce are sitting with him. Johnny is trying to get a fire started, but his hands are trembling as he tries to light the lighter and the wood is too wet. Sam says he doesn't even feel cold anymore, which he doesn't recognize as a very bad sign. Then he starts babbling about Kulik's journal.
Sabina flips through the journal in front of Miljan. He asks her not to read it (because he has an unwholesome connection with it, which I think has been adequately established at this point), and he calls it "my book." Sabina throws it on the floor and grabs his throat to deliver some threats about what will happen if he touches "that girl" again.
Johnny says they have to keep walking. Daniel wants to stay with Sam, and Johnny tells him that will mean certain death. Daniel is unmoved. Literally; he's not going anywhere. So Johnny and Joyce keep walking and Daniel waits with Sam.
Neeko is using a hatchet to try to get into the Revealer. It doesn't go well, and he resorts to pounding on it a little, just like Miljan did. Esther suddenly claims to notice a strangely-shaped hole, which matches this weird piece of metal she found, and the point is that she found the key. They get it open! And there are gears! There's also rice and sleeping pills and Dostoevsky's The Idiot. That last one is in case the sleeping pills don't work. Further investigation reveals matches, vodka, chocolate, and a fire extinguisher. They're mostly interested in the matches. I approve of Esther's decision to tell them about the key, although I expect she'll still get in trouble for trying to hide it.
Daniel covers Sam with snow and worries. I mean that Daniel is worrying, not that he's piling his worries on top of Sam.
Back at the cabin, vodka gets poured on Irene's wound. She screams, but it's a pretty good idea. Esther suggests giving Irene some sleeping pills, but Annie can tell that would just be for Esther's benefit. Miljan is shouting from the other cabin that he's cold and needs water. No one is willing to go over there until Esther volunteers. She goes in with water and Miljan claims that he didn't do anything wrong by trying to kill Irene. Esther starts to give him water, and he spits it in her face. His behavior continues to be unconvincing to me. He tells Esther that he knows what she took from the Revealer, and she has to let him go or he'll tell everyone. "I think you and I are going to be really good friends," he says.
If she has any sense, she'll just kill him. I mean, he's tied to a chair, so it wouldn't be that hard. The only witness would be the camera operator, and these guys are not getting involved at all. Anyway, apparently Esther stole something from the Revealer. Hey, do you think it has anything to do with the camera operator that she's blackmailing? Or has everyone forgotten about that already?
Sam's still alive, and Daniels' trying to keep him awake. Sam says, "They're not coming back." Even if they do, what are they going to do? Sam loses consciousness, and Daniel panics. He tells the cameraman to help, which is as productive as it usually is.
Joyce and Johnny come back! They've found shelter, but Sam's not waking up. No, wait, he is. Was that dramatic to read about? Because it wasn't dramatic to watch. The shelter involves snuggling up to an uprooted tree. And as soon as they get him there, Sam's having trouble staying awake again. Johnny gets a fire started, and they take Sam's shoe off. It looks bad. Again. Or still.
Camp. They're sharing the vodka, which is a good idea. It's also appropriate behavior for a Siberian winter. Neeko thinks they should look on the bright side, which is that they found matches. And tomorrow's another day. Sabina gives Annie the musical card she found. It says "Happy Birthday" on it. Annie's spirits are duly lifted.
The away team is huddled around their fire. They don't know what they'll do tomorrow.
Morning in camp. Everyone has a headache, possibly because they were drinking vodka all night. Annie checks on Irene, and she's missing. That's new! Esther asks where she went, and she obviously isn't in the cabin with them. Everyone goes outside, shouting for Irene. Sabina is last, because she's trying to find her shoe. And she sees the empty bottle of sleeping pills. Well, they can't have been very good sleeping pills if they were combined with copious amounts of vodka and still only put people to sleep. And the whole bottle's empty! Maybe it's a week later.
Neeko tells people to look for footprints. Then he checks the cabin where Miljan was and says, "Oh my god." We don't learn if Miljan is gone or dead or what.
Then there's a very brief static shot of what I think is the base of the radio tower. The end!
week: more walking and shouting, probably.
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.