Episode Report Card Daniel: B- | 59 USERS: C- YOU GRADE IT Touch Me, I'm Sick
By Daniel | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 07.15.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's what, day three? The episode opens promisingly with the townspeople spray-painting the dome and raising a ruckus over what appears to be the army pulling out (Ollie has gone from "don't worry, the feds will save us" to "can't trust any gummint!" literally overnight) but then that just peters out and goes nowhere. It's like this place is a Sims-like game where the townspeople were given the task "riot" and it lasted a set amount of time and the experience points were earned and now they'll wander aimlessly until they're given something else to do (like come down with meningitis, I guess).
Yes: the Weekly Crisis this week is a meningitis outbreak, which has the good folks of Chester's Mill all coming down right at the same time. Well, they seem to come down in reasonably spaced intervals so they can be taken to the hospital in an orderly fashion. Alice (who we didn't see at all last week) volunteers her medical training (she's currently a psychiatrist), since she happens to be at the hospital to get Joe and Norrie, the seizure twins, checked out. The complication with the fire -- I mean the outbreak -- is that the hospital has no fire department -- I mean antibiotics. This leads to the forced sentimentality of Linda being given the hospital's last dose of meningitis medicine over her third-grade teacher, introduced to the show for the first time just so she can die because Barbie and Big Jim discover someone has stolen all the drugs from the pharmacy. The good reverend is going full religious freakjob now, and stole the drugs not to take them himself but to burn them because getting sick and dying is all part of God's plan, and he also gives Big Jim his share of the proceeds from their nefarious doings, since he's washing his hands of the whole thing.
Big Jim gives Junior the task of keeping everyone quarantined at the hospital. The best method the Rennies have is not "let's tell everyone how important it is that they keep the contagion within the hospital" but "give Junior the psychopath a loaded shotgun and have him stand guard at what is I guess the hospital's only entrance and exit."
But at least major plot points are advancing elsewhere. Angie's attempt to stab Junior and then presumably starve to death in the bomb shelter after killing the only person who knows where she is goes awry. But while Junior is out earning people's respect by not blowing them away with shotguns, she pulls loose a water pipe (she's pretty strong for an eighty-pound woman who's been shackled underground for three days) and almost dies of hypothermia. Fortunately, Big Jim hears her cries for help through his house's plumbing, and discovers her. I have no illusions that he's going to free her, but I'm looking forward to seeing this play out.
And in contrast to what I said in disparaging the show's subtlety last week, Barbie does already know Phil Bushey, who is the P.B. marked on his map. Julia follows the map to P.B.'s place, where she discovers that her husband sold his Beemer. Phil inconveniently comes down with meningitis before he can answer too many questions. Thankfully, so does Julia, and she manages to drag out a reference to the cabin, and then gets the location from Junior, who's all too happy to drive a wedge between Julia and Barbie. Julia manages to escape the quarantine and find the cabin, where she discovers that her husband has emptied their savings and the house will be foreclosed on. She collapses but is brought back to the hospital by Barbie, who confesses to being an enforcer collecting on Pete's gambling debts, but claims Pete must have taken off somewhere. Julia doesn't believe that Pete was a gambler. Fortunately, Barbie is a stupid enforcer and has incriminating evidence on his phone (a voicemail) that links him to the person he killed shortly after the voicemail was left.
Linda, impressed by the way Junior talked down a minor freakout by people quarantined at the hospital (and disregarding the way he first fired off the shotgun and then later left a loaded shotgun lying around a group of people who moments earlier were freaking out) and deputizes him. When the inquest happens, there's a lot of poor decision-making to ask questions about.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He's really impressed that Norrie is aware of such pop culture obscurities as Star Wars and X-Men. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
So Big Jim goes and gets the loaded shotgun that he apparently has lying on the backseat of his SUV and brings it to Junior, telling him to make sure no one leaves. “I’m counting on you, Junior.”
A somewhat nervous Junior heads inside, brandishing the shotgun. "The clinic is now closed. No one leaves, you understand? No one," he says, while everyone looks shocked. I mean, given that all these people came to the hospital voluntarily, did either Rennie think of maybe telling them how important it is they stay there? Also: does this hospital have just the one set of doors?
Angie wakes up in the fungeon, which now has a few inches of water on the floor and the pipe is still spilling. She climbs up on the top bunk, screaming for Junior and futilely trying to stop the water.
Over at the hospital, a pale Julia accosts Phil -- lying on a hospital bed in the hallway -- but he’s in no condition to tell her anything because he’s hallucinating: “Peter, man, I can’t make it to the cabin tonight,” he says. Julia was not aware of any cabin and presses for more information, until Alice happens along to tell Julia to get back to bed and leave Phil alone until the antibiotics kick in. But the prospect of getting more medicine is iffy, because Big Jim and Barbie discover that the pharmacy has already been looted.
At the hospital, Alice tells Carolyn that there are at least thirty people with advanced symptoms and another two-dozen with early warning signs. Carolyn’s worried both about how Alice is holding up, and how much insulin she has. At least a few days’ worth, says Alice, although she admits to having taken her last insulin without eating. Alice is then called away…
… to where you knew the Linda/Ms. Moore plotline was going, although they might have stretched it out a little bit to give us the chance to care about Ms. Moore. You see, both Linda and Ms. Moore are now in critical need of antibiotics, but there’s only one dose left. "Give Linda the medicine," croaks out Ms. Moore (Linda is pretty catatonic), adding she’ll wait for the next round. Alice looks at Ms. Moore for a moment -- "there’s no way I’ll take it," adds Ms. Moore, making it clear she knows that there may not be a next round in time for her -- and then tells the nurse give Linda the dose, which she does.
In the waiting room, Julia wants Shotgun Junior to let her out, but he says he can’t. She even calls him "James" and everything! She explains that Phil mentioned something about a cabin, and that gets Junior’s attention: "Like the one I found Barbie at?" he says, explaining to a shocked Julia that he found Barbie in a cabin at the end of Sparrow’s Lane. But he’s still not letting her leave. So she pilfers the access card from her husband’s office (which isn’t locked) so she can get out through another exit (which is).