We start with a
flashback to remind us of the big reveal: Elisha, the doctor who has been our
source of science and medicine in this show, is actually one of the Risen
herself. She died 4 years ago - before the rest - and then faked her continued
death before staggering out of her lab and her life all alone.
This news is passed
on to James who is super distracted by it - which is probably a really bad
thing because his wife Sarah has just had a baby and could use some support and
he’s all distracted by the walking dead. Sarah has every right to be pissed to
be honest - not only do they have a new born baby but Sarah nearly died during
child birth so some support might be nice. James stop seeing dead people, you
got a damn baby!
Another distraction
is his colleague Chris who is not an entirely incompetent policeman and he’s
noticed that Vic, the evil cop from last season, is missing (dead and buried)
and he’s not falling for all the very basic red herrings.
See this is what
comes of burying bodies rather than feeding them to crocodiles. Or koalas.
Isn’t a body in Australia just eaten by the wildlife if you leave it unattended
for 5 minutes?
James herds three of
the other Risen off to a cabin he has to try and keep them out of trouble.
Kirstie is snarky but obedient. Charlie is a doormat because… he always is and
just about everyone challenges him on being a doormat this episode. Except it’s
less “stop being a doormat” and more “damn it Charlie, be MY doormat”.
While Kate, James’s
not-dead ex-wife has decided to move on a little from the whole
Sarah/James/Kate love triangle which is something as a relief. But she’s
decided to… act out like an angry teenager? I mean, I totally support her
“James you don’t get to tell me what to do!” stance, but her “I’m gonna do this
because James doesn’t want me to!” is not exactly something I’m running with
and it all feels like she’s just being… petulant because Sarah has a baby?
Anyway she falls in with neighbour Owen who is made of hotness and they both go
swimming in a waterhole together (in Australia. This must be suicidal). But
it’s ok because they’re both local and know where the big scary snake is (hey
let’s go swimming and just swim round the… lethal snake. Australians are… odd
people). They smoke cannabis and bond and discuss his dead parents and he is
very very very very very hot
James is concerned
because she’s telling someone she just met her name and possibly exposing
herself.
Meanwhile Paddy is
rampaging around being Paddy. He wants to prove his land was willed to the
wrong people and has a copy of his will - except it’s several decades older
than federal Australia and going to be difficult to prove. While he’s
trantrumming and pouting his lawyer will do some research. In the meantime he
recruits Charlie for shenanigans at the house he intends to “defend”. Charlie
goes along because doormat+homophobic slurs
John Doe is off doing
his own thing and is found by Nicola Heysen who originally looks like the
calmist victim of a home burglary ever before she reveals she works for the
sinister Noregard, the lab that Elisha worked for to study regeneration, stem
cells and zombies and stuff. She drives off with Joe and gives him a hard sell
on all the information Elisha kept from them all and how she just needs to study
him and it’ll all be perfect. She also offers the carrot of his real identity -
William Blackguard, a convict who was flogged and executed in the distant past.
Not exactly a happy memory.
I am going to put
down his lack of suspicion over a scientist wanting to study him to being dead
for several decades and completely unaware of pop culture. Needless to say I’m
calling her evil.
James goes
researching actual Elisha and finds out she was apparently an entirely
different person when she was alive - including having a girlfriend who
believes her to be dead and having a radically different personality. Alison,
her still living girlfriend (and I like that James utterly respects the
strength of what Alison lost when she lost Elisha even if the show hasn’t yet
and is going to need to pull something out to explain this loved one
abandonment) gives James a Big Book of Science Elisha left.
And Elisha herself
finds James
James finally does
find time for Sarah and we have an excellent moment of Sarah showing just how
overwhelmed and scared she is as a new mother and James really needs to get on
side here.
Beau is no longer
following Paddy around, but his racist white family is still causing him
trouble, targeting him, looking for Paddy. To add to the complications, Phil,
his brother (I think) arrives back in town - because he just died in an oil rig
fire and has Risen (ok it’s not confirmed but we know it’s true)
One new threat facing
them all is that the radius they can travel in seems to have shrunk. If they go
too far from the graveyward they all start bleeding from their eyes - and the
distance is shorter than it was before.
Kirstie isn’t doing
much but having the odd flashback. But I’m beginning to see a concern that all
of these characters are all going to get their own arcs in a series that is
only 6 episodes long. This is going to be a problem. Either characters are
going to be severely neglected, or there’s just going to be too much rammed in
there. Each character has an arc, we have the investigation into Vic’s murder,
we have the sinister Norgard, we have Elisha and her secrets, James and Sarah
and now new Risen Phil. There’s no space for all this. None at all
