The Fight
Episode 4 of 1899 starts with the focus shifting to Jerome. War is ugly and brutal, and for Jerome he’s not willing to besmirch his honour. Interestingly, he’s there with Lucien, who certainly has no shame in his own demeanour. He wants to pose as a soldier and get out of there.
Jerome is quickly awoken though by that familiar call from Maura to “wake up”, leading Franz to take Jerome out of the brig and closer to the mob. Eyk is in there still, but his cries for release and reason fall on deaf ears. Jerome and Olek are both forced to throw the deceased bodies – which are piling up on the deck – overboard.
Meanwhile, more mysteries are abound on the ship. It turns out the bow is now facing West rather than East, and the ship itself is back in the position it was 3 days back before they changed course. Their destination lies West so Franz shrugs off the weirdness and decides to press ahead.
Word spreads of the mysterious young boy brought onboard too, as the officers kept at gunpoint by the Third Class passengers spill the beans. They also reveal about the ship’s Company requesting the ship be sunk. As a result, the mob turn their attention to this child, trying to reason just why all those people are dying.
Lucien reveals to Clemence that he’s dying soon but he didn’t bother telling her because this arranged marriage is nothing more than business, rather than genuine feelings for each other. While Clemence is rather stunned, Maura too is shocked to find herself subjected to being searched when the mob arrive at her cabin door, desperate to find the boy. Opening it up they find… an empty room. As a result, the mob turn their attention to the rest of the ship, determined to find the child.
Elsewhere, Daniel continues to operate shadily, fiddling with that breaker box once more and causing sparks to fly. Remember his strange green bug? Well, it turns out the boy actually has it in his possession, and he’s still inside Maura’s cabin. Despite the door being locked on the outside, he manages to unlock it in much the same way we saw Daniel do it before, leading it under the wooden door, and the pair hurry up the hallway.
Back up on deck, Jerome escapes his captors and manages to make it to Clemence’s cabin, where he hides out until the guards are gone. She allows him to stay until she’s no longer being chased, but Jerome is determined. He’s going to free the captain – and Clemence is going to help.
The thing is, the Captain and the Priest have already escaped, having broken free from their binds thanks to some ingenuity and escaping out the vents. With Jerome and Clemence joining them, they concoct a plan to get off the boat and skip across to the Prometheus, determined to send out a signal asking for help. However, they’re joined by the boy and Maura as they’re about to descend… and the mob.
With guns pointing and things about to escalate, the boy goes willingly, but there’s a problem. Jerome steps up and gets shot for his troubles, while flashbacks reveal what happened between Lucien and Jerome. With Jerome unwilling to play along, his former friend knocked him out and stuffed him in a cage, betraying Jerome and getting out of there dressed up as a soldier.
Lucien intends to head over to the nearest outpost and let the soldiers know there’s a deserter in their midst, succumbing Jerome to a life in prison and, eventually, working on the Kerberos.
Given Jerome’s awful backstory, he awakens and heads down to Third Class, telling them all that he’s now willing to die on this ship and they need to fight back and wrestle for control. This inevitably leads to a big fight up on the deck, especially when it’s suggested they throw the boy overboard. And unfortunately, it’s Krester’s mother who picks him up and throws the boy below.
Things don’t go to plan and Eyk’s gang decide to head down and regroup. There, Maura runs over what happened to the child, including how he just nonchalantly accepted his fate without even fighting it. However, she’s snapped out of those thoughts by Eyk, who takes Maura aside and questions her about the passenger list for the Prometheus.
He wants to know exactly what she’s hiding and what she’s doing. However, they’re snapped out of this by the child, who reappears inside the cabinet under the bar, Clutching this strange pyramid, he walks silently toward Maura and throws his arms around her. It’s a shocking moment and something that sees all the passengers stunned into silence.
The Episode Review
The mystery and weirdness aboard this ship continues and it would appear that everything is connected between the two ship. This watery stranger could well be the older version of the young boy, while the pyramid appears to be some sort of device that allows one to teleport around.
The theory I currently have is that everything here is one big therapy session and Maura is actually a therapist, hypnotizing each of the passengers, which would explain the “wake up” whispering and the constant back and forths between flashbacks and present day drama. But again, take that with a pinch of salt dear readers, I’m writing this without having seen the rest of the season so that could be way off the mark!
Either way though, everything here is set up for an intriguing second half to this mystery series, which is just starting to show its hand and unveil bits and pieces around what’s happening. Roll on the next episode!
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You can read our full season review for 1899 season 1 here! |
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Episode Rating
(3.5)