3 Body Problem – Season 1 Episode 5 “Judgment Day” Recap & Review

Judgment Day

Episode 5 of 3 Body Problem begins with Wade and Raj verbally sparring with one another. As a result of his tenacity, Wade decides to bring him on to his operation, claiming that there’s something “far more important” than protecting his country. This stems from stopping the ship that Evans is on (the one he’s communicating with the San-Ti from) by “any means necessary”.

They get this intel from Clarence, who speaks to Ye Wenjie about her message back in the 70’s. She doesn’t regret sending it, claiming that humanity needed to be saved. She’s compliant with Clarence’s questions, believing that she doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is that the San-Ti are coming.

Apparently Ye Wenjie tried to protect Vera from this whole alien ordeal and here we learn that Evans, unsurprisingly, is her father. However, he never met her and the first time he did was at the funeral. Ye Wenjie was the one who recruited Jin to the cause. But how are they communicating with the San-Ti so quickly? Well, the clue may well be on this state-of-the-art ship we’ve been seeing. And it’s name? Judgment Day.

According to Ye Wenjie, there is communication that’s available that’s faster that lightspeed. It may be impossible for us – but not for the aliens. In order to find out the truth, Clarence realizes they need to get that ship. One easy of doing that is to use this nano-fiber tech Auggie has been working on.

Clarence speaks to Auggie and they head off to the lab. Auggie downs a ton of alcohol before switching the machine back on, knowing that the countdown is imminently going to reach zero. This time though, when she turns the machine on there is no countdown. She rushes over and hugs Clarence with relief… until she wonders exactly why the numbers have stopped. Clarence believes it’s because “The Lord has stopped protecting its flock”.

Clarence and Auggie next head off to see Wade, who briefs a whole bunch of naval officers about something they’re building. Raj is the one fronting this project and it’s super secret. They’ve figured out that the Judgment Day ship is en-route to the Panama Canal and will be there in about 26 hours or so. This project, using nano-tech, is going to kill numerous people. Auggie is not happy that Raj is onboard with this mission, but he justifies it by saying that they’re at war.

Over in Panama, Auggie’s nano-tech works and it cuts everyone onboard, destroying all the tech and equipment, along with everybody else onboard. It’s an absolute bloodbath. As for Evans, he faces death head-on and clutches a strange red contraption, asking for forgiveness before dying.

In the wreckage, Clarence and Wade find the red box (completely unharmed) and realize that the information there is far too intelligent and sophisticated for them to crack any time soon. Maybe 38 billion years’ time according to their expert. 

Out of nowhere there, something blinks up on the monitor before him. The San-Ti clearly want them to see what’s inside. And they find 28 GB of text and media files. There’s a strange file-type that’s 100 Petabytes too, which is 100 million gigabytes in size.

Wade shows back up to see Ye Wenjie and shows off a recorder that he has. This details everything that went on between Evans and the San-Ti, including the infamous liar conversation. Ye Wenjie is shocked when she hears this, realizing that the aliens may actually be turning hostile after all.

Elsewhere, a lawyer shows up to see Will to confirm that half of Rooney’s estate has been given to him… which amounts out to about 20 million. Will isn’t exactly happy about it, as he doesn’t want to be poked and prodded by scientists looking for a cure for his cancer, which is something that Jack wanted for him. Instead, he tells Saul he just wants to eat some good food and enjoy the stars.

Wade shows up to see Jin and asks about higher dimensions. She understands the concept and brings her into HQ. There are two headsets here, placed for the pair of them. Wade and Jin put them on and are whisked away to the game world. This shows off a post-apocalyptic wasteland and that strange AI woman from before there.

She’s concerned that humanity is advancing far faster than she could foresee and believes the fleet is a funeral procession just waiting to happen. The San-Ti are afraid and want to basically destroy our science from the inside out, using their Sophons, which are protons that they’ve turned into a sentient computer. She explains that there are way more dimensions than the eye can see and they’ve managed to use these higher dimensions to mess with the very foundations and fabric of how we see the world. They can make a mind as large as the world and then shrink it right down.

They’ve created four Sophons in total – two pairs of two. Each pair is entangled and connected on a quantum level. There are two on Earth and two that remain with the San-Ti. Given they have no mass, propelling them through space faster than the speed of light is easy and they entered the Solar System months ago at the best scientific places on the world. This was their plan to kill science and wrap our world in illusions, distorting what we see with countdowns and doomsday prophecies.

This threat is very real though, and to show how much power the Sophons have, all the electronic devices begin blinking out only to be replaced by one universal message in languages across the world. “You are bugs.” And just like that, a strange veil hangs over the sky with a great eye looking down on everyone and reflecting everything from below.

The Episode Review

Oh dear, it would appear that the San-Ti have turned hostile and are very much in the process of destroying the world around us. This is not going to go well for humanity, who as we know, tend to reach for mass hysteria rather banding together in the face of danger like this.

However, there’s plenty to sink your teeth into, with the show finally giving us some answers to the pressing questions hanging over this one. It turns out the countdown was all an illusion; a process of control to basically succumb humanity to their will and not advance science any further. This explains why brilliant minds across the world all went the same way and either commit suicide or stopped their experiments. It would have been interesting to see exactly what would have happened had that countdown got to zero but alas, we have our answers.

Meanwhile, our characters are all spread out and now facing an existential threat unlike any other that we’ve seen before.