The Madness – Season 1 Episode 4 “Radioactive” Recap & Review

Radioactive

Episode 4 of The Madness begins with Muncie spiralling after realizing his face has been plastered all over the news. There’s a really clever bit of advertising here for the Netflix series Parasyte, which shows up on a billboard right next to the news report. It’s a minor touch but we see what you’re doing here Netflix!

Anyway, Muncie realizes he needs to get out of dodge as the news reveals that he’s armed, dangerous and on the loose. It doesn’t do Muncie any favours and after ditching his phone (because it could be tracked) he gets a bus out of the city. The trouble is, with so much heat on him, Muncie is essentially radioactive and it’s dangerous for anyone to work on his side without getting hit in the firing line.

Isiah does thankfully help him out, getting our protagonist out of the thick of it and moving him in the middle of the night… to the vacant building next door to Kallie’s place. Kallie owns this building and she seems to be a pretty savvy businesswoman, having invested her money well.

In the morning, Kallie is not happy when she finds her father outside talking to the neighbours. Kallie is exasperated, pointing out that they’re her family now and he’s endangering everybody he speaks to by just chilling out in the yard. Muncie realizes it’s not safe where he is and leaves, partly to protect his daughter and those around him. He also rings Lucie from a payphone, encouraging her to help and try to pin this against Stu Magnusson.

Muncie hides out in Kwesi’s car and waits for his old friend. When they talk, Kwesi points out he’s got no chance of getting to Stu and he either turns himself in now before things get worse, or he runs away.

Muncie has been running his whole life and for now, decides to fight back but to do so while getting out of the city, somewhere where there’s not quite so much heat on him. After passing a police blockade (thanks to paying off the cop), Muncie almost boards the plane… but changes his mind at the last second. He’s not going to run anymore and he knows there’s only a one-way ticket to the police now.

Muncie willingly allows himself to get arrested, where we find out that Ant, the man Muncie stabbed, was actually working security detail to protect Mark. This doesn’t paint him in a good light, and it’s only exacerbated when the officer brings up evidence of bloody sweatpants inside Muncie’s apartment with Mark and Ant’s blood on, alongside Mark’s laptop which has info that’s of interest to Muncie.

Furthermore, they’ve gone digging through Muncie’s search history and found evidence of him looking up Brother14 five months back. There’s also searches surrounding how to dispose of a body too. All of this paints Muncie in a very bad light.

The Episode Review

Things are not looking good for Muncie right now and it’s still unclear exactly why he looked up how to dispose of bodies online? I get it if he was a fiction writer doing a piece on a crime drama but as a journalist? It seems a bit odd to be honest, although it could also have been planted as evidence against him. 

Either way, it’s now very easy to see how all of this paints Muncie in a very unfavourable light. It also raises big question marks around exactly why he’s being framed for all of this. Has it got to do with these two groups? Is Stu Magnusson really the brainchild behind everything? And how will Lucie play into this?

There are a lot of questions hanging over this one and it’s unclear right now exactly how Muncie is going to get himself out of trouble. We’ll have to wait and see but for now, things are left on a tenuous knife-edge.