Wreck – Season 1 Episode 5 “Needle in a Gaystack” Recap & Review

Needle in a Gaystack

Episode 5 of Wreck starts in the past with Pippa and Sam onboard the ship. Sitting down to a nice meal, Sam looks close to admitting the truth about his wife but they hit a snag when screams outside see Sam shoot off to “help”. Pippa follows and clearly sees more than she should, as we cut back to the present.

Jamie wakes up to find himself caged, in the same area as Jerome’s dead body. Karen orders the officers to get Vivian and bring her to the room. As they do the rounds, Sam grabs a knife and looks set to hurt Jamie, until he uses Pippa as a weapon. The few seconds of self-doubt are enough for Jamie to slip away and charge down the garbage chute.

James hides out in the projector room. Olly finds him first and scrambles out to get Vivian, Lily, Cormac and Rosie. There, he reveals everything about what happened to Jerome and who the killers are. The thing is, trying to go up against all these officers is not going to be easy. Vivian comes up with a plan though, believing they have the advantage. Part of that comes from grabbing schematics for the ship and finding the hidden compartments.

Karen shows up to see all the crew and threatens to dock wages unless they can get out and find Vivian and Jamie, who are public enemies number 1.

Thankfully in this time, Jamie and the others get hold of the schematics and after arguing about the “prayer emoji sign”, realize that the chapel holds the key here. It’s a motif that’s been repeated numerous times, including on the ground under the carpet with all those cabin numbers.

Jamie finds a hollow door so Cormac naturally kicks a hole straight through. The corridor they end up in wasn’t in the schematics, believe it or not, but Cormac is rattled, especially when the group split up. Why? Well, it turns out Cormac is afraid of the dark too!

Jamie begins snapping pictures of Jerome’s dead body but unfortunately the flash also brings Karen in too, who encourages Jamie and Olly to follow her. Reluctantly, the kids walk up the stairs and enter the main control room, where all the officers are there and Mr A is overseeing everything.

Mr A is impressed, admitting that it has been a while since they’ve had an incident like this. However, that makes him more determined than ever to make sure this is resolved. He sits the boys down at the monitors and ties them up, forcing the pair to watch.

One of the workers, Leila in Housekeeping, is approached by a couple of guys wearing night vision goggles and gear, forcing her to run. It’s a sick game of manhunt with very real ramifications. Leila is unfortunately killed, by the first class lady at the bar no doubt.

Jamie and Olly are shocked but no more so than Vivian, who learns that Lily has not been completely honest with her. It turns out Lily is part of this game and her birthday present is actually to hunt Vivian.

The Episode Review

Wreck’s penultimate episode sets up a dramatic finale to come as everything takes a turn for the fantastical. The grounded approach early on to the serial killings was one of the more enjoyable aspects of this show but now that the series has shown its hand – and exactly who the killers are – it lacks the same mystery that made those earlier episodes zing.

Instead, what we get is much more of a perfunctory “rich people VS poor people” motif but it’s done in a way with very archetypal characters and little growth for anyone.

To be fair, the turn from Lily at the end there was relatively unexpected, while the self aware tone this one adopts, with the cheeky bits of humour (like the “please don’t split up!” line) work to give this a slightly more fun, campy feel.

It’s definitely far from perfect but there’s enough in Wreck to make for an enjoyable watch.