Yakamoz S-245 – Season 1 Episode 5 Recap & Review

Sunrise

Episode 5 of Yakamoz S-245 begins with Felix held up at gunpoint and all the soldiers arriving, demanding this mysterious woman drop her gun and give up. She does just that, eventually captured and thrown in the brig onboard the Yakamoz.

Speaking numerous different languages, Umut tries to get through to her. When she taunts him and speaks numerous languages back, he screams in her face and demands answers. Interestingly, Felix finds the empty cans hidden in the vents and realizes that Baris was actually correct! There was someone on the sub after all.

This woman, as we soon find out, is Lieutenant Hatice Celik, the intelligence officer at Incirlik Air Base. She overheard at command about the sun and upon hearing about all the deaths from the sun, decided to try and find refuge. She also knows a lot about everyone aboard this sub, including how the Commander has been lying to them all this time. It turns out Erenay was actually trying to communicate wit someone outside the sub.

Yonca finds his log, hidden in his bunk. She seems to be onto something here, and goes on to tell Umut and Yonca not to trust Defne given he has “Defne Eren” scribbled in his book. As we cut across to Defne, we seem to get our answer. She heads inside the naval base, hooks up her satellite phone and tries to connect to the computers.

In their absence, Cem realizes that there may be something wrong with their food. If you’ll remember, last episode several of the officers tried the food and realized that it was completely tasteless. There’s even a few of them getting sick aboard the sub now too.

It turns out the sun is to blame. The sun has corrupted the carbon structure of the food. As Cem himself puts it – you can eat the food or bits of paper, it makes no difference.

Unfortunately they only have enough for a week on their current provisions. Now, it seems like fresh food is completely out the question but when it comes to tinned food, they might have more luck. Inside, Yonca catches up with Defne, remembering the words Celik had said earlier on. The pair talk about the coincidence it was that they met again after all these years.

Meanwhile, Umut decides to use Hatice to get into the files inside the naval base. The end goal here is to try and work out who Defne actualy is and what she may be hiding.

Hacking into Defne’s file, the pair uncover research linking her to NATO whom she appears to have been working for. Underwater habitats, trying to survive in deep sea regions and alternative habitats; it’s all there to see. It would appear that Defne knew about the sun situation before it actually occurred too. However, everyone is distracted by a plane flying overhead. This is, presumably, the same plane from Into The Night, which nicely ties the two shows together.

Celik and Umut work together to try and track down the plane, which they deduce is Russian. They also interfere chatter about Space station and cosmonauts. However, all of this is dwarfed by our science group finding whole stacks of tinned food. Their celebrations are short-lived though when they realize, to their horror, that all of it is tasteless, just like before.

All the canned food in town in the same, leaving them with very few options. With soldiers aboard the sub getting sick, what are they all going to do for food now?

Hatice checks the plane again and realizes that they’re now flying east rather than west, toward the sun. Arman wants to try and communicate and join forces but for Umut, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea. In fact, he even queries shooting them down.

With very little time until the sub dives again, the gang regroup and prepare to dive. However, Cem decides not to go. He’s going to sit this one out, believing it to be hopeless.

When the group finally reconvene in the submarine again, Yakamoz starts to descend. Defne and the others are distraught, as Cem smokes and awaits his fate. The sun rises, Cem faces his death head-on, while the fate of this world rests precariously on a knife-edge.

The Episode Review

So Cem decides he’s had enough and sacrifices himself to the sun. Unfortunately, we don’t actually see him die, it all occurs off-screen. When you compare this to something like Midnight Mass, where the visceral shock of seeing that character (no spoilers here!) burn up in the sunlight is something this show could really have done with. But then we’ve seen that the sun may kill people but not actually leave any marks so I guess there is that!

The mad scramble for food that’s actually nutritious is a nice touch and the way this chapter ties into Into The Night is beautifully done and easily the highlight of this whole show so far. It’s just a pity that the characters aren’t all that memorable.

The situation involving Defne is definitely intriguing though and for that alone, this one is worth sticking with. With crew members dropping like flies and the future of this expedition hanging in the balance, everything rests on these final two episodes.