As
suspected, Arctic Biosystems has at least six more levels beneath Level R,
where people infected with the Narvik B virus had been quarantined in previous
episodes. In last night’s episode of Helix, viewers learned of Level X,
where the malevolent Ilaria Corporation stored its collection of Earth’s worst
microbes, including the original strains of its trademark viruses, Narvik A and
Narvik B. In last week’s episode, the tirelessly
evil Constance Sutton, chief operating officer of Ilaria, was vanquished along
with most her minions. But this is only
a temporary respite. The corporation
will soon return to secure its property, and when they do they most likely will
torch the base and everyone still alive in it.
Which
are not too many people, these days. At
least it is easier to keep track of the characters and subplots now, since
there are drastically fewer of them. The
story line has achieved greater focus through a series of zombie attacks, shoot
outs, and bludgeonings. To paraphrase
Constance Sutton, my favorite though now sadly decapitated villain, “the herd
has been trimmed”.
The
show opens with the capture of one of the zombies—they prefer to be called vectors—using Sarah as bait. The CDC team is almost gleeful to have
accomplished this, and quickly has the creature shrieking and writhing behind
glass in a special quarantine chamber.
This scene and several others with the vectors owe much to movies like George
Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968),
Dawn of the Dead (1978), and
especially Day of the Dead (1985). In the latter film, scientists try to
determine whether a zombie is capable of thinking symbolically, communicating,
and being trained for various tasks. (In
the 2004 zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead,
bagging groceries is one of these tasks!)
Often
in zombie flicks the capture of a live—so to speak—zombie provides license for
temporarily human characters to mock and torment the hapless creature. (This motif may go back to the original Frankenstein movies). Torturing a zombie is something that
characters and—vicariously—the audience can enjoy and ‘get away with’. The zombie is after all dead and barely
human. Yet the suffering of the undead
inspires sympathy as well. Suffering is
the zombie’s most humanizing attribute, the one we can identify with most. Justice demands that those who mistreat the
undead suffer an especially gruesome fate, which they typically do. It will be interesting to see whether the
creators of Helix follow this convention.
Much
of the show involved Alan and Julia exploring the heretofore unknown Level
X. They have to navigate in and out of a
crowd of frozen vectors—the team had shut the power of the base down to freeze
them solid—but fail in their quest to find the original strains of Narvik A and
Narvik B. Someone has beaten them to
it. Meanwhile, Sarah succumbs to her
spinal tumor, and winds up under the care of the treacherous Dr. Hatake. (His membership in the American Medical Association
has probably lapsed at this point.)
Miksa, Anana and the recently redeemed Balleseros defend the nearby Inuit
village from attack by a remnant of the Ilaria Corporation’s guards. Julia confirms that she is indeed Hatake’s
daughter, and discovers on Level X a replica of the cabin in Montana that she
believed she grew up in.
Hands
down the most memorable scene in last night’s episode was the grotesque
resuscitation of Peter Farragut by his fellow zombies. In last week’s episode, they had rescued him
from the cryogenics lab, carrying him off into the air vents while he was still
in his deep freeze suit. In a sort of
reverse coffee klatsch scene, the vectors gather and regurgitate black slime
into their coffee mugs, then give it to Peter to drink. He is completely revived, and then some. He has had his morning cup of java. Peter stands up over the zombie horde, raises
his hands, and growls triumphantly. His peers
get down on their knees in veneration. Zombies
may be capable of thought, communication
and learning, but also unquestioning devotion and obedience.
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