Containment – I to Die, You to Live

By starrymag | April 29, 2016

By: Caitlin Walsh

 

As a limited series event, you can’t mess around and beat around the bush. It’s full steam ahead and there’s the slippery potential of rushing too fast, too much, and mucking it up in the meantime.

 

“Containment’s” second episode, I to Die, You to Live did not muck it up. It wasn’t rushed; on the contrary, it’s starting to find its pace, and the darker theme of it all is establishing itself.

 

Buckle up.

 

Official Business

 

The episode picks up where the pilot left off, jumping into the first night of the cordon. Sabine (Claudia Black) is more or less running the show at the Atlanta Joint Ops Center with local law enforcement officials, the CDC and the hospital’s doctors, as they rush to activate electricity in the fences keeping in the quarantined area of Atlanta–already blocked off–and to get a grip on the situation. She’s stern but collected. may not have her figured out quite yet, but I can tell for certain that she’s a woman who works well in chaos. She needs control.

 

On the frontlines of the quarantine, Lex (David Gyasi) is still trying to quell the crowds and is in no mood for media requests or disorder. He’s a man of duty, first and foremost. You can tell his head is tempted to drift elsewhere, be it Jana (Christina Marie Moses) and Jake, but he’s focused. He was asked to keep the crowds calm, quarantine for 48 hours. It will all be fine and he seems to genuinely believe that (or he’s trying to, for his own sanity).

 

In the midst of the chaos, he’s been made somewhat of a hero as tenacious news reporter Leo (Trevor St. John) so story-hungry put it, he’s a black cop who stopped a white cop from brutalizing a black teen and it was caught on video. He’s famous now. Lex lets him know he was doing his job and he doesn’t have time nor care for the fame or the story. He’s just protecting the city, okay? This episode gave more of a glance at Lex, and how married to his duty he is. He’s not asking questions, he’s doing what’s asked and believing it will be okay, and that in the meantime, he’s in the know.

 

Inside the Cordon

 

Jana, in the meantime, goes back to her office. I’m still unclear exactly what she does at Bitscan Data Recovery (she seems to do research, or at least has some lab gear, but what do I know?) high end and she’s not alone. Suzy (Nadine Lewington) and Dennis (Yohance Myles) join her after they get stuck in the quarantine post happy hour (Jana’s judging, as Dennis is married and not to Suzy. Ahem). Eventually, Tony (John Winscher) joins them as well, who coincidentally hadn’t done food shopping for the office fridge. They’ll be lucky to make it on what they’ve got, but Jana and Suzy’s past in group homes and foster care (which is brought up a few times) seems helpful. These are girls who’ve survived hell together before. They’ll figure it out. They’re practical.

 

I wasn’t sure about Jana before, mostly because we haven’t seen much of her and so I wasn’t connecting with her character. We’re told she gets anxious and that’s why she didn’t move in with Lex, but I wasn’t seeing that or why and it was hard to connect with it. I hope we’ll be getting a little more of her backstory, and seeing her survival skills kicking in.

 

Katie (Kristen Gutoskie) and her fifth grade students, as well as Jake (Chris Wood) and Bert, are still holed up in the hospital, believing their 48 hour lockdown will soon be over. Jake is dodging Lex’s call, mad that he has been put in and essentially left in this nightmare alone as far as the police force goes (which, come on? Really?) and Katie reads him instantly (Astute or nosy, maybe both, but I don’t hate it. These two are CLICKING, okay?!).

 

“Whoever that is must’ve really done you wrong…we’re in the hot zone of an outbreak, most people would answer a phone call.”

 

Back at her mother’s market, Teresa (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) is keeping in touch via phone with Xander (Demetrius Bridges) and wishing she wasn’t back with her mother. Her friends are trying to drag her to a party [because teenagers]. With a city lockdown quarantine with her parents gone and a full liquor cabinet, what else do you expect? (Though, hello friends, she’s 8 months pregnant? Why did you mention the liquor in your attempt to lure her to the party?)  Teresa skips the party despite Aimee’s pleas (even an in person one). And with a kiss on the cheek, Aimee (Lindsey Naves) departs and Teresa answers a call from her grandfather.

 

We see her check in on her grandmother and some more dots have been connected. We find out her grandmother is Micheline, who we know is married to Bert in the hospital. But in a glance at the TV news, Teresa realizes that her partying friends have been infected and that Amy kissed her on the cheek. The sheer panic on her face as she flees from her grandmother and later calls Xander–she’s terrified.

 

It seems a girl named Lizzie Franklin (Elle Roberts) was at the party and she was involved with Patient Zero’s cousin, who is now infected. Therefore, Lizzie is infected. Everyone at the party who came in contact with her is also at risk and when Jake is sent in (begrudgingly) to get Lizzie and the kids, he’s starting to realize just how much shit has hit the fan. He was anxious to begin with, but he can see this is dire and he’s sure as hell feeling alone and scared.

 

Katie catches him, reminding him that the kids and people around him…they’re looking to him. (She laid the guilt on pretty heavy. I’m not entirely sure how fair that was, really.) Despite having just met each other the day before, they’ve clearly got a no tongues held sort of relationship already. Note: still don’t hate it. (But Katie with the pill popping–are those legitimate? What don’t we know?!) But the party happened inside the cordon, meaning nothing is contained quite as anyone had hoped. Therefore, it seems the spread, at this point, is inevitable.

 

Goodbye, Hope. We Barely Knew Ya.

 

Once Jake and a few other officers are sent to the home looking for Lizzie and stumbling upon her friends, they bring the lot of them back to the hospital to be quarantined there. Unfortunately, even Jake can tell it’s too little, too late. This is bad.

 

Back at the Joint Ops Center, they discuss the fact that there’s no way to trace who those kids were in contact with in the interim and the reality is that this virus is more than likely spreading outside of their control. Sabine, Dr. Cannerts (George Young) and the others are left to make a decision. The lockdown is over. The cordon will remain in place indefinitely.

 

They can’t risk the rest of the city getting sick so it is better to condemn those already in the cordon as goners. The lives of the few vs. the many, right and wrong. You want to call Sabine evil for condemning those inside the cordon because we know some of those characters now and we see that they’ve been given death sentences and they have no choice. We see vehicles setting up barricades in place of the fences and the horrified faces and screams of those in the cordoned zone (not fully knowing why, but realizing they’re being left behind) already counted as losses.

 

But is she right? Tearing down the fences, letting them out, would it not just uncontrollably spread the virus further. It could also possibly result in countless more deaths, another catastrophic plague. They don’t know what they’re dealing with and it is to be seen if they send assistance. But what can they really do to battle a virus they know nothing of? Is there a right answer?

 

But while we’re at it, is anyone being totally honest? Should they be? The reporter from earlier let’s Lex in on something–Syria claims no knowledge of the virus, terrorist groups won’t take responsibility. No one had told him. And you can see in his eyes the exact moment that he realizes that he has indeed been controlled like a puppet and he’s just as in the dark as most everyone else.

Us included.