- Genre : Josei, Horror, Mystery, Psychological Thriller
- Studio: J.C.Staff
I have a very heavy responsibility this week. It seems everyone finally gave up on this show at episode 4 so I am now watching it for all you guys. You are welcome! I wonder if anyone will still read these posts? I guess I’ll find you soon!
For those of you who actually are interested in what happens but not interested enough to actually watch the show, I will try to give you a decent episode overview.
You may recall that last week ended with Rachel and Zack trying to figure out how to make it out of a locked room slowly filling with poison. Part of the set up included a single gas mask that they are suppose to be sharing but I noticed that Zack just never put it on. For minutes no one at all was wearing it which seems wasteful. Of course I also noticed that Zack was completely unaffected by the gas while Rachel lay gasping and panting…because figments of people’s imaginations don’t have lungs maybe…
I must say the deus ex machina room escape with the makeshift battery bomb was a bit of a let down. Why bother putting a riddle to solve just to cop out like that?
To no one’s great shock Ray and Zack may it out of the room continue their search of the exist. At this point we took a few minutes to get some backstory from Zack in the form of a convenient nightmare. Zack and Ray decide to rest of a few minutes to give Ray a chance to work the poison out of her system. I doing so they both dose off and we see little Zack in the world’s worst orphanage being made to bury the bodies of fellow orphans.
The short falshback is hardly revolutionary. We already knew Zack had a sob story – Freudian excuse in his past. In fact, by this show’s standards, the whole thing was rather tame. Of course the whole idea of the situation is horrific but we saw no physical abuse or even particularly harsh words being aimed at Zack. For me, the most interesting revelation by far was that little Zack was already completely bandaged up. I’m not entire sure why but that seemed suspicious to me.
After this quick nap, our heroes resume their journey refreshed and ready for anything, except Zack is all pissy and in a bad mood now. They go through their usual little skit of Zack threatening to kill Ray for no real reason, Ray being into the idea and Zack getting creeped out by that. This week, it wasn’t played for laughs. I believe it was meant to show that Zack is startling to unravel, or rather that he’s unraveling even more. It was fairly effective but this repetition could annoy some viewers.
At this point, they stumble into yet another puzzle room with yet another completely over complicated mechanic. An elaborate dollhouse complete with replicas is at one end of the room and Zack has to move the wind up dolls around. One the other end, a series of coordinate type clues are given for Rachel to decipher using a book. Each clue yields three words which helped Rachel figure out what Zack had to do next.
The set up itself is not bad if unexplainably complex but the actual twist is that the dollhouse is a replica of Zack’s childhood orphanage home and the figures are of the caretakers and his younger self. In order to leave the room, Zack is forced to essentially recreate his nightmare with childish play pretend. Considering the man has the emotional and intellectual stability of a jenga tower on a trampoline, it’s amazing the got out at all.
I can’t quite explain why I liked this so much. The scene itself was what you would expect, but the concept and abject cruelty of the set up caught me by surprise. Let’s just say Zack’s mood did not improve!
Of course we are not told how Cathy knew of this particular chapter of Zack’s past in such detail and how the dolls moved without being wound up. I would like them to establish the rules just a bit more clearly. As it stands, I can’t tell if I’m supposed to be shocked or surprised by these things or whether they are par for the course.
I also noticed here that “dolls” seem to come up a lot this episode. Aside from the actual dollhouse, Zack had been referring to Rachel as a doll several times during the episode. There were also those execution witness mannequins last episode so they might simply be associated with Cathy or they could be meant to thematically show the helplessness of Rachel and Zack’s situation. They are being toyed with, made to go through motions by some other power. I might be reaching here.
Somehow, we manage to get yet one last puzzle room and a direct encounter with Catherine Ward. It’s too bad the she is such a poor character because the narrative structure of the last few episodes was interesting to me. I like solving puzzles. Going form one room to the next and trying to escape with your life reminded me of Cube, a movie I quite liked. If they had simply substituted Cathy for a more interesting antagonist, these last two episodes could have been decent.
In any case, that last puzzle was a straight up poison in the drink riddle. Two syringes, one good one bad, the doors will open when both syringes are injected. Ray and Zack go through a bit of banter and Zack finally injects both into himself. I still don’t know if the man *can* die so I was pretty chill about it. To my surprise, Rachel was not. She even showed some real concern and tried to stop Zack. She was alright with letting him fry last episode. I’m not sure what happened to make her change her mind.
It seemed the poison was the make Zack want to kill type….Another Zack almost killing Ray moment (they should change it up a bit) and we got the closing credits.
Although I can’t say this episode blew me away or anything, I did like elements of it. And I was caught off guard by the end as the episode seem to go by way quicker than expected.
So see you guys maybe next week?
