This time Devon is narrating again, but it isn’t really her episode. This one is mostly about the crash that left our cast stranded on this planet.
Tensions are running high among the survivors and they’re looking for someone to blame for the crash that got them all into this. This leads to Devon ordering Yale to scan his computer memory for any details of the crash to see if he can tell it was an accident, or if there was something more going on. Devon doesn’t get the answer she wants: there was something more going on.
Concurrently, the group stumble across one of the other evacuation pods that came down to the world and there are more survivors! But just barely. Most of them are dead and those who remain are stricken with an illness. Danziger is among those who discover this group, so he imposes a quarantine while he and the others start dying and Dr. Julia has to race to find a cure. (I respect how quickly the crew realizes they need to quarantine the members who were exposed. It’s nice to see people respect a quarantine).
Alongside that plot, our resident selfish bastard Morgan has been feeling like his selfish bastardry has been making him less popular among the survivors AND he has been seeing a Grendler that has been following him around. Not the group, but it’s been following Morgan specifically and hiding from the rest of them. Morgan confesses about his selfish bastard behaviour to his wife Bess and her reply boils down to “Yeah, I know you’re a selfish bastard. But let’s confess to the crew to make it better” so they do that (Bess does most of the talking).
These plots weave together like this: The saboteur who caused the ship turns out to be one of Danziger’s friends who happens to be among the sick survivors in the other pod. It’s not her fault though, because the evil government types had stuck a behaviour chip into her, like the one in Yale, to make her do it. The government had also intended to blow up the Eden Project’s ship, so they were REALLY into destroying this excursion. When it is determined that Grendler saliva can cure the disease, he begins a redemption arc in earnest by putting himself in danger by meeting with the Grendler that has been following him and acquiring the saliva to make the cure, which he does by suffering the indignity of having to give the Grendler his clothes. The cure is made in time to cure Danziger and the other exposed member of the crew (a recurring character named Baines), but the other pod’s remaining survivors don’t make it, but do find peace in knowing that the saboteur had been brainwashed, not actually acting with ill intent.
In the end there is a bit where Dr. Julia secretly contacts someone else saying “I’ve joined you on the planet” so there is someone she knows about on this world. But she doesn’t seem to like them and she isn’t happy they caused the crash. I guess she’s talking to government folk. Now this has to be what the Terrians were talking about when they said humans had been to the world before.
Assorted other thoughts:
1) While none of the other pod’s survivors that we meet survive the episode, we are told that they had split into groups and gone other ways when they crashed, so there still could be more of them out there. 2) True screams again in this one. I skipped mentioning it last time it happened, but I ought to be thorough. True’s Scream Count is up to at least six now, assuming I’ve not missed others. 3) At one point we hear a stock eagle sound effect (which is, I believe, some other bird that is always used for eagles because real eagle sounds are less majestic), which means some alien on this world makes that classic sound. 4) I don’t think I’ve even mentioned that the crew has a humanoid robot to help out because it has mattered so little this far, but Zero, as it is known, does get to bring supplies to the quarantined crew in this one. 5) We’re told that Grendlers secrete saliva from every orifice. Good for them. Also, we’re never really told why this one is following Morgan in the first place. He’s still there even after he gets Morgan’s clothes.
