Between - S1E2 - Who’s the Boss?

Previously on Between, ‘School’s Out’

It’s four days after Adam was mowed down in the forest during his escape attempt. Only Adam was not actually mowed down, he was fine and is now studying a wall of photos of victims and the fence. The death toll has reached 6,043 on this fourteenth day since the outbreak of the virus.

The town is in exactly the shape one would expect when it’s being run by a majority of high school students. Some of them are at least responsible and not self-centered. Kevin serves free diner food to a line of orphaned children. A pair of orphans, Jeremy and Sarah, come in looking for burgers, but the diner is fresh out. They leave and poor Jeremy promptly gets hit by a runaway car driven by a child. And this is all before the opening title card.

We check in on the characters we met in the premiere episode and how they are dealing with the aftermath of the outbreak. Wiley is suffering post-partum depression combined with post-virus depression and this amounts to her being worthless while her baby screams. Melissa tries to snap her out of it by asking for help with the kids and Wiley responds with, “I warned you not to start an orphanage, Mother Teresa.”

Chuck is eating breakfast at his dining room table like this is any normal day. His sister, Amanda, comes in very concerned about the whereabouts of their younger sister, Hanna. Specifically about the fact that Hanna has been gone for four days and doesn’t have any underwear. This broke my heart a little that Amanda was so concerned and Chuck treated her more like an annoyance than a person. Chuck tells her to let it go and leaves the room. Side note: Asshole Dad is dead on the couch like he’s taking a nap.

Gord and his sister Frances are driving through town in a piece of farm equipment when they spot Sarah sitting on a VCR on the side of the road. Frances approaches her and asks where Jeremy is and Sarah very matter of factly says that he is dead. Frances asks if it’s because of the virus, but Sarah sets her straight, “No, he got runned ova.” Basically, the first ten minutes of this episode make you want to take a Paxil and drink a large glass of alcohol.

Town Meeting, Death Toll 6,922

The teacher who is under 22 is trying to maintain order in a town meeting consisting of a range of children and teenagers. Once quiet is finally attained, they watch a video from Minister Miller which tells them that they need to burn all of the dead bodies and then they will work on getting the quarantine lifted. And to be helpful, they are posting information about DIY cremation on the town’s website. Thank God for modern technology.

Back at the orphanage, Gord and Frances drop Sarah back off with Melissa. She asks Sarah where her brother is and is shocked when Sarah tells her that he’s dead. Melissa brings out a giant tray of sandwiches for the kids and I thanked God that there was at least one responsible adultish person to take care of these poor kids.

In town, the older kids start to pile the bodies for cremation. Adam drops off his mother and this whole concept is just awful. Eventually Chuck decides to take charge of everyone and his super inappropriate girlfriend tries to sexily tell him that she likes it when he takes charge while they are standing at the edge of a large pit of parent corpses. Ew. While Chuck takes charge, Amanda is searching the piles of bodies for Hanna.

Murder Is The Least Of The Issues Here

In the prison, everyone is dead except for Pretty Eyes and the female prison guard. No offense, but she does not look to be under 22 to me. He begs her to let him out and she initially says no, but gives him enough supplies for a couple of weeks. After some time passes, she comes back and tells him that she has had a change of heart after looking at his file and determined that he was truthful about killing his dick of a father because he killed Pretty Eyes’ mom.

As soon as she opens the cell door and tries to get cute with him, he knocks her the fuck out. He takes her gun off of her and leaves her unconscious in the prison as he weaves his way through the corpses lining the halls and leaves. He is a better person than me, because he did not lock her in that cell in retribution.

Saint Gord

Gord proves to be the most moral teenager that I have ever experienced both in fiction and in reality. He and Frances break into the grocery store to get food for the orphanage because the kids are hungry. On their way back to the church, they encounter a road block and stop to move the debris out of their way. Gord spots Ronnie coming out of a house that is not his and decides he needs to intervene and call this kid out for robbing dead people.

Ronnie pulls a gun once Gord tries to take his bag of things and discovers an entire pharmacy worth of pills that he looted. At about this time, Chuck and his minions pull up in their Cadillac and Chuck tries to sort out the issue. Gord stays strong to his morals and doesn’t want to let Ronnie go until he threatens to shoot him for real and takes his bag and leaves. Chuck tells Gord that they need to talk.

Back at the dump site, Chuck tells Gord that they need to handle the Ronnie situation. Gord assures Chuck that he will go and talk to Ronnie’s older brother Pat. Two seconds later, some kid runs up with a picture of a severed hand. Chuck immediately changes his mind and decides to take his crew out to Ronnie’s house and confront him.

Adam Plays Emo Scientist/Emo Hacker

While all of the other citizens over the age of 12 help prep the corpses for the mass cremation, Adam runs off to the medical center to try and find any research of his uncle’s that will be helpful in figuring out the virus. Ms. Symone comes in and he tells her that he doesn’t think the government is actually on their side since they haven’t helped them at all.

Later, back at his house, Adam hacks a government database with about 4 keystrokes and finds notes on the deceased. He finds a man named Art Carey that has a level 5 government clearance and only moved to Pretty Lake 3 months prior. Something doesn’t seem right with this, so he decides to go and check out his house.

Wiley Needs An Intervention

Wiley shows up at Adam’s while he’s hacking the government and lays on his bed and cries after they chat about Art Carey. She asks him some questions indicating she actually does have some feelings about her baby despite refusing to give him a name. Then she asks him to come lay with her and they spoon before she poofs while Adam sleeps.

Wiley goes back to the lawyer’s house to retrieve the other half of her payment for her child. She finds him dead at the table mid-letter writing and start searching for a combination for the safe. A child with a really weird accent threatens her with a knife and she convinces him to open the safe where he finds an envelope with her name on it - just in time for her to collapse on the floor. This kid wastes no time in getting rid of her and he goes outside to tell a crew of teenage body disposers that he needs some help.

Chuck Needs An Assbeating

After being shown the picture of the severed corpse hand, Chuck goes all “Billy Bad-Ass” and takes his crew to confront Ronnie at home. Chuck’s crew consists of three boys wearing letterman jackets. At Ronnie’s, Pat comes outside to confront the letterman mob while four of Ronnie and Pat’s unkempt friends gather around with baseball bats waiting for shit to pop off. Ronnie sneaks around with a rifle and prepares to go all American Sniper on the letterman jackets. A bit of an overreaction there, chief.

After hurling insults back and forth which were very poorly written, Chuck throws down what I assume is supposed to be the gauntlet by calling Pat and his fellow friends rednecks and smirking like he accomplished something as he retreats to his Cadillac and drives off. Pat asks Ronnie if he really cut off that lady’s finger and Ronnie asks, “What do you think?” which I assumed to mean no. Just because he’s a thief doesn’t mean he’s demented, evidently.

RIP Hanna

Gord is tending his farm and he notices birds circling in the forest adjacent to his property. He goes to check out what is dead and finds Hanna’s body propped against a tree with a hole blown through her head. It appears that she has shot herself and lost her Sally Jesse Raphael glasses in the process. Gord helpfully goes and gets Chuck and Adam to check out the body with him.

Chuck understandably doesn’t react well to seeing his sister’s dead body, but Adam jumps into full CSI mode and attempts to solve this possible crime by pointing out the footprints on the ground. After they take crime scene photos on their phones and “bag” the gun in Gord’s beanie hat, Chuck scoops up his sister’s corpse and heads out of the woods.

Back at home, Chuck attempts to break the news to Amanda, who is still frantic about finding Hanna. He asks her to sit down and she refuses because every time she sits down, someone dies. He again attempts to get her to sit down and listen to him, but she again refuses and runs off. She goes to the grocery store their family owns and attempts to cook burgers and fries because she thinks this will lure Hanna home, but accidentally sets the store on fire.

Gord and Adam put the fire out because they are helpfully passing by talking about Hanna’s possible murder. Chuck asks Amanda if she saw anyone and she lies and says she saw an old pickup truck driving away. Chuck assumes she is referring to Ronnie’s pickup and swears vengeance.

Burn Bodies, Burn

Around town, with the dead either stacked in the pit or placed on a personal funeral pyre, the young start to burn the old(er). Ronnie and Pat burn their parents at home. Thank God for those easy DIY cremation instructions on the town web page. The majority of the town gathers around the pit and prepares to light the remainder of the bodies.

Adam walks around with his cell phone attempting to find the body of Art Carey. After inspecting his house, Adam has discovered that Art and Minister Miller have met previously, so he wants to search Art’s body before it’s cremated. While the camera pans around the stacked bodies, we see that Wiley has been piled up with everyone else. Luckily, she’s piled right next to Art’s body. Adam finds Art, and some weird device in his pocket, and then immediately finds a waking Wiley. He pulls the bodies off of her and rescues her from the pile just as the flames from the ignited bodies reaches them.

This show has a very interesting premise, but the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. Other than a few well-placed quips, it all comes across as contrived. Adam’s flat affect is distractingly monotone, and while I understand that he’s supposed to come off as a genius, he comes across as slightly psychopathic in his lack of emotions. There are plenty of mysteries to be hashed out in the next 4 episodes, so I am definitely interested in seeing where this ship is leading, but I do hope that dialogue sharpens up in future episodes.