Between - S1E6 - War
Previously on Between, ‘End of the Rope’
This week’s episode of Between picks up right where last week’s left off. Adam is unconscious in the floor of the prison with his Dad trying to wake him. After Adam returns to the world of the conscious, his father tells him there is a way out of this godforsaken town.
After the title card, Pat is lying on his ratty couch remembering hitting Amanda with his car the night before. The memories are haunting him, so he leaves. In town, Chuck and his new girlfriend bury Amanda and discuss who possibly could have hit her. His crew arrives as they are finishing up and tell him they believe it was a creeker because the pharmacy was broken into. He tells them to round up everyone and they’ll be paying the creekers a visit.
At the farm, while Gord milks the cows, the Mennonite girl comes out to apologize for neglecting to tell him she was married. Gord is unmoved by her apologies and she explains that she was not married by choice, she was married because it was what the elders of the community arranged for her. Gord asks her why she’s returning to them if she’s miserable and she says she cannot turn her back on her community.
Melissa is praying in the church. Who’s watching those kids? Chuck’s girlfriend comes in to tell her that Chuck and his boys are going after the creekers. Despite knowing Wiley is out there, Melissa decides not to warn her that Chuck is on the way.
The Sharks and The Jets
We cut to Chuck and his crew surrounding Ronnie and Pat’s house and finding no one home. It seems the rest of the creekers have decided to go find Pat. While converging on the house, some of the crew discover Pat’s car with a broken headlight and blood on the bumper. This solidifies Chuck’s anger and they head back into town to look for Pat.
While they are out at the creek, Pat pays Chuck’s house a visit and finds his girlfriend. He explains to her what happened and how he’s come to make amends, when the crew arrives, Pat has already split, but the girlfiend relays the information to Chuck and tells him that she made a deal with Pat to move past everything, but Chuck tells her that she had no right.
A Way Out
With the wild west state of town erupting, Adam and his father make for the tunnel that leads out of town but isn’t on any maps. As they go, he asks Adam if he remembers the coordinates of the tunnel and starts displaying symptoms of illness. They stop and look for cover when a line of black vehicles goes rumbling by on the road near them, and once they have passed, his father tells Adam that he is going to die but that he wanted to save Adam first.
Adam’s dad starts wincing in pain as he tells Adam there is no cure for the virus and that the soldiers that just passed them on the road are coming to kill all of the people left in Pretty Lake. The catch is that the soldiers don’t know they are delivering “vaccinations” of poison, they think they are actually curing the children. They also think the gas masks will save them, but after a couple of hours the soldiers are going to all die despite the masks. After delivering this fantastic news, Adam’s dad vomits blood and keels over and Adam verifies that the tunnel is real.
Everyone Hates Everyone Else
Back at Chuck’s the creekers arrive guns drawn and ready for a fight. Chuck’s girlfriend comes out to diffuse the situation as they all get out of their vehicles along with Wiley (and her baby), who stands right in the middle of the crowd like a gun fight is not about to break out. Girlfriend convinces them to put their guns down and leads everyone to the church where Pat is waiting. Pat had decided to offer up his life to end the feud as long as it all stops with his death. Chuck and Ronnie agree to the terms.
Gord and Frannie deliver milk to the orphanage and ask Melissa about the food supply. Gord offers to go around town and wrangle up some food just as Pretty Eyes shows up with a few boxes of food he found at the bar. Before Gord can get butthurt, they notice the creekers and the non-creekers are about to rumble out in the street.
At the church, Chuck prepares to shoot Pat who is standing at the altar with his eyes closed. Ronnie is not pleased that he is about to witness his brother’s execution (obviously), but at the last minute, Wiley jumps in front of Pat with her baby in her arms to block the shot. She tells Chuck she was with Pat the night before so he’ll have to shoot both of them. At first Chuck refuses to believe her, but Melissa comes in with Gord and verifies that she saw Wiley with Pat at the pharmacy the previous night.
The next part had me scratching my head a bit. As Wiley stands tearfully in front of Chuck having just admitted to being an accessory to the hit and run of Amanda, Melissa decides to put Wiley on front street and forces her to tell everyone who her baby daddy is. Spoiler alert: It’s Chuck’s dead dad, making baby Jason his brother. With this inexplicable, but evidently mind-blowing, piece of information revealed, everyone’s phones erupt with a message from the minister telling them about the soldiers coming with the cure.
Adults Are Lying Liars Who Lie
As they start to head for the door, Adam busts into the church telling them to stay put and explaining what his father told him about the virus and the “cure.” As he’s wrapping up his sales pitch, the soldiers come in and attempt to force the teens to the prison to get shots. These kids then revolt against two armed and tactical-vested soldiers and somehow win the fight. With the soldiers unconscious, the kids suit up in their gear and hatch a plan to go put the prison into lockdown to spare the children until the adults die from the virus. Pretty Eyes comes in handy because he used to be an inmate.
At the prison, the kids around town are lining up to get their shots. Frannie waits in line with the other children from the orphanage and the Mennonite children arrive to receive their shots as well. It was never made clear how the fuck the Mennonites got the message considering the show has been treating them more like the Amish with no electronics.
While the children start receiving shots, the prison van of teenagers arrives. They’ve cuffed Chuck and a few of the creekers to make it convincing. They make their way into the prison and Pretty Eyes makes himself useful and directs them to the control room so Adam can hack the security system. As they walk past the children, Gord pauses at Frannie in line, but has to leave her behind to maintain their cover. They come across two other soldiers who aren’t convinced at their story of the teens being taken to get their shots, so Chuck and Pat draw their guns and hold the two soldiers hostage while the rest head for the control room.
At the church, Wiley and Melissa (who stayed back to sit with Jason) hide to avoid some soldiers who come in looking for anyone else to round up. They discuss the baby and how Melissa knew it was Chuck’s dad. Melissa saw them together one night at the car dealership when Melissa came to pick Wiley up from work. As they hide, Jason starts crying and they are quickly discovered and thrown into a van. Unfortunately, the adults time is about to run out, so that van wrecks when they die, never making it to the prison.
Lock It Down
Back at the prison, Adam has made a run for the control room as the soldiers start to close in on the rogue group of teenagers. His father, who we thought was dead, enters the control room and tells Adam to stop because this needs to happen. Adam is confused until his father explains that he helped to create the virus, and since he spliced it with his own DNA, he and Adam are the only two people on the planet who are immune and this needs to be suppressed and stopped immediately.
Despite his father trying to convince him to let the soldiers kill all of the rest of the townschildren, he tells Adam to get the fuck outta dodge and save himself. He tells Adam everyone will die when they hit 22 because the virus in already in their system. The virus was created to provide a solution to overpopulation, and Art Carey stole a vial of the virus and started this outbreak. He insists that Adam not proceed with his plan and get out of town. He starts to get forceful and Adam draws a gun on him. Unfortunately for dad, Adam calls his bluff on not shooting him and leaves his father dead in the floor while he locks down the prison.
While all of this is going down, Chuck and Pat have been chased back to the stairwell and as they run with soldiers on their heels, Pat tells Chuck that Amanda’s death was an accident. He asks if Chuck believes him and Chuck says yes, so Pat takes off guns blazing in each had up the staircase to save Chuck’s life.
A short while later, all of the soldiers are dead and Adam opens the prison. Wiley crawls out of the smoky van with Jason and Melissa is unconscious (or dead?) in the floor. She gets out with her baby and stands there looking at the on fire van, so I assumed that Melissa perished in the accident, but I could be completely incorrect. Wiley heads to the prison to find a chaotic mess.
The Aftermath
Ronnie and his sister find Chuck beside Pat’s dead body in the stairwell. Ronnie asks what happened, and Chuck tells him that he sacrificed his own life to spare Chuck’s. As this happens, Gord frantically checks around for Frannie. There are dead children in many rooms, having died after receiving their shots. He finds Frannie, alive and well in the hallway and my heart stopped clenching since Frannie is the only person in this town with any sense.
Adam remains in the control room mourning the loss (again) of his father. Wiley comes in with Jason and sits in the floor beside him asking what they are going to do next. Adam tells her that he thinks he has a way out and then the credits roll.
All in all, this was a solid episode. I had to keep pausing to take notes because I’d get caught up in the storyline and forgetting to make notations as I watched. I am sad to see Pat go because he was one of the only moral compasses of the town. I am not sure where these kids are going to go from here, considering the government is now to going to find a way to ensure their annihilation, but I am eager to find out!
