Lazarus – Episode 10

Episode Synopsis:

Skinner has upped the ante by shrinking the timeframe for Lazarus to find him. There’s only six days left before Skinner and several millions of others die. Hapna-induced fever cases are now causing hospitals to overflow with patients.

Lazarus discovers that Skinner had surgery to implant an artificial heart. The heart was put in at a very secretive hospital for wealthy individuals, and should have had a tracking device in it for health monitoring. Leland reveals himself to be the bastard son of an insanely rich individual, and it just so happens his family is a patron of the secret hospital network. Leland takes Axel and Doug to his mansion to ask his sister for access to the hospital, where they hope to gain access to the tracking information.

Meanwhile more information about Axel’s importance comes to light and the assassin goes on the move.

Review:

Episode 10 is Leland’s episode through and through. Apparently he’s Batman!

While I liked Episode 06 because I enjoy Eleina as a character, I agree with Scott that infiltrating the cult looking for Skinner made no sense. Leland’s backstory coming to light in an attempt to access Skinner’s hospital data is a much more solid plotline. The sequence where he interacts with his sister is one third entertaining due to Axel and Doug’s awkwardness, and two-thirds poorly executed. I’m critical of the latter chunk because I am unclear why Leland’s sister would reveal family secrets and conflicts in front of complete strangers. This conversation with Leland should have been in private. While it was happening we still could have had fun with Doug and Axel dumbfounded by all the wealth they were observing. It’s a strange sequence that feels like it’s rushing too much at once.

This segues somewhat nicely into a point I think is obvious but is really coming to light here in the home stretch. We simply don’t have enough time to explore all the things Watanabe and the writers want to showcase. Leland’s family history is discussed in the blink of an eye. I guess his brothers died…somehow…and his sister is unable to inherit the family wealth due to misogyny in the will (only male’s can inherit the family’s assets). This leaves Leland in a weird place because he feels estranged from the family (being a bastard son only adds to the problem), but he clearly cares about his sister and vice versa.

It would have been helpful to have hints about this dropped earlier or more time to explore his family dynamic. As it stands, I don’t feel much of anything for this sequence before we are whisked away to the hospital to discuss Skinner. The dance between character exploration and the mystery manhunt for Skinner is proving to be a poor tango. At least the music is better in this episode. I like the soft but melancholy solo piano music that accompanies the silent drive to the Astor Family mansion.

In the end, the hospital is a dead end and really just adds more to Leland’s mixed feelings about his family. Again, I totally want more time with this but I know we aren’t going to get it. The last part of the episode feels breakneck as we get a cutaway to information about experiments done on Axel, a call is made by Hersch to get Axel to secure the doctor from the prison he was formerly in, and Eleina and Doug now need to go to Pakistan to track down Popcorn Wizard. Oh right, did I mention we also have that assassin plotline chugging in this crazy soup? Good grief there is so much going on…

Summary:

All in all, this episode makes more sense but it’s clear the plot is buckling under the weight of what the writing wants. There simply isn’t enough time to give these characters the love they deserve while also getting to Skinner in three more episodes. At least the plotline involving Skinner’s artificial heart had merit, and we got to learn a little bit about Leland. I’m starting to get concerned about how this show it going to close everything out…