The fifth season of the Elysium was announced to be the final season of the show. Two main differences were in place from the fourth season however, firstly it was not aired in two parts and instead throughout the entire Autumn season, and secondly, it lasted for 16 episodes rather than 12, as Toni Graphia had intended for the show to have six or even seven seasons overall, but Jane Espenson decided that it’d be for the best if the show came to an end after it’s fifth year.
Production wise, not much changed, with Espenson & Graphia staying on as Co-Showrunners, but Espenson was just a distant as she was with Season 4, if not more so, as she was very focused on starting up Doctor Who: The New Renegade as well as dealing with the introduction of the Sixteenth Doctor. Like normal, a few of the other above-the-line crewmembers left and arrived, such as a few producers and co-executive producers but most of all things remained the same.
There was one change made to the title sequence, a new version of the theme tune of arranged by Rolf Løvland, which began out as a choral version, adding a very scarring sense of forebodingness and then by the time the Episode title appears, falls into more of the Season 3 theme tune.
NOT MY PRESIDENT
Season 5, Episode 1
Written by TONI GRAPHIA
Directed by JESSICA HOBBS
TX Date – 1 September 2019
The episode begins without a previously segment but instead in a dark room, whereby Ersiah speaks, almost directly into the camera, summing up the events of the previous season. And then she says that for once she’s in agreement with Utnapishtim and she says his coup is vital to the future of the planet. We then catch onto the fact that Ersiah is in fact speaking to a figure in the shadows, where the camera is, and she tells the figure that he has her full support, and all her resources are at his service. Then she adds, before letting out a chuckle that she has ‘plenty’, as we cut to the opening credits.
After the titles, a caption reads: “Four Months since the Treaty of Taoter” before we cut to a mass demonstration whereby, we hear the chants of ‘Not My President’ over and over again. Not only have the public turned on her because most of them soon cottoned onto the fact that very little of the population actually voted for her, but also because in her first three weeks in office, Raleigh has done an exceptionally poor job at managing the Scallatti Federation in a time of crisis. The Treaty of Taoter massively changed the entire dynamic of the planet, causing mass instability. The only thing Raleigh managed to achieve was the arrest of hundreds of Three agents, charged and punished for their corruption. However, several key members, including Utnapishtim, Ersiah, Tena and Carmen have disappeared without a trace, and Ajacos had too little evidence to be convicted, leaving him just under government house arrest. Eddie, however, has had an even worse time of it, only running for Vice President because his girlfriend persuaded him to, leading him four months down the line to fall out of love with Raleigh and become extremely resentful of the extreme high-profile pressure he had laid upon him. The only reason the Federation has kept running is because Roddy was appointed as Chief of Staff, and he’s essentially taken control of everything. Raleigh lobbied for Richard to become Director of the Taoter Education Centre, which he has begun to dismantle and restore back into the public sector. We follow him this episode, reassembling old staff, and dealing with the fact that a lot of them were in the pocket of Utnapishtim and the Three.
Lea is in a completely different position, four months later. Initially, after finding out about Julie, and the fact that everything she knew about her life was a lie, she began riding a bit of a high, with her confidently declaring it to the world, denouncing her parents as agents of the Three and changing her name to Lea Jayne Karter, but over time, a depression began to loom over her and by this time she’s at a deeply low point, just really taking it what had happened and she’s heartbroken. We see Kalagisah visit Lea, throughout the episode, which in a very beautiful way councils Lea, but still, she finds it hard to get out of the low that she’s in. We also see her siblings Richard and Julie visit her, but she begins to reject both of them out of the hurt she is feeling.
Apart from this, Julie is in a much better position, after having a very positive relationship with her new sister, until very recently, her life is very much back on track. Julie and Jan were some of the few Scallatti to decide to remain living in Hortus, the now neutral zone, administrated by all three races and she’s loving it, living a place so culturally diverse. It’s not without its challenges as many are still angry about the Treaty, but it’s easily the most stable and peaceful place on the planet. However, halfway through the episode, she is visited by Addaho, who informs her that the Cizzaurans ousted him as Great Chief, and Julie agrees to help him settle in Hortus, the only place whereby he’s able to receive immunity.
Calem finds herself in the eye of the storm, reporting on constant protests, constant riots, even attacks by cells from Scallatti, Cizzauran and Rhaighr terrorist groups. At SWN, Calem, overworked and overstressed, becomes acquainted with a journalist at the Wave, Erik Brodt Steelcrown, who is filming one of the ‘Not My President’ protests alongside Calem for SWN, and he is notably rude to her and refuses to speak, even politely. This reminds Calem that she’s had no contact with Dani in four months, fearing something happened to upset her. In addition, we see teasers of Tena and Carmen hanging around the protests, instigating moments, and spreading disinformation, as well as seeing more Janissaries skirmishes taking place, without Lea’s help.
The episode ends with a messenger coming to speak with Raleigh. He brings terrible news: there’s a coup attempt in Mighty Rhaighr Empire. If they don’t act now, Rhaighrs may again become a threat to the whole planet.
REAL MIGHT
Season 5, Episode 2
Written by EMER KENNY
Directed by DOUGLAS MACKINNON
TX Date – 8 September 2019
This episode almost entirely takes place in Stambhrrhm, where revolutionaries lead by Khrodhrr are in a standoff with the palace guards. Raleigh and Eddie arrive there, in an official capacity as President and Vice President and Calem is there to report on the situation. Soon Raleigh finds that negotiations are impossible, as Khrodhrr really wants nothing else but bloodshed. He plans to overthrow Thrreodhrirr and reverse the treaty, by wiping out the Scallatti and enslaving much of the Cizzaurans, with the rest suffering the same fate as the Scallatti. Despite the fact the Rhaighrs were no where near as badly hit by the treaty’s effects as the Cizzaurans, their pride was extremely damaged, instigating Khrodhrr’s actions. While Raleigh’s diplomacy fails, Eddie takes some initiative and overrules her by just calling in the Scallatti armed forces, who turn the situation into and out-and-out battle between the Scallatti and the Rhaighr revolutionists, which despite fighting on the side of Mighty Rhaighr Empire, still breaks the Treaty of Taoter, four months after it’s signing, and by the Scallatti no less. Naturally, Raleigh is angered at Eddie for taking such a course of action. The battle, which normally would be won by the Scallatti easily, becomes a bitter stalemate, as the Rhaighrs mysteriously seem to be possession of advanced weaponry.
Richard arrives at the battlefield, there on Lea’s behalf as he has been unsuccessful in even coxing her out of her own house, and feels he needs to be there out of loyalty to her and her work. He, however, finds himself stumbling across a meeting between Lybhrrthyrr and Ambhrr, which he observes from behind a tree. Being both from the liberal faction of the Rhaighrs, they have a general agreement but Ambhrr sees more of Khrodhrr’s point of view, in principal, due to the fact that she believes the treaty is asking the Rhaighrs to abandon their identity. Lybhrrthyrr instead believes fundamentally in the treaty and thinks that their culture should change over time to become more ‘civilised’. Ambhrr argues against him and says that the Scallatti lack respect for the Rhaighrs if they expect them to simply abandon their might and their entire philosophy. Richard while observing this, notices some rumbles from behind another woodland area, across from him, and goes to investigate whereby he stumbles upon Threodhrirr, also watching the conversation. Threodhrirr holds her claws to Richard’s throat and tells him to get lost, but Richard stands his ground. Eventually, Ambhrr and Lybhrrthyrr come to an understanding, with Ambhrr persuading Lybhrrthyrr that his understanding of the treaty is flawed as he sees as “mighty”. If he truly believes that the right of the stronger is wrong, he can’t accept enforcing Scallatti philosophy on Rhaighrs with it. At this moment Threodhrirr alongside Richard step out and she says that they should follow Ambhrr’s way and that she sacrificed Rhaighran core values when signing that treaty and now they need to enact a better way forward. She brings them to the battlefield whereby she stops the fight and tries to explain this to spectating Rhaighr crowd, but with her reputation destroyed, after signing the treaty, this has little effect. The group which Lea formed last season to fight the Janissaries, show up, and Dien easily challenges Khrodhrr’s logic with his erudition, Thrreodhrirr speaks to the hearts of Rhaighrs, presenting Ambhrr as a mighty and reasonable alternative to both Khrodhrr’s fanatism and her own infamy. This makes Rhaighr masses uncertain, but still sceptical about The Almighty’s agenda.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a creature shows up and attacks the empress. His body is made of thousands of weird figures, but his head is the one of… Khrasshrr, Khrodhrr’s brother killed by Thrreodhrirr back in Season 1. He is the final Janissary and the reason why the other ones were so disinterested recently – their attacks were meant to distract Team Lea so he could destroy the Rhaighr capital, but Khrodhrr unknowingly spoilt this plan. Now he just watches out in shock as his undead brother loudly praises his ideology and demands the title of Almighty, as mechanical body made him the strongest creature on the planet. Disgusted and terrified, Rhaighrs one by one flee the field, while Thrreodhrirr and Team Lea overpower Khrasshrr by working together and force him to escape, claiming that next time he avenges his own death and leaving behind some broken microbots. The Team tries to complete their victory by using the incident to destroy Khrodhrr’s reputation, but then Richard takes over the initiative, making a fiery speech condemning Khrodhrr and praising Scallatti-Rhaighr coexistence. While this breaks Khrodhrr’s morale enough for his faction to retreat, the new figure taking the spotlight from actual heroes confuses Rhaighr crowd, which decomposes in silence. What could have been political triumph of Scallatti agenda ends up being inconclusive conflict.
During all of this, two other plotlines take place. Firstly, Julie settles Addaho into life in Hortus, granting him refuge, which allows for some gags coming from cultural and physiological alienness of Cizzaurans. Throughout of all this Julie and Addaho watch the Wave and follow the events unfolding. Addaho is amused that the Horretz soap opera is still being broadcast despite the fact that the Horretz village no longer exists under the treaty. Julie turns off the TV, thinking that something strange has happened to the Wave recently, and all their content has become baffling.
Lea spends time, once again with Kalagisah and she gets more and more paranoid. She eventually rejects Kalagisah entirely, saying that she’s ‘plotting against her’ and that ‘she is one of them’. Lea finishes the episode seeing on the TV about the events in Stambhrrhm and begins to freak out, smashing the TV to bits and then covering it in tin foil.
The episode ends with Thrreodhrirr telling Ambhrr that new times require the new Rhaighr Almighty and she sees her at this position. In the background we see Dien, picking microbots left by Khrasshrr.
THE PRICE OF LIES
Season 5, Episode 3
Written by ANNE KENNEY
Directed by STEPHEN DALDRY
TX Date – 15 September 2019
We begin with Ersiah sitting with Utnapishtim, as they both enjoy a cup of tea. Ersiah speaks to Utnapishtim about how she’s very disappointed with Khrodhrr and his inability to stage one of the easy coups in history. Utnapishtim chuckles and says that it’s not all bad, as he turns the television to the Wave as we see a report of the events of the last episode, which seem to make out that the Rhaighrs were preparing to invade the Scallatti. Ersiah takes another sip of her tea and chuckles as we cut to opening titles.
The majority of this episode takes us to see the effects of the treaty on the Cizzaurans, as Calem, on behalf of SWN, travels to the United Tribes of Cizzaura. After many of their tribes were relocated, due to the treaty, without the proper infrastructure, most of their people have become nothing more than refugees, with the Cizzaurans now divided and unable to organise any large projects to build a new group of villages. After the resettling of many of these tribes, Menhocc and Basthiall have come to an alliance and have risen in dominance, in an attempt to get the terms of the treaty changed. They explain that Cizzaurans who lived in the Gallane village, which is now in Scallatti territory, have taken it especially bad, seeing the Scallatti as the true enemy of their people. In addition, the Komodho clan has elected a new populist leader called Anttho, who is seriously growing in popularity.
Visiting Horretz, Calem primarily spends time with Begass and Kalagisah, the latter being deeply hurt after Lea took her anger out on her last episode. Begass reveals to Calem some facts about this child. Suddenly, Kalagisah’s eyes widely open and she cries. She says that the milestone in Cizzauran history is coming, and their stances will decide whether their race will survive. She also tells “the lonely” to come to her; no one knows what it’s supposed to mean. Calem promises to Begass that she’ll try their best to help his people.
On the way back to Metria, Calem visits Gallane, where all the refuges came from, and now an abandoned village in Scallatti territory. She begins to see how pointless it is that all those people have been displaced since the Scallatti aren’t even using it, but she soon runs into Dani, and a load of Cizzaurans. Calem is confused until she walks a bit further on and sees a fake village right next to the Gallane one – a recreation of Horretz. And then Calem realises, it’s the set of the Horretz soap opera. Dani is in the midst of an argument with one of the Cizzauran actors, who claims that the material she wants him to act is offensive to his people. Dani argues against this, but many of the other actors share the grievances. Calem speaks to Dani and says that she always thought Horretz was filmed in the real village, and Dani says that would be impractical and instead they built a set. She explains that the Cizzauran actors use the abandoned village to live in, as it’s extremely convenient. Calem then asks Dani why the Wave has turned into a sea of misinformation and mindless content. Dani takes this very bad and says that truth is subjective and Calem’s sucking up to the government is no different. They have a row, which results with Dani screaming that she’ll destroy Calem, Eddie and all that put her down. Calem leaves completely shocked, not understanding what is going on.
Raleigh sits in her office, looking weary and tired. She hadn’t expected the pressure of presidency to be so tolling. However, a knock at her door, sees Carmen and Tena arrive, who soon lock Raleigh in and ‘have words with her’, saying that the way she has dismantled and destroyed the Three has angered what yet remains of the Three. Raleigh tries to call for help and get the two of them arrested, but she fails, and they continue to threaten her – and then, as soon as Raleigh looks away for a second, they vanish into thin air. Eddie soon comes to Raleigh’s help, as Raleigh breaks down and begins crying, she asks for him to sort it all out and he promises to do so.
After this, Eddie pays Claude a visit, seeking his wisdom, after gaining much more of a respect for him following the previous season. Claude wants none of it, unhappy at the result of the election and firmly of the opinion that Raleigh and Eddie rigged it. Eddie says that they haven’t as he didn’t even want to be Vice President. Claude tells Eddie that the country didn’t want him either, and that what he and every viewer of the Wave things. Eddie chuckles saying that the Wave is utter trash – before Eddie storms out, finding out nothing of importance, but the assertion that Raleigh rigged the election begins to play on his mind.
Julie spends the episode visiting the old mines again, where the situation still hasn’t improved much. The union’s central committee soon became corrupt; they reshaped the agreements with administration to provide themselves with profits and privileges at the cost of wellbeing of other workers, but not enough of them are aware of this for leaders to be removed.
Richard works on education plan for his schools, and once he comes to history, he wants to be sure that he teaches his students real history. However, he doesn’t have anyone to ask about it, since Utnapishtim and Ersiah are nowhere to be found, and they won’t let him talk to Ajacos – he causes enough trouble recently. Then he remembers that according to Ersiah, the consciousness of Frances, first leader of the Fleet, lives inside the Fleet’s computer. He tries to contact it through Ramanujan’s board computer, but fails, as he lacks necessary computer knowledge.
Lea is unseen for most of them episode, until at the end – Richard comes to the house alone, to see her and ask her about getting into the Fleet’s computer, but there’s no response at all. He breaks down the door finding Lea’s house unrecognisable. Inside the wallpaper has been ripped off and replaced with newspaper cuttings of conspiracies, and scribblings all over the walls, saying other such nonsense. Every single electrical device is covered in tinfoil, and there Richard finds Lea, huddled up on her sofa in the middle of the room, with her hands over her ears. She looks to Richard and is frightened and then says that he is evil, and he is a traitor.
Also, we get a few scenes with secondary characters: Thrreodhrirr trains with Ambhrr, as she says that the Almighty doesn’t hold this title for nothing, and she’s going to make sure that Ambhrr lives up to it if she’s to lead their race. Ajacos begins to gain a cult-like following, simillar to that of Raleigh’s, coming out of the anger of the ‘Not My President’ protests. Dien in his lab examines microbots from Khrasshrr body and finds out that, among any other functions, they contain advanced teleportation mechanism. There’s a log of all teleportations performed in bot’s memory – and one set of coordinates is programmed as default…
THE LONELY
Season 5, Episode 4
Written by SCOTT REYNOLDS
Directed by ANNA FOERSTER
TX Date – 22 September 2019
This episode primarily focuses on Lea, following her mysterious behaviour from the last episode, and Julie, who takes care of her. Richard goes to see Julie and tells her about what he found. The two agree that something bad has happened to Lea and Richard quickly puts the blame onto the Three, theorising that Utnapishtim or Ersiah have got to her. Julie suggests that it could be Danadaskagi, the mysterious master of The Janissaries, since a couple of months ago they claimed that Lea caught his attention. They decide that they should go to see Lea and try and help her. Arriving at Lea’s house, they find it in much the same way as before but even worse. Lea rejects there help, telling them that ‘they’ve’ got to ‘them’ and they are ‘evil’. Julie, thinking on her feet, shows Lea her VP medallion, which she puts around her neck and she tells Lea that it protects her from ‘them’, and that she can be trusted. Lea tentatively looks at the medallion and asks if she can have one and Julie says that can be arranged. Lea shuts Richard out of the house though and stays there with Julie, and they begin to talk, although Lea makes little sense.
Richard, in the meantime, decides to visit Dr. Bronestein-Yaris, his local doctor, and describes what has happened to him. Dr. Bronestein-Yaris says that he’s going to need to inspect Lea, but he does agree that some form of psychosis has overtaken her. Richard asks why this has happened and Dr. Bronestein-Yaris says that it could have happened for any number of reasons, but he will only be able to make a diagnosis upon inspection.
The two arrive at Lea’s house, and Lea refuses to see them, but Richard gives Dr. Bronestein-Yaris one of the Scallatti medallions and tells him to wear it. Lea allows him in, and he inspects her, with Lea remaining silent and only speaking when necessary, mainly saying that everything is normal. After his inspection, doctor says he’s still unsure, and there could be some sort of foul play by certain parties involved, but one thing is for sure, Lea is very unwell. He then hands Julie some tablets and says that if Lea takes this once an hour, they should mediate the effects before a full diagnosis can be made.
Richard decides to go and visit his parents, wanting to here their side of the story, about why they did what they did. He arrives at Rovenia Prison where many of the Three agents have been locked up and sees his parents. They are happy to see him and have a long conversation. Richard asks them why – why work with people like the Three? They explain that they had dreams – they wanted to achieve scientific breakthroughs, help the Fleet with their talents, and outside of The Three it was almost impossible. They tell unimpressed Richard that all he sees in The Three is evil scheme, but it’s not so black-and-white. For example – if The Three hasn’t kidnapped Lea, would she have become so successful or would she have just ended up like her sister, a slave on a mining ship.
Granted access by Raleigh, Calem looks through Scallatti archive trying to find full documentation of Treaty of Taoter for her article about Cizzauran refugee crisis, but instead finds closing reports from several regional electoral commission regarding the recent election. As reported by the polls at the time, which ended up being very wrong, Ajacos won the election by a landslide, while it doesn’t surprise Calem, it’s the first concrete proof that’s been found suggesting the election was rigged – and she can think of only one person who would do such a thing: President Baker-Mitchell. Calem goes to see the President and confronts her but Raleigh assures Calem that she didn’t rig the election and like the polls they must just be wrong – she reminds Calem that the polling companies and the electoral commission are all corrupt and friends with the aristocracy and the wealthy. She suggests they were scared of something new like her.
When Calem leaves, Eddie, who was present in the meeting, follows her and tells her that he has his suspicions too, but it’s best not to upset Raleigh. Calem says her duty running SWN is to expose these truths, but Eddie says that if she does that more damage could be done than good, but Calem reminds Eddie about his article he published about Julie’s dirty past. This makes them both quiet down and think, as Eddie finally realizes what he did back then, and Calem – what she was about to do. Then Eddie suggests that he helps her out with investigation – but let it be proper investigation this time, worth the name of professional journalism. Calem agrees.
Also in this episode, we see more of Ajacos’ resurgence in popularity and Raleigh trying her best to ignore it, deluding herself to its existence and considering it all ‘fake news’. However, the final scene of the episode sees Raleigh disrupted as suddenly Dien storms in and demands that they contact Cizzauran and Rhaighr governments immediately – he found Janissaries’ headquarters.
Interestingly, this episode also features several scenes in a form of news reports from the Wave. They don’t really connect to the main plot, instead showing incidents happening all around Scallatti Confederation. The reporters mispresent them to either attack Raleigh’s administration, Calem, SWN, Cizzaurans, Rhaighrs and anyone who sympathizes with them or praise Ajacos, Claude and their supporters. The point of this inclusion is to make the audience feel like average Scallatti, bombarded by hate speech from The Wave all the time.
THE DREAM OF DEMONS
Season 5, Episode 5
Written by TONI GRAPHIA
Directed by STEPHEN DALDRY
TX Date – 29 September 2019
A week later and Lea is living with Julie. We find her covered in dozens of metal medallions around her neck, holding each one close, as protection. Julie looks on in something akin to shame, not knowing what to do. Lea seems more chipper though and more enthusiastic, wanting to go out and resume her duties but Julie is very unsure, as she still believes that the Three are somehow controlling her mind. After an argument with Julie, Lea leaves her behind and runs away, determined to continue her work. In her lab, she finds Dien, gathering all the weaponry Scallatti Research Team developed, including the experimental ones. Lea is very suspicious of that, so Dien explains that at last, they have a clue where to look for Danadaskagi and his gang – which means they need all the force they can get. Her help would be welcome too if she feels better. He needs to say no more; if they need her to defeat some manipulative creep, Lea’s in.
Inside the former Government House in Hortus, Lea and Dien join the meeting that already features a lot of recognizable individuals: Raleigh, Eddie, Calem, Thrreodhrirr, Ambhrr, Berzhrr, Lybhrrthyrr, Maurihrr, Tythoss, Basthiall, Menhocc, Meithekk, Seganseh, Begass, Ghavett, Claude, Jeriah, Joh and even Vahseligan, as well as countless episodic characters and entirely new figures, like new Great Chief of Cizzaurans Yohiid. They gathered to determine a common plan of assault on Janissaries Lair. Dien lays out the situation; no matter anyone’s stand on the Treaty of Taoter or political beliefs, The Janissaries are a common enemy of everyone here. Taking them down is an absolute priority. The Elite Janissary, also known as Khrasshrr, after his recent attack in Stambhrrm left behind pieces of advanced technology that was used to enhance his body. He, Dien, conducted an analysis that revealed teleportation mechanism implemented in said pieces that surpass not only existing Scallatti technology, but also the one made by their mysterious ancestors, at least as far as their knowledge knows about the latter. This however works to their advantage, as a natural part of tech development is making its usage more intuitive, and thanks to that, despite being just intellectually gifted Scallatti, he was able to figure out the principles this system works on. This allowed him to construct an experimental teleporter that will connect Hortus to the default location which coordinates were stored in Khrassrr microbots’ data banks; it is assumed that this location is Janissaries’ headquarters. However, according to his calculations, it is deep inside the planet’s cloak, so they might not even be able to physically survive there. Furthermore, they don’t know what’s on the other side; most likely all Janissaries, but even greater threats may very well be held there. Finally, the teleporter is unstable and has limited power, so it can transport a limited amount of people and break at any moment.
After hearing all this, Lea is very much unimpressed. If they give her two days, she’ll solve two of these three issues. The only real problem is that they fight the enemy of unknown potential, but this is nothing that can’t be fixed with proper tactics. Then, we see her starting to outline a plan, with the gathered experts regularly interrupting and suggesting improvements, but we don’t hear the details.
Two days later, a combined force of Rhaighr/Cizzauran/Scallatti elite soldiers stand in Sennekh village, the first place Keratherions appeared, before the fully operational transport gate. Lea equips them with the special gears she developed that should protect them from pressure and temperature. In case of other lethal threats, the gears can automatically generate an impenetrable, but temporary forcefield as a last resort one-time emergency teleport back to Sennekh has been implemented. Considering that The Janissaries, who aren’t that different biologically from casual Cizzaurans and Rhaighrs, can survive there, that should be enough. However, Lea points out, they still don’t know what awaits them, so if they’re not ready for anything, they better back down now. Since no one does, Lea declares an attack. She activates the gate and immediately throws an EMP grenade inside. After waiting half of a minute, she enters alongside her former team, followed by the army.
Deep inside the planet, an enormous futuristic lab. The grenade did absolutely no damage, it did however alert everyone inside, so Lea meets the welcome committee in form of gathering Keratherions. She comments that this was to be expected and calls through the gate to bring standard weapons. From this point, the episode devolves into an action fest with constant battling, as assaulting Taoter forces first fight millions of Keratherions, as well as laser turrets and disintegrators built into the lab’s walls; then, all Janissaries show up and we get a team fight between them and Team Lea members. The episode ends with a figure walking out of the shadows, clapping. He finds the whole invasion very impressive and claims that he believes they provided him with much data to research. He is The Great Inventor, or what they call Danadaskagi. This causes panic among Cizzaurans, who just came face to face with one of the scariest deities in their pantheon; when one of Scallatti tries to calm them, saying that they don’t know if he’s a god, Danadaskagi vaporizes him with a snap of his fingers, saying that he likes to think of himself as a man of science – but make no mistake, he very much is a god, and they are the people who crashed into god’s home uninvited.
THE WAKE OF THE GODS
Season 5, Episode 6
Written by JONATHAN WILSON
Directed by STEPHEN DALDRY
TX Date – 6 October 2019
Danadaskagi proclaims that actually, he should probably be thankful to them, as they gave him a great opportunity to test out his weaponry. He proposes a deal to himself; the invaders can continue fighting the Janissaries, while he goes to prepare his toys. Anyone who survives will be rewarded by dying in the battle with the next weapon he throws at them, unless he survives, then he’s going to face further surprises until he dies. Danadaskagi accepts his offer and leaves, while the battle resumes. However, it starts to turn in Taoterans favour, as Lea deflects one of Fliivian’s lasers straight into Naggho’s head, trepanation it. He, of course, doesn’t survive that. What follows is a bloodbath, as Janissaries one by one get killed in a very brutal manner; Ambhrr binds Sporrkhs and then tricks Drrekhrr into burning him to ash; Ghavett glues together Fliivian’s wings, which makes him fall into the tub of liquid nitrogen; Dien infects Khrasshrr with the cyber virus designed specifically to shut down his microbots, but he survives and thanks to him for disabling the circuit that enforced his loyalty to Danadaskagi. As he’s outmatched, he teleports away. Lea’s forces also take casualties, as Paghoss suffocates Maurihrr, crashing through his forcefield; Maurihrr’s emergency teleport activates, too late to save Rhaighr, but in time to punish Paghoss, as it mistakes part of his body for Maurihrr’s equipment and takes it to Sennekh, ripping Paghoss apart. Lybhrrthyrr throws Rharrtisrr’s tyrannosaurus rex on Drrekhrr, who’s forced to suck it inside himself and explodes because it’s too large for him to contain. The only Janissary left is Rharrtisrr, but he puts up a way tougher fight, flooding opponents with balloon replicas of recognizable Doctor Who monsters, such as The Macra, The Nimon, The Loch Ness Monster, Terileptil, Haemovores, Vervoids and many more. When he makes for himself a casing of Dalek Emperor, Lea attaches one of her gears to him and calibrates it to generate absurdly high pressure, making him collapse.
Danadaskagi congratulates them on their win and keeps his promise, releasing all kind of deformed mutants on them. As this doesn’t give an intended effect, he transforms three Rhaighr soldiers into gorynyches, who attack their teammates. This showdown continues for a while, with Danadaskagi unleashing stranger and stranger weapons, for example, dimension compressing grenades until he decides that the time has come for the main event and releases his “greatest creation to date”. Scallatti and Rhaighrs can’t see anything, but soon some of them start taking various kinds of damage. Their newest opponent is a creature made entirely of transparent gas, which possesses the ability to shapeshift into any other kind of gas. Fortunately, Cizzauran heat vision allows them to see the creature, so while their comrades are hopeless, they put up the fight and soon Begass traps the creature in pocket dimension using one of Lea’s experimental weapons. This infuriates Danadaskagi, who can’t believe his pet was defeated so easily and decides to end this test session. He releases another gas – a deadly neurotoxin that spreads to the entire lab in seconds – not fast enough for emergency teleportation circuits though, which detect the threat and send the whole Taoter forces but Lea and Dien back to Sennekh. Lea purposefully didn’t install this failsafe in her gear, willing to fight to the end, and Dien disabled his own because he figured Lea pulls such a number and didn’t want to leave her alone. Their forcefields give them only 30 seconds of protection, but this is more than enough for Lea, who uses another experimental device to change the toxin physical properties, causing its molecules to pull themselves together until they form a small ball. Danadaskagi’s left speechless, while the two Scallatti point guns at him, and Lea mocks him that for a godlike weapon maker his arsenal isn’t that impressive. Surprisingly, Danadaskagi takes this insult; as a fellow scientist who managed to counter all of his inventions, Lea earned the right to criticize him. He offers a deal; if she helps him achieve his biggest dream, creating the ultimate weapon, he’ll leave this planet alone.
Lea is sorry to break it to him, but the ultimate weapon exists for ages; it’s called love. No one understands how it works, but it managed to overpower even hyperversal level threats. That has Danadaskagi surprised; he heard about this whole love thing, but he never considered its military potential, and he attempted to weaponize almost anything – music, cooking, balloons… Lea says that if he needs research, she knows some people knowledgeable in the subject, but the Great Inventor objects that mortal understanding of a concept is way too little for the needs of a godly being like him. He needs to ask another god, and since for aeons none of the gods of this universe taught him anything about love, he needs to look beyond this universe. As Danadaskagi opens a rift in reality, Lea wishes him good luck, but he warns her not to celebrate yet; if he doesn’t find the ultimate weapon, she and her puny planet will know his rage. Lea shrugs it off and asks what about the lab. He tells her that she can do with it whatever she wants; as far as he’s concerned, this plane is no longer worth their attention. Saying goodbye to a fellow inventor, Danadaskagi leaves this world. Lea looks around and tells Dien that they have some scientific equipment to transport.
Throughout these two episodes, we only see other characters in small capacities: Calem and Eddie investigate the case of the presidential election; Julie, to distract herself from worrying about Lea, calls Roddy and they discuss how to fight corruption within the workers union, but Roddy doesn’t offer any advice, as he says he has to look into it himself first, which he promises to do; and Raleigh awaits news of Lea’s expedition outcome in her office, watching Ajacos preaching to large crowd from the balcony. The most active is Richard, who visits his parents again and after another long conversation about The Three, he asks if they can let know Utnapishtim and Ersiah that he wants to talk to them; he knows The Three has their ways to do that. By the end of episode 6, while Richard is chilling in the cafe, they suddenly show up and join his table. Richard, unastonished, asks them what in the world they did to Lea. Ersiah is annoyed that she summoned them just to accuse them of something she doesn’t even know about, while Utnapishtim messes with Richard, angering him. He shouts that Lea lost his mind, throwing Utnapishtim off the trace; what does it mean that she lost his mind? He didn’t plan anything like this. Richard describes the symptoms and accuses The Elders again, this time making both of them staunchly deny they have anything to do with that and throw some remarks about what they would do if they were able to drive someone insane. Richards accepts this explanation and leaves the table, having nothing more to tell them, which disappoints them a bit.
The final shows us, Lea, summarizing the aftermath of the battle with Danadaskagi in conversation with Begass. She remarks that fighting a God stops being such a big deal when it’s the third time this month, which has Begass confused, but he assumes he misheard. He tells Lea that she should apologize to Kalagisah for her rude behaviour earlier and tell her that she most likely fulfilled her prophecy. Lea asks what prophecy and Begass repeat to her what Kalagisah said in The Price of Lies. The part about “the lonely” has Lea stunned, and Begass asks if she’s alright. Lea answers “No one sees what I see, no one felt what I felt, no one can understand me. The universe is plotting against me. I am Lea Jayne Karter, I’m the lonely, and the ancient wisdom of Cizzaurans has just invited me to talk”.
TO THE NEON GOD THEY MADE
Season 5, Episode 7
Written by DOUG PETRIE
Directed by DOUGLAS MACKINNON
TX Date – 13 October 2019
The episode opens with Raleigh greeting Yohiid, Basthiall, Menhocc and several unknown Cizzaurans in Metria. This is the delegation chosen by Satachha to renegotiate Treaty of Taoter, as the current agreement is no longer acceptable for United Tribes. Raleigh goes out of her way to present Scallatti hospitality. The diplomats head to Raleigh’s office to discuss behind closed doors, but as they are about to enter, suddenly we hear a gun shot. And then Menhocc, mortally wounded, falls into Basthiall’s arms. The room becomes dead silent, as Basthiall calls Menhocc a friend and tells him to hang on. Menhocc harks “Basthiall… don’t… wage war…” and passes away. As the initial shock ends, everything falls into chaos. Raleigh, not knowing what to do at all, tells Basthiall that they’ll investigate, they’ll find the culprit. Basthiall, through tears, tells her that they better do, because until then, no Scallatti will set foot on Cizzauran soil. Cizzaurans leave the city hall in rush, and in some dark alley, Utnapishtim, who has witnessed the whole event, speaks into his communicator “Alea jacta est. Commence Operation New World”.
Raleigh’s, Eddie’s and Calem’s plots in this episode all involve dealing with the aftermath of this event. Raleigh tries to damage control the situation, and there’s plenty of damage; people spontaneously protest in the name of Cizzaurans and demanding Raleigh’s resignation. There are reports that some statues commemorating former presidents were demolished and graffitied with pro-Cizzauran slogans – ironic, since Menhocc hated violence. Add that to all the protests already happening since Raleigh was elected… Losing her mind from dealing with situation she doesn’t have the first idea how to deal with, Raleigh calls Eddie to cede some of the mess to his shoulders. But Eddie is nowhere to be found.
Calem in her TV studio is in similar position, sending reporters everywhere to somehow cope with all the events taking place. She’s very upset that she can’t send anyone to United Tribes due to Basthiall’s ultimatum and asks herself how badly Raleigh can screw up. Suddenly, Eddie enters the studio and tells Calem that they need to finish their investigation on election results. Calem objects that they both have more important things to do, and Eddie says that right now this is the most important thing to do – things are about to blow up.
At The Wave, Claude comes to talk to Dani, wanting to do an article on their big victory over Danadaskagi to cheer up people shaken by recent events. Dani is filming an interview that Erik is doing with the man named Eligius. He claims to be the assassin of Menhocc and talks about the need to fight the ideology of Cizzauranism that plagues their nation. As Erik enthusiastically exclaims that they in The Wave oppose all leftist deviations like communism, cizzauranism, communism, national socia… communism, communism, fascism and foreseerism, Claude overcomes his disbelief and starts angrily demanding to know what is going on here – why is his own TV station praising the murder of the righteous man, even if his for other race? They have a loud row with Dani, which ends with Claude saying that people were right about The Wave crossing the line and he can’t just let it be… there will be changes at high seats. He also forbids to air this interview, but Dani laughs in his face saying that they were live. Furious, Claude incapacitates Eligius and leaves with him to hand him over to the police.
As the broadcast ends, Utnapishtim asks Ajacos in his apartment if he’s ready. Ajacos confirms and hopes that it’s all worth it. He gives a speech to the crowd outside, condemning Raleigh for failing to ensure diplomats’ safety. He claims that he can’t sit idly anymore and needs to take responsibility for his nation. Then, he asks the crowd if they help him and gets a loud cheer in response. With their help, Ajacos leaves the apartment. The revolution has begun.
We go back to Eddie, who explains to Calem that public opinion about Raleigh is plummeting – everyone has the reason to hate her now. If they don’t explain how Raleigh ended up in charge quickly, everyone will just believe the rumours that she rigged the election, and she may end up lynched by angry masses. They’re both journalists – they both know how mob mentality works, and Raleigh is the easiest target for it – unless they turn their anger in other direction. Calem reluctantly agrees.
While this all happens, Richard concludes that now there are even better reasons to talk to ‘this Frances’ – maybe she knows how to resolve this chaos. With the help of familiar computer scientist, professor at University of Ramanujan, he again tries to access the core of Fleet’s computer. However, even with his computer skills, they come across a virtual wall. While Frances was the interface to the Scallatti Computer System, and they’d always been able to communicate with her, her actual consciousness, free thought and will appeared to be locked behind a password, only known by Ajacos. This is going to be hard, however, because as it soon after gets reported to Raleigh, Ajacos has disappeared after escaping house arrest. What has not disappeared are his followers, who now riot, demanding Raleigh to step down and hand over the power to Ajacos.
Roddy works tirelessly in his office, when two people appear in its door. These are agents of The Three that avoided arrest, and they came here to take Roddy to Ajacos. Roddy doesn’t realise it, but recent events were all part of cautiously calculated plan to elevate Ajacos to the position of King of Scallatti for life. Now he’s going to take this position in a coup and wants Roddy to join him. Furthermore, as Ajacos doesn’t have children, he wants him to be his heir apparent; all Roddy has to do is to come with them. Before they can even prove they work for Ajacos, Roddy, horrified, rejects their offer. Ajacos lost his mind; how can he expect that Roddy, a socialist, will support his tyrannical plan? What about democracy? The rights of the small? if Ajacos decided to betray all he once believed in, that makes them enemies, and Roddy will protect the republic with its rightful president from him to the last breath. The agents tell him to not be silly – they rigged the election, this “president” is illegitimate anyway, but Roddy answers “better illegitimate than a traitor”, and as agents try to take him by force, knocks them both out in surprising display of fight skills and calls security to arrest them.
Claude comes back from the police station, remembering how Eligius mocked him on the way in, claiming that they already won and it’s thanks to him; now he can do nothing. However, when he reaches The Wave’s reception, he finds out that his legitimation was suspended. He demands explanation and learns that during the last half of an hour, he sold all his shares in The Wave… somehow. They were bought by Sheira Incorporated, which then as the new owner of The Wave decided to remove him from the board, so he’s no longer part of The Wave. Claude is boiling from anger, but he shows some class and leaves the building, not wanting to take it out on innocent employees. Eligius said the truth; now he can do nothing. But he knows exactly who’s behind it.
While Calem and Eddie gather testimonies and check evidence, they run into Raleigh, who’s upset and angry that Eddie left her in her darkest hour. Eddie, who tries to save her reputation the best way he can, obviously sees it differently. They have a huge argument, which results in Eddie shouting that if she can’t even appreciate him trying to save her ass, then she can keep this ass for herself and look for another loser to serve as her parody of vice president. This hits Raleigh and breaks her heart, but because she can even tear up, Roddy enters, informing everyone that they no longer deal with casual unrest – Ajacos is staging a coup with the help of remnants of The Three. If they want to save Scallatti population, they need to act NOW.
Julie, throughout this episode spends time with Addaho, mourning Menhocc. She also goes with Richard to see Dr. Bronestein-Yaris, who has more of a diagnosis for Lea, based upon his findings. He says that he’s found zero evidence of any foul play and he believes Lea has just developed a psychological condition. Julie doesn’t understand – she’s 100% sure that it’s someone out-to-get Lea who’s messed with her brain, but the Dr. tells her that he’s pretty sure she’s developed a condition called schizophrenia, and it has nothing to do with someone trying to dispose of Lea. Richard asks for the Dr. to explain more and he says that Lea has likely always had the condition, but recent traumatic events, such as losing everything she knew about her entire identity, must’ve brought it to the surface. He then hands the two of them a leaflet and says that they may have noticed some of these symptoms in Lea for years. Julie asks if he can cure it, but the Doctor tells them that it’s a part of who Lea is, and while it can be medicated and be brought under control, the best they can do for her is to be there for her and help her through it. Julie remarks that they could do that if they knew where Lea was.
Lea is locked in her lab, completely unaware of all that has happened in this story. She cares about one thing only: the invitation from Cizzauran god. Now she understands why Danadaskagi said that this plane is no longer worth “their” attention; he meant both him and Lea. She fuses a piece of DNA that she extracted from Shamash’s body after Season 4 finale with a small portion of Kheqren. Based on Shamash’s longevity and what she has learned from Raleigh she believes that their ancestors had some kind of control over time – and so does Kheqren. What happens when two different temporal anomalies collide? Well, just what she expected; a temporary rift in the fabric of reality is created. of course, it’s a very small rift, but if she uses bigger amounts, she’ll be able to make a passage for herself. Based on her discovery, Lea builds a device that does just that; opens path between dimensions, as long as it has a fuel in form of Shamash’s DNA and Kheqren. And it’s portable! Very proud of herself, Lea packs her backpack – farewell, evil forces with their plans and lies, she’s joining the big league now! But just as she’s about to open the rift, the door to her lab is broken down. Tena and Carmen, armed from top to bottom, enter the house – they came to deal with Lea. Utnapishtim didn’t plan for Lea to lose her mind, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have plans for her at all. Tena says that Lea’s coming with them, but Lea doesn’t think so. She opens a rift and runs into it, telling Tena to kiss goodbye her fake parents from her. Confused, but not distracted, both agents follow Lea through the rift – and just after they enter, it closes.
YOU’RE WITH US, YOU’RE AGAINST US
Season 5, Episode 8
Written by JANE ESPENSON
Directed by JESSICA HOBBS
TX Date – 20 October 2019
This episode splits its airtime around 50/50 between Lea’s plot, now heavily disconnected from the rest of the story due to the events of the last episode, and all the others. They are of course intermixed, but I’ll go through Lea’s plot first.
On the other side of the rift, Lea gets in the struggle with Tena and Carmen, when suddenly they are all apprehended by heavily armed Cizzauran forces. They get thrown into prison, where they all agree on a temporary truce. Tena nags the guard, manipulating him to get as much information as possible; based on what they gathered, Lea theorizes that they ended up in a parallel universe, where the entire planet is controlled by the Mighty Cizzauran Empire. Centuries ago, Five Mighty tribes joined forces to wipe out all the other Cizzaurans, and then enslaved the peaceful race of Rhaighrs, which builds monuments for their might ever since. Scallatti after coming to this planet were outright obliterated; the remnants were placed in labour camps and what their captors are now discussing is most likely to which of these camps the three women should be sent. After the initial baffling, they realize that they are in peril and need to get out of this world quickly. They devise a plan, which they then put in action; it’s a typical ‘come closer to the bars’ scenario, as it turns out Cizzaurans in this world aren’t particularly clever. They take all of their equipment and get out of Cizzauran city. This is where Tena ends the truce and orders Lea to take them back to their world. Lea uses her device to open another rift and they jump in. This time they find themselves in very futuristic looking setting. Tena obviously gets angry at Lea, but she laughs that she can threaten her all she wants, as she has no control over where they end up anyway. She herself is going to travel until she finds what she’s looking for, and they should start looking around and checking whether there’s any nice realm to settle for them, as they’re likely never going home. They have time until they end up in universe with no oxygen, as she has no business saving them. Tena’s resultive outburst distracts Carmen enough to give Lea an opportunity to escape, Tena and Carmen follow her, but they lose track of her as she enters large, bustling city. Finally being safe, Lea decides that there’s no need to rush and she can spend some time exploring, as this universe seems way more friendly than the last one. This is the world where Rhaighr befriended Scallatti after they came and together they developed high technology, creating a brand new society that goes for technological enhancements of the body. When it comes to Cizzaurans, there’s no proof that they even existed in this timeline. Wandering through the streets of Bryssla Delta Six and meeting some familiar faces in cyberpunk setting, Lea comes to the conclusion that she dislikes this reality; it looks like a theme park designed by Danadaskagi, very little of the actual progress have been achieved. Lost in thought, she doesn’t notice Tena and Carmen, who pull her into dark alley. They picked some advanced weaponry, and while they don’t quite know how it works, it might help them out next time they end up in some cheap dystopia; they’re definitely not staying here though, the chance may be small, but they still want to try and get back to ‘our world’. Tena takes the rift creator from Lea, uses it to open the gate and gets in. Carmen follows her, keeping Lea in her clutch.
The first we see of the main plot is a large crowd of people storming the heavily guarded building in Pannon. This is Scallatti main arsenal, and the agressors are supporters of Ajacos in the need of armament. Both The Wave and SWN film it from the distance; The Wave’s report framed it in touching music and portrays it as a big victory, while SWN gives stone cold transmission, and then it cuts to Metria city hall for a presidential address. However, Raleigh just stands in the back heartbroken, and it’s Roddy who gives a speech, telling people of The Elysium that their freedom and democracy is under threat, as treacherous former president uses the public unrest created by recent events to grab absolute power for himself. Only the joint forces of the citizens can prevent his dark dictatorial reign; it’s time to rise up for The Elysium, he himself is going to defend the rightful president to the last breath. Roddy asks who’s with him, and in hundreds of house people answer his call. As broadcast turns off, Roddy turns to Raleigh, Eddie and Calem still present in the hall and states that their chances of saving everyone have just increased exponentially. He now is going to focus on organizing and equipping public resistance, and what are they going to do? Raleigh just shrugs, and Calem & Eddie explain about their investigation. Roddy agrees that this is extremely important and can actually help with that; few hours ago he was attacked by renegade agents of The Three, who claimed that they fixed the election results. This gives Calem a moment of revelation; of course, The Three had all means necessary to manipulate the election and judging by the events that are unfolding, they could have an interest in it as well. Now all they need is evidence, and now that they know what they’re looking for, it won’t take them long.
In Rhaighr Empire, Thrreodhrirr and Ambhrr observe another Rhaighr woman, Bhrrbhrr. This is an infamous figure; she uses her beauty to seduce strong Rhaighrs and makes them fight each other to the death. She lets the winner take herself as a slave and lives in luxury until her eye catches even more well-suited Rhaighr to take advantage of. She has tremendous amount of power and didn’t have to lift a finger to get it. Ambhrr and the Empress agree that this is deeply unmighty, but the latter warns the former not to underestimate Bhrrbhrr; she’s cunning, clever and has a fair chunk of physical strength, to the point that some believe it can rival Thrreodhrirr’s. One day this woman might wish to take the throne, and that day it’s going to be The Almighty’s duty to stop her. The monarch must beware and stay ready for sly and quiet threats like this; the well-being of their people requires that.
In United Tribes of Cizzaura, Anttho used Menhocc’s death to get himself elected Chief of Gallane tribe, and now he calls in Satachha for a war with Scallatti to avenge him. To his surprise, Basthiall opposes this proposal; Menhocc’s last words were clear, he didn’t want war. Till the end he believed that violence is not the right answer, that Cizzaurans should be the ones to spread peace and dialogue. As much as he despises Scallatti and for all his disagreements with Menhocc, Basthiall respected him, he was a noble man, and deserves his last wish being honoured. Basthiall gets some applause, but there are Satachhtems who are silent as well; not everyone believes in peace anymore.
Julie takes a lot of screentime, as she also decides to answer Roddy’s call and comes to enlistment point; as a former vice-president, she can’t sit idly. It’s from her perspective that we see civil war swallowing the streets of Scallatti cities. Recruits get only the most basic training, and the battle with the rebels is a tiresome stalemate. The officers make sure to motivate people under his command by assuring them on how much good they do for their fellow citizens and describing in great detail how miserable their life will be if Ajacos’s coup succeeds; sometimes even they play broadcasts from The Wave to let them speak from themselves. Richard also enlists and gets placed in the think tank that coordinates defence strategy. He and Julie spend their free time together, as it’s always the familiar face to talk. They discuss Julie’s past; Richard theorizes that if Julie is Lea’s sister, she’s likely very intelligent herself, and asks if she ever considered pursuing career in sciences. Julie says that once she became a free woman, following the miners’ strike, she fell into the field of politics. She says that she never even considered anything else because she’d never had that opportunity. Learning about all these crazy events and happenings doesn’t give her any pleasure; once this all ends, she just wishes to live ordinary life with her family.
Meanwhile, Claude comes to Metria City Hall, watched over by its guards. He offers his help; they have their differences, many in fact, but anyone who attacks the national arsenal, an insurance of the nation’s safety, is an enemy of the state and he’s going to help in taking him down. Roddy appreciates his good intentions, but… how can he trust him? If it wasn’t for his TV station broadcasting hate speech 24/7, maybe this coup wouldn’t get so bad. How many people who voted for him now fight in Ajacos’s guerillas? Placing him in their ranks would be like placing a self destruct button; he can turn against them at any moment, it’s the other side that’s closer to his beliefs. Claude doesn’t have an answer to all these points; Roddy says that he can try and do his own thing, if he wants to, but he can’t join federal forces. Claude accepts that and leaves, telling Roddy that by the way he impressed him with the discipline he manages to maintain among troops; maybe he has misjudged Roddy as a politician and a man.
Days pass, the fight continues, and Calem & Eddie inspect every institution that was involved in the election. Eventually, the investigation is done, and both journalists present their full report to Raleigh and Roddy; there’s no doubt that Ajacos signed the paper allowing ‘additional control’ of all the ballots, and the results of exit poll were tampered with by some suspicious people – fitting the description of renegade Three agents. Ajacos had won the vote, but him and Utnapishtim hold direct responsibility for hiding it from the world. Now that it’s sure that she was never elected, Raleigh bursts into tears and calls herself useless. Roddy says it’s no time for crying, as the people of Scallatti Federation need them to work restlessly, and Raleigh looks at him with admiration. Roddy asks Calem to publish the report as quickly as possible; this may be the advantage they need to win.
Claude sneaks through the front lines, trying to reach his estates in Pannon. He should have the means to mobilize his own resistance that will break the illusion that all of the political right supports the coup. Suddenly, a group of armed men crosses his way. Their leader is Ersiah, who says that she can’t allow it to happen.
In Thrreodhrirr’s palace, the empress answers Ambhrr’s various questions about leading the nation, when the messengers storm their door. Beyond the borders of Mighty Rhaighr Empire terrifying things take place. Thrreodhrirr hears the shortened description of the events of this and previous episode, and then sums it up that apparently it’s time for big daddy to step in. Their priority is to make sure that this rebellion doesn’t spread to Hortus, but once that is done, she thinks that it would be in good spirit to return the favour from several weeks and send President Baker-Mitchell reinforcements. People in the court argue that it’s against the Treaty, but The Almighty says ‘screw the Treaty’; she doubts anyone will complain that Rhaighrs save them from the wild mob terrorizing the streets or the armed following of traitorous former president. They should also send condolences to United Tribes of Cizzaura; time to work out the new relations with them. Before anyone can apply these orders, however, the ceiling comes crushing down; from the dust, a voice comes out saying that this is blatant treason, but he expected no less from her. Then Khrasshrr steps out, proclaiming that he issues the official challenge for the title of The Almighty; and just like the last time, the loser, which this time will be Thrreodhrirr, won’t make it out alive.
THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL
Season 5, Episode 9
Written by NAREN SHANKAR
Directed by DOUGLAS MACKINNON
TX Date – 27 October 2019
This episode’s main axis is fight between Thrreodhrirr and Khrasshrr, but for clarity’s sake I’m going to go through it at the end and describe other subplots first.
Claude proves that he didn’t get a rank of general for nothing, as he defeats all of Ersiah’s thugs. He is flattered that The Three considers him such a threat to their plans, but they didn’t try hard enough and now Ersiah is at his grace. Ersiah laughs these claims off, provoking an argument between them. Claude tries to learn what Ersiah’s up to, and she says that this is completely wrong perspective to look at it – she’s the god of Scallatti, the ancestor of their ancestors, she witnessed the birth of those who birthed them, conducted their whole history and now she deems them a failed project; their opinion about her plans does not matter in the slightest. Claude, shocked, asks if he understood correctly – she wants to destroy them all somehow? Ersiah remarks that not somehow, as she has a very thought-out way to do so, and not all – just those who fail her test, which is vast majority of course, but this is no expense. Their puny civilization lost something way more valuable than all of them, and she will retrieve it. Claude says that she lost her mind and he’ll stop her, but Ersiah laughs that all he can do is to be an annoyance; granted, annoyance big enough for her partner to want him dead, but not to change a dot in her plan. To prove that, she’ll spare him for now, so he can find out just how useless he is. She then throws a smoke bomb and disappears, leaving Claude even more pissed and determined than before.
SWN releases a huge report, full of evidence and research, covering the legitimacy of Scallatti Presidential Election. It states that beyond any doubt the result was fixed; the forgery was executed by The Three, mostly agents that avoided capture. Interestingly, these people were seen rallying protesters during the past few weeks and leading the bands of rebels to fight against civic resistance forces. But that’s not all; the whole operation was made with consent and under protection of the President, at the time: Frayons Prix Ajacos. He gave certain people access to the ballot boxes before they were counted, and then covered up all evidence they were there. He wanted the election to turn out in a certain way and made sure that Raleigh Baker-Mitchell became president – even though, it seems, he was the actual winner of the vote. Having President Baker-Mitchell in charge is WHAT HE WANTED. Calem hammers the message into the audience. Ajacos in the bunker turns off the TV, panicked. He claims that this entire operation was a mistake; he could have peacefully served his term now and go down in history as one of the finest Scallatti presidents – but no – he fooled himself into believing he can be a monarch. Everything went wrong; first, Roddy, his dreamed successor, turned against him, then ‘smooth takeover’ turned into civil war, and now the whole scheme has been exposed. He considers giving himself to the police now, in hopes of a shorter sentence. Utnapishtim tells him to not be silly; that it’s too late to back out now, and they can still win. Ajacos wonders at what cost though.
Through the eyes of Julie and Richard, we see that a report truly had an impact on society. People feel cheated by Ajacos, a man who gained their mandate to rule and preferred to let Raleigh ruin their whole society. Public support of the coup starts melting; it looks like only die-hard Ajacos apologists and right-wing radicals remained dedicated to the cause. Some people have joined Claude’s independent resistance group, but most strengthened the ranks of Civilian Defense Forces. Stronger and more confident, they start to claim victories. Julie is excited, even though long motivational speeches about the need to punish the traitors and defend the communities in which the working class reside, begin to rub some people the wrong way.
Roddy, Calem and Eddie are now the centre of administrative-informational machine that uses all possible resources to utterly disperse the rebellion. Together, they cautiously engineer a media campaign to promote their effort. After they complete the material commemorating Menhocc and encouraging allyship towards the Cizzaurans, Roddy realizes that, speaking of the Cizzaurans, the police has finished their investigation and confirmed that Menhocc’s assassin was Eligius, the man kindly turned over to them by Claude – and yet another agent of The Three, that was on the run. It’s suggested someone should hand him over to Satachha and restore their diplomatic relations with the United Tribes. Eddie volunteers to do so, while Calem is asked by Roddy to examine the archives once more and dig up all of Ajacos’s controversies – they need to show the people how despicable he is. She agrees, but first she visits the presidential office to check on Raleigh. The office looks like the first circle of hell, with Raleigh sat there, drinking a cup of coffee with her feet on her desk. However, she looks far more relaxed than last episode – as she explains to Calem, she has finally found a solution. Since everything she does seems to just go wrong, she argues it’s in the best interest of everyone that she does absolutely nothing. So that’s what she’s going to do: She proclaims the Scallatti don’t need to worry about her messing up their good work anymore!
This time, Lea, Tena, and Carmen arrive in very familiar setting – Raleigh’s original timeline. Before they can really do anything, Lord Hanson arrives with his guard. He recognizes Lea and offers help with the nasty ladies restraining her; Lea nods and the guard quickly incapacities both members of The Three, who then gets locked up. Lea takes this opportunity to ask, for what idiotic reason the five of them keep following her. After some initial confusion caused by the word ‘five’, Tena explains that Utnapishtim wanted to make sure that Lea doesn’t interfere in their plan to overthrow President Baker-Mitchell and install Ajacos as a monarch; furthermore, he hoped that he’ll successfully force her to make armament for them. Lea is horrified, as Raleigh is one of few people, she still considered trustworthy – then again, was it worth her sweat when evil is going to consume their world anyway? As Tena is left contemplating what is that supposed to mean, Lea goes for a walk around presidential gardens with Lord Hanson, who obviously wants to know what she’s doing there. Knowing that Hanson is not to be trusted, Lea changes the subject to Raleigh, and they have an extensive talk about her personality. Hanson is surprised that she became president and doubts that it will work out – Raleigh’s not the right person to carry undivided responsibility, as she often doesn’t think her ideas through, at the same time being awfully stubborn, not to mention falling from one extreme to the other. However, she was a great help in all of his projects – a great person couldn’t dream about better supporter, as she dedicates all of her enthusiasm and hard work to the people, she believes in. That being said, this time Hanson will need Lea’s support; for some reason, after the events of Season 3, their time travel technology stopped working, therefore Hanson’s historical missions were halted. Hanson says he wants Lea to assist his scientists in fixing this problem, and he insists that she agrees. For all that time, she’ll be their honourable guest, while her belongings would stay safe under his care. Lea realizes that she’s in trouble; Hanson outplayed her, she has no way to leave this world unless she agrees to cooperate. However, a sound is heard from the gate before Hanson falls on the ground stupefied. Tena and Carmen arrive, telling Lord Hanson to not underestimate The Three. All women quickly and in outstanding agreement make their escape to another world.
Finally, it’s time to summarize what has unfolded in Thrreodhrirr’s palace throughout the story. The Almighty contemns Khrasshrr as always and wants to reject the challenge as he’s barely even a Rhaighr, so doesn’t have that right. However, Khrrashrr threatens to kill ten Rhaighrs every day until she accepts. Rhaighr or not, he’s a threat to her people, and Thrreodhrirr can’t let him leave this place alive. She takes the challenge and charges at Khrasshrr. The fight is fierce, brutal, and visually spectacular. Using all kinds of weapons present in the palace, the Almighty destroys thousands of microbots, while Khrashrr, morhing into all kinds of shapes and war machines, rips the living flesh out of her. Finally, Thrreodhrirr goes for the head and with her bare hands smashes Khrasshrr’s skull, shouting that impaling the egotistic soulless scum like him was the noblest thing she’s ever done, he has no right or might to lead the Rhaighrs, and he better doesn’t crawl out of his grave again, because she’ll always be there to stop him. In a last-ditch effort, Khrasshrr’s remaining microbots use all energy they have left to electrocute Thrreodhrirr, burning her tissues. The Empress stands victorious; then falls to the ground. Her wounds are too severe to be healed. As Ambhrr and Berzhrr come to her side, she growls her last words; that she entrusts their kind in their claws, and that they have to lead Mighty Rhaighr Empire into the new age of prosperity. It was her honour to share the life with a man like Berzhrr and to be a mentor of a strong woman like Ambhrr. She asks them to tell Lea that they were equal after all, and then her soul returns to the Mighty Mother of All Rhaighrs, Nature.
WITH THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE
Season 5, Episode 10
Written by DOUG PETRIE
Directed by DOUGLAS MACKINNON
TX Date – 3 November 2019
This episode begins soon after the last one, with Eddie, alongside a group of guards carrying Eligius, arrive at Hortus, only to find it flooded with Cizzauran refugees from Horretz tribe, led by Seganseh, who explains to Eddie what happened – Horretz was attacked by Gallane. They were caught completely by surprise, they didn’t stand a chance – all they could do is flee, and some men stayed behind to buy them time for escape. Anttho seems to be up to something. Eddie promises to look into it, as he heads to Tehaddah village to bring murderer of Menhocc to justice.
Dani, unfazed by rebellion’s declining luck, keeps mass producing pro-Ajacos propaganda, when suddenly Claude appears in the door of her office. He came to speak to her common sense for the last time; telling her that she should leave The Wave now, before people come for her head. Dani refuses: why would she leave the only place where she’s respected and appreciated? Honestly, she doesn’t understand Claude; they praised him in every article, portrayed him like a mythical hero, what’s his issue? Claude says that he won’t trade basic human decency for such following. He asks if she’s really not ashamed of what she’s doing; she confirms, she builds something great and she has nothing to regret. Claude shouts that she’s a toy in Ersiah’s hands; Dani doesn’t find it a big deal, all the time somebody was using her; in fact, everyone uses everyone. What matters is that she’s happy and that her voice, for once, has real power. Claude says that they will see about that, but Dani doesn’t give her any more attention – she has work to do.
Richard peacefully writes analysis for the think tank. The atmosphere is great; people feel that they’re fighting for something important, for justice, for equality, and they are winning. Their leader gives them a motivational speech, saying how their greatest strength is their unity. Their enemies don’t truly have it, each is driven by their own ego, hollow interests, and lusts, but they cut themselves from true value, so deep down, they are sad and lonely. The lonely are their enemy, and their combined strength will destroy them. Suddenly, something dawns on Richard. He excuses everyone and leaves the room in a hurry.
Eddie hands Eligius over to Satachha, and a grand debate ensues whether or not corporal punishment should be used. Anttho and both tribes he controls are all for it, but Basthiall and his coalition are against. Tehaddah tribe is split on the issue, but ultimately Yohiid proclaims that Eligius shall be spared. This causes an uproar among supporters of execution; Eligius sees an opportunity, breaks free from distracted guards and escapes. Now the building falls into even deeper chaos; Anttho quickly blames Yohiid for what had happened and calls for constructive vote of no confidence, with a candidate for a new Great Chief being… himself. There’s controversy, as Cizzauran law never accounted for possibility of Great Chief not being from Tehaddah tribe. Even so, Yohiid, pressured by his tribe, agrees on putting a motion to vote and… it passes. Basthiall challenges the result, saying that no vote will make Anttho the legitimate Great Chief, and he remarks that Satachha can’t work properly when some of her members disobey their decisions. The new ‘Great Chief’ orders the arrest of Basthiall, and he of course resists. On the eyes of Eddie, the Great Hut devolves into the battlefield; soon so does the entire Tehaddah village. While opponents of Anttho seem to be in majority, Anttho somehow got his hands on Scallatti advanced weaponry, just like Khrodhrr before; Eddie says to himself that this requires a serious investigation once their done with all that mess. With this armament, the newly appointed chief of Anttho’s forces Windhekk pushes Basthiall and his side out of the village. Eddie, correctly guessing that Anttho won’t be particularly hospitable for him, escapes with them. There, they come across Meithekk and his forces, who managed to make it out alive from battle in Horretz and came to warn Satachha about Anttho. It’s too late now; Cizzauran civil war has begun.
Julie goes to bed in Civilian Defense quarters; she can’t sleep, she’s worried about Jan, whom she left under Addaho’s care in Hortus. To occupy her thoughts with something else, she makes a call to Roddy and they have long conversation. Roddy tells her that he thinks he found a solution to a problem of the corruption in the mining unions; once the civil war is over, they’ll deal with that problem. Julie admits that she’s scared about the future, and Roddy calms her down; he promises to put all his effort into building a great future. He knows the recipe; from all according to ability, to all based on need. Everything’s going to be just fine.
Lea, Tena, and Carmen land on very unpleasantly looking version of Taoter III. This is the timeline where Pirate Collective ravaged the planet and made it its lair. By this description alone you can probably conclude what happens next; Lea’s rift projector gets stolen by a pirate, and the trio needs to go chase him, clashing with several caricatural vigilantes while doing so. Even with that on their hands, Lea and Tena still find the time to argue about the nature of The Three and the value of Raleigh’s presidency. When they finally get the projector back, Lea proposes a deal; these alternate realities turned out to cause her way more trouble than she expected, so how about they keep her safe until they reach her destination, and in return she then makes sure that they’ll be able to return home. Carmen gives a condition that Lea goes back with them; Lea remarks that she won’t promise that, but they can always try and force her to do so – though she doubts they succeed. Tena decides that is good enough for now – they have a deal. Having that out of the way, they all jump to another dimension once again.
The cliffhanger of this episode is Claude outlining the battle plans in his residency when someone rings the bell. Armed, Claude carefully opens the door, and he’s surprised to see the person on the other side “What is he doing here?”, Claude asks himself, as we cut to end credits…
AND THE WALLS GREW
Season 5, Episode 11
Written by TONI GRAPHIA
Directed by ANNA FOERSTER
TX Date – 10 November 2019
Lea’s plot this episode, becomes a bit more light-hearted as it quite literally begins with Lea getting hit over the head with a balloon hammer. She thought that she was done with The Janissaries, but this time she’s come across the world ruled by them. These versions are possibly even stronger than their universe’s counterparts – Naggho has built-in tissue crystallizer. Lea wonders how that works. Fortunately, this Naggho’s not much smarter than theirs, so with the help of Carmen, they quickly decapitate him. Lea extracts the crystallizer from his corpse – it’s worth researching. At a later date, of course, because now they need to avoid being squashed by Rharrtisrr in his balloon monster truck.
This time they’re in a world that resembles simplistic animation. Carmen attempts to find some colourful glass pieces, as it looks like people of this realm use them for fight and this is when she finds a green glass. She raises it to the sun and a giant snake appears. Carmen smiles.
In the world where everyone acts very hammy, Lea is recalibrating her rift projector – looks like continuous usage starts to take its toll on it. Tena in a very exaggerating manner tells Lea to hurry up, because Ghaganess are after them. Lea asks what in the world are Ghaganess, and Tena shouts that SHE DOESN’T KNOW! but doesn’t want to learn it either, as they all saw what they did to the planet. Lea wants to point something out, but Tena tells her to shut up and run.
The main focus of the story are events happening among Scallatti, Cizzaurans and Rhaighrs, with screen time split around evenly between those three races. Ambhrr comes on Stambhrrm’s marketplace. She officially announces what has been rumoured from a few hours – The Almighty is dead. She died undefeated, defending the Mighty Rhaighr empire from a mockery of their code known as The Janissary. The Throne of Dagbhr now stands empty, and that means with this very moment, the ritual Tournament of The Might starts. She’s the first one to officially announce her claim for the title of The Almighty, and challenges everyone who wants that title to a duel. The Rhaighr challenge call spreads through the city and further through the empire; soon, challengers start arriving. Ambhrr goes through the hardest battle of her life; she needs to beat hundreds of contenders all by herself, and her only convenience is that they are also opponents to each other. We get one of the most impressive fights in the whole show, as Ambhrr uses all her strength, tricks and traps. In the end, Ambhrr stands victorious at the pile of defeated rivals. But there’s someone who didn’t appear; Khrodhrr. Ambhrr knows that means trouble; and indeed, soon reports start coming to Stambhrrm that armed groups of Rhaighrs started occupying Rhaighr villages one by one, claiming them in the name of Emphrrr – the official leader of Khrodhrr’s movement that Ambhrr is pretty sure is completely imaginary figure. She orders mobilization of the army and flies to face the marching terrorists. They’re lead by Khrodhrr and… Bhrrbhrr, who spotted the occasion and is now Khrodhrr’s mistress. Ambhrr accuses Khrodhrr of violating the rules of Tournament and challenges either him or his master Emphrrr to a duel; right here, right now. Khrodhrr remarks that if she wants to fight Emphrrr, they will fight in his residency that he’ll be happy to lead her to – this not only an obvious trap, but blatant affront to Rhaighr Law, as the field of duel can’t be disputed. Ambhrr calls Khrodhrr a disgrace to Rhaighr name, and Khrodhrr answers the winner will decide what and who was a disgrace to Rhaighr name. The war is inevitable. Ambhrr goes back to Stambhrrm and organizes defense of villages that Khrodhrr didn’t yet seize. Then she decides that if Khrodhrr wants to play dirty, they will play dirty. He may have advanced weaponry at his disposal, but she has something more. Next stop: Hortus.
In the United Tribes, legalist forces lead by Tythoss are losing big time against Windhekk. They need to regroup and preferably grab some equipment from Hortus to even up the chances. The problem is that they are on wrong side of an island – to get to Hortus, they need to sneak near Horretz village, which is controlled by Anttho. But it’s still the best chance, especially since they need to make sure Anttho doesn’t invade Hortus himself; that would be disastrous for Horretz refugees hiding there. With the help of Basthiall and Methekk, Tythoss devises a great plan thar will allow their forces to sneak through enemy lines, involving a lot of fake-outs charges and tactical misleading. Then they put it into motion in spectacular battle scene; however, Windhekk manages to see though the plot and when Tythoss’s forces pass through Horretz village, they unexpectedly find him on their tail with solid platoon. He can still reach them and keep occupied for long enough to ensure that the rest of his forces finds and destroys them. However, Meithekk with a pack of the troops volunteers to stop Windhekk, allowing the others for safe escape to Hortus. Reluctantly, Tythoss gives permission for this manouver; as Cizzauran forces get away, they can hear Meithekk fighting with all his heart; they can also hear his cry when he’s stabbed by Windhekk himself. Cizzauran forces get to Hortus, for the price of the life of the brave Chief of Horretz village. All of this we see of course through the eyes of Eddie, who still accompanies the retreating Cizzaurans.
Finally, in Scallatti Federation Ajacos’s coup is falling apart. The remaining rebel forces gathered under Metria for the last desperate attack. Civic Defense Forces are very much ready for them. Roddy goes to the front of the army alongside Calem with a camera. It was a tough week for him, as he was exposing Ajacos’s spies that infiltrated high ranks of the state, including even courts, but despite that he insists on leading the people who put their trust in him himself. In the other camp, resigned Ajacos repeatedly demands that they cease this senseless suicide attack and open negotiations, but Utnapishtim points a gun at him, saying that he’s not the one calling the shots here. He wants control back and he will take it or die trying; the same applies to Ajacos as long as he says so. They’re turning back; the two armies lead by Roddy and Ajacos meet at Metria’s suburbs and charge at each other; yet again we can experience breath-taking battle scene; CDF quickly gets the upper hand. Rebels fall one by one; eventually Roddy gets to Ajacos, but he doesn’t even try to fight and surrenders. Utnapishtim tries to shoot him for that but gets jumped on by troops; he isn’t torn apart alive only thanks to quick reaction of the officers. With both leaders captured, the core of rebel forces capitulates, and the rest scatter in order to hide or wreak havoc across the city; the coup is over. Governmental forces are victorious.
Roddy can’t get enough of congratulations; Raleigh takes him on the side and tells him that he proved he should be President. Roddy tries to protest that he’s not ready for such responsibility, but Raleigh says it doesn’t matter; people need him to lead them through the tough times. He should seriously think about it, as the election is soon going to happen. This is because she’s going to announce her resignation later that day.
Ajacos gets locked up in a federal prison. In a cell, he completely loses control over himself and starts to lament, questioning all his life choices, much to the annoyance of Utnapishtim next door. Roddy visits the block in the assist of guards and asks both prisoners if they are proud of themselves. Utnapishtim remarks that he regrets nothing; he wanted to build a strong and prosperous community under the leadership not afraid to make hard choices; he’d do it all over again and the brat Roddy should be thankful to him. Roddy enters Utnapishtim’s cell and walks around it, preaching how their failure was inevitable and how the free Elysians would have never accepted the monarchy. Utnapishtim did a lot of wrong, but he is right about one thing – he, Roddy, should be thankful to him, because he gave him just what he needed. So, thank you, Utnapishtim, for being a dragon to slaughter. As a sign of gratitude, Roddy will fulfill his dream – he’ll build a new, wonderful, strong community with a brave leader and free of the shackles of the past – including him. Utnapishtim’s face portrays complete shock, and that’s the last thing it’d ever portray, because a bullet drains the back of his head. Roddy advises him not to bother with incorporeal form; he made sure to use the best of ancient anti-Vex technology, just in case. Ajacos, terrified, asks Roddy what he has done, and he replies that he did what Ajacos should have done ages ago. Of course, the least of such things is much longer, and he’s just getting started with it.
Raleigh officially addresses the citizens via SWN; she thanks them for their fearless defense of their home and apologizes that not only the president of their choice failed them, but also she couldn’t live up to the responsibility she was holding in a time when they needed a reliable leader the most. Because of that and the recent revelations regarding the electoral fraud, she officially resigns from the office. Since the vice president stepped down during the recent events and the new one has not been appointed, it is Chief of Staff that will fulfill presidential duties until the election can be held. She hopes that they will choose a President that people like them deserve. Roddy takes the podium and starts giving a speech about challenges before Scallatti, while Raleigh and Calem, who oversees the transmission, get asked by guards to go with them, as some important matters has surfaced that require their immediate attention. We intercut between Roddy’s speech and both women walking the corridor in the assistance of guards that suspiciously starts growing. Guard Captain explains to them that the Chief of Staff find out about espionage for Ajacos’s case in the highest ranks of power, and that means all the people who held them need to be interrogated and verified, including them. Meanwhile, Roddy talks about how The Three’s plots ravage their society; many of their spies were found, but also many remain to be caught; they can by anyone. Furthermore, a threat arose at their borders, as their fellow nations of Cizzaurans and Rhaighrans got enslaved by tyrannical right-wing regimes that hate Scallatti with all their soul; soon enough, these scumbags will nullify the Treaty of Taoter and come her to hurt their women and children, to abuse the weakest amount them. However, they can defeat the inner and outer enemies, they can purge their life from the diseases of capitalism and social injustice if just like they did recently, their unite all their effort and ability common goal; the goal of building fair and equal society, when the weak are free of any harm, where the strong are free of any greed. He is going to take the burden of leading this effort as a General Secretary of Panelysian Democratic Union of Citizens. Roddy gets a standing ovation, but many people all around the continent, including Julie in CDF’s quarters, realize what has just happened and are absolutely terrified.
Calem and Raleigh also realize that something very bad is going on, but before they can figure out what to do, their escort gets attacked by another armed group. It is led by… Richard, who tells both women that they all made terrible mistake and they need to come with him – their lives are in danger.
A group of CDF soldiers approach Julie in her chamber and order her to go with them. They leave the quarters, and this is where commandant of the group reveals himself to be Dien. He gives her greetings from Richard and calms her down – they’re going to safe place.
In The Wave, Dani is in the fighting mood. The coup has fallen? Pity, but not the end of the world. Roddy has taken over? That can be reversed. They’ll release the special edition of the news and tell all the proud Scallatti not to give up; to stand up and fight the stinky commies, foreseerists and other SJWs as their nation is not yet lost and all they need to do is take what rightfully belongs to the- she rapidly stops, because Erik stands right before her, pointing a gun at her. He explains that this is not going to happen – instead, The Wave will congratulate Roddy for his win over reactionary forces and wish him successful crusade against greedy capitalists, xenophobes, the Three spies, fascists and other forces. Dani calls him a traitor and Erik remarks that she takes it all way to seriously – it’s just business. Conservatism, socialism – who cares? What matters is your own well-being. He’ll say what he needs to say to get the check, and if he has to contradict himself – so be it. Dull-witted populace will buy everything anyway. A platoon of CDF soldiers enters the redaction of The Wave. Their leader – Ersiah – tells Dani that the show is over and it’s time to throw out the garbage, that garbage being her.
Calem, Raleigh, Richard, Julie and Dien gather in the bunker, where Claude awaits them. He explains the situation they found themselves in – Roddy has fooled them all. He spotted the opportunity in Utnapishtim’s plot – which he apparently knew about way before they discovered it – and unsuspected by everyone filled the power vacuum it accidentally left out – the office of Chief of Staff. They all thought he was trying to sustain the administration in turbulent times, while in fact he was consolidating his power. He put people loyal to him everywhere, and all that opposed him or considered a threat by him were accused of working for The Three and arrested. Of course, many actual agents were also detained – but only the ones who didn’t pledge loyalty to him. All the documentation regarding The Three were under his control, so who could verify whether he detains the right people? Anyone can become an agent when the papers are forged, and anyone can stop being one when they miraculously disappear. Now all he needed was an excuse to build an army and to take over – Ajacos’s stupid coup provided him with both. The real reason why he didn’t want to work with Claude was because he could have found out what is going on and expose him. And then, Ersiah appeared to get rid of him – they’re probably working together. Claude feels like an idiot that an experienced general and politician like him let himself trick like that, and Richard comforts him that he’s not alone – they all believed Roddy. Red flags were everywhere, but he himself was oblivious to them until one line in his think tank leader’s propaganda speech struck him. The lonely are the enemy – but his sister is lonely as well. Once it dawned on him, he realises he must get out of there as soon as possible and contact the only force that isn’t dependent on Roddy – Claude’s resistance. They may have their differences – lots of them – but teamwork is their only chance to defeat that scumbag. He tells everyone what’s the plan now – they are still surely hundreds of people that disapprove of Roddy’s takeover. He and Claude are going to stay here and organize the underground, but them all are at Roddy’s target and it’s way too dangerous for them to remain in the place that he controls. That’s why they already prepared silent evacuation of them to the only Scallatti city where Roddy doesn’t reign supreme – Hortus.
Ambhrr, Berzhrr and Lybhrrthyrr arrive in Hortus at the same time when Tythoss’s forces with Eddie enter it and the boat with Julie, Calem, Raleigh and Dien docks at its coast. All the parties soon meet and after a lot of information exchange they realize their stand – they are all back where the whole story has started, and their promised land is occupied by three tyrannical regimes that perverted their core values and seek absolute power. What are they going to do now? After the quick shot of Roddy, Ersiah and Erik looking down at their new empire, we cut back to Hortus, where Calem stands back and says straight to the camera “Now we save our Elysium”, before she pauses, blushes, and then remarks “…somehow”, as we cut to the end credits.
PEASANTS – YOU HAD THE GOLDEN HORN
Season 5, Episode 12
Written by SIMON ASHDOWN
Directed by JESSICA HOBBS
TX Date – 17 November 2019
Simon Ashdown returns to give us one of the heaviest episodes of the show, full of ramifications and challenging the characters’ views.
Dani gets thrown to the very same cell Utnapishtim was before. In tears, she asks herself where she went wrong – she wanted the Wave to be the best broadcaster in history, an organisation that doesn’t prey on sensation and suffering, where people respect each other. Instead, she now rots in prison for who knows what and the work of her life is in claws of some careerist with no morals. Ajacos next door shares the sentiment – the very man who was meant to inherit the state after him is now tearing it into pieces, and he himself will probably go down in history as worst President of Scallatti. How did he end up here? They start talking about their feelings, and soon Ajacos admits that while he was watching Dani’s station a lot recently, he didn’t enjoy it like before. All it transmitted was hatred and spite – where did that good atmosphere she wanted go? Together, they come to the bottom of this and realize that she let anger get the better of herself; she was so focused on her hurt pride that she hasn’t even realized what she’s becoming. She probably allowed Ersiah, posing as a caretaker, to get into her head, but she’s still at fault. Hopefully, she’ll get a chance to compensate to all people she harmed. Ajacos agrees and sadly says to himself that he has probably wasted his chance already.
The characters gathered in Hortus discuss their situation. Many of them also have their regrets. Julie is happy to reunite with Jan, but is also deeply saddened, as she feels betrayed by Roddy. Addaho, who brought Jan, is a little afraid how other Cizzaurans will react to him, as they may still be angry about Treaty of Taoter – he certainly still feels guilty about it. Basthiall dismisses these concerns, saying that there are bigger problems on their hands, but Addaho blames himself for those problems as well, since they are the effect of signing the Treaty. Raleigh says that it’s her fault, because her utter incompetence as president provided opportunity for both the coup and Roddy’s silent takeover – and Eddie, a bit downheartedly, points out that it was Raleigh’s fault. Several other characters also claim responsibility before Ambhrr silences them all and says this leads them nowhere; what happened, happened, they now need a plan how to fix it. First and foremost, who are they fighting? Basthiall and Tythoss give a detailed description of Anttho, his allies and resources they have. The mention of hi-tech battle equipment catches Ambhrr’s attention; what the coincidence, Khrodhrr also has some. She describes Khrodhrr, Bhrrbhrr and their movement, wondering how they could get their hand on Scallatti technology. Dien has the answer; that was no coincidence, that was either Roddy or The Three. They were the only people with access to such technology that could have quietly smuggled large amounts of weapons through the border. The goal is obvious – they needed an enemy. Someone that propaganda could portray as a threat to the nation’s safety, maybe even a good excuse to conquer the whole planet in the future. Also, this has stopped Cizzaurans and Rhaighrs from helping Scallatti with the rebellion. On request of Ambhrr, Dien provides a description of all they know and suspect about Roddy and Ersiah; it’s hard to say how far their masterplan goes, as Ersiah was in constant contact with Utnapishtim, and half of his actions could have been the result of her manipulation. Ambhrr proclaims that without a doubt Roddy poses the biggest threat, which means they should start with either Anttho or Khrodhrr. She would opt for the latter, as Windhekk as an exceptional tactician can cause trouble, while Khrodhrr would let his own tail outsmart him. Tythoss disagrees; Rhaighrs are natural bioweapons, they can be disregarded, while Anttho is a helpless cry baby; his regime is likely already imploding. They get into argument, meanwhile Begass comments that now they know what Kalagisah warned them from; he wishes Lea were there. This provokes Julie, who remembers that the last time she saw Lea, she was babbling something about Cizzauran deities. She corners Begass, asking if he knows something about her sister’s disappearance. This time it’s Calem that needs to call everyone to order. She gives an impressive speech how the whole planet is counting on them and they need to work together. Some Hortus citizen points out that he heard something similar for Roddy; what makes them any different? How can they know that their city’s weaponry won’t be used for making yet another dictatorship?
Only after this comment the gathered Scallatti realize how serious is damage done by Roddy – he disrupted the trust in the entire political class. How can they reclaim it? Calem asks Hortus citizens whether Roddy really meant what he said or did his definition of working together was just them doing what he says? She understands their distrust, but they have a common enemy and they need to join forces in order to beat him. There are ways for them to teamwork even if they can’t rely on each other; all they have to do is to set up limitations and control mechanisms. Making sure that you can hold your representative accountable is the basics of politics. She’ll be happy to work up a compromise. Someone asks what if the others don’t want to work together, and Calem asks if they prefer to get eaten by Roddy. Raleigh looks at this debate with growing admiration.
Also, in Hortus, but in a completely different world, Lea, Tena and Carmen sip coffee in a lab. This is Stronghold Hortus – the only city Scallatti had managed to build before they were met with very cold welcome from natives. From day to night, it has to defend itself from fierce attacks of Cizzaurans and Rhaighrs. Lea comments that this place makes her appreciate their versions of these species much more. This unpleasant place isn’t the one she’d normally choose for a break in their trip, but they had no choice – she ran out of Kheqren. Even she didn’t expect that they’d have to cross dimensions so many times. She struck a deal with this world’s Claude; she’ll make some useful anti-native weapons for them if they bring her a solid amount of Kheqren. Now the soldiers are trying to excavate some outside without getting killed, and they’re left here to wait and drink coffee. Anyone has some ghost stories to tell? No one says anything, so Lea starts – there are ghosts right here. They follow her from world to world, tell her about lies and plots. Some of them may be real people; maybe all; maybe none, Lea doesn’t know anymore. What’s real? Is she Lea or Jayne? Is she lucky or cheated? Genius or imposter? A key player or a puppet? She saw countless worlds, countless truths. She tried so hard to keep her people safe, but was that even a right call? Now she goes through the grotesque clinging to what’s left of her, driven by hope that not all is in vain and there’s some order.
Order: Tena repeats. She knows a lot about order. Now it’s her time to tell a ghost story. There was once a little girl, who really liked her home. She wanted to protect it and live a life full of adventures. One day, she met the very important people who said that she’s talented and they need her help. They want to keep people safe, make sure that they don’t need to worry about big scary problems of this world. She will be able to fulfil both of her dreams and give those she loved the most valuable gift – order. The girl agreed and came through hard training that made her the strongest version of herself. She became a woman; then she became a ghost. A ghost that handled a job too tough for the simple people, a good spirit that kept the order in place. She was taught that the truth never mattered, that people don’t need to think, that the ends justify the means. As she was promised, she lived through adventures she wouldn’t have even imagined she’ll have, and her home was safe. But the order wasn’t coming. She followed it from mission to mission, but it keeps escaping. People were meant to be grateful, but instead they called her a monster, a traitor. She’s had enough adventures; she would love to rest, settle down, but how can she, when she hasn’t brought the order yet? Or maybe the order never was? Truth doesn’t matter, after all. So, she went on the final quest to find her god. She followed the instructions; she set the streets on fire, haunted some arrogant woman, and jumped through the rift in reality after the maniac. And there countless worlds; countless truths. She tried so hard to keep her people safe, but was that even a right call? Now she goes through the grotesque clinging to what’s left of her, driven by hope that not all is in vain and there’s some order.
Lea, shocked, looks at Tena with understanding – the first person in years to do so. She asks Carmen if she knows some ghost stories but is told to get lost.
The citizens of Hortus prepared the list of rules and demands, and now they ask for representatives to negotiate it with. Ambhrr steps out in the name of Rhaighrs. Basthiall then suddenly suggests that Addaho should represent Cizzaurans, as he knows best what kind of document not to sign. Addaho sends him murderous sight, but he insists that this is the official request from the Chief of Plinnae tribe. Ghavett informs that Sennekh tribe supports the candidature. Amused Seganseh names Begass Acting Chief of Horretz tribe and once he gets what’s going on, he approves the motion in the name of Horretz. Gallane’s vote is invalid since their Chief is a traitor. With a wide grin Tythoss tells Addaho that he’s outvoted; provisional Satachha officially restores him as a Great Chief. Addaho’s almost in tears, but says that very well, he’d try his very best for United Tribes as always, but under one condition; Basthiall becomes the first ever Great Chief’s advisor and helps him with talks. Basthiall accepts.
Raleigh turns to Calem and says that she should represent them. She spent years in service of ordinary people, has political experience, and is charismatic, capable of fiery speeches they need from the leader. Calem is reluctant; she doesn’t think of herself that highly, is she really the right person? Eddie’s sceptical as well: they had one messiah already and look how that worked out. Raleigh says they got it all wrong – the leader is not an infallible figure that solves all the problems with a snap. It’s a person that doesn’t shy out of the problem and inspires people around it to do the same. That knows its limitations and makes up for them, bringing competent people on board. The person that knows when to compromise and when to stand its ground. And above all, the leader is part of a team, not a sovereign. Everyone needs to play his part now, and after seeing what she achieved here with just words, Raleigh believes that Calem’s part is that of the leader, while her own is to support her and keep her eyes on the goal; she thought herself to be a hero for so long, about time to follow the actual one. And doesn’t she worry; a great journalist turned detective will keep an eye of them both, so control is in place. Calem thinks about all she’s been through, all her promises, and finally concedes; if that’s what they need to join forces and retrieve their promised land, she’ll make the effort. Just somebody shoot her if she ever starts thinking she’s better than everyone else.
The deal is ratified and signed, but not before a public debate is held about its points – they’re not going to do the same mistake twice. When all is decided, Dien announces that he has a little suggestion when it comes to battle plans. Maybe they don’t have to choose whether to start with Anttho or Khrodhrr. Maybe they can start with both. They have one advantage that they forgot about. Lea tells Tena and Carmen that they have new Kheqren, but that’s not the only resource they were lacking – Shamash’s unique DNA also runs out. Unless some miracle occurs, this is their last jump, so they better pray that they reach Agatosdi. Before both agents can ask what is Agatosdi, Lea opens the rift, and they all jump in. The world on the other side is somehow even more dark than all the others we saw. The army of star freighters and war machines descends upon Taoter III, they broadcast a female voice demanding all citizens of this planet to calmly undergo inspection; no innocents will be harmed. Soldiers go down and start to check encountered Cizzaurans and Rhaighrs with scanners. Again, and again, the scanners provide a statement ‘singularity undetected”. Lea decides that as illegal immigrants it probably isn’t the smartest for them to allow anyone for inspecting them, so they start looking for the hideout. Unfortunately, this gives them attention of one of the soldiers, who gives warning shots and comes with a squad to inspect them. The scanner is pointed at Tena, much to her dismay, singularity undetected. Then at Carmen; singularity undetected. The soldier states that he has a feeling and scans Lea. The scan goes longer than the other two, and eventually the electronic voice proclaims, ‘Singularity detected – Genealogy of Regeneration confirmed’. The soldier smiles with a satanic twinkle and says “would you look at that. We caught a Time Lord scum. We already have your place reserved in the chambers…”.
HIS STORY
Season 5, Episode 13
Written by JANE ESPENSON
Directed by STEPHEN DALDRY
TX Date – 24 November 2019
A person sneaks into Metria Federal Prison, passing near the guards. He steals the key and with its help enters a cell block where Ajacos and Dani are kept. Only when he reaches Ajacos’s cell, he reveals his identity – it’s Richard. He gives Dani greetings from Claude; he was asked by him to deliver her the message “I told you so” if he meets her. Then, he asks Ajacos if he’s proud of himself. Ajacos responds that he isn’t, but does everyone have to ask that? Also, why did Richard come here? Richard offers him a chance to redeem himself. He needs an information – a password, to be precise. Ajacos clearly understood what he said, and before Richard can continue with persuasion, he agrees to give him a password. Why wouldn’t he? Richard is a bit surprised; he spent centuries helping The Three hide all history from before Invitation of Destination, and now he’s going to give up so easily? He does know what Richard’s going to do with that knowledge, doesn’t he? Ajacos does and has no problem with that. Richard is naturally confused. The former President say that what he said about him was true, but… not quite. Since Richard refuses to just take his agreement at face value, he suggest a deal; he’ll reveal the password if Richard listens to the story he wants to tell. After all, Richard’s a historian, would he pass on the testimony of someone who was born before The Invitation of Destination? Now really intrigued, Richard agrees.
The rest of the episode splits time between two plots: the story told by Ajacos and what’s happening with Lea, who’s still in dystopian setting from last episode. Let’s start with the former.
Ajacos explains how he got involved with the Three – teenagers are naturally angsty, they challenge the established order they’re born into and seek to improve it. His world was the one of divisions: Scallatti, Time Lords, rich and poor, Federation Party and People’s Party. They were tearing The Fleet apart. Youngsters like him were asking for the end to all these wars – and The Three met them halfway. They had a solution – all the divisions originate from the past, let’s kill the past. Turn over a new leaf, focus on the future, ban the history. Down with those who continuously dig the rifts between us. He and many others applauded this idea. There were of course people who stood up against it – they needed to be dealt with. A long fight has started – first against Daishu and his political circle which vocally opposed the idea, then Frances and her reactionaries. Probably this fight was going on much longer, even before he was born, but he hadn’t thought of it that way – no, that was his fight, rise of the new generation. As Richard knows already, he was the one to upload Frances’s consciousness into The Fleet’s computer – an idea he developed with the help of Ersiah. He despised Frances with all his heart – she was a pragmatic, viewed The Fleet as a clock that needs to work predictably and efficiently. When they appealed to the higher ideals, all she did was to call them ‘wrong’, with no understanding or reason… at least that’s what he thought back then. He’d probably just kill her, but Ersiah insisted that her mind’s value… Once they defeated Frances, all that was left was to button everything up – get rid of those that still hesitated even a bit, like poor President Igarograd, and burn every last surviving record of history – that was his specialty. It was one day in 43DE, he believes, that he was supervising the burning of the books they gathered around The Fleet. One of them had an unusual cover; it caught his eye. He secretly picked it up to have a look; after all, he could always burn it at a later date. He never did – and in the present, Ajacos takes out the book from his coat. This book opened his eyes; he realized that by forgetting the history, they abandoned the lessons it taught; that the conflicts won’t be resolved just by one big shift; that it’s no true freedom when a small group of people judges every move that the rest makes and vaporizes those who did something they don’t like. He realized that he helped to create a monster, and now needs to free Scallatti from it. But he couldn’t just rise up against The Three; he’d end up just all its other opponents. He went for a different strategy; to infiltrate The Three, earn their trust, get to the highest positions of power, and once there, reduce their influence piece by piece, until they fade into obscurity. Then, he’ll reveal the truth, the legacy of the Scallatti that they have the right to, and he’ll lead the greatest nation in the universe to its golden age. And thus began his crusade; he realized his plan through centuries, climbing up the ranks of The Three and saving whoever he could from their wrath. It was a dangerous game; they had eyes everywhere, and he was alone. But he was succeeding; he joined the Democratic and People’s Party when it was formed, and eventually he was recommended for a job in Turneteson administration – by his supporters in The Three, of course. The Fleet has changed a lot; Scallatti lifespans shortened, and extraordinary abilities of their ancestors disappeared. He was one of the very few people still around who were able to live several centuries and look so young. If such a person took an official position, this would obviously raise questions; The Three doesn’t like when people ask questions, so with their help, he changed his origin; Frayons Prix Ajacos became a twenty-year-old at the beginning of his political career. What a career it was; over the next two decades, his influence grew, until he got a VP ticket, won the election alongside Michael Eres Habati, and, after stabbing him in the back, he finally succeeded him as 61st President of The Scallatti. He finally could build the wonderful world for The Scallatti that he wanted to do for so long; but it turned out not to be so easy. The Three was still strong and had his own ideas where to steer the state, there were many agendas, often conflicted; the resources were limited, if you give one, you won’t give the other, and sometimes you have to even take from him. Economy, education, labour and social policy, healthcare – there were so many things to take care of. So, he took care of them as well as he could, navigating between endless pitfalls and trying not to anger various lobbies. He wasn’t satisfied with what he did through the four years, so he ran for another term. And another. And another. The perspective of Scallatti golden age seemed less and less real. The moment to turn on The Three was never right. He started to lose steam; maybe he was foolish, maybe his dreams were never to be. Maybe he was so focused on keeping the power that he missed his opportunity to make a real change…
Then he saw him. A young man, vocally protesting against mistreatment of the ordinary worker. He had passion, he had ideas, he had opinions. He wanted to fix the world, remove the divisions between classes, change the unfair system. Jelena Galante Roddy. Ajacos felt like he saw his younger self; this angsty energetic teenager with a dream he was before he lost his edge in years of political struggles. This was his chance. Maybe Ajacos failed to save the world, but Roddy can. He’ll teach him the ropes, guide through the dangerous realm of politics, show how to utilize his energy and what to avoid. One day, he takes over from Ajacos and makes what he couldn’t, and until then, he’ll be a beacon showing Ajacos the direction, a constant reminder to not lose the goal from the eyes. That’s why he made Roddy Vice President; to personally polish this gem. Richard knows what happened next; ever since they landed on Taoter III, the events speeded up. The miners’ strike happened, and he failed to listen to the voice of Roddy, failed to fix a problem. Maybe that’s what turned Roddy the way he is now? Roddy betrayed him, so Ajacos to ‘teach him a lesson’ replaced him with Julie. Big mistake: not only she made this whole circus with Callista Daily and then unfairly blamed it on him, but also, she needed Roddy in her earphone all the time to serve the job decently. Soon he ended without a VP, angry with them both and overloaded with work; furthermore, with Roddy not around, he again started to lose sight of what’s important. In the meantime, Richard started his crusade against The Three; he tried to support and cover him, he did well when it comes to Utnapishtim, but Ersiah outplayed him; seriously, he’s so sorry about this mess with PACIFA, he completely mishandled it. Then Richard learned about his affiliation with The Three and lost trust for him, so he couldn’t help much more. But the worst part was Raleigh. Imagine trying to build a good future when the bad future shows up on your doorstep and tells you that they can do it better. This really took a toll on his nerves, and what’s worse, alerted The Three and gave them an excuse to interfere into first special, then common affairs. They destroyed his carefully engineered administration made of people not aligned with them; soon, he became a puppet in Utnapishtim’s hands with progressing frustration. Thanks a lot, Ms. Baker-Mitchell, for someone who knows the future, he says that she was really bad at predicting the results of her own actions. But honestly, was that enough of an excuse? Could he really not avoid the stuff like Scallatti Academy, shantytowns and severely underpolished Treaty of Taoter? Let’s face it: his presidency was a failure; he’s so, so sorry.
Richard asks what about the coup, and Ajacos explains that he was scared. Raleigh was making the moves towards presidency; her reign would have been a guaranteed disaster for Scallatti. He had a luck – or so he thought – to meet Roddy and reconcile with him. This is his chance, he thought, he’d spend my next term promoting him as a better alternative to Raleigh and ensure the safe future for The Elysium – this will be his legacy. But then Raleigh exposed him on air and he panicked. What if this brilliant strategy of his gets disrupted by another random event like this? Can he afford to fail in saving the planet after all he’s been through? Utnapishtim’s plan with a coup seemed to be perfect insurance – Raleigh gets permanently humiliated, Roddy’s rise to power is unthreatened, and he gets to calmly finish the work of his lifetime. How stupid he was… In passion, Ajacos asks himself how did Raleigh even know about his past. Richard explains that this information came from Ersiah. Ajacos says ‘of course’ and weeps.
When Ajacos calms down, he says to Richard that this is his story. A story of a rebel who ended up beaten by those he rebelled against. A father to two worst monsters in history of Scallatti – The Three and Roddy. President so bad that the future itself rose up against him. He doesn’t expect Richard to believe him or forgive him, but he’s glad that he listened at least. He has only one request; to tell Frances that he now understands her. He shows Richard to come closer and tells him password on the ear. Richard, clearly surprised by what he heard, thanks him, and leaves the block, but before that, Dani asks him to tell Claude that he was right and she’s sorry, which he promises to do.
With the B plot, we pick up with Lea correctly guessing that it’s time to run. Together with Tena and Carmen they beat up some soldiers and flee, chased by the growing number of soldiers. They don’t know geography of the place they are though and soon they find themselves in dead end. Soldiers are closing at them, when suddenly a sewer well gets opened, and someone tells them to get in. Not having much of the choice, the women obey. The soldiers notice that, but they don’t follow them – catching a Time Lord isn’t worth risking an encounter with Ganatlai.
A mysterious man leads the trio through the sewers into the large underground city, where we see dozens of people living their everyday life. As they try to grasp it, someone officially welcomes them to Time Lord Underground State. They turn around and see… The Keeper (though they don’t recognize him of course), who explains that he’s in charge here and they can live here safe from The Alliance of Planets. He then gives them a tour around the city, answering their questions – and there are plenty to ask, because the women have no idea what’s even going on here. Eventually Lea asks what even is a Time Lord, which makes The Keeper realize that he’s talking with someone not from around here. He explains the concept of Time Lord, regeneration, their origin from the planet Gallifrey and finally what happened here; essentially their President, Rassilon, set into motion a terrible plan that was meant to elevate the Time Lord race at the expense of the rest of the universe; “Ascension” or something like that. He was stopped, but this event made the other civilizations fear and hate the Time Lords. Eventually they joined forces against them, forming the Alliance of Planets. Gallifrey was burnt to the ground, and he gathered as many people as he could, fled with them to farthest habitable corner of the universe he could find – Taoter III and they built this city for all the Time Lords to live in peace. His spies left clues all around the galaxies for any surviving members of their species, so they could find this place and hide here. Unfortunately, the Alliance eventually found out that something’s up, and now getting here is extremely hard, as regular controls happen in whole Taoter system. The city is secure though; he made a deal with mysterious entity living here that allowed him to use powerful creatures known as Ganatlai and other odd weapons to defend it. They come in handy, as The Alliance won’t stop till they wipe out every last Time Lord in the universe.
This explains a lot, but not why Alliance’s scanners identified Lea as a Time Lady; she isn’t one, she’s a Scallatti. The Keeper says that the scanners don’t detect full Time Lord biology, but the ability to regenerate, which all Time Lords possess; it is theoretically possible for a non-Time Lord to be capable of it though. Whatever her species is, she’s likely related to Time Lords in some way, and Lea pieces out that they must be one of the races Scallatti descend from. Why is she the only one that can regenerate though? Before The Keeper can answer that; the alarm breaks out, as the city is under attack from the Alliance. Soon the report comes out that The Alliance’s leading planet, Tolia, equipped attacking forces with new kind of weapons that it’s somehow effective against Ganatlai. The recording is played, and Lea recognizes the patterns from her own anti-Keratherion technology – Tolian engineers apparently had similar line of reasoning. Too bad for them that she knows the countermeasures for her own inventions! He promises The Keeper that his city will not fall and asks for a lab. With the assistance of Tena and Carmen, she develops a brand-new range of weapons, and sends prototypes straight to the front, where they prove to work. The Keeper can’t thank Lea enough and calls her a gift to the universe; how can he repay her? Lea says that all he can do is let them leave this city; she needs nothing more. She’ll leave him the projects of the weapon, so they can keep defending themselves. The Keeper sadly agrees to this and escorts them back to the surface. His spies will distract the Alliance forces for five minutes, they need to get off in that time.
When they’re left alone, Tena asks how in a world is she going to get them out of this realm if Shamash’s DNA ran out. Lea calms her down; the reason why Shamash’s DNA reacted with Kheqren was the weird singularity she found in it; singularity that lines up with the description of regeneration. If she can regenerate too – she cuts her finger – they can just use her own DNA. Lea puts the blood in the projector and proclaims that it’s time to check the effectiveness of those scanners. She uses the device; nothing happens. Carmen shouts that maybe she should have tested her theory before leaving the only safe space here; now the doomsday clock is ticking, and they have no lifebelt. Lea asks what about twenty-man escort around them and Tena in panic squeaks that there is no escort; why have they relied on somebody crazy? Suddenly, a void encapsulates them; three women fall into obscurity.
The other main characters don’t appear in this episode, but in order to fill contractual obligations, they are all featured in the previously segment and credited as normal, but we get quick glimpses of the villains; Anttho publicly executing Yohiid, while Darrhia watches him from behind; Khrodhrr carelessly flirting with Bhrrbhrr; Erik threatening the SWN workers, because the new propaganda spots aren’t ready yet; finally, Roddy thanking Ersiah for their unprecedented help in building the brave new world and giving her a gift for the occasion of their success; a neckerchief.
Lea and Tena wake up in an otherworldly looking space. As they try to come to senses, a voice tells that they’ve finally arrived. A Cizzauran woman materializes before them; she is Agatosdi, the Cizzauran goddess of wisdom and good future. She welcomes them in the Realm of Gods and thanks them for accepting her invitation.
Gohiyudihno Utugi
Season 5, Episode 14
Written by JONATHAN WILSON
Directed by ANNA FOERSTER
TX Date – 1 December 2019
This episode shows us the efforts of the newly formed Three Nations Alliance, led by Ambhrr, Addaho and Calem. We also see some operations of Claude’s Independent Resistance.
Begass sneaks into Ashrrr, the village where Khrodhrr resides; his heat vision allows him to detect all the life forms around him, so he can’t be caught by surprise. He gets into the armoury and activates one of Lea’s EMP grenades. All technology in the village, including a solid 90% of Khrodhrr’s arsenal, gets fried. Very proud of himself, Begass makes his way out. He is spotted during the escape, but they were prepared for it; before Rhaighrs can attack him, Berzhrr flies from the sky, grabs Begass and they both leave village in a hurry.
Raleigh unexpectedly shows up in front of Windhekk’s forces and surrenders. She came here to atone for Menhocc’s death. Because Windhekk unlike Anttho actually has some honour, he takes her captive and transports to Tehaddah. On their way there, Raleigh uses her persuasion skills to convince Windhekk that following orders of an idiot like Anttho has no point and he should be in charge instead. Windhekk is susceptive to that and when they arrive, he objects Anttho’s demand to immediately execute Raleigh; furthermore, he demands more influence in decision making. They get into a row, which soon devolves into street battle between their supporters; this is how much stability their regime has. Finally, Darrhia decides to step in; Windhekk’s right, Anttho’s fired. With that said, she shoots Anttho’s brains out and declares Windhekk the new Great Chief. Now, they can decide what to do with the Scallatti President. They go to the shed where Windhekk locked her, but Raleigh’s not there; but instead, there is beeping EMP grenade, which quickly takes off.
Dien welcomes Raleigh back in Hortus and helps her get rid of the one-time teleporter which is now exploding. As he said, they had one advantage they forgot about – they know every last weak point of their enemy. The overreliance on illegally bought weaponry, for example. A couple of Lea’s inventions was more than enough to get rid of them. Furthermore, they had a trick up their sleeves that was perfect to snap the delicate balance between propaganda and brute force that was keeping Anttho’s dictatorship in place. Or if you prefer – nods to Raleigh – you can call it a bioweapon. Soon Berzhrr and Begass come back as well, and then come the reports from the spies they quietly sent to Tehaddah and Ashrrr; collateral damage they’ve done are really impressive, they even got rid of Anttho, but Windhekk somehow still managed to enforce order. Meanwhile in Khrodhrr’s camp everyone pretty much lost their head. Ambhrr and Tythoss agree that in this case they should attack Khrodhrr first.
Claude’s resistance is busy messing up with The Wave; they block their signal, cut their cables, and hijack their press prints. Erik’s response to it is harassing his own crew into trying harder. Claude’s voice comes out of the speaker, asking Erik if he really has no shame. Erik gets furious; it’s easy for Claude to say, he was born on a wealthy ship. He originates from The Fury, the small ship in the back of The Fleet where every day was a fight for survival. He learned from the very young age that you can’t count on people, but you can on money; it’s the biggest power and value you can imagine. To get money, he’s ready for anything, and something so worthless as human feelings is a laughable price to pay. Claude says that it’s not just feelings, he’s taking lives, but Erik answer that they are even cheaper and turns off the speaker.
Three Nations Alliance effortlessly breaks Khrodhrr’s lines and marches from town to town, meeting little to no effort; the loss of armament has broke rebels’ morale, and the Rhaighr villagers aren’t interested in dying for some demagogue. The army quickly reaches Ashrrr and this is where the real battle begins; it’s still one-sided though, chauvinists are heavily outnumbered. The naiver of them still believe Emphrrr will save them, but then Ghavett drowns Emphrrr’s residency in smoke bombs, forcing everyone to leave it. Khrodhrr and Bhrrbhrr get out, but the legendary general does not, proving once and for all that he doesn’t exist. Having discovered that they were cheated, Khrodhrr’s goons have some questions for him, but he prefers to chicken out. Bhrrbhrr, angry, comments that she had many lovers, but none of them was a coward. Very well, he may give up, but she won’t, she put too much effort into gathering power. She challenges Ambhrr to a duel. Meanwhile, Lybhrrthyrr chases Khrodhrr. Using a Cizzauran net launcher, he binds Khrodhrr’s wings, which makes him fall to the ground. Humiliated, the Rhaighr demands to be killed, but Lybhrrthyrr tells him he’s not worthy of death; instead, he’ll be put on a fair trial and socialized in prison; shown the error of his ways. This infuriates Khrodhrr, who refuses to be judged by inferior beings. He’ll force Lybhrrthyrr to kill him, and the only one who can judge him is Nature. Suddenly, Khrodhrr’s pupils widen, and he starts to walk backwards in panic, babbling something about following an example. Finally, he trips and with a cry: “MERCY!” and falls into the shrubbery – shrubbery, as Lybhrrthyrr untimely realizes, of highly poisonous plants. Khrodhrr dies in great pain; apparently judgement has been passed.
The duel of Ambhrr and Bhrrbhrr is naturally fierce and impressive, however, eventually Ambhrr gets the upper hand. Getting serious beatdown, Bhrrbhrr suddenly sees Thrreodhrirr in place of Ambhrr. Not wanting to lose to her nemesis, she doubles her efforts, but Ambhrr keeps up and ends up giving a lethal strike in self-defense. With her dying breath, Bhrrbhrr admits that Thrreodhrirr was the mightiest. Lybhrrthyrr shows up, reporting Khrodhrr’s death; the remaining Rhaighrs give up. Berzhrr happily proclaims that the Mighty Rhaighr Empire is united once again and tells tired Ambhrr to prepare for the coronation.
Ersiah comes to talk with Roddy; she examined the samples of DNA from CDF soldiers that he provided her with, and she found what they were looking for. The lucky winner is Yannis Karter, Julie. That makes Roddy very happy – she’s a lovely lady. He calls CDF officer and asks him to bring Julie Yannis Karter to him. Then he turns red and asks “What the hell do you mean by ‘she’s disappeared’??”
Julie in Hortus remotely supervises the operation of freeing Cizzauran villages. Without Anttho, Tehaddah village fell into chaos, and Windhekk keeps the army there to keep it under control – which means other villages are undefended. Horretz is quickly retrieved, then Plinnae and Sennekh. Basthiall, who leads the liberation squad, reports the success of the mission. Julie gives Tythoss the signal that they can commence the siege of Tehaddah.
Ersiah shouts at Roddy, asking how he could let the biggest treasure their civilization has to offer sneak out of his hands. Regeneration is the past AND the future of the Scallatti. Roddy tells her to not lose her head. They know where to look for Julie – she lives in Hortus and left her precious child there, so it’s likely that’s where she went. Ersiah gets excited about the mention of a child – maybe he has the right gene too. However, Hortus is a natural fortress and now is likely under control of Raleigh – how does he plan to conquer it when they are still stabilizing what they already have? Roddy doesn’t plan to conquer it; there are other methods. And he knows just the guy for the job.
Tythoss appeals to Windhekk to surrender now; he doesn’t want the civilians to be harmed. Windhekk refuses; they are the one besieging, any victims are their fault. Tythoss comments that he has some cheek and asks civilians inside whether they share this belief. One of them shouts that they don’t; Windhekk says that very well; he’s still not going to surrender, they will fight to the very last soldier. That was a mistake; apparently most of his soldiers aren’t that devoted to the cause to basically commit suicide. They mutiny; Tythoss takes advantage of a mess and orders army to proceed. Five minutes later the village is basically taken over; Tehaddah village is an open place, it’s militarily useless and this time it works to our heroes’ advantage. Windhekk fights Addaho, and while the former’s physically stronger, Addaho driven by the will to protect his tribe gets the upper hand. Beaten up, Windhekk admits defeat; then the condensed wave of sonic energy rips out his head. It’s… Vahseligan, the Lone Cizzauran; behind him stands Darrhia, who says that’s not for Windhekk to decide. She’s in charge here and she’s not done yet, as she finally figured out how to use Vahseligan offensively; Danadaskagi really had talent at making weapons. She fires at Addaho, but Ghavett takes the shot on himself, dying right there; this buys Seganseh time to grab Darrhia from the back and separate from Vahseligan. They wrestle, and Darrhia screams that Cizzauran society is unfair; they’re stuck in the role of Clan Caretakers, while all the positions of actual power are reserved for men. She’s the one who should be in power. Seganseh agrees that their species’ gender roles could use some work, but the only reason she brings that up is because she wants power for herself. That’s her problem; power is responsibility, and she’s completely irresponsible. She killed the men she needed to enforce her rule; she ruined half of their villages in a record-breaking time; she’s like a brat who demands a toy and then breaks it. Time for hard education. Seganseh knocks Darrhia out; she’s going to wake up in a comfy cell right next to Thralsai. Surely, they’re going to have a lot to talk about.
In the underground base, Richard prepares himself for his escapade; he’s going to sneak aboard the Ramanujan and access Frances’s consciousness. Meanwhile Claude, on Richard’s request, also organizes a mission; they are going to retrieve Dani and Ajacos. It looks like they’ve changed and are ready to help; Claude will accept that help, they need all hands-on deck.
Roddy speaks with Eligius, who apparently got out of United Tribes during the whole mess. Eligius did Roddy a great favour by killing Menhocc; sure, the idea was actually his, but what a masterful execution! Unfortunately, Eligius also worked for Utnapishtim and said some very nasty things about communism. But Roddy is a forgiving man, he can forget about it and even reward him for his outstanding good deed, if Eligius does one more tiny thing for him. There’s a very ungrateful woman that disappointed him and her child. Eligius’s task is to bring them from Hortus to Roddy alive.
But the main event of this episode is, of course, Lea and Tena’s conversation with Agatosdi. Tena is a bit confused, as she didn’t accept anything. Agatosdi disagrees – she accepted her invitation by following Lea. She predicted that inviting Lea will be enough to reach them both, so that’s what she did. And she did that because her people are in great danger. She shows them – and us – the events from the other plots (they are intercut, of course) and explains that if Jelena Galante Roddy will have his way, Cizaaurans and Rhaighrs will be doomed; even Scallatti might not survive. To justify his continuous rule and realize his utopian vision, Roddy’s going to spark conflict after conflict, ravaging the population of the planet. He’ll divide Taoter III like never before, and divided, they’ll all eventually fall. He has to be stopped… at all costs. Of course, both characters hadn’t known before about Roddy’s takeover; especially Tena, who asks what about Utnapishtim. Dead, answers Agatosdi, the lies and schemes of The Three paved the way for Roddy, and in return he destroyed them. Tena is told that this is her legacy. She then turns to Lea and says that to win over Roddy, The Alliance will need her brilliant mind at its finest. Unfortunately, right now it’s not at its finest. Even though Lea’s not at fault here, the fact is that events she’s lived through damaged her exceptional and delicate psyche. Agatosdi was created from the faith and hope of their people, to serve them as best as she could; in this case, that means helping Lea with rediscovering her identity, as she’s crucial for Cizzaurans survival.
Lea welcomes any help – that’s why she came here. Who is she? Once, she was Lea – an orphan prodigy found in the bad place by the good people and able to reach stars thanks to them. Then, she was Unalii of Cizzaurans, the Equal of the Lesser, the one that worked hard on making the three races communicate and compromise with each other. She was also Tezzie – sister of Richard, an exceptional historian. And then it turned out that she was Jayne – a child kidnapped from Valkyrie, sister to poor miner, turned VP, turned political activist, Julie Yannis Karter. Now apparently, she’s also a Time Lady, some very important ancient race with pompous name that she knows little about. So go ahead, identify her, give her yet another face, because neither she nor a thousand voices in her head can figure it out.
Agatosdi sighs; she has it all wrong, they need to start from the beginning. On her way here, Lea saw many different realities. Lea confirms; they were awful, she wouldn’t want her world to end up like this. Agatosdi points out that this already implies she has an identity with specified wishes. Lea, surprised, admits that she’s right. Agatosdi continues that her true self is already in there, just needs to be uncovered. Finding your identity isn’t an easy task, while at the same time it’s one of the most important. On the road to self-discovery there are dead ends, pitfalls, and people eager to enforce on you a name that suits their own goals. She’s not going to be one of these people. Lea asks what she’s supposed to do then; keep jumping universes, checking different options until she maybe hits the right one? Agatosdi denies; she believes there’s a better way. Lea has focused so much on what was in the realities she visited, but has she noticed what wasn’t there? This question takes Lea some time, but eventually she realizes; none of the main cast of the show had its counterpart in those worlds. Agatosdi confirms; ordinary people, and yet look how different the world would look without them. It’s often their actions, not the decrees of large figures, that decide the fate of many. Today once again the future relies upon them, as Three Nations Alliance that they formed is their only chance of defeating Roddy. Still, they will need Lea in the final battle. Lea dismisses it – she hears all the time that somebody needs her, did it ever pass through anyone’s head that she may need someone too? Great question, Agatosdi compliments her, let’s explore it. Was there anyone who spent time with her when she was the most vulnerable? Who reassured her when she was at a low point? Who shown understanding when she started babbling about omnipresent evil and went the distance to provide her care? Who looked for her on the streets when she ran away? Who still deep down believes that just like she did once, her sister will return to her again? Lea finally realizes – Julie. Of course. How could she abandon Julie? Agatosdi continues – Lea may not know herself who she is, but Julie does, because that’s what she loves Lea for. So does Richard and, to the lesser extent, her friends. Instead of wandering alone, she should accept the guidance of those who truly care for her. If she ever has trouble recognizing them, then she should just re-ask the questions they posed a moment ago. There is no simple solution to the problems Lea has – but there’s at least a good road sign, so that what she advises her to follow.
This is when Ghavett dies and Agatosdi doubles over in pain. She says that while it’s always nice to chat with such an intelligent woman, they don’t have infinite time. Another precious life has just been lost; Lea needs to come back to her world. Is she ready? Lea has far more questions – for example, what about Time Lords? What is she supposed to do with that regeneration she has? Build a new Time Lord civilization upon it? Agatosdi says she doesn’t know much about Time Lords, but this whole regeneration sounds like a nice perk to have. A foundation of civilization though? Personally, she would prefer to see civilization built upon faith and hope people have in each other. Who knows, maybe such civilization is already rising? With that said, she really suggests Lea hurries back to Taoter III; it’s not too late to restore order. Lea thinks about Julie and all the other wonderful people she met that are now in danger and says that she’s ready. Agatosdi’s glad to hear that; she says farewell to Lea and Tena, explaining that she’ll provide them the way back. She pleads both of them one last time to help save their people and their Rhaighran brothers and sisters; she has faith and hope in ALL of them. Then, she disappears, and a portal shows up in her place. Lea asks Tena if she’s ready as well, and then they both hear a slow clapping. It’s Carmen; she thanks Lea for keeping her end of a bargain and finding way home for them. She also said that they can try and force her to come with them, which she’s now going to do. They’re returning to Taoter III, and there Lea helps them defeating Roddy and Three Nations Alliance. There just happens to be three of them; they will be The New Three and restore the order that this planet needs so bad right now. Lea asks what if she refuses, and Carmen reveals that she gathered a solid set of otherworldly weaponry during their world tour. This – shows the green glass we saw earlier – is her favourite. She summons a giant snake that blocks the way to the portal. The Three is dead, long live The Three. Bringing them here, Lea made a mistake. “Or maybe I did”, Tena says and charges at Carmen. She blows her down, which dispels the snake; while they wrestle, Tena shouts that The Three is dead and they’re going down with it; no one needs them back. Tena orders Lea to run, which after slight hesitation Lea does. She goes through the portal, which closes behind her; Tena says to Carmen that indeed, it wasn’t too late.
In Hortus, Three Nations Alliance celebrate the liberation of United Tribes and Ambhrr’s ascension to the throne, when suddenly Lea shows up between them. She heard that they have a war against some “nasty bitches”, and she wants to help out.
THE FORFEITS OF FORTUNE
Season 5, Episode 15
Written by ANNE KENNEY
Directed by JESSICA HOBBS
TX Date – 8 December 2019
The penultimate episode begins with Richard walking on board of The Ramanujan, with excitement in eyes. He comes to the control panel, enters the password (that we don’t see) and smiles when the computer accepts it. “Frances” he says and the familiar voice answers “Good morning, Richard. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
The deserted Gallane village: In ruins of Kahwatsire hut, a secret meeting happens between Three Nations Alliance, represented by Dien, Eddie, Begass and Berzhrr, and Independent Resistance represented by Claude. They coordinate the plan of attack on Panelysian Democratic Union of Citizens; despite now having full Cizzauran and Rhaighr armies up their sleeves, they are still at disadvantage against Roddy, so they need to act cautiously. Someone from them is going to stay with Claude to help in coordination; when Claude mentions that they are also planning on retrieving Dani and Ajacos, Eddie volunteers to do so. He feels bad for how he treated Dani; it might be his fault that she fell into Ersiah’s trap. If they’re going to save her, he categorically demands to be counted in. No one objects to that.
We return to the cliffhanger of last episode, where Lea has a lot of explaining to do, especially to Julie, who was horribly worried about her. She gives a quick rundown of what she was doing, what she has learned and what advice did Agatosdi had for them. In return, Julie tells her that her condition has a name – it’s schizophrenia. While it can’t be cured, it can be managed, and Lea can count on her and Jan’s support in living with it, likely also Richard’s. Lea’s thankful for it and apologizes that she underappreciated Julie’s effort to help her. From now on, she’s going to listen more to her advice, but she has a request; she wants to help in the war, as she believes Alliance needs her help. She promises to be careful. Julie, a bit overwhelmed by all this, nevertheless gives her permission. Calem is also more than ready to accept her help – a super genius is just what they required at a moment like this. She jokingly says that if an all-powerful genie is also available, she’ll take it as well, but no pressure, one miracle at the time is also great, as she understands that they are expensive nowadays.
The core part of the episode is a massive assault of Three Nations Alliance forces on the continent. All characters from Alliance we know by name except for Julie, Jan, Vahseligan and Kalagisah take part in the attack; Calem reminds Basthiall that they already liberated their own people, and no one will blame them if they back off, but Basthiall decisively rejects that idea; as Cizzaurans, they couldn’t have left their brethren on the field of battle; solidarity is the very basis of their code. Since the Scallatti stood for them, they will stand for the Scallatti. Funny, he thought the Scallatti would never be able to do so, that the deeper you go, the rottener they turn out to be. But his political opponents died so he could live to see the day they proved him wrong; in fact, the Scallatti are unpolished diamonds. If you make the effort, they can become something beautiful – so he’ll make the effort. Calem’s glad to hear that.
The combined army of Cizzaurans, Rhaighrs and several Scallatti move unopposed until they reach Zardenon, where they find joint forces of Scallatti regular army and CDF blocking their way to Metria. A major battle breaks out; thanks to masterful cooperation, brilliant strategic mind of Tythoss and Lea’s brand-new battle gears, TNA starts getting the upper hand.
While this happens, Independent Resistance conducts massive diversion; they cause chaos on the streets of larger Scallatti cities. Roddy has to send the rest of CDF to take care of them, which prevents him from resupplying the main army. Meanwhile, Claude, Eddie and several of Claude’s best people break into Metria Federal Prison, beating the guards one by one.
Richard conversates with Frances, who’s very talkative; she tells Richard everything, and by everything, I mean even more that what was featured in Raleigh’s unpublished book. She tells him about proud and powerful, but flawed civilization of the Time Lords from the planet Gallifrey; about their war with their counterpart, The Vex; The Eye of Harmony and its destruction; Alliance of Planets and its downfall; the rise of Unity and finally the disastrous battle, in which all of them lost their homes – though if he asks her, this was mainly the fault of one very stubborn redhead. The salvation came in the form of the strangest Time Lord of all, The Doctor, who against all odds stopped their senseless conflict and showed them the new path – the path that lead them to Taoter III and becoming Scallatti. But the price for that salvation was high – the lives of two very lost people, taken from them against their will. She herself took one of them; she had centuries to think about what she’s done and doesn’t know any more if it was right. What she does know is that the path of The Doctor – the path of learning to live together despite their differences – is still their best bet. But Richard already knows that, doesn’t he? Here is something that he doesn’t know; they are not alone. Gallifrey still exist and is still inhabited. (All of this is intercut with flashbacks taken from Panopticon, Remnants and Our Brave Sacrifice).
In Hortus, Julie takes care of the characters that stayed there, because they would be more of a liability in the battle. Of course, she pays the most attention to Jan, as she tries to compensate him for their time of separation. They go for a walk around the city, just the two of them; Julie promises Jan that soon, everything finally will be alright. Eligius agrees; everything’s going to be very much alright for him once he finishes this assignment. He stands right behind the two, pointing the gun at Jan. Julie recognizes Eligius; he’s flattered, often the hard work of pest controllers like him gets underappreciated, so it’s so nice to get some recognition. She’ll have a chance to pay him more compliments, because they’re both going to come with him.
Three Nations Alliance wins the battle of Zardenon and marches on Metria. However, they are stopped once again – not by soldiers, but by the crowd of angry civilians. Looks like all the propaganda efforts have paid off; Roddy and Erik managed to convince those people that Three Nations Alliance is yet another mischievous invader threatening their homeland. What are they going to do now, fight people they were supposed to free? The leadership conveys, desperately looking for solution; Calem has an idea, but it won’t be easy, and it will take time; they better prepare to spend a night here. She instructs the soldiers not to harm the civilians, but only defend themselves, no matter what happens; she then steps forward and tells the crowd to start talking.
Claude’s squad reaches the cell block where Dani and Ajacos are held. Ajacos answers in advance that no, he isn’t proud of himself. After her cell is opened, Dani starts apologizing to Claude tentatively, but he just hugs her. Then she sees Eddie and they soon start trying to outdo each other in repenting. Dani says that maybe it was true that there’s no place for people like her in modern journalism. Eddie disagrees; The Wave before the election was top notch TV station. She is the great journalist, she proved it and her critics can quiet down. Furthermore, the world now needs her to be the great journalist she is.
Richard has another question: what’s the deal with Ersiah? Who exactly is she and why does she support Roddy? Frances applauds this question; that’s indeed something they need to think of. Ersiah has lived for thousands upon thousands of years, if not more; she saw too much to suddenly start blindly believing in Roddy’s ideology. Socialist state is not her endgoal; she undoubtedly has some own agenda. They discuss what they know about her; Frances explains that she’s the last surviving Time Lord from the world of Vex, kept in their deepest dungeons for years until they freed him. He hated Vex more than any of them, she was surprised when he decided to join their Fleet. Who knows, maybe all the way back there he already had a plan to seize control of it and murder hundreds of Vex, which she eventually did with Frances’s help, as they both know. Richard remembers that according to Claude, Ersiah sees all the planet’s population as some kind of test field and wants to retrieve something valuable they allegedly lost. She was saying that millions will die, but those who pass the test will survive. Of course, Frances suddenly gets enlightened, regeneration. She explains to Richard that all the Time Lords had the ability to regenerate, renew their mind and body if broken – that’s how Ersiah’s sex and gender have changed. However, in result of centuries of interbreeding with Vex and various Unity species, as well as massive surge in Time Lord population during Invitation of Destination, their descendants – Scallatti – no longer possess that ability; or so they assumed. There’s small mathematical chance that someone among Scallatti still can regenerate; Ersiah wants to find those individuals by creating an environment with high risk of death; in other words, she wants to start a total war. She backed Roddy, because his plan divided and polarized the people; she’s building the new society of Time Lords by natural selection, and Roddy is her tool to do it.
Dawn of the next day. Eligius, in record-breaking time given the circumstances, arrives at Metria with his captives. Roddy welcomes him with open arms and outright enthusiasm. He has a nice job in mind for Eligius, a man in charge of promoting loyalty to the state and organizing events in praise of core socialist values; using the oldspeak, he sees him as a perfect prophet for their upcoming new order. For now, he gives Eligius a huge sum of money and encourages him to enjoy the attractions of Metria; he then turns to Julie and tells her how much she disappointed him; he’s building a great future for her as he promised, and she’s siding with the enemy? She’s mistaken if she thinks that in the name of their friendship, he’ll give her any special treatment. The cause he’s fighting for is way more important than any one person. From all according to ability, he promised, and he’s going to make sure that Julie dedicates all her ability to the state. He then calls Ersiah and hands over both Julie and Jan to her.
Independent Resistance regroups; soon the TNA forces should besiege Metria. They’re going to take advantage of unrest it causes; Eddie and Dani want to hijack The Wave signal and convince the populace to not trust Roddy, while Claude and Ajacos will launch an attack at city hall and try to arrest him. Richard, who’s eating a rich breakfast after spending over 20 hours talking to Frances, adds that they have to keep an eye on Ersiah as well; he and their new friend will send the squad to their lab.
Calem spent the whole night listening to people – their complaints, fears, accusations – and addressing them. At some point Raleigh realized what she’s doing and joined her. Their open, calm attitude and readiness to listen convinced the majority of the crowd that they aren’t those degenerated, bloodthirsty invaders that The Wave portrayed them as; that Roddy may not be this great man they thought him to be. They start to dissolve and come back to their homes; only a small group of fanatics remains. Calem orders to arrest them, but without unjustified violence; several soldiers will stay here to guard them. The captives are to be treated as well as possible, almost as guests; she’ll deal personally with anyone who dares to harass them.
Three Nations Alliance reaches Metria and encircles it. The villains are caught completely by surprise; Roddy kept everyone else in the dark about how bad their war effort is going. Eligius sees the Rhaighr squadron on the sky and goes into panic. Erik calls Roddy and shouts at him that this was not the part of their deal; he better not let them take over the city, or he’s going to test out how quick can the media destroy the politician’s reputation. Roddy assures him that he’s safe; they have enough troops to defend themselves, and thanks to him, also the public support. Now get back to work, he roars and ends the call, reminding himself to get rid of Erik eventually; he became way too audacious. Now he has to go and mobilize the troops, he was prepared for this scenario and should easily fight them off if he plays his cards right. Then, the door of his office is pushed wide open; Ajacos stands in it armed, alongside Claude, and says that Roddy’s not going anywhere. In her lab, Ersiah conducts tests at Julie, who’s tied to bed. She comments that Julie should be happy; she’s exceptional. Thanks to her genetic material, the world shall be reborn in ashes. Then, the message “Convalesce Gone” starts pulsing on all the computers. Frances says that this isn’t going to happen if she has anything to say about it. It’s time for the final showdown, and all players are ready for the ultimate settling of accounts. Ersiah smiles and says that very well – they’d find out what it means to anger a god.
LULLI LAE LAI
Season 5, Episode 16
Written by JANE ESPENSON & TONI GRAPHIA
Directed by PHILIP JOHN
TX Date – 15 December 2019
The flag of Panelysian Democratic Union of Citizens blows in the breeze atop Metria City Hall when a noise is heard. Claude’s thrown at the wall of the corridor behind him by Roddy. Roddy asks him how he likes the new gadget he found in Lea’s lab, that slightly enhances his physical characteristics. His next punch is directed at Ajacos, but he dodges it and tells him to never underestimate The Three. He came here to stop Roddy, so he will, and some scientific toy isn’t enough of an obstacle to him.
With just one click, Ersiah switches her instruments to the private server. Frances will have difficulty hacking it. She then orders the system to begin regeneration energy extraction. Julie screams, as yellow energy starts coming out from her into one of the devices. Ersiah snarks that she agreed to use her genetic material instead of her child’s and yet she’s still complaining – how entitled. Now, Julie wants to know what she needs it for. Well, a long time ago she developed a nice little virus to get rid of a woman called The Hal. This plan didn’t quite work out, but the idea was good, so she upgraded the virus and years later tested it on another problematic redhead named Irene. This time it was a resounding success, thanks to this work of art she nearly purified The Fleet of the scum known as The Vex! But some lady, who’s now making a fool out of herself trying to penetrate her safety measures, called her out for that and stood in her way. Since she was so talented at biotechnology, with the help of Shamash she made yet another mutation of this virus, known as pryex-682. Julie might be familiar with this one, as Jan contracted it once – what a brave patient. This virus led to the Invitation of Destination and created their current society, which she really had great hopes for. But she overestimated them – and underestimated pryex-682. The Doctor destroyed it during The Invitation, however prior to that it came to contact with the version that ravaged the Vex and together they mutated into brand new disease. This one was far cleverer: instead of destroying the cells it infected, which was suicidal for it, it only damaged them, not causing any symptoms really. Thanks to this astute strategy, it managed to spread around the entire Fleet completely unnoticed and infected everyone, including Ersiah herself. It didn’t kill anyone – it did something far worse; broke the regeneration systems and similar body enhancements Scallatti inherited from their ancestors. Regeneration, incorporeal forms, in later generations even the natural biological longevity that people like Ajacos have – all gone because of their failure to deal with one parasitic rogue. Why aren’t they ashamed of themselves? Not only they paid for the outrageous inefficiency of their bodies, but even her, Ersiah, a superior being, lost her precious regeneration! But she was kind, she took a chance on them – she gave her tools to build a new civilization, even greater than the one they descend from. And what had they done? First, they let The Rani stop themselves from averting The Vex invasion and force her into the rotten compromise, and then they couldn’t even appreciate the beautiful world they created thanks to her plan with PACIFA rebellion and sent the bloody Baker-Mitchell back to stop it from happening! They don’t want to exist so badly… Well, she’ll grant them their wish; all their joke of the society will burn down! By this point Julie no longer understands what Ersiah’s rambling about, but she doesn’t care; she continues that Shamash apparently was afraid of pryex-682 and developed extremely effective vaccine for herself that saved her not only from pryex-682, but also that new disease, they were lucky, but not the only one; a few Scallatti managed to fight off the disease before it destroyed their cells and saved their precious gifts. Nobody knew who they were, until now. The ancestor of Julie and Lea was one of them and thank to that now they are among a very small group of Scallatti with intact regeneration genealogy. Ersiah is going to gather all of them and build a New Gallifrey; a civilization to rule the world. The civil war will help her find them, as regeneration will save them from death in the brutal wars that are now starting. But she already found Julie, and that’s great, because with the help of her regeneration energy, she can repair her body and become a Time Lady once again! Now, Julie has no need to worry, she’s not greedy, she won’t take all of it; one or two full regenerations should be enough.
While Ersiah is monologuing, Frances takes advantage of her distraction and sends Richard a precise location of server she’s attacking – which happens to also be the location of Ersiah’s lab. Richard already heads there, ready to free Julie and Jan, but Frances warns him to be careful – Ersiah can still have more tricks up her sleeves.
The Three Nations Alliance storm, Metria’s fortifications. They are well-designed and would’ve withstood their efforts if Roddy was in charge of his carefully planned defense. Since he was preoccupied, the gaps in the defense started showing up, which the generals mercilessly utilized.
Dani and Eddie successfully hijack The Wave’s signal. Dani stands before the camera and addresses the audience, saying that they were tricked by Roddy. He’s not a defender of democracy, he’s dismantling it in white gloves. They shouldn’t oppose the entering army; they are not their enemy. They then play the speech that Calem prerecorded in Hortus for this occasion. Dani comments that they don’t have the high ground; the army invading the city is not the enemy – isn’t that what every aggressor would say? How are they meant to show people that they are the good guys? Eddie says that they need to find the way to show people the real face of Roddy, the face of immoral tyrant. They should take advantage of Calem’s recording buying her time and look for him.
Meanwhile at The Wave, furious Erik tries to regain the signal. At the same time, he tells his crew to flood SWN and all other transmission channels with the hardest stuff they have; gore, fake footage of TNA committing war crimes, testimonies of all their associated stars condemning the reactionary terrorism of Calem and Claude, pop songs praising the work of Roddy. He wants to see endless stream of propaganda on every screen in the city. They’ll show Dani who’s the real king of media, no holding back, THIS IS WAR!
Ajacos and Roddy keep fighting, and Metria City Hall shakes from the impact of the latter’s hits. The walls one by one go down, because Ajacos dodges every attack. Ajacos tries to talk some reason into Roddy, but he’s not willing to listen to anyone that tries to tear down the perfect world he’s building. Ajacos questions him about this perfect world; points out every flaw he sees in his plan. Interestingly, Roddy sees himself as an answer to most of these problems. Who’s going make sure that no person abuses its power to take more than they need? Roddy. Who’s going to judge which social groups are oppressed? Roddy. Who has enough knowledge and intelligence to plan the whole economy in a way that is both effective and fair? Roddy. And who, Ajacos wonders, is going to control Roddy’s power, who’s his responsibility to? Of course, to the workers of Union, Roddy responds, they’re going to legitimize his reign in elections and referendums. So will he step down if he loses, asks Ajacos. Roddy answers that this isn’t going to happen, because he’s fulfilling all the needs of his people; only a fraud could make him lose an election, and he’ll punish every fraud, Ajacos can be sure of it. Starting with the one he conducted, says Roddy while successfully hitting Ajacos for the first time. No less impressively, Ajacos tanks it.
Lea orders fire and the explosives TNA attached to Metria’s fortifications tear them down. The road to Metria is open. However, the view inside is not encouraging – many villagers took whatever they could weaponize and went on streets to protect their homes and families; a good chunk of CDF soldiers also survived and were ready for battle, and if that’s not enough, various groups of mobsters took advantage of general chaos and try to cause as much havoc as they manage to. Calem sighs and splits the tasks: Lea and Raleigh will find Roddy and Ersiah, Cizzaurans and Rhaighrs will defeat CDF and other vigilantes, while she is going to talk with civilians… again.
A dial in Ersiah’s lab reads that 9% of Julie’s regeneration energy has been extracted. Ersiah says that this is enough and stops the extraction, then orders her instruments to commence the process of repairing her cells. She enters the mysterious cabin that was in the lab this whole time and the door close behind her. Richard takes that opportunity to sneak into the lab and tries to free Julie. With the help of Frances, determination, and a little luck, he does so, avoiding the various traps and safeguards Ersiah left. They can’t reach Ersiah in the cabin, and they are not that stupid to wait until she leaves, so Richard asks Frances to keep an eye on the lab while he’ll try to get reinforcements. With that settled, he leaves the lab with Julie to free Jan, who’s locked in neighbouring room.
Basthiall sees Eligius, desperately trying to get out of the city centre and find some hideout. He calls his name and goes after him with no regard at anything else. Eligius tries to escape, but Basthiall quickly catches him and forces to kneel on the ground. With the shout “This is for Menhocc!”, he puts a gun to the back of Eligius’s head and… he can’t fire. He just can’t shoot the man in cold blood, even Eligius. His victim, who seconds ago was mortally terrified, starts laughing. Unbelievable, he chuckles, after all he did to them, the purples still don’t have balls to even get rid of their mortal enemy – they really are the most pitiful of creatures. Addaho, who just caught up with Basthiall alongside some troops, says that he doesn’t consider it a flaw and orders to arrest Eligius. He then puts the hand on Basthiall’s arm and says that Menhocc would’ve been proud of him.
Ajacos says that there are many different ideologies, better or worse, but for all this complexity the villain is very easy to recognize – it’s always the one who thinks he has the right to turn his weapon against the civilians. Today, Roddy is the villain, it’s Ajacos’s fault that he got so far and his duty to not let him make another step. Roddy says that then he failed and ends their fight with another powerful punch. That’s too much even for Ajacos and he falls to the ground. Roddy tells him to stay down; in honour of their former friendship, he’s not going to kill him today, but he won’t let him waste any more seconds of his time. Now, where was he? Oh right, orders for the army. Roddy heads to the hall’s exit – and finds there Richard, Julie, and Jan, trying to leave the building.
Now he can’t even count on Ersiah! Richard, Julie, and Jan rush through the door; Roddy is right behind them. They are no match for his enhanced speed; just after they get outside, Roddy throws Richard away with an elbow and grabs Jan by the throat; Lea screams. Coincidentally, Raleigh and Lea have just tried to enter the hall, as they realized Roddy’s still there. In a snap they regain their cool and tell Roddy to put the child down. Roddy ignores that, looks straight at Julie and shouts that if she wants to save her brat, she’ll kneel before him. Dani tells him to seriously rethink his next move – he’s live on TV. She and Eddie also just arrived, and Eddie films the whole event. Roddy is unfazed – very well, let the whole world see how the enemies of the revolution, the lonely, die. He shouts at Julie to kneel – and she slowly does, begging him to spare Jan. Roddy, satisfied, pulls out a gun with his free hand and aims at Julie, saying that the future generations will visit her grave to dance on it; he’ll fix the world, bathing it in her blood. But then, someone grabs Jan from behind his back and takes him out of Roddy’s grip thanks to the element of surprise. Roddy instinctively turns back and shoots the newcomer, who takes the blast on himself, keeping Jan safe. It’s Ajacos, who apparently didn’t stay down as he was asked. Roddy is in complete shock, which allows Ajacos to pin him to the ground with his own body. Lea rushes forward and disarms Roddy, including deactivating the device boosting his attributes.
All around the city, people see Roddy’s outburst and are horrified. Calem asks the crowd before her if they believe her now. They do, and the crowd starts dissolving, making a way for them. The CDF surrender: only a handful of most devoted Roddy’s supporters are unimpressed by what they saw and devolve into a mob that starts terrorizing the streets.
Erik in his studio also sees this incident and knows exactly what it means – he was defeated. There’s little chance that the new regime will be interested in work with him, so time to run. He cashed in a good sum of money; he can easily afford plastic surgery and start a new life. He’ll keep a low profile for a couple of years, and then he can try and get back to media – after all, he’s the very best at it. He sneaks out of the studio with his belongings, heading into one of his hideouts. However, one of the packs of Roddy’s followers spot him and call him out. Initially, they treat him friendly, he’s their guy, a fellow fighter for social justice, but when they see that he’s desperately attempting to drop out from the conversation, they get suspicious. They force him to open his bag; when they see that it’s filled with money, they get furious. So, he was a crypto capitalist all along! He’s an enemy of the revolution, and like every enemy of the revolution, he’ll be punished adequately! Erik tries to justify himself and desperately claims to be on their side, finally begs for mercy, but the gang doesn’t care, pulls out their knives and jumps on him. We cut to black, as the audience are left to work out the rest of that story.
Ersiah comes out from the cabin, glowing in yellow. She’s a Time Lady once again. The screen in her lab replays her what happened while she was inside, including Julie’s escape and Roddy’s fall. Ersiah decides that in this case, she’ll go with plan B.
At the doorstep of Metria City Hall, Lea tries to treat Ajacos, but it’s clear it’s no good. More soldiers arrived and now they restrain Roddy, so the main cast can say his farewells to the former President. Ajacos apologizes to Julie; he failed her as President, as a boss, as a public figure of trust. At least once he wanted to do what every politician should; serve the average citizen with his life. Now, she and Jan are safe; he guesses that his promise has finally been fulfilled. Julie says that he saved her child; she forgives him everything. Ajacos wonders if ‘she’ would have been proud of him, and suddenly Frances says from Richard’s pocket that she definitely would have; Frances had to suffer for long enough to know that. Ajacos reaches for the book he had in his coat, but he passes out while taking it out; it falls right next to his hand, opening on the title page. It reads “A diary. Irene”.
Lea and Richard are happy to reunite, but it’s too early to early to celebrate; Ersiah is still on the loose. Richard takes both Lea and Raleigh, heavily armed, to her lab. When they open the door, Lea freezes in shock. Ersiah, still in yellow glow, holds the perfect replica of her rift projector. She greets them and at the same time gives them her farewell, because she’s leaving the world of mortals. Now that she’s a Time Lady again, she’s able to unite with the Time Vortex, and thanks to Lea being so kind to leave her lab and research completely unguarded over the last few weeks, she has just the device to reach it – Lea isn’t the only super genius capable of building such things around here. Genetic material of one person with regeneration genealogy allows to reach parallel worlds; she however has the material of three such persons – Shamash, Lea and Julie. According to her calculations, this will open her a way straight to Time Vortex; with its power, she’ll be a god, she’ll reshape the world in the image she likes, and of course she’ll be able to unleash her wrath upon them. She bids farewell – for now. With that, she opens a rift and starts sucking Time Vortex energy from the other side. Lea and Raleigh open fire, but Ersiah dispels all the bullets with a move of hand.
Somewhere else, Roddy, dragged by the guards, finally realizes that he lost. He carefully, so no one notices, pulls a small device from his pocket. If it’s all over, at least he can have the last laugh. Ersiah surely thought of him as just a pawn in her game, but in fact it was always the other way around; he was using her for his goals, and now she outlived her utility. This would hurt her more that it hurts him.! Roddy activates the detonator.
The neckerchief on Ersiah’s neck, a gift from Roddy, explodes, vaporizing her head. This isn’t enough to kill her, as an ongoing regeneration process will fix it, but it makes her lose control over the absorbed energy; her body starts taking too much and swell up. Lea spots a chance, and they open full fire; additionally, Lea throws a crystallizer she took from Naggho in ‘And The Walls Grew’ at Ersiah, saying that this caused her some trouble, so if she’s so brilliant, maybe she can crack this out. The crystallizer covers Ersiah’s whole tortured body, which loses stability and falls inside a Time Vortex; then, the rift closes. Lea guesses that this is all they can do.
The Dawn of Time: The mass of matter and energy that was once known as Ersiah falls out of The Time Vortex and drifts in space for several seconds before it’s caught by the gravitational field of the nascent star. It becomes one of the many parts of the solar system that is just built; in many years, this system will be called Taoter, and the mysterious mass will evolve into a substance that the peaceful race of Cizzaurans knows as Kheqren.
Three Nations Alliance seizes control off the city, and the terrorist packs are taken down one by one. The war is over. There is a massive celebration; everyone hugs everyone, and the huge parties are held. A few days later, a meeting is held in Hortus; the leaders of The Alliance and Claude’s resistance gather up to decide what to do now. Ambhrr takes the copy of Treaty of Taoter and says that there is one thing they can definitely agree on: he tears up the document – and says it needs to go. Calem asks what border regulations they should use, and Ambhrr asks how about no regulations at all – they were doing just fine without them before and now they know each other better, so why not just trust each other more? Calem says that’s an interesting beginning, but then Julie enters the meeting; she says that there’s one more thing they need to do something about and she’s not leaving until they settle it… What about the mines?
Over the final 10-15 minutes of the episode, we get a huge montage showing just what happened next…
The negotiations take several weeks and many open debates with the populace of the planet, but ultimately the deal is signed. From now on, all three nations will unite into one state, Commonwealth of Tarbhron, which will have some common institutions for all three races, but also some separate. For example, there will be one legislative body, while executive will comprise of the council of three individuals: President of The Scallatti, Great Chief of Cizzaurans – now an electable position – and the Rhaighr Almighty. They might change it at a later date, but for now three cooperating heads seems like the best option.
Everything slowly gets back to normal. Calem, on request of just about everyone, agrees to run for President. Due to his services to their current freedom, she offers Claude a VP ticket, which he gladly accepts. They win by a landslide. Addaho also gets yet another term as a Great Chief, which he’s very happy about.
In Cizzauran prison, Thralsai is outspoken about the importance of a sharp machete on a good party. Darrhia and Eligius in neighbouring cells, tired of his perverted stories, tell him to shut up.
Roddy also gets thrown into prison; the deepest, darkest cell of Metria Federal Prison. He calls out Scallatti for being ungrateful; he’s Jelena Galante Roddy, Destroyer of The Three! They couldn’t get rid of this cancer for centuries, and this is how they repay him? Traitors and reactionaries!
A strange, blue-glowing planet… far away from home: A starship arrives and lands on its surface. This is the official delegation from the Commonwealth of Tarbhron, and they came here to establish diplomatic relations with their relatives. Lea and Richard come out of the ship; they are expected… The Vex materialize around them. Their leader, Belinda, welcomes them on the Home Planet. Both of their societies were born in turbulent wars, but now there are no longer any reasons for animosity. The Vex of Home Planet want only a peaceful life; Lea confirms that this is also their goal. As a sign of good will, Belinda gives Lea and Richard an old box; on it, the seal of Rassilon is engraved. Belinda explains that this planet was once home to Commonwealth’s ancestors; not much of their knowledge survived to this day. They gathered all they could find into this box; it’s their gift to Commonwealth. The contents of this box are their legacy, and it’s up to them what they’ll make out of it. Belinda wishes them that they make the right decisions.
Back on The Elysium, a new residential area is built. These houses will be available to be acquired at low price; this one of the many projects of President Arcon that will help change the life standard of miners from Montvite and Esperance for the better – which is what Julie heavily lobbied for. One of the miners is very happy to move in – it took a long time, but finally things turned out good for them simple people as well. This new President is great. His new neighbour agrees; she’s glad the order finally has been restored and she can live a normal life. The man introduces himself as Kumal and reaches out a hand over the fence. A blonde woman takes the hand and says that her name is Tina. Tina with an ‘i’…
Dani, satisfied, looks at the new studio of Callista Daily. It’s time for her and her crew to bring viewers the best of both traditional and modern journalism. Eddie reopens D.E. Private Investigators; Kalagisah is the first client, she explains that she has a new pet, but it went missing. Eddie will be happy to help. Lybhrrthyrr marries Ambhrr; the wedding is quite bombastic. Begass and Basthiall get jobs in the new Addaho administration; their excited, but also a bit scared. Seganseh is taking care of her hut as always; Vahseligan now also lives with them. Unexpectedly, he slowly, syllable by syllable, says her name; looks like he finally starts recovering from whatever Danadaskagi did to him. Berzhrr retires, and peaceful spends time in his residency; Tythoss visits him to talk about war strategy. Berzhrr comments that now, in the era of peace, they could use another hobby, and Tythoss says that actually some interesting new activity developed recently that might be of interest for them; has he ever heard about sport? The many fallen in the recent conflicts get buried on the newly created cemetery with honours; Ajacos’s tomb is full of flowers.
Lea and Dien build the new time travel circuits. Soon their civilization will explore time and space once again, but not like before. Also, Lea now doesn’t overwork herself that much anymore – she takes some time for herself and her family. She also visits Dr Bronestein-Yaris regularly; with his help, she manages to live, comfortably, with her schizophrenia. Raleigh departs Taoter III, with a team of scientists, bidding farewell to everyone, as she leaves on the Flagship – for new horizons. Richard writes history books, teaching all in The Commonwealth the valuable lessons of their past; finally, their true past. He talks a lot to Frances; 600 years in the computer did her well, she’s now a very pleasant lady. As for Julie, she sips a cup of tea in her cottage, listening to Jan announcing who he’s going be when he grows up. Finally, everything is okay.
65 YEARS LATER
The blue sky. A flag flies high on a flagpole: The flag of the Commonwealth of Tarbhron. The camera pans down and it’s flying above a school, and on the playground, we see a little girl, playing some sort of sport with her friends. The bell rings and the little girl is collected by her parents. She arrives home, in a beautiful cottage – almost familiar – and she sits down on the settee in the lounge. She looks up, and sees an old woman next to her, smiling and looking down upon her – it’s Julie, a great-grandmother. Julie hugs the little girl, who she calls Fraya, and then begins “Lay down your head and I’ll sing you a lullaby, back to the years of Lulli Lae Lai…” as we cut to the end credits, and Mina Anwar’s cover of the main theme tune continues, as the saga of the Elysium ends.
WIDWWA 