Dreams
Episode 5 of Open Your Eyes Season 1 begins with Julia and the others confronting Zofia about the truth. They want to know exactly what Second Chance is hiding. Getting nowhere, the gang decide on plan B – escape. With guards chasing them from afar, Pawel serves as a distraction while Julia and Adam hurry into the woods. Despite being searched by guards, the pair decide to kiss. Come on kids, time and a place. Anyway, they end up sleeping the night on a steep valley and eventually head out into the wider world, intent on finding out what’s being hidden from them. A local gas station is completely deserted. Julia senses something amiss but it doesn’t stop them from stocking up on supplies. Cars are empty, streets are eerily quiet and with a working car found, the pair race off for a place called Ligota. This happens to be a district which Karolina originally lived. On the road, the pair are stopped by a police officer who reminds them that they’re in the middle of an epidemic. From tomorrow, face masks will be required. After agreeing to his terms and continuing on, it’s clear this is the reason for the streets being abandoned. The pair make it all the way up to Julia’s childhood home. It’s certainly not burned down though, despite seemingly charred on the outside. Luckily the pair manage to find their way in but it only raises more questions for Julia. For now, that’ll have to wait as the pair decide to get busy and start kissing again. The entire romance has been awkwardly shoehorned in here and it’s not helped that the pair have no chemistry together. After the deed, and with both still in their underwear, a woman shows up and calls out for Karolina. After a warm embrace (and the teens quickly putting their clothes back on) they sit down. This woman happens to be Karolina’s neighbour and it seems there was no fire. This woman does have memories of Karolina being chased up and down the street by her overbearing mother, who would force her to play piano for hours on end. A picture on the wall though distracts Karolina from hearing more. This man happens to be Janek, someone Karolina used to play piano with. Next up, the pair head to the police station but don’t get very far with local enforcement. In fact, they seem to be in collusion with Second Chance, and unfortunately they walk right into their trap. The pair are brought back to the facility again but this time everything seems wrong. The black box dissolves into blood, ravens mass outside while Zofia races into the room to check on her patient. It turns out Adam was released several days back to go with his Father while Julia has been in her room for days. So was everything we just saw this episode all a big hallucination? Well, suddenly out of nowhere ravens come bounding in through the window and peck at Zofia. It’s hard to know what’s real in this show now. There’s imagery of the building burning down and eventually the episode ends with Julia deciding to throw herself into the lake. In doing so, a hand reaches out and pulls her down to the depths. It’s the redhead girl again!
The Episode Review
This show is utterly bizarre and here we start to see evidence of the story coming apart at the seems. What seemed to be a relatively straightforward mystery suddenly takes a dive into the unknown and the contrived. It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not but given the relative ease Karolina and Adam had wandering round outside the facility, it makes sense that all of this was some sort of warped dream. The romance between Adam and Karolina is completely unbelievable too; the pair have zero chemistry. The little twist that Karolina is still in the facility is a good one though and it’s matched by some decent imagery too. One of the more ill-fitting parts of this show though is the music. It’s something I haven’t mentioned in the previous recaps but it’s particularly egregious here. Pop, dubstep, classical and electronica are all crowbarred into the aesthetic and it just feels a bit ill-fitting to be honest. The ending certainly hints that we’ve got a dramatic finale to come, and let’s just hope we don’t get the dreaded Netflix cliffhanger though.
