The following contains spoilers for Lazarus, Episode 3, “Long Way From Home”, available onMax.
Summary
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The third episode ofAdult Swim’sLazarussees Axel and Doug head to Istanbul, the city from which Dr. Skinner hails and lived out his early life. They visit an old woman named Belinda, who was Skinner’s caretaker after he lost his parents due to the political unrest in the area – unrest that we still haven’t been told about in detail. Meanwhile, Eleina has the gargantuan task of figuring out who helped Skinner hide his whereabouts by inserting his likeness into surveillance footage from around the globe.
A little progress in the plot and a bit of action here and there made for another interesting episode ofLazarus, butwe’re still chasing the feel of the first episode.
‘I wonder… why is it that life always requires us to overcome so much grief, suffering and all that other crap? Can’t we just have fun and not have to deal with any of it?’ That’s what was going through my head when I first heard about Hapna, so obviously I jumped on it. Some people said it cured the pain of a heartbreak. I thought, ‘That’s weird. How can a broken heart ever be painless? Isn’t this too good to be true? What if I’m just being duped?’ Those thoughtsdidcross my mind. Funny.
– Chris, Lazarus Episode 3 intro
Vital Information Gained Through Deduction
The Lazarus crew meets again to discuss leads on the target man, Dr. Deniz Skinner after the end of the second episode in which Eleina’s task to locate him on global surveillance cameras fails abysmally because the scientist had someone doctor (get it?) his likeness into footage from all over the globe, so when people like Hersch start looking for him, they get overwhelmed with the gargantuan task of pinpointing which iteration of Skinner, of the 100 000 hits, is the actual one. There’s a silver lining to this; however: there would be no reason for Skinner to go through all that trouble if he had undergone some kind of appearance-altering procedure, meaning that they can still rely on seeing him pretty much as he wasprior to his disappearance three years ago.
Eleina tells the group that there are only three hackers in the world capable of pulling off this kind of widespread image manipulation, including herself. With the knowledge gained in this meeting, Hersch sends Chris and Leland to Skinner’s house, while Axel and Doug chase a lead in the form of Doug’s university mentor, Claude Cline, who was involved in research projects with Skinner. When they go to Stanford Hospital, they learn that Cline retired and is now living on the streets, which is where Axel’s expertise becomes vital.
Skinner’s House
Chris and Leland Find Something Potentially Interesting
Skinner’s house has been swarming with reporters, vandals looking to tag obscenities on the walls and cops trying to keep everyone out. Chris and Leland disguise themselves as workers for a cleaning company and, with his quick wit, Leland manages to convince the officers on duty to let them in, lest they incur the hefty cancellation fee for their services. With free entry to the house, the two investigate and find nothing of interest. While sitting on the couch, Chris finds a strange pill with the number 5 on it. She wonders if it could potentially be the antidote, but surely it couldn’t be that easy. Chris slots the pill into one of her pockets and forgets about it.
Life on the Streets
An Old Friend Gives Much-Needed Information
Based on the rumour that Claude Cline now lives on the streets, Axel and Doug head to the Homeless Area, a section of the city that has become a major informal settlement. Axel knows the leader of the area, Jerry, from a previous incarceration, but when they ask around, no one seems to know who that is. The reason is thatJerry has since transitioned to Jill, who is very well known in the area. The two are delighted to see each other again after a long time apart, and just like Axel thought, she has the information they need, leading them straight to Cline. Doug and Cline go way back, their connection dates back to Doug’s time in academia, when Cline stood up for Doug after he punched the dean of their university for racist remarks. Having worked with Skinner in the past, Cline is the perfect lead to follow up. The older man explains that he hasn’t spoken to Skinner in years, and it’s quite clear that Cline is dealing with a lot of guilt and shame about his career.
He described Skinner as “obsessed”, a trait that made working with him exhausting for most people. Cline realized he couldn’t ever keep up with Skinner’s work ethic, and soon cut ties with him, but as he rose to prominence,Cline grew jealous and wanted to outdo Skinner, leading to the falsification of the results of his research and his subsequent dismissal, which in turn led him to life on the streets. After talking about his tragic fall from grace, Cline recalls a heated conversation he and Skinner had about baklava, with Skinner claiming that his grandma made the very best baklava in the world. All while Doug talks to Cline, Axel is roped into a one-on-one basketball game with a young swindler in the area, and we’re treated toAxel’s crazy gymnastics applied to ballwith fearsome effectiveness. Jill tells Doug that Axel is the type of guy who can make himself at home just about anywhere, but he tends to disappear just as quickly.
Off to Istanbul
Finding Granny Belinda
Cline’s memory of arguing with Skinner about baklava takes Axel and Leland to a part of Istanbul so rough, there are no surveillance cameras in a hotbed of crime. Leland dons Arabian attire to “blend in”, which just makes him stand out even more. Before long, the two are surrounded by bandits looking to rob them of their fancy bracelets of hand-melting doom. Axel does what he does best, turning what would have been a horrible jumping into yet another exciting chase/fight scene through the dilapidated streets of this part of town. Most people would be unhappy withthe Arabesque and Arab-inspired look of IstanbulinLazarus, but there’s a lot of beautiful visual textures that enhance the feel of weathering and dilapidation, as well as culture, with architecture, rugs, furniture and other elements heralding a more old world feel juxtaposed with the futuristic buildings of the greater metropolis looming over the slums.
While Axel beats, jumps and flies over his enemies, Leland can barely run in his ankle-length robes, but manages to catch up to a moving bus as men, women and children chase them. They leap from rooftop to rooftop, but one corrugated iron roof caves under Leland’s weight and he falls into the home of a little girl having a tea party with her dollies. The thugs find him there and, seeing that his bracelet can’t be removed, they very nearly chop off his arm with an axe in front of the poor child. Luckily, screaming that all they wanted was to eat Granny Belinda’s baklava ends up saving Leland, and their enemies lead the way to her house. She lives in a beautiful little cottage atop a hill, andthere’s just so much to the visualsas we walk up to and enter her home, full of character, texture, pattern and beauty that has become synonymous with Turkey.
The Famous Baklava
Getting Insight Into Skinner’s Childhood
After Axel jokes around about being a secret agent like Bond, Belinda figures they’re there to ask about Skinner. According to Belinda, he grew up like most kids, and was a kindhearted crybaby. Regardless of what he’s done, the old woman can’t help but see Skinner as the little boy she raised. Unfortunately, she hadn’t seen him since he disappeared three years prior to the events of the series, but he did send her a video message before disappearing. During the conversation, Belinda brings attention to a beautiful tulip on her windowsill that Skinner gave to her, saying it’s a rare kind that hardly blooms. The scene wasclearly trying to highlight this plant, which is either anacuminata tulip, or anelegans rubrabased on the spiky red petals and spiky leaves. Both of the aforementioned tulips hail from Istanbul (the word “tulip” even comes from Turkish), and are rare in the sense that they won’t be found in the wild. In the language of flowers, tulips are associated with death & rebirth; perfect and deep love; and supposedly, in Turkish culture, the tulip is seen as a symbol of paradise on Earth – which, in the context of the series, sounds like what Hapna was supposed to be.
Realizing that Skinner clearly holds this old woman in high regard, Axel assumes that he’d want to keep an eye on Belinda and finds a hidden camera, into which he declares that he’ll find Skinner. An unknown viewer smiles at the challenge, while Eleina manages to find the digital wallet of the hacker who helped Skinner, preparing to wage war the best way she knows how. Episode 3 of Lazarus was a great continuation and felt like it did way more to move the story along than the previous episode. It also presented us with even better vibrant visuals, jaw-dropping backgrounds and even cooler action sequences that drive up anticipation for the next episode.
Lazarus is available to stream onMax. New episodes drop on Saturdays at midnight.
