Chernobyl episode 3 review: The way it all works

Between the horrors of radiation poisoning and the tallying of the damage, Chernobyl episode 3 finally begins to reveal the disaster’s true cost.

Sitting down to write this review immediately after watching “Open Wide, O Earth” was a challenge. It’s not the kind of episode you want to immediately go rave about on Twitter, or pick apart in a review. It’s more of an experience that makes you want to go sit by yourself in a dark room and contemplate the agonies of the human condition with a stiff drink in hand. Vodka, if you have it.

It’s not as if any of the three episodes of Chernobyl thus far have been light fare. But even though the third episode might not have the intensity of the premiere or the threat of a massive explosion in the follow-up, in many ways this is the hardest hitting by far. For two episodes, we have heard about the consequences of radioactive exposure; now we are finally shown what Legasov means when he tells the helicopter pilot he would be begging for death.

Early in the episode, Lyudmilla Ignatenko arrives at the hospital in Moscow and bribes her way into the radiation ward to see her husband. At first glance, Vasily seems well—surprisingly so. His face is badly burned, but he’s still lounging around playing cards with his fellow firemen and rises to greet his wife with a grin. Despite being instructed not to touch him, Lyudmilla embraces him tightly. Knowing the stakes, it’s hard not to want to leap through the screen and tear them apart; it’s a beautiful, heartbreaking reunion whose consequences will be greater than either character can know.

Throughout Vasily’s inevitable decline, Lyudmilla is by his side; providing what comfort she can at the expense of her own safety. It’s not just altruism; no one fully explains to her what happened to her husband, nor the danger she faces simply by touching him.

“He’s something else now.”

The nurse’s chilling declaration in the face of Lyudmilla’s grief is at the heart of what makes the radiation poisoning so horrifying: it turns their very bodies into dangerous artifacts which can hurt the ones they care about most, and as the symptoms take as harp decline, it makes them unrecognizable.

When the end is coming fast, Lyudmilla  presses her husband’s hand to her stomach and tells him that they’re going to have a baby. It’s pure agony to watch. The human suffering is so acute, and the knowledge of what’s to come is unbearable. Not long afterwards, Vasily’s coffin is encased in concrete as Lyudmilla watches with the other grieving families, as their loved ones are not buried but wholly erased — taken from them by an incomprehensible tragedy and sealed away so tightly that nothing might ever reach them again.

Chernobyl – Episode 3 – Alex Ferns. Photo: Liam Daniel/HBO

The work continues

Throughout the episode, Legasov and Shcherbina travel between Chernobyl and the stark, distant opulence of Moscow during the cleanup efforts. It’s an excellent visual metaphor for the difference between the rooms where the decisions are made and the people who suffer the consequences of those decisions. Meanwhile, Khomyuk is arrested by the KGB while interviewing the surviving reactor plant workers to find out what happened on the night of the disaster. Secrecy still takes precedence over accountability.

What’s striking in every episode of Chernobyl is the courage of every person working to rectify the effects of the disaster. What saved the world from an even more terrible catastrophe was not some splendid act of heroism, but rather a group of people who understood what needed to be done and sacrificed their health and in some cases their lives in order to do it. When one of the miners asks Legasov whether his men will be looked after, Legasov doesn’t know. And yet the miners work on.

The cleanup efforts are not glamorous; they are not grand. What saves the world after Chernobyl is science, and the sacrifice of all the people who give up everything in order to see it through.

Chernobyl continues next Monday on HBO.