Gettin' My Eps In: Lazarus S1E10

As the end of the world approaches, answers are uncovered, but obstacles keep popping up.

Lazarus
Season 1, Episode 10: “I Can’t Tell You Why”
Written by Takahiro Ozawa
Directed by Kazuo Miyake
Streaming on (HBO) Max

Ideally, a TV series (anime or otherwise) will balance all of its elements to provide a cohesive whole, something that you can enjoy no matter whether each individual episode features the stuff you like most. For much of this season, I’ve felt like the balance has been off for Lazarus, with the character work seeming kind of rudimentary and the plot lurching in various directions that may or may not be especially interesting, but the action, when it happens, usually being pretty awesome. As we get to the final few episodes of the season, things finally seem to be coming together, with long-simmering plots starting to pay off and characters gaining at least a little bit of depth while building to action that’s likely to be epic.

This is another episode that’s pretty much action-free, but the anticipation for the showdown between Axel and the assassin introduced in the last episode has grown, and we even get some answers about why the fight is happening and how it fits in to the overall plot. The work done here provides what are sure to be some exciting stakes for the battle, making it matter in terms of whether our heroes will be able to accomplish their goals.

At the same time, we get some movement in the quest that the characters have been pursuing and some recognition of the importance of each member of the team. While the rescue of Chris a few episodes ago was emotionally satisfying, with the other characters deciding that had to do what was necessary to save their friend, it also impacted their goals, since after the rescue, she remembered a pill that she found when searching Dr. Skinner’s house, and analysis of the medication provides the best clue yet in finding him.

It turns out that the pill is a blood-thinning medication taken by people who receive artificial heart transplants, so maybe that’s a procedure that Dr. Skinner had done. But since there are no records of him receiving that kind of procedure at any public hospitals, the team will have to look elsewhere. After someone raises the idea that he may have had the procedure done at a secret facility that provides treatment for the ultra-rich, Leland steps up and reveals that he is actually the scion of a rich family who may have a connection to this facility.

This provides us with some backstory for Leland, and fortunately, it’s done more organically and interestingly than what we’ve seen in other episodes that have delved into various characters’ pasts. Leland drags Doug and Axel along on a visit to his family home, which is a huge, opulent mansion. He meets with his sister, Isabella, who is angry at him because she’s been forced to serve as the head of the family in his absence. During their confrontation, it’s revealed that Leland is the illegitimate son of the family’s patriarch, and he’s angry that he never got to have a relationship with his father, who refused to even acknowledge the death of his mother. But now that their father and older brother have died, Leland and his sister only have each other, and sadly, it took the end of the world for them to reconnect.

While this isn’t the most high-stakes drama, it works pretty well, making for a nice bit of character development that informs the ongoing plot rather than detracting from it. I wish the other examples of character backstory throughout the season (including Eleina’s childhood as a member of a cult and Chris’s past as a Russian spy) had been handled so deftly.

We also get a little bit of backstory for Axel that ties into the ongoing plot while setting up the battle that’s going to happen in the next episode. Dr. Hersch, the nominal leader of the team, meets with Abel, her government contact, so he can show her some footage that surfaced of Dr. Skinner. It involves an incident that took place at an airport at some point in the past before Skinner’s disappearance, in which he had a suitcase with a prototype of the drug Hapna (the one that’s going to kill everyone in the world in a few days) that was released in gaseous form during a shootout between military personnel and airport security forces. All of this is somewhat confusing, but it serves to reveal that Hapna had been tested on inmates in prison, including Axel, who seems to be the last remaining survivor of this program, which may be why people want to have him killed. Hersch sends him to connect with a doctor who was involved in the tests, but on his way, he’s waylaid by the assassin, setting up their impending fight.

That’s the main cliffhanger of this episode, and it serves to provide greater stakes to the battle that’s coming. Axel is being targeted because he’s a hapless victim, somebody who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He needs to survive this to show that the larger forces who treat people like pawns won’t be able to succeed. And at the same time, he needs to get answers about what happened to him, which could serve as crucial information to help save the world. While I’m sure the fight is going to be exciting simply due to the way the action will be depicted, all of this will make it mean something. For once, an action-free episode has laid the groundwork to make future episodes matter more.

The other development that will play out in coming episodes involves the team’s findings regarding Dr. Skinner. He did get an artificial heart, and the device connects with external monitoring systems that make sure it’s functioning properly. While Skinner encrypted these transmissions to make sure he couldn’t be tracked, we know that Eleina, the team’s resident hacker, will be able to find a way to overcome this obstacle. When she finds that someone located in Pakistan is monitoring Skinner’s heart, she decides that she needs to go there to be able to track them, so she and Doug head off on this mission. And since that’s where the other hacker known as Popcorn Wizard that the team went up against in the past is located, it’s likely that she’ll also become involved.

So, we get some pretty good personal drama, some interesting details that set up future events, and some real stakes for the action that’s going to play out throughout the rest of the season. While I’ve occasionally been disappointed by the meandering nature of this series, it looks like things are finally being pulled together to build to a satisfying finale. I’m excited for what’s coming, and I hope it lives up to my expectations.