‘CHERNOBYL’ Season 1. Episode 4 ‘The Happiness of All Mankind’ Review: Risks

Cleaning up CHERNOBYL is not a task done overnight. After creating a decontamination plan, the overseers on the field now deal with cleaning the roof. Being full of highly radioactive materials, sending humans up to clean the mess would be fatal. Meanwhile, the quest for finding out what happened on the night of the explosion nears its end, only stopping when the KGB intervenes.

On Monday night’s episode of CHERNOBYL, Valery Logasov (Jared Harris) and Boris Scherbina (Stellan Skarsgård) use lunar rovers to clear the graphite debris on the power plant’s roof. However, machines are not enough to finish the job quickly. As Ulana Komhyuk (Emily Watson) completes the timeline to the power plant’s explosion, the KGB stops her from unlocking the truth.

Alone

Lyudmilla Ignatenko (Jessie Buckley) represents the civilians who suffered tragic losses following the power plant explosion. First, she loses her husband, Vasily, just as she tells him that she is pregnant. Now, unfortunately, their baby dies. Exposing herself to her contaminated husband had no effects on her because their baby took the fall, dying upon birth. Shifting focus to characters seemingly unimportant to the plot works for this show. Lyudmilla’s story tied itself to the plot twice but stood on its own as it ended. After all, the show itself is not about the accident alone, but also about the people involved, directly and indirectly.

Gunshot

Liam Daniel/HBO

Another victim to the aftermath of the explosion is the soldiers, called into duty at their very young ages.  Two harsh realities are present at that point. First, the government is running out of soldiers to deploy. Bacho (Fares Fares) is a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war, hence his surprise to meet a rookie, Pavel (Barry Keoghan), a young man who never served a tour. Second, Bacho, Pavel, and a third soldier’s task are to head to the villages within the exclusion zone and kill the animals.

As for Bacho and the other, their mission was not a difficult one. Both are veterans, after all. However, it was Pavel’s first time to hold a gun, let alone shoot one. Because of this, he found it difficult to kill an innocent animal. Bacho had to teach him how to load bullets into his rifle, and Pavel was almost shell shocked after his first kill. Their duty, it seems, was frankly dehumanizing. Going to an abandoned village to kill beloved pets felt morally wrong, but they are contaminated, so they need to die. The least the soldiers did was not to let them suffer.

The task took its toll on the soldiers, explicitly portrayed by Bacho and Pavel when they find a dog and her puppies. It was heartbreaking to look into the eyes of the animals that took the spotlight. The sequence was dreadfully and artistically done, embodying the horrors of the aftermath of the accident well.

Most Dangerous Place on Earth

Liam Daniel/HBO

The exploded core, still exposed and giving off deadly amounts of radiation, was the next project. Putting a lead-lined cover over the exposed core could potentially contain the fallout, but it was easier said than done. The radioactive debris remains scattered on the roof and sending men to clear it was risky. Luckily, the government has lunar rovers that worked well, but they were too slow. Asking help from West Germany was also useless since the government did not tell the Germans the truth about the situation. The robot they sent became useless, malfunctioning almost immediately after deployment.

Eventually, they had no choice but to send thousands of soldiers to get rid of the debris. Armored with lead and protective gear, the soldiers took turns in spending 90 seconds up the roof. Shoveling the debris and throwing it down the core took much time, hence the need for thousands of soldiers. The silence as three soldiers shown shoveling added to the tense situation. The last, clumsy soldier almost lost his life up there, but he made it back into the powerplant. The rewards for their service was nothing compared to the effects of the radiation to them in the long run. As General Tarakanov (Ralph Ineson) thanked them, one could not help but have a bittersweet feeling.

Testify

The political situation involving the accident is a delicate matter. Ulana managed to get statements from the power plant workers, helping her create a timeline of the events that led to the explosion. However, the KGB stops her from going any further, taking away pieces from a text that could have made sense of what happened. Valery, familiar with the material, then realized the cause of the explosion without having to have the missing pieces. Valery, Boris, and Ulana now faced a dilemma.

With Valery heading to Vienna to speak about the incident, he has to choose between telling the truth out to the world, or potentially humiliating his country. Both Boris and Ulana are willing to help him, given that he does what either of them asks him to do. When the trial for the surviving power plant operators happens, all three of them must testify. Whether or not the truth comes out will be on their hands.

‘CHERNOBYL’ Season 1, Episode 4 ‘The Happiness of All Mankind’ Final Verdict

 CHERNOBYL approaches its end, the resolution to the incident becomes clear. The Ukrainian SSR saves its ass at the expense of its people. The power plant will be enclosed, although admittedly crudely. The fates of the characters, at least Boris and Ulana, however, remain undeterminable. As the trial for the power plant workers and officers ensues, we can only expect inevitable cover up done by the Ukrainian SSR in their desperate attempts to avoid humiliation.

CHERNOBYL continues Monday, June 3rd with ‘Vichnaya Pamyat’ at 9/8c on HBO.