The make up and prosthetic department is absolutely rocking it. They are showing the true horror of what happened to those men in a way that is making me almost physically ill
Listening to HBO podcast now. Apparently the dynamo flashlights were to keep the show from becoming a radio play. the real men felt the pipes in the pitch dark to find and open the sluice gates.
The leader of the miners was awesome.
Skarsgård and Harris continue to kill it.
Watson is great even if she is an amalgam of all the nuclear people that advised Harris.
Did we already know Lyudmilla was pregnant? I felt like I knew this when she first lied, but they didn't really play it like that. Maybe it was "spoiled" in the official podcast.
Great episode regardless. The final stage we see Vasily in was horrifying. I liked how they lingered on the image of the oil painting in the Kremlin kind of mirroring what was happening to the victims.
Did we already know Lyudmilla was pregnant? I felt like I knew this when she first lied, but they didn't really play it like that. Maybe it was "spoiled" in the official podcast.
Great episode regardless. The final stage we see Vasily in was horrifying. I liked how they lingered on the image of the oil painting in the Kremlin kind of mirroring what was happening to the victims.
The show opens with her vomitting. That's how I knew anyway.
Did we already know Lyudmilla was pregnant? I felt like I knew this when she first lied, but they didn't really play it like that. Maybe it was "spoiled" in the official podcast.
Great episode regardless. The final stage we see Vasily in was horrifying. I liked how they lingered on the image of the oil painting in the Kremlin kind of mirroring what was happening to the victims.
The show opens with her vomitting. That's how I knew anyway.
Ah, that's it. I think when they talked about it on the podcast it planted in my brain that she was visibly showing, so I was confused at the pseudo reveal. But it makes sense that Vasily wouldn't know.
That was interesting seeing the painting “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan” within the context of the show.
Also my wife and I disagree but I swear I saw a sneaky cameo by Bill Skarsgard as the young guard when the Lead Miner asked for fans. Either it’s him or his doppelgänger.
I grew more and more angry at both the wife and the doctor in those scenes where the unsupervised pregnant wife is continuously touching her radioactive husband and sitting within breathing distance of him the rest of the time.
I hate when shows have characters with lots of information not properly relaying said information to other characters so that they will be more likely to do something ridiculously stupid.
Instead of just saying "dont touch him" or "he's a danger to you," why would you not take an extra 30 seconds to educate her by telling her that if she touches him or stays close to him for s prolonged period of time, there is a good chance that she will get sick and perhaps die, and if she does happen to be pregnant that her baby would be likely to have deformities.
It's obvious that the doctor had that information in her head.
I grew more and more angry at both the wife and the doctor in those scenes where the unsupervised pregnant wife is continuously touching her radioactive husband and sitting within breathing distance of him the rest of the time.
I hate when shows have characters with lots of information not properly relaying said information to other characters so that they will be more likely to do something ridiculously stupid.
Instead of just saying "dont touch him" or "he's a danger to you," why would you not take an extra 30 seconds to educate her by telling her that if she touches him or stays close to him for s prolonged period of time, there is a good chance that she will get sick and perhaps die, and if she does happen to be pregnant that her baby would be likely to have deformities.
It's obvious that the doctor had that information in her head.
You may know this already- but this part of the story is true. It’s in Voices of Chernobyl and that’s pretty true to the wife’s account of what happened.
I grew more and more angry at both the wife and the doctor in those scenes where the unsupervised pregnant wife is continuously touching her radioactive husband and sitting within breathing distance of him the rest of the time.
I hate when shows have characters with lots of information not properly relaying said information to other characters so that they will be more likely to do something ridiculously stupid.
Instead of just saying "dont touch him" or "he's a danger to you," why would you not take an extra 30 seconds to educate her by telling her that if she touches him or stays close to him for s prolonged period of time, there is a good chance that she will get sick and perhaps die, and if she does happen to be pregnant that her baby would be likely to have deformities.
It's obvious that the doctor had that information in her head.
Interesting, I completely blame the woman. Did she think they were just arbitrarily making up demands? Putting up plastic for the hell of it? She knew better. Romeo and Juliet, passion discourages thought.
Edit: Want to add, I don't blame her in the sense I have no sympathy for her, but I blame her more than the nurses.
Amazing episode and loving this series. I did want to comment though on spoilers. Yes it’s a historical documentary and yes people know the general outcome of what happened. But it would be great if people didn’t spoil the intricate details of the show in various threads. We all know Europe didn’t become a radioactive wasteland but most of us don’t know who survived and who died and how Russia was able to contain the meltdown. There’s alot to the story that people would rather find out watching that be spoiled on the threads. And this is coming from a history major. Let’s keep the minutia of the story in spoiler realm and not act like it’s common knowledge.
I am really, really enjoying this show. The makeup in this last episode was INCREDIBLE but even better than that was the restraint they used in showing it. When Emily Watson's character was interviewing the second man in the hospital, they were careful not to show him, just her reaction to his condition. The effect was great, it made me wonder in horror what she was seeing that was so awful they weren't showing us.
But on a more practical level, I was curious about this choice - did they film the scene with the man in makeup and choose not to use it? Did the take just not work the way they thought it would in the edit bay? But, in the official Chernobyl podcast the writer talks about this being a deliberate decision based on not being overly gratuitous purely for shock factor and also the fact that Emily Watson does an incredible job showing us with her reaction about this man's condition.
Great show, great commentary on the "cost of lies" and the value of truth in a government that is less than transparent.
I'm enjoying this show a lot but that was difficult to watch. In listening to the official podcast, they said they decided to cut away sooner because it was starting to feel gratuitous! I definitely think it was important that they showed that level of horror but I wanted to look away.
I was in middle school when this happened and I remember having the sense that thousands of people died right away, so I was shocked to find out about the number of people died, almost thinking that it wasn't "as bad" as I'd thought. But it was actually far, far worse than I could have imagined.
Does anybody remember studying Chernobyl in school? I'm in my late 20s (in America) and I specifically remember having at least one unit on Chernobyl in middle school. It wasn't super in-depth and I didn't retain any of the science related to it, but I know for sure we learned about it. I think we talked about it more in the context of the humanitarian effects, not so much in the political context, so I'm finding that part of the show to be really illuminating.
I was surprised that a couple of years younger than me at work with hadn't even heard of Chernobyl before??
I was surprised that a couple of years younger than me at work with hadn't even heard of Chernobyl before??
You'll get used to it. You're probably the last generation that will remember 9/11 as a thing. Not long until average teenagers and 20-somethings won't know what that was.
It's surprising how quickly the world-changing "remember where you were" events fall out of the collective memory.
As a mid-40 something, I tell people about remembering Mt St.Helens going off when I was 8 (lived in the pacific NW) and get blank stares like they didn't know any volcanoes had erupted since Pompeii. Remember specifically where I was during both Shuttle explosions but would wager anyone below 10-15 yrs old might not even know what a space shuttle is or looks like. Just seems to be how the collective societal memory works.
I didn't learn about Chernobyl... a homeschooling gap. (Otherwise I had a very good education - skipped 8th grade and CLEP tested out of freshman year of college.) I remember my friends being shocked I didn't know about it. Not to be edgy, but it doesn't feel like that crucial of a thing to be educated on. Not like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, etc.
I wasn't really thinking as much in terms of education. Give any reasonably smart person a weekend and an internet connection and they can probably get close to expert level on just about any subject. And clearly the majority of these significant events are in most curriculums in some fashion
I was thinking more of how the collective memory works when we have these world-altering events happen. At the time it seems like there's no way anyone would ever be able to forget about these things, at least within living memory of the event. But much faster than we expect it seems to fade into just being the history of the world. My wife is a high school teacher, and would imagine if she asked her students what 9/11 was quite a few wouldn't get much further than "something to do with airplanes from Iraq or something". And until this year for most of them this happened in their lifetime.
I would wager a huge swath of the population would have know idea why December 7th was significant without any other context, and within a generation I would imagine September 11th won't be much different.
@redlancer I was about to disagree, but you said it well... If asked, "What happened on September 11?" people as a whole won't connect that with the name "nine eleven." And yeah, people my age, millennials, I'd say 1 in 100 know December 7.
I really enjoy this show- and I also enjoy the debate that A.Ron
is curating about the nature of government and economic structure. I think that
is very timely and something that I have been doing myself.
I’d like to point out that communism is an economic system,
not a governmental system. So when I hear commentators, or the host contract
communism and democracy- that’s not a proper comparison- it would be communism vs
capitalism, or democracy vs oligarchy. There is no reason a communist system
can’t also be a democracy, just like there is no reason an oligarchy can’t also
be capitalist.
I think many of the issues your BP commentator brings up as
flaws of communism are not really about communism, but are about totalitarianism
rather than communism.
Comments
Listening to HBO podcast now. Apparently the dynamo flashlights were to keep the show from becoming a radio play. the real men felt the pipes in the pitch dark to find and open the sluice gates.
The leader of the miners was awesome.
Skarsgård and Harris continue to kill it.
Watson is great even if she is an amalgam of all the nuclear people that advised Harris.
Great episode regardless. The final stage we see Vasily in was horrifying. I liked how they lingered on the image of the oil painting in the Kremlin kind of mirroring what was happening to the victims.
(•_•)
<) )╯Men
/ \
(•_•)
\( (> At
/ \
(•_•)
<) )\ Work!
/ \
The show opens with her vomitting. That's how I knew anyway.
Also my wife and I disagree but I swear I saw a sneaky cameo by Bill Skarsgard as the young guard when the Lead Miner asked for fans. Either it’s him or his doppelgänger.
I hate when shows have characters with lots of information not properly relaying said information to other characters so that they will be more likely to do something ridiculously stupid.
Instead of just saying "dont touch him" or "he's a danger to you," why would you not take an extra 30 seconds to educate her by telling her that if she touches him or stays close to him for s prolonged period of time, there is a good chance that she will get sick and perhaps die, and if she does happen to be pregnant that her baby would be likely to have deformities.
It's obvious that the doctor had that information in her head.
He's got that Hank Hill ass going on
Interesting, I completely blame the woman. Did she think they were just arbitrarily making up demands? Putting up plastic for the hell of it? She knew better. Romeo and Juliet, passion discourages thought.
Edit: Want to add, I don't blame her in the sense I have no sympathy for her, but I blame her more than the nurses.
But on a more practical level, I was curious about this choice - did they film the scene with the man in makeup and choose not to use it? Did the take just not work the way they thought it would in the edit bay? But, in the official Chernobyl podcast the writer talks about this being a deliberate decision based on not being overly gratuitous purely for shock factor and also the fact that Emily Watson does an incredible job showing us with her reaction about this man's condition.
Great show, great commentary on the "cost of lies" and the value of truth in a government that is less than transparent.
Good choice not to film scene of man with no face
I was in middle school when this happened and I remember having the sense that thousands of people died right away, so I was shocked to find out about the number of people died, almost thinking that it wasn't "as bad" as I'd thought. But it was actually far, far worse than I could have imagined.
I was surprised that a couple of years younger than me at work with hadn't even heard of Chernobyl before??
You'll get used to it. You're probably the last generation that will remember 9/11 as a thing. Not long until average teenagers and 20-somethings won't know what that was.
It's surprising how quickly the world-changing "remember where you were" events fall out of the collective memory.
As a mid-40 something, I tell people about remembering Mt St.Helens going off when I was 8 (lived in the pacific NW) and get blank stares like they didn't know any volcanoes had erupted since Pompeii. Remember specifically where I was during both Shuttle explosions but would wager anyone below 10-15 yrs old might not even know what a space shuttle is or looks like. Just seems to be how the collective societal memory works.
I was thinking more of how the collective memory works when we have these world-altering events happen. At the time it seems like there's no way anyone would ever be able to forget about these things, at least within living memory of the event. But much faster than we expect it seems to fade into just being the history of the world. My wife is a high school teacher, and would imagine if she asked her students what 9/11 was quite a few wouldn't get much further than "something to do with airplanes from Iraq or something". And until this year for most of them this happened in their lifetime.
I would wager a huge swath of the population would have know idea why December 7th was significant without any other context, and within a generation I would imagine September 11th won't be much different.
I really enjoy this show- and I also enjoy the debate that A.Ron is curating about the nature of government and economic structure. I think that is very timely and something that I have been doing myself.
I’d like to point out that communism is an economic system, not a governmental system. So when I hear commentators, or the host contract communism and democracy- that’s not a proper comparison- it would be communism vs capitalism, or democracy vs oligarchy. There is no reason a communist system can’t also be a democracy, just like there is no reason an oligarchy can’t also be capitalist.
I think many of the issues your BP commentator brings up as flaws of communism are not really about communism, but are about totalitarianism rather than communism.