Brave New World recap: Bernard and Lenina make the most of The Savage Lands

Brave New World dives into The Savage Lands in the second episode.

The bulk of Brave New World‘s second episode takes place in the chaotic, darkly hilarious (Black Friday exhibit anyone?) Savage Lands — a theme park of sorts for New London tourists to mock and study the mysterious, outdated ways of the old ones.

We spend lots of time with Lenina and Bernard as the two travel to the park. Bernard has been there before, it’s a tradition for all young Alphas to visit at least once when they’re young. For Lenina, it’s her first time and Bernard looks forward to showing her the vaguely alluring mystique of the savages.

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To get there, they board a rocket and although Lenina is scared when they launch into space, she experiences what it’s like to exist without gravity and without the watchful eye of Indra, for the first time.

One has to wonder if that could be part of the reason Bernard wanted to travel, the rocket ship is out of network range, meaning Indra cannot watch them while they soar through space.

Upon arrival, they explore an exhibit showing extinct animals like grizzly bears and deer, although in the world created in the series, they’re known as the “wild deer beast.”

Bernard and Lenina are shown to their hotel rooms and mystified by needing a lock to open their door! Lenina is ecstatic by the guidebook and the “authentic-looking” suite. She’s giddy with delight at reading about the marriage ceremonies, although both she and Bernard are baffled by concepts of virginity and “saving yourself until marriage.”

Speaking of the Alpha Plus, he’s a little less enthused by the room. He’d been hoping they would get the same room he had on his first village, one with a breathtaking view of the sunset. Lenina manages to distract him with sex, although before they succumb to their most primal urges she suggests they wait — as the savages do. Perhaps they can save it for their faux-marriage night after fully enjoying the park!

Unfortunately, they never get the chance.

A rebellion breaks out amongst the savages in Brave New World Episode 2.

John still doesn’t get much to do in this episode beyond look stupefied as the people around him put plans into action. The most emotion he shows is during a scene with his mother, who is still being sorely utilized as a character — and Demi Moore as an actress.

They get into an argument about his father, who his mom still thinks will come back one day, hence why she constantly broods by the window in a  floaty negligee. She thinks John will wind up becoming a failure by chasing after Madysun.

Speaking of Madysun, she comes by to visit  John before the planned rebellion occurs, she wants to make sure he’s not going to mess anything up. Her crazy boyfriend also comes by to apologize to John for hitting him in the first episode, although he still threatens to kill him if he ever goes near Madysun again.

But John has much bigger problems to worry about now as the tourists, including Bernard and Lenina, start arriving.

The world of The Savage Lands is divided up into subsections, including the House of Want, which is a hilarious reenactment of Black Friday, and the House of Monogamy, which depicts a dramatically scripted marriage ceremony.

During the ceremony, a  fight breaks out between the bridge, groom and wedding attendees. It’s obviously part of the script for the gang to start killing each other with guns, but normally they’re just shooting blanks. In this version, we see that the stockpile of gold bullets from the premiere gets put to use. The rebellion involves the savages whipping out their guns and shooting every New London tourist in sight.

Lenina and Bernard struggle to figure out whether or not the incident is part of the show and by the time they realize it isn’t,  it’s too late. Bernard has been shot, seemingly fatally. Lenina does her best to help him walk as they run and take refuge in a random abandoned building.

She’s discovered by John, who has been given a dagger and enlisted to track down the last two tourists and kill him. Instead of stabbing Lenina, he asks her to be quiet and then the episode ends before we find out what happened next.

A hunt for the rogue Epsilon worker begins back in New London.

We only spend a little bit of time in New London in Brave New World‘s second episode, the primary scene occurs toward the end of the episode in a really cool sequence that probably cost NBC a lot of money. Also, it gave us like 100 Joseph Morgans to look at which is always a plus in my book.

CJack60 touched the dead body of one of the other Epsilon workers after he died in the premiere episode. His actions were not customary to the programming of the laborers,  neither is his ability to deceive  Mustafa Mond (Nina Sosanya), the woman with a direct line to Indra.

She’s able to communicate with the domineering A.I. and watch any footage she like, in it she witnesses CJack60’s actions, but of course, they all look the same so she couldn’t be 100% which one it was that acted out. Mustafa assembles all of them, a room full of identical workers, and asks the one who touched CJack57’s body to step forward.

None of them do, an oddity since they always listen to direct orders. Eventually, however, Mustafa sniffs out the rat and directly confronts CJack60, he fesses up to the deed. It seems like there could potentially be a “virus,” which is dubbed a word from “before,” infecting the workers.

All nine episodes of Brave New World are currently available to stream on Peacock TV.