Utopia recap: Episode 5, ‘Order 2472’

Michael must make a life-or-death choice while inside the St. Louis hot zone in Utopia episode 5. Jessica faces someone from her past.

Utopia episode 5 reveals more disturbing truths about the cult-like organization of the Harvest.  As the hour begins, Michael prepares to give Dale’s daughter, poor, sick Charlotte, a dose of his vaccine. But when Michael leaves the tent, we get a sinister reveal regarding Dale and Charlotte. Dale is a Christie Labs plant. Charlotte is not his real daughter, but his charge, along with her twin sister Lily.

The plan is for one twin to sacrifice herself by consuming a pure form of the flu and then the other will take her place so it looks like the vaccine worked wonders and completely cured Charlotte.  Lily and Charlotte indulge themselves in their last meal feast as Christie arrives. The twins, who are solely devoted to their purpose to serve the Harvest’s agenda, ask Christie to choose which of them will die and which will live.

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He chooses Charlotte to make the ultimate sacrifice and then feeds her the consumable containing the purest strain of the virus. So, when Michael finally gives her the vaccine, he sees a sick kid with a familiar T-shaped rash.

He is completely blown away when “Charlotte” has made a full recovery hours later. He takes some blood from her to compare to his previous blood sample (I was a little confused about this, wouldn’t it be obvious the blood samples were from different people?), and runs it through the sequencer.

“Charlotte” is now 100% free of the virus. As soon as he tells Dale the news, he runs through the quarantine zone and protestors shouting about the cure. Everything begins to move very quickly from that point. “Charlotte” gives a speech saying Dr. Michael Stearns has given her “light in the dark,” and everyone begins clamoring for the vaccine to be released. Initially, Michael seems overwhelmed and somewhat suspicious by the immediate reaction. It’s all very rehearsed, it feels too perfect.

Then the FDA shows up and a representative tries to convince Michael they’ll need to put the vaccine through the standard trials first to ensure it’s 100% effective. That was his previous concern too, but now he argues that the vaccine has been thoroughly tested and no more children need to die while they jump through more hoops.

The FDA representative takes the stage in front of the protestors and tells them her plans to thoroughly test the vaccine, but no one wants to hear that. They want the cure and they want it now. When Kevin grabs a megaphone, he further instigates the crowd, painting the FDA as the bad guys.

In the previous episode, we learned the scheme to have the FDA examine his Simpro factory was part of Cara’s plan to remove the guilt from Christie Labs and paint them in a sympathetic light, that’s working to their advantage now as Kevin tells the crowd to demand the FDA free the curse. It’s all very theatrical and over-the-top, but it gets the crowd motivated.

Joining the protestors, Thomas and Kevin continue inciting the cheers and chants. Then Kevin tells Thomas that they’re moving along nicely and now they can make the call for “order 2472.” At the end of the episode, we see a bunch of men loading a truck with wooden cages filled with rabbits. The truck is labeled “order 2472.”

Utopia episode 5 recap: The group makes a horrific discovery.

Jessica, Becky, Ian and Wilson reach their latest safe house in Utopia episode 5, which is an ornate estate that supposedly belongs to an oligarch who is always out of town. Becky and Ian continue bonding after Becky has another seizure and Ian helps her through it. He coaxes her into a bathtub and stays with her until her episode is over and they remain sequestered in the room for a while, reading about astrology.

So far, no one else knows about Becky’s illness and they just assume the couple was fooling around. Jessica says she has no time for sex or boyfriend/girlfriend stuff, it could all just get you killed. Plus, she’s busy interrogating Grant to find out where the other half of Utopia is. He tells her he’ll have to show her because he doesn’t remember the street name where Alice and her mom live.

Before they can go anywhere, an emergency news broadcast officially frames Grant as a spree killer and blasts his face across the television. As Jessica warns, things are getting dangerous and everyone’s loved ones are going to pay the price. Ian rushes to the laptop to search the status of his family and is horrified to discover his entire family is in critical condition with E. coli poisoning.

Wilson finally learns his family is dead, killed in a “gas leak,” as the news reports. He’s pissed at Jessica for lying to him but she’s not sorry for it. She didn’t have time for him to have an emotional breakdown and still doesn’t.  Wilson also starts accusing Becky of hiding something since she says she’s fine, even though the rest of them have all been seriously affected.

Obviously, he doesn’t know she’s sick and dying. Becky also claims she doesn’t really have anyone in her life for the Harvest to target. Both Ian and Jessica defend her, and it’s evident Wilson is still suspicious, but he does calm down.

After Grant and Jessica leave to find Alice and the other half of Utopia, Becky tries to encourage Ian to go home and be with his family. He decides to stay, both because going home would only make things worse and because his life has changed so radically in the past 48 hours there is no way he would be able to just go back to normal so easily.

Utopia episode 5 recap: Arby’s crisis of faith.

Disguising Grant in Utopia episode 5 works well enough to get him and Jessica back to Alice’s home. Unfortunately, after seeing the news bulletin about Grant, Alice’s mother contacted the police, which in turn attracted Arby who heard the tidbit over the police scanner.

He kills everyone in the house except Alice, who quickly gives him the pages of Utopia and begins sobbing over her mother’s dead body. Arby appears to have grown a conscious suddenly from the last episode to now. It doesn’t feel earned, since his character hasn’t had enough development. But regardless, he lets Alice live.

After reading the pages of Utopia, he also decides to let Jessica and Grant live when they finally arrive. Something he reads in those pages seems to have solidified his decision to move beyond his “purpose.” He tells Jessica he doesn’t want to do it anymore and also warns her that she should eat before reading Utopia because she won’t want to afterward.

Before leaving, Arby tells Jessica that if she ever wants to find him, he’ll be at Home.

Odds & Ends from Utopia episode 5

• Wilson begins piecing together all the information he has on the virus and the connection to bats.
• There was a QR code on the concentrated virus Kevin gave Charlotte, anyone try to scan it?
• Children born into the Harvest are literally raised for slaughter. Adam, Lily, Charlotte and Arby were all carefully taught that their entire purpose and reason for living exists to serve the Harvest and their supposed “greater” mission towards creating a happier, healthier way of life. When Kevin admits he would have difficulty sacrificing Thomas, who is his only biological son,  Thomas tells him that’s “something he needs to work on.”
• If Thomas is Kevin’s only bio-kid, who are all the other children he had a family dinner with earlier in the season? Were they all adopted? Where are all of the children running around the Harvest/Christie Labs coming from? Are they taking kids from the foster system and turning them into mini-minions? It certainly seems like it.
• Dr. Stearns suddenly believing his vaccine is a miracle cure after one simple test doesn’t really gel with what we’ve seen with his character up until this point. However, I appreciated Rainn Wilson trying to make his portrayal read more genuine by displaying some conflicted emotions throughout those scenes. His performance makes it seem more like Stearns has gotten completely swept up by the moment and I’m guessing he might start having doubts in the next few episodes.
• I’m starting to wonder if Wilson might be right about Becky. Remember back in the second episode, I pointed out it was odd that Rod and Arby found Wilson’s home by using Becky’s phone somehow, even though she wasn’t supposed to have put her number on the bid sheet.
• It was cute seeing Jessica and Grant briefly bond at the bar while playing an arcade game.

What did you think about Utopia episode 5? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

All eight episodes of Utopia season 1 are now streaming on Netflix.