Key To Salvation
Episode 6 of The Silent Sea begins with our bloodstained young girl locking eyes with Jian. Her nametag reads “Song Won Kyung”, reinforcing that this could well be Jian’s sister. The sample is smashed, courtesy of a gunshot, as she turns and reveals inhuman parts of her anatomy; her cheeks open and close. One thing’s for sure – her body can definitely handle the lunar water differently to them. In her absence, Jian locks up the rest of the lunar water in the refrigerated containers. With it safe for now, the crew deliberate over what to do about the girl. Han heads back to the conference room and communicates with Mr Kim. He confirms that Choi was the one who ordered the station to be shut down originally. Beyond that tidbit of information, he refuses to disclose more, imploring Han to look deeper within the station for clues. The group concoct a plan to find and trap the young girl. She could well be the key to all of this, especially if she’s tolerant to the lunar water. In their absence, Taesuk speaks to his American contact, somehow managing to speak perfectly to them from his phone and telling them they need to change the plan. He immediately snaps up the samples and hurries off, leaving E2 on the counter. E2 notices Taesuk leave and immediately follows. Unfortunately, that leaves him with a bullet in the head for his troubles. Taesuk is smart though and covers his tracks, hiding the body and any evidence of a skirmish. While this is going on, Jaein and Han spring their trap but the former freezes at the crucial moment. As the gates close, this strange girl gets her leg stuck in the door. Jaein tries to help her and notices that she has a tag on the back of her neck reading Luna-073. This seems to link back to what Jaein noticed on the computer, that mission urging her to find Luna. Jian’s soft touch and care helps to capture the girl. But not for long. When Taesuk activates closure for all the gates from the main terminal, the team take their eyes off Luna and she ends up scrambling away into the vents. Although Han and Soohyuk make it through the gates before it’s too late, Jian is not so lucky. In fact, she heads through the vents and follows the girl, whom she believes is Luna. All of this is Taesuk’s masterplan to make sure the others aren’t around for the pick-up when the rescue ship shows. He means to trap all of them down in order to take the samples and escape. While he waits, all our different characters slowly begin to realize what’s going on. Dr Hong finds E2 stuffed in the freezer; Han realizes Taesuk volunteered for this mission. The others notice that Taesuk is missing. As the episode closes out, Jian follows Luna to her little hideout where the two form an unlikely bond. Jian also finds numerous photos of her sister and the rest of the crew too.
The Episode Review
This episode really exemplifies some of the issues with this series, which are now becoming more prominent as the show reaches the business end of its runtime. The idea that a rescue ship will fly down and save them all isn’t outside the realm of possibility, but seamless phone calls to America and crisp instantaneous video calls to Korea do feel like a bit of a stretch. The espionage subplot doesn’t really work too well, especially given they’re coming from a character that just feels a bit…flat? The lack of meaningful motivation this guy has makes it really difficult to actually understand why he’s doing this beyond making a quick buck. The shadowy creature being a test subject, potentially patient zero, is a bit of a disappointment too if I’m honest and feels pretty cliched for this genre. The whole allure around this was pretty good early on and now it seems like we’re going the viral route of it being the link needed for the cure. . However, this series does have good acting and the setting, plus the atmosphere itself, is enough to keep watching. The excellent work done early on though does feel like it’s chipping away into something a little bit too formulaic, which is a shame.
