The Lake House
Anna seems to have made a complete recovery as episode 7 of To The Lake begins. However, the rest of the group are admittedly sceptical. Pavel deduces that his blood must be the reason for her surviving but Sergey decides to remain cautious for now. As he heads out to fix up some food, Ira confronts him and asks whether he’s going to tell Anna what they’ve done. For now Sergey avoids the question and instead works on fixing Boris up. He happens to be in a delirious state upstairs after the previous night. Only, that delirium soon turns fatal and he winds up dead. The group decide to leave and pile into the remaining cars, Pavel decides to travel up to Petrozavodsk which holds a lab there while the rest head off to the lake. On the road though they find Lyonya’s car and spatters of blood everywhere. Without hesitation, Misha decides to go after them. The rest of the group are not in the mood to act like Samaritans. Instead, they all want to go the lake house as Lyonya made his choice. As they argue about this, Misha starts having an epileptic fit. Meanwhile, Lyonya drags a shocked and blood-covered Marina through the woods while Polina trudges on ahead. Eventually they make it to a solitary house and Lyonya catches the owner (literally) with her pants down. Holding her up at gunpoint, he forces his way in the house and forces her into the trap-door below. Polina is not happy with this decision though, even more so given he’s banished the woman from her own house. “People treat you the way you treat people,” She reminds him, handing over a plate of steaming potatoes for her Father. Unfortunately Marina is completely beside herself and consumed with grief. She starts looking around the house for her “kitty”. Only, she doesn’t find her baby (for obvious reasons) but she’s not thinking straight. The woman stuck in the basement uses this to her advantage and convinces Marina to open the trap door. She does just that, and unfortunately it leads to the family trapped. Marina screams at Lyonya for what he’s done to their child, admitting that she doesn’t know who the Father actually is. Meanwhile, Misha recovers enough to help carry their belongings across the ice to the lake house. Inside the house they realize they’re not alone. They find a blood-stained chopping board and warm coal. Investigating further, Pavel and Sergey find dead bodies in the shed, mutilated with their limbs removed. It doesn’t take long before Sergey finds the owner too. He holds the man up at gunpoint and forces him to walk across the ice. As they walk, the man unveils his story and what happened to him. He was framed and is unsure whether his 2 kids are alive or not. In a crazed state, he admits to eating his comrade in the house as they were out of food. Down on his knees, he slowly crawls forward with a knife hidden in his hand. As he tries to kill Sergey, our protagonist is wise to what’s happening. He skips aside and a shotgun blast kills the man right there on the ice. Back at the house, the group gather and pay their respects to Boris. On the back of this, Ira and Pavel chat… which eventually leads to much much in the former’s car. As they head back to the group, Sergey realizes what’s up and his smile soon turns to a jealous frown. Later in the day though Ira and Pavel find their car missing. Because of this, Sergey lays down the law and tells everyone they need to be careful and stick together. He’s not the only one going through the motions though. Anna tries talking to Misha but he’s having none of it. Believing his mother is treating him like a patient, he becomes irate and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him. When Sergey realizes that Misha is outside on the ice, dread and panic consume him as he rushes outside. A big crack in the ice and a few of Misha’s belongings point at the worst possible outcome. Misha has fallen and drowned to death.
The Episode Review
This episode really encapsulates everything that makes this show such an effective paranoia trip. The man on the ice with Sergey really embodies that untrusting nature. You’re so sure that he’s telling the truth until he suddenly bursts forward with a knife. By comparison, Lyonya’s ill-handling of the lady in her house comes back to bite him in the end. That whole adage of “treat people as you want to be treated yourself” is captured across this with various characters while keeping the threat of infection looming in the distance. There’s definitely a lot of uneasiness with this one and instead of zombies, this is much more controlled and atmospheric drama that revels in family drama. This really feeds into the latter half of 28 days later and the real horror lurking outside – which is humanity.
