The Boy – As the second episode of 1899 begins, Eyk Larsen (Andreas Pietschmann) wakes up and gets up. As he begins moving around, he hears someone singing in the distance. He sees Nina Larsen (Cloe Heinrich) in the house in front of him just before it catches on fire and goes up in flames. Eyk begins screaming just before he wakes up. Sebastian (Tino Mewes) interrupts him to give him a note from the company asking him to sink the ship. They’ve tried to contact the company but haven’t received a reply. Sebastian tells him that there is more. They go to the control room where Eyk finds out that the compasses are spinning erratically. His personal compass is doing the same. They question what is going on with the Prometheus and why the boy is the only one they found. After the intro, Maura Franklin (Emily Beecham) looks at the pyramid while the boy sleeps nearby. She finds a ring in his pocket and puts it back after looking at it. Immediately after she walks out of the room, the boy opens his eyes.

Other workers begin asking Olek (Maciej Musial) about what they found on the ship and what could kill more than a thousand people. One worker eventually suggests that the boy is the wolf that killed everyone. Eyk interrupts to ask Olek to come with him. Olek is asked to find out how much coal they have in the bunkers and not to mention it to anyone else. Eyk goes to Maura to see if the boy said anything since he wants to know who locked him in there and who sent the signal. He asks her if she experienced anything strange on the Prometheus. Eyk begins hearing singing again, but Maura doesn’t hear it. Anker (Alexandra Willaume) tells his people not to worry about what happened on the ship because the lord will protect them. As he prays with his people, Angel (Miguel Bernardeau) watches over Ramiro (Jose Pimentao) while he sleeps. As Maura returns to her room, she sees Daniel Solace (Aneurin Barnard) coming out of it. He apologizes before explaining that he heard noises inside.

He introduces himself and tells Maura that he is her neighbor. Although she thinks he looks familiar, Daniel doesn’t think they’ve met before. Maura gives food to the boy (Fflyn Edwards), but he isn’t eager to take it. She tries to get him to talk about what happened only for the boy to give her the black pyramid again. She asks him what it is. Krester (Lucas Lynggaard Tonnesen) and his sister talk about the boy. She can’t imagine what he’ll do when he gets to America although she wants to finish school. Krester doesn’t think that’ll be possible since they have to help build the church. She believes God wants her to become a doctor so she’ll have to finish school to do that. When she asks if he knows what his calling is, Krester tells her to go bother Tove. She gets mad at him and walks away with her doll. Angel approaches Krester and tells him that he is a difficult man to find. He puts the cigarette case in Krester’s pocket and tells him to keep it. Tove (Clara Rosager) walks in on them seconds later.

Angel learns his name and tells him he’ll see him around before leaving. Tove tries to find out more about Angel, but Krester doesn’t have anything to tell her. She reminds him that he promised her something. Eyk asks Sebastian if he found anything odd when the ships were sold a couple of months ago. He was relieved that they kept half of the crew. Eyk says they’re carrying barely any freight just like the Prometheus. Their cabins aren’t full either. The company is running the route without making a profit. Then, they are told the sink the ship. Sebastian tells him that people are waiting for orders and answers. Lucien (Jonas Bloquet) approaches Ling Yi (Isabella Wei) and tells her that the ship is spooky. He questions what she thinks happened, but Ling won’t say anything. Lucien has seen pictures of Japan and it looks fascinating. Lucien hopes he’ll have the opportunity to see Japan one day.

He smiles at her until Yuk Je (Gabby Wong) interrupts and takes Ling away. Virginia Wilson (Rosalie Craig) tells Lucien that she is an exotic little bird. She knows that his honeymoon hasn’t been ideal although Lucien doesn’t that is any of her business. She is trying to figure out what kind of man he is and whether he is interested in a certain type of distraction. Even if Lucien was desperate, he claims he would never be that desperate. Virginia explains that she was talking about the exotic little bird and not herself. Jerome (Yann Gael) looks at a note with Lucien’s name and room number on it. He goes into the room and leaves a medal on the desk. When Clemence (Mathilde Ollivier) returns, Jerome is forced to hide under the bed. He watches as she finds it and places it in the drawer. When Clemence steps out, Jerome quickly escapes. Sebastian talks to Franz and another man about the possibility of sinking the ship. He thinks they should’ve replaced the captain before now. Franz (Isaak Dentler) doesn’t think you can recover from your wife setting herself and three children on fire.

Eyk looks at the letter again before hearing singing. He sees Nina so he begins chasing after her. He enters a room and finds her with the other members of his family. She is wearing fabric in her hair like the one he found on the Prometheus. His wife tells him that he is late and the girls have been waiting for him. Nina says the dreams are back, but he shouldn’t worry because she’ll get better soon. When he says she isn’t real, Nina asks why he’d say something like that. She tells him to speak to momma because she doesn’t like when he is gone and that is when the shadows come out. Eyk begins crying and telling her how much he missed her before she bursts into flames and he is thrown to the ground. He climbs up a ladder and finds himself in one of the cabins. The panel he removes has a symbol with a triangle on the top. While Maura checks the boy’s eyesight, she tells him how she got lost when she was little. She spent the whole night in the woods until her father returned the next day.

She found out that he had left her there and watched her the whole night like he had done with her older brother. He claimed it would show her what type of person she was. Maura was mad because he took away the one moment when she thought she wasn’t being watched. She finds a tattoo behind the boy’s ear before he grabs her hand and puts a finger over her mouth to tell her to be quiet. Eyk arrives, throws the boy against the wall, and asks what happened on the Prometheus. Maura takes him outside as he says there is something wrong with that ship. He might be losing his mind, but he heard his daughter’s voice. Eyk yells that he saw her. Maura tries to calm him. Once he apologizes and walks away, Daniel approaches Maura and asks about her having an Irish name despite not being Irish. She says she isn’t before walking inside. Daniel sees the boy when the door is open. On the deck, Jerome tells Clemence that the ship is spooky.

She questions if he is part of the crew because he doesn’t look like it. Then, she admits you’re not supposed to judge someone by their looks.  She believes it is impossible and that he made up her mind about her as soon as he looked at her. Clemence thinks it would be hard working on the ship since it is like a prison, but Jerome says even the birds have their own prison up there. They cannot escape who they are and neither can we. Clemence questions whether she knows him from somewhere. Before their conversation ends, Jerome confesses that he did make up his mind about her as soon as he saw her. When he steps inside, Franz and his men come after him. Franz calls him a liar and says someone stole a crew uniform yesterday as they fight. Once Jerome is finally stopped, Ramiro wakes up. Tove tells Krester that Ada is missing and their mother wants them looking for her. She calls a fool when she learns about the cigarette case he got from Angel.

Krester says it was nice of him to give it to him, but Tove suspects he wanted something in return. She takes the case and refuses to give it back. Ramiro joins Angel outside and says it wasn’t a dream after all. They discuss why they’re still here and whether they’ll send a policeman. Angel doesn’t think they’re interested in them because there are so many people missing from the ship. Ramiro says the look in the boy’s eyes was terrifying. Tove approaches Angel to give him the case back and complains that the rich people believe everything belongs to them. She threatens to cut his penis off if he touches her brother again. Once she leaves, Angel tells Ramiro not to judge him because he has never pretended to be someone he isn’t. Eyk climbs into the hole and begins looking around, but has to return when he hears a knock at the door. It is Olek because he found out about the coal. He says the bunkers are half-full and two of them are almost empty. Eyk thinks they have about 3,000 tons remaining. He is asked about getting back on course only to go back inside without saying anything.

As Maura looks at her letter, the boy walks over and looks at her. Maura tells him that she is looking for someone. Her brother has been missing for four months so she believes he might’ve been on the Prometheus. Maura doesn’t think he is dead because he sent her the letter. She shows him the sign on it and says it looks like the sign on his neck. Maura asks why he has it and what happened on the ship before they hear a bell ringing outside because the captain is ready to answer questions. Before heading to the dining room, she asks the boy to get some sleep. Angel asks Ramiro why he always has to spoil the mood. Ramiro is worried that they’ll find out. Angel questions if he is talking about the fact that they’re not brothers or that he isn’t a priest. Angel believes people already know that they’re not brothers. He insults Ramiro by calling him pathetic before reminding him that he is a Portuguese servant. Angel argues that the others don’t care because they’re occupied with their own stuff. Ramiro complains that everything is a game to him.

He goes on to say Angel cares about nobody and just uses them. After Angel tells him that he is just jealous, Ramiro begins kissing him. They take it one step further with Angel climbing on top of him. When he takes off his shirt, he exposes the scars on his back. Daniel releases one of his beetles as Ada walks around the corner. She leaves her doll on the ground so she can follow the beetle. She follows it to Daniel who picks up the beetle and says he is so sorry. Eyk tells the passengers that he has decided to turn the ship around and haul the Prometheus back to Europe because they don’t have enough coal to tow it to their destination. Lucien gets upset and asks what the point is in saving an empty ship. Virginia tries to convince him otherwise, but Eyk isn’t going to change his mind. Maura approaches him on the deck as Eyk says she won’t change his mind because there is something wrong with that ship. He says the ship company is trying to hide it before showing her the note asking him to sink the ship.

He gives her his letter and explains that he believes someone wanted him to find the ship. It came in a package with a picture of his family. He tells her that it is like dying with them when you lose someone. Eyk confesses that she might be right about this being insane, but he needs to find out what happened on that ship. Maura grabs his arm and says they cannot go back. He won’t change his mind. As Maura walks back to her room, Daniel tells her that he is wrong and likely doesn’t understand the consequences of his decision. A ship with this many passengers won’t sit around and let it happen. He asks about family at home. Maura claims she doesn’t have family at home before entering her cabin. Franz talks to others about Eyk’s decision and how he is going against the company’s wishes. They contemplate whether they should sink the ship themselves. Franz knocks on Eyk’s door and asks him to come with him. Sebastian finds that the ship is receiving pyramid messages now.

Back in his cabin, Daniel looks at a picture of Maura. Eyk is taken to Ada’s dead body. At the end of the episode, some of the characters are shown on what appears to be television screens.

 

1899 Review

The second episode of 1899 was marginally better than the first because it was a bit more focused at times, but there is still a lot to grasp. The main story was often put on the back burner while the episode focused on the personal dramas. The level of success depends on which characters it is dealing with at the given time considering some are more dynamic than others. With such a large cast of characters though, it sometimes feels like we’re just checking off boxes as we go through the personal stories.

The performances are mostly good although some viewers are going to struggle with the need to read subtitles for many important conversations. Although it may be a personal preference, I am not a big fan of the soundtrack which is often too loud, but the ending songs for both episodes just don’t work for the time period or subject matter. With so much going on at any given minute, it has been difficult to really get invested in the characters or stories. The mysterious ship doesn’t always seem like a big deal when the personal struggles are at the forefront much more frequently.

Through two episodes, the main story hasn’t disclosed a lot although there are tidbits here and there. In the first episode, the passengers found the lost ship called Prometheus and found a boy locked in a cabinet. Daniel also climbed onto the ship while the others were searching Prometheus. In the second episode, Maura tried to get the boy to talk to her to no avail. Eyk has changed due to his experience on the ship and potentially finding his daughter’s hair tie or ribbon. He has started hearing and seeing his family members even though his wife killed herself and her children by setting them on fire. Daniel killed Ada when he probably lured her using one of his beetles.

At the end of the episode, it looked like someone might’ve been watching them on televisions or monitors. There is also something up with the pyramid and the pyramid symbols showing up everywhere. The character stories from each episode have been far more diverse. Despite not being blown away by 1899, it is easy to appreciate the project’s ambitions which were clearly massive. The second episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of 1899 are available on Reel Mockery here. Have you found our site beneficial? Consider supporting us by following this link.