The Calling – As this episode of 1899 begins, Maura (Emily Beecham) gets up and sees a gravesite on a hill in front of her. She is dragged away by the hospital staff while she screams that she isn’t crazy. Maura begins asking about her brother who was on the Prometheus. He found out what they were doing on this ship. Maura is strapped to a chair in room 1011 and injected with drugs. Maura tells herself to wake up. When she does, Daniel Solace (Aneurin Barnard) is standing next to her. He tells her that she fell asleep and they locked the boy in the cabinet. She wants to free him, but Eyk (Andreas Pietschmann) doesn’t think they should after he was thrown from the railing and somehow returned. He wants to know why her name is on the passenger list for the Prometheus. After the intro, Franz (Isaak Dentler) tells his people that they’re still in control because they can block the steering. If they can hold the machine room, they will continue on the path to America.

He is asked what they’ll do when they arrive considering mutiny carries the death penalty. Iben (Maria Erwolter) stands up to tell them that justice is always on the side of the survivors and the light will always prevail. Iben says they’re not going to surrender even if it means more sacrifices. Tove (Clara Rosager) sits next to Krester (Lucas Lynggaard Tonnesen) and begins talking about Ada who was always different from the rest of them. She hopes Krester knows that their mother is sick and what she says is not true. Tove asks if he thinks all of this is God’s will after he helped her kill that boy before Krester reminds her that she has killed before. Tove believes that was different. She tells him that he said they would leave them as soon as they got to America. Tove grabs the gun and says she is going to do something she should’ve done a long time ago. Clemence (Mathilde Ollivier) asks Lucien (Jonas Bloquet) if he was ever in love with her.

He believes it was easy for her because she has everything she could ever need. She doesn’t realize how hard others have to work to get where she is. Clemence suspects he lied about being a lieutenant and his family owning land. Lucien says he wakes up every morning wishing he wasn’t in love with her because she is a constant reminder of what he can’t have. Olek (Maciej Musial) asks the captain what they should do next. Tove enters and tells them not to shoot because she wants to help stop her mother. The boy begins banging on the cabinet. As Maura approaches it, one of the men shoots at her. Daniel tries to jump in front of it as time freezes. Maura picks the bullet out of air before the banging continues. Once she lets the boy out of the cabinet, she begins asking him if he did this and whether it was the pyramid. She tries to get answers from him. The boy (Fflyn Edwards) grabs her hand and leads her away. After they leave the room, time resumes for everyone else and they try to figure out what happened.

A siren begins sounding throughout the boat. As Maura walks with the boy, the passengers open their doors and walk out into the hallway. Angel (Miguel Bernardeau) asks what is going on but doesn’t get an answer. Ramiro (Jose Pimentao) worries they’re all going to die. Eyk confronts Daniel to ask what he talked about with Maura last night. Daniel doesn’t think that has anything to do with it and says he was just offering his help. Tove tries to separate them before asking Eyk what he wants to do. Eyk tells them that they’ve been firing the furnaces full speed since yesterday. If they keep going like that, they’re going to run out of coal in the next two days and they’ll be lost in the ocean. Eyk argues that they have to ration the coal until they find land. Daniel agrees and says they need to take back control of the ship. They notice that the siren stops and a ticking sound begins. Some of them drop their guns and walk out of the room together. Yuk Je (Gabby Wong) walks into the hallway and joins the line of others. Ling Yi (Isabella Wei) walks into the room and notices that she is gone.

Iben questions Franz about the noise before Anker (Alexandre Willaume) notices Krester walking up the stairs. He follows him. One worker checks on Landon (Alexander Owen) who seems out of it. Landon takes off his garlic necklace and begins walking away. Iben suggests the devil is calling them. Franz tries to stop Eugen who keeps walking anyway. Ling watches as her mother climbs over the railing and falls into the water below. Anker tries to stop Krester, but he is unable to do so. Clemence and Lucien find out what is going on by looking through the window. Maura takes the boy into one of the cabins where she tries to figure out what is going on out there. On a piece of paper, he writes “they are listening”. Then, he whispers in her ear saying he can’t tell her and she’ll have to ask the creator. Sebastian (Tino Mewes) puts in the code once again. The two groups run into one another. They only put down their weapons when Anker tells them that the people are jumping overboard.

Iben and Tove learn about Krester jumping into the water. Olek and the others try to stop them from getting through while Daniel goes in the opposite direction. Olek approaches Ling who tells him about her mother jumping. The boy climbs into the shaft before telling Maura not to be afraid. He places a beetle on the ground and follows it before Maura climbs down into the shaft too. She climbs out of the hole at the end and sees a gravesite on the hill nearby. Once she reaches it, she sees a building in the distance. Daniel runs into room 1011 and curses when he sees the shaft open. He uses the device to open the pathway before climbing through. He approaches Daniel and tells him that he shouldn’t have done that because it knows they’re here now. The boy reminds him that they’ve never made it this far so it might work this time. When Daniel asks about bringing her here, the boy says she didn’t remember.

Daniel tells him to stay there before he needs to stop this before they sink the ship. He promises the boy that he won’t find him. As more people jump from the ship, Ramiro returns to Angel and finds him cowering in a corner signing. Jerome bursts into Lucien’s cabin and immediately attacks him. He gets the gun and points it at Lucien who tells him he’d be doing him a favor. They end up tied to the bed as Jerome claims he is trying to save their lives. He restrains himself because he believes whatever is happening out there is contagious. Franz, Tove, and Iben try to tie themselves up too. Olek ties himself and Ling up while she blames herself for her mother’s death. He promises her that she will live. Wilhelm receives a message telling him to sink the ship. Daniel goes to the console and begins messing with the cords before he is approached by a worker looking for answers. After saying Landon was right, the worker hits Daniel with a shovel from behind. Daniel warns him that everything will start again if he doesn’t turn it off.

The worker chokes him with the shove handle until Daniel knocks him out using the handheld device. Maura goes inside the building and approaches room 1011. A medical chair is in the center of the room. Maura is approached by her father who wants to know where it is. She tells herself that this isn’t real before asking him how she got here. When she notices the needle in his hand, Maura questions him about Ciaran. He tells her that she isn’t asking the right questions. She believes he found out what he was doing on these ships. Two men strap her to the chair and inject her after her father disappears. She wakes up in bed back on the ship and notices wounds around her wrist. She catches up with Eyk who pushes her against the wall and asks how she just disappeared. Maura says the boy somehow stopped time with the pyramid. In private, Maura confesses that she didn’t tell him everything because Maura Franklin is not the name she was born with.

She was born Maura Singleton and Harry Singleton is her father. Maura suspects this is some kind of experiment because her father devoted his life to the study of human behavior. He is obsessed with understanding the brain and all its functions. Maura is convinced that he did something to the ship to study the passengers on board. She received an envelope too and believes it is from her brother. Although it has Henry on the front, it is short for Henriette which is her middle name. They didn’t get along when they were younger and her father didn’t hide the fact that he preferred her over her brother. He picked that name for her because he thought she was slowly turning into a version of her father. Maura confirms her brother contacted her about four months ago and wanted to meet her at the docks in Southampton. He was secretive and only said he found out something about their father. Although Maura went and waited, her brother never showed up.

She learned that one of the ships her father bought named the Prometheus left that same dock one day earlier. He has been missing for four months and that is the same amount of time the Prometheus has been missing. She starts to say it was the same amount of time she lost her something but gets stopped when a beetle crawls nearby. She traps it and locks it in a case to prevent it from escaping. Maura climbs into the shaft before telling Eyk that this thing someone opens the doors. She manages to get the door open using the beetle. They climb through and see a house before hearing Nina singing inside. Eyk tells Maura that the house is his. As he questions how this is possible, Maura tells him that there is a shaft under her bed too. Sebastian returns to the control room where Wilhelm tells him that they’re killing themselves. He shows him the message they got telling them to sink the ship before suggesting they change course and return to Europe. Sebastian uses the device to knock him out.

Once they return to the ship, Maura admits she isn’t sure the people are dying. She believes she found out what it was before, but he somehow made her forget it again. Although she remembers being a doctor at a mental hospital, her father tries to make her believe she was a patient instead. While she doesn’t remember being on the Prometheus, she questions what it’d mean if she was. Eyk admits her name wasn’t the only strange thing on the list before showing Maura his signature. He believes he was the captain of the Prometheus even though he can’t explain it. Daniel finishes working on the equipment. Maura and the others realize that the sound has stopped. Iben breaks down once she understands that Krester is gone. Jerome frees Clemence while Lucien tries to find out what is going on. When Virginia steps away from the rail, she sees Maura and Eyk behind her. She reveals she just had one of the strangest dreams. The survivors all join them before Sebastian comes with a message that Eyk should see.

Maura questions why they’d keep sending the same message over and over. Daniel approaches and says he doesn’t think they mean the Prometheus. Henry (Anton Lesser) is told they’ve just received an alert from Project Kerberos. He orders the man to tell him that he doesn’t have much more time and he needs to bring him the boy. When he looks out of his window, he sees a pyramid in the distance.

 

1899 Review

This episode of 1899 was better than some of the previous episodes thanks to the fact that it focused more on the mystery of the Prometheus and everything going on. Certain revelations are predictable while a few others are not. The performers are still doing a good job with 1899 even though the script is a bit dry at times. As I mentioned previously, it almost feels like things were added at the last minute such as Sebastian having one of the devices that Daniel has been using the entire time.

I do have a bad feeling that the finale won’t be able to sufficiently tie everything together or properly explain everything. Truthfully, some of the episodes could’ve been combined and condensed to fit the season into fewer episodes because the pace is pretty slow for eight episodes. All the character development for the lesser characters was mostly thrown away in this episode since it was barely touched on and many of those characters are possibly gone now. It is also difficult to believe that some of the characters are so close now despite barely knowing one another.

Certain aspects of the mystery probably shouldn’t have been introduced until later episodes because they’re starting to be rehashed. For instance, the staff has received the message to sink the ship several times throughout and it has been mentioned that they’re not talking about the Prometheus at least twice. 1899 isn’t bad, but it’d be a more justifiable binge if it was only a few hours because the story has been stretched too thin for eight episodes.

The series is big, bold, and ambitious, but the ship takes far too many detours before reaching its destination. For the amount of money put into 1899, it needed a tighter more refined script. The episode scores a 6.5 out of 10. Recaps of 1899 can be found on Reel Mockery here. Want to support our efforts? Learn how to do so by following this link.