The episode opens in the middle of what appears to be one of Isabelle Larsson’s (Nanna Blondell) nightmares. The content suggests that she is remembering a shooting from a much younger age (Rim Ghebrai). After startling awake from the memory, the footage reverts to interviews of Concordia’s citizens, discussing how they feel about the perpetual state of surveillance. They all appear more than willing to sacrifice a bit of freedom to live in a safer place.
After Noah Ericksen (Steven Sowah) returns home to find Isabelle sleeping on the couch, they prepare breakfast together while discussing the security breach at Concordia. Their conversation reveals very little other than the fact that Fatemah Amin (Ahd Kamel) is scheduled for a visit and Noah doesn’t like that she may know about the breach.
Elsewhere, a young oriental woman visits a warehouse and sets up a chessboard and laptop. This along with several anonymous messages suggests that she is about to play an online match.
Things are getting tense at Concordia HQ as the powers that be argue over the best way to proceed with the Oliver Miller (Louis Landau) investigation. AJ Oba (Kento Nakajima) refuses to believe that his system was hacked by a 23-year-old-incel while Thea Ryan (Ruth Bradley) suggests they hire an outside source to scan hacker message boards for Oliver bragging about breaching Concordia’s system. Noah advises against bringing in outsiders until all of Concordia’s resources have been depleted. Juliane Ericksen not only ultimately sides with Thea, but orders Mathilde (Josephine Jobert) to dig into Oliver’s finances just in case financial gain was his incentive for his breaching the system.
Thea immediately reaches out to her contact, Marco Vieri (Niccolo Senni) in Rome, before revisiting Cathy Miller (Dulcie Smart). Although Cathy fails once again to provide much detail into Oliver’s personal life, she does mention his enthusiasm over a game design course he wanted to take at the college. Even though Oliver had asked Azeem Mahmoud (Mohamed Achour) to write him a reference, Cathy didn’t think his spending more time behind a computer was such a good idea. Thea does later confront Isabelle for not mentioning the girls Oliver was meeting, but that’s as far as it goes for the moment.
When Isabelle shares the discovery about the game design course with Oskar Eklund (Set Sjostrand), he doesn’t appear too enthused. She nearly has to twist his arm to get him to agree to review the CCTV footage of the college in an attempt to learn more about Oliver’s time outside Concordia.
Sometime later AJ learns that Oliver manipulated Concordia’s AI code to register a specific GIF image as a threat. Sending the photo to all four of his female interests would give him a valid reason for spying on them. Running the image through Concordia’s database leads to the discovery that Oliver spent the majority of his free time playing the online shooter, Spiral. During this time, he met and developed a close relationship with a female gamer who went by the handle, Hunter. Both of their online activity drops dramatically after Hunter asks Oliver to speak offline. This also just happens to be around the time Oliver started leaving Concordia.
That evening Thea receives an unexpected video call from her mother Veronica Ryan (Cara Kelly) that does not go well. She not only realizes that her mother’s illness is rapidly declining but she feels guilty for leaving Alexandre (Hugo Becker) and Talon (Edward Wray) on their own to deal with it. The interaction is also being monitored by the young oriental girl from the warehouse.
Juliane and Fatemah speak briefly bout the investigation before Fatemah leaves Dubai for Concordia. Fatemah appears to want to put the Oliver incident behind them as fast as possible while Juliane appears more concerned about what further breaches the investigation might reveal. Fatemah tells her that she sent Thea for a reason and she’ll soon be on site as well. Edvin Claesson (Dietrich Hollinderbaumer) is flagged by the Concordia system again but Mathilda does not report the incident to Juliane.
Using the Gothenburg campus CCTV footage, Oskar learns that Oliver was visiting Elodie Cailleux (Alba Gaia Bellugi) who is also revealed as the Hunter. The discovery later leads to the Concordia team questioning Elodie’s roommate, Karyn (Adele Dezi). The questioning reveals that Elodie also sometimes goes by the nickname Mouse and Karyn hasn’t been able to reach her since she left early Saturday morning. Karyn does mention Oliver staying over but insists that Elodie wouldn’t have harmed him.
Fatemah’s presence at Concordia only makes things more strained in the boardroom as the powers that be discuss their latest discoveries. It’s not long before the topic becomes what they are going to tell Hanna Bremer (Karoline Eichhorn) and the public. Although there is nothing officially decided, it’s clear that Isabelle wants to be as transparent as possible while AJ and Noah want to play it close to the vest. Fatemah and Juliane remain behind to further debate the question when the meeting ends. Fatemah not only sides with AJ and Noah but she insists that Hanna wouldn’t want to know.
It is later revealed that Juliane decided to not share the team’s discovery with Hanna. Before ending the call, Hanna makes it a point to stress that her political career is linked to the success of Concordia. Elsewhere, Oskar stresses a similar significance as he tells Isabelle that ONA Software has agreed to hand over Elodie’s user data.
In Central Germany, Elodie becomes frustrated when Tessa Vogel (Maeve Metelka) makes an unexpected detour in their travel plans. It takes a bit of convincing but she convinces Tessa to tell her that the Gothenburg Police have been broadcasting her name and photo. Despite the sudden panic, Elodie’s mood lightens when Tessa assures her they will be fine if they listen and follow Leon’s (Jonas Nay) guidance.
Juliane hosts Concordia’s monthly tradition at her personal residence and kicks things off with a toast to the newest arriving families. After raising a glass, she introduces Thea to Dr. Peter Blom (Duncan Green). Thea learns about the Genie Program, a microchip designed to detect the most volatile diseases in the very early stages. Later that day, Thea sneaks away to Juliane’s office to admire her personal artifacts. When Juliane arrives, it becomes clear that Thea intended to get caught to learn more about Juliane. Their conversation suggests that Noah’s stepfather along with a school shooting were major contributors to Concordia’s development.
A young man meets a woman in Leipzig, Germany at what appears to be an antique sale of sorts. After a brief comment about the item she’s admiring, he passes her something.
Isabelle discovers something in Elodie’s user data that inspires her to question Karyn about Elodie’s relationship with Oliver. Karyn suspects that Eoldie didn’t care for Oliver as deeply as he did for her. Not only that but Elodie was supposedly meeting and possibly involved with someone that fits the description of Tessa. The girl is later confirmed as Tessa when Isabella notices the camera right outside the apartment and has Oskar review the footage.
The woman from the antique sale is shown breaking into Ole Vinberg’s (Benjamin Stender) apartment in Gothenburg, Sweden where she supposedly uploads something to his cell phone. Ole is later shown arriving in Concordia where he appears to be part of the technical team in charge of setting up and overseeing an upcoming dedication. This dedication is shortly revealed to be a dedication to the school shooting that inspired the birth of Concordia. While setting up for the event, hacked personal footage of Concordia’s citizens is displayed on one of the projectors, along with the message, ‘You are not the only ones watching.’
Concordia Review
I would have never imagined that Concordia’s birth would be tied to a school shooting. Although this feels like a political agenda, I can’t help but admit that it is different. For me, it’ll depend on how much of an emphasis they put on the shooting in further episodes. I’m not saying school shootings aren’t bad or tragic, but I don’t honestly do not want to see the whole series turn into a hidden agenda for gun violence. The first 2 episodes, although not great, were tolerable. I did enjoy the globetrotting in the episode and why not take advantage of the multiple countries involved in the production? I’d give the episode a 5 out of 10.
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