Awake And Dreaming – As the fifth episode of Keep Breathing begins, Liv sees a woman in red so she begins chasing her through the woods. She continues running until she falls into a hole in the ground. Liv (Melissa Barrera) wakes up in the hole. She is injured but manages to reach over to her bag. Liv uses a piece of cloth to bandage her head. She sees her mom, Lucia (Florencia Lozano), next to her. She misses her daughter and it feels so lonely down here without her. In a flashback, a young Liv (Joselyn Picard) tells her mother that she is hungry. Lucia tells her to ask her father, but he is at work. Danny (Jeff Wilbusch) finds her on the floor of her office and asks where she has been. Liv insists she just closed her eyes for a second. He asks if she is coming out tonight to the underground music thing.

Once she realizes that happens tonight, Danny promises he won’t try to hold her hand or anything. He tells her they have 18 minutes, but she wants to get something to eat first. Liv checks her snack drawer only to find it empty so she yells at Danny to tell him to stay out of her drawer. She begins walking around the empty office until she sees the woman in red who begins running from her. Ruth (Getenesh Berhe) tells her it is a fire drill although she doesn’t know how it snuck up on them. Hopefully, the client still shows up. Ruth is confident she is going to do great. Liv sees herself as a young girl and asks if she is lost. She begins looking around and yelling for her mother. When she wakes up in the hole, Lucia tells her it was just a bad dream and she is here with her now.

Liv asks for help before she begins chipping away at the rock on top of her. She is told she can chip away but she’ll never get out from under it. A young Liv finds her father sitting on the floor at home. Her father (Juan Pablo Espinosa) tells her that her mother is gone but it isn’t her fault. An adult Liv begins moving through the house and trying to get food or water. She just finds a bunch of books and what looks like paint. Liv begins eating paint mixed with dirt. As she keeps chipping away at the rock, she runs into Danny who causes her to drop her papers. She isn’t sure whether she’ll come tonight. After asking about the little girl, she checks the fridge only to find it empty. Liv complains that she works an 80-hour work week and doesn’t have time to go out.

Danny asks if she is familiar with the song Cat’s in the Cradle. Once she says yes, he claims she is the father and he is the son. If she doesn’t have time to play catch right now, he might not be around when she retires. He is coming to find her if she doesn’t show up. Liv runs down the stairs nearby. As a little girl, she enters her mom’s studio where she finds her dancing and painting. She joins her while Liv continues hitting the rock on top of her in the present. Her mom encourages her to paint and do more. Then, she takes the brush away, throws it down, and tells her to stop. In the present, Liv confesses she can’t do it and can’t get out. Lucia says she always made things harder on herself ever since she was a little girl. Her mom says she always took the long way around even when the answer was right in front of her.

She is told there is always a way out as Liv looks at the oxycodone pills next to her. Liv says no. In a flashback, her father tells her that she has to eat, but she says no and curses him. Liv shuts her bedroom door in his face before yelling that she hates him. He gets upset and asks if she wants him to leave too. She can hate him all she wants, but he is the one who is still here. He says they make their beds in this house every day. Liv continues hitting the rock as her mom asks if she knows why there are stars in the sky. She asks the same question in the past and suggests it is so they can always find their way home. A young Liv goes into her father’s room and calls for him. He tells her it is okay because he promises he is still here. A doctor tells Liv it is time for him to start letting go, but he won’t unless she tells him to do so.

When the doctor encourages her to tell him it is okay, she says no. She tells him to go screw himself and that he should get out. Liv ends up at the music party and spots Danny nearby. They make out before going home to have sex. In the morning, she finds him in the kitchen as he talks about how crazy the club was. Once she says she has to work and file a motion, Danny argues that is why he must make her a delicious meal. She wouldn’t eat otherwise. She asks why he is doing this while her mother tells her she loves her. Olivia tells Danny she has to go because she is late. She insists he doesn’t have to do any of this because they just messed up and made another dumb mistake. Danny isn’t saying that it was a mistake though. The rock begins breaking apart while Danny tells Liv that he likes her a lot. She believes he is just going to leave eventually so they should just get it over with, but he denies that.

While she pulls herself out from under the rock, Danny tells her she is allowed to be happy. She stands up and looks upward as she tries to find a way to get out of the hole. Once she realizes it is going to be an uphill battle, she tells Danny that he has to leave so he should get out. Then, she is in court where the judge tells her it is time to cut her losses. She did her best, but nobody is going to fault her for calling it a day. He believes her client would agree. Liv looks over and sees herself as a little girl. Back in the hole, Lucia tells her daughter that it isn’t her fault. She did her best so it is okay to let go. She knows Liv thinks she abandoned her, but she didn’t. She claims she saved all of them. She felt lost when she left but it was the only way she knew to take care of Liv anymore. Liv thinks it is too late for excuses. She has the bottle of oxycodone pills in her hand.

She looks at the ultrasound picture before her mother argues they’re so much alike because she sees things that aren’t there sometimes. Liv curses her and tells her to go away. She doesn’t need her now. Instead, she needed her back then. Liv spent her whole life wearing armor making sure nobody gets close enough to hurt her because of her mother. Liv tells her mother that she is nothing like her because she doesn’t give up. She throws the bottle against the rocks nearby. Liv says goodbye to her mother before trying to find a way to escape the hole. Her mother screams at her to come back while she crawls away. Once she exits the cave, she finds herself on the edge of a cliff. She tries to walk across, but the rocks crumble under her feet causing her to fall.

 

Keep Breathing Review

The fifth episode of Keep Breathing felt like it lost the plot and transformed into a jumbled mess of thoughts and ideas. Liv found herself stuck in a hole under a rock. In the end, she managed to break the rock and pull her bottom half out from under it. It is surprising that she was pretty much unscathed after everything that happened especially having a big rock fall on your lower half.

There are more effective ways to get a point across instead of combining multiple time periods in flashbacks. The idea is good while the execution could’ve been cleaner. Even though the episodes are 40 minutes or less, they sometimes drag because the flashbacks are more annoying than entertaining. There is only one episode left. The series is either going to end on a high note and salvage itself or continue on its steady decline.

If the latter is true, it will be hard to justify watching the series only to be let down by a weak finale. The episode scores a 5 out of 10. Recaps of Keep Breathing can be found on Reel Mockery here. Learn how to support our work at this link.