A quick-paced, wide-ranging beginning sets the tone for 1899. We are introduced to this ominous and misleading world through striking, enigmatic images. From the air, sea, and land, there are expansive views. Black pyramids against a snow background and an unsettling structure in the midst of nowhere. Over these beautiful images, a poem about nature and the mind is told. After cutting to an institute, the camera follows a whirling vortex into the water as our main character, Maura Franklin, is introduced. Maura has a terrible dream in which she is in an asylum attempting valiantly to persuade the others that she isn’t insane. She wants to know wherever her brother is and suggests that her father is somehow involved in a scheme aboard a ship named the Prometheus. She claims that her memory has been messed with and that her brother has vanished since she learned the truth. All of these minute nuances seem to permeate reality as well. Maura reads about Prometheus being stranded at sea for four months after waking from her nightmare. She has scars on her wrists, suggesting that she was formerly a patient and required continual restraint.
Stowaway Franz tells Jerome and the Polish labourer Olek to go inside after discovering them eating bread by the lifeboats. The sailors observe how strangely motionless the water is and are immediately startled by the quiet Prometheus. Even after they put out a warning flare, the ship has no lights and is not responding. The captain orders Jerome and Olek to accompany them on the raft because Eyk’s sailors won’t participate. They silently row near the ghost ship and board it. If the quiet wasn’t unpleasant enough, there’s one more thing to add to the ominous mood: when they board, the telegram stops receiving coordinates. Are they being duped, or is this just a coincidence?
While this is going on, a Prometheus passenger swims over to the other immigration ship and climbs aboard the Kerberos while drenched. He pulls a beetle from his pocket and slips it under the first-class passenger’s cabin door. What does it all possibly mean? With the pyramids and the Beatles, the first episode has a strong Egyptian theme. Meanwhile, the annoying upside-down triangle sign can be seen everywhere, from Clemence’s earrings to the letters Eyk and Maura received. I’m hooked, so let’s see how this story develops further, is all I can say. To know ahead, stay tuned!!
