A Recap and Review of Aftermath’s “Here Is No Water But Only Rock”
Once again, we’re picking up exactly where we left off last week. The volcano blew. Last time we saw the Copeland’s, Karen was falling into a ditch of doom and Dana was nowhere to be found. Josh, Matt, and Brianna were safety in the avalanche shelter.
This week, Karen is still stuck in a ditch of doom, and Dana is attempting to find her family. Through smog, smoke, soot, and ash, Dana is following the voice of her father, leading her into the shelter. It’s getting worse outside, though, and Dana can’t find him. Josh, being the good father that he is, leaves the avalanche shelter to look for her. Unfortunately, he took the respirators with him, so Brianna and Matt are left with poisonous air seeping into the vents.
Josh finds Dana through the smut and hands her a respirator. She refuses. It makes her claustrophobic. Girl, get your priorities straight. This is life or death. Josh forcefully puts it on her as she fights back. At this point, we’re introduced to one of those “Serpent God” type things, and it almost snags Dana. The two hide under the RV.
Matt is furiously looking for a way out of the bunker because Josh and Dana are still out there. Brianna is putting up a fight, though, claiming they probably found a place to hide, so they need to stay put. This is when Brianna punches Matt in the face. Yeah, you read that right. “Stop reacting. Start thinking,” she says.
Matt comes up with a new plan- to start a fire, which will suck up all the oxygen, and open the door…Okay, we’ll go with it. The oxygen is slowly depleting, and it’s getting harder to breathe. The door finally opens, and an unfriendly, very large, very dinosaur looking visitor is waiting for them. It’s dead, though- been killed by the volcanic ash in the air, I assume. They find Josh and Dana under the RV. Josh seems to be enamored by this prehistoric beast.
Dana and Brianna are enamored by their own revelation in the RV- they’re claiming something is off with time. They both fell head over heels for guys in less than a week. Neither of them has any sense of when anything happened. Even their birthdays happened without them realizing. Is something going on with time here!? I mean, it would definitely explain these “dinosaurs” flying around.
Karen meets a friend down in her ditch- Baylor, a volcanologist who’s proving to be pretty handy. He says there’s a massive cave system throughout the mountain, and in order to get out, they need to go further in. Karen’s not too keen on that plan, but she’s willing to try it. Oh, and this volcanologist has a broken leg. So things’ll be fun. Karen conveniently has a syringe of morphine on her, so she administers that to him before popping his leg back into place.
He seems to be creating more problems than necessary, so she moves forward without him. But a volcanic “aftershock” turns her back. She and Baylor get slapped with the fact that they might just die in those caves, making for an incredibly emotional scene between the two.
Karen spots markings on the wall of the cave. As she’s touching them, she’s getting visions and flashbacks, and it seems like she’s on a really bad acid trip. What is this volcanic fume doing to her!? Note to self- never get stuck in a volcano cave. The next scene, however, is Karen waking up to Brianna’s voice. Was it a dream?
They save her, they hug, they catch up, and they all live happily ever after.
Just kidding. This is Aftermath, and I’m not sure happily ever after exists yet. But they do head home- a home that has been burnt to a crisp. Their fields have been salted- meaning no crops will grow for years. Someone clearly put a lot of energy and effort into this. Feverheads?
It’s time for them to carry on their journey. This isn’t their home anymore. “Everything here belongs to the past. The only thing we have for ourselves is tomorrow. So that’s where we’re going to go,” Karen concludes, and they set off into tomorrow to find some answers.
Watch Aftermath on Tuesday’s at 10/9c on Syfy.