Episode six of Y: The Last Man starts the back half of the season, and ramps up the tension in all three of the separate story lines.
Yorick is still kind of an idiot
As the episode opens, we see a team of three well-armed women on motorcycles pull up to the Harvard encampment. They ask the guards “Have you seen this woman?” and it’s 355’s photo that they show.
Later that night, Yorick is off relieving himself (though not in the way Mann asks 355 about) when he hears music. And because he’s Yorick, he sneaks off to investigate.
He finds a ceremony of sorts, a candle-lit vigil, women singing, and he joins the group, even removing his mask. 355 and Mann track him down, but the three pursuers arrive, again showing pictures of 355. Our group manages to sneak off and holes up in a nearby church.
Yorick asks 355 if his mom said anything about them being followed when 355 spoke to her, and 355 is forced to admit that she never spoke with President Brown. Yorick is angry that she lied to them, but 355 reiterates that her primary mission is to keep him safe, and the safest course of action at the time was to leave Boston.
355 decides that they’ll remain in the church, enticing their pursuers to engage.
“You’re gonna kill them?” Yorick asks her. “I don’t kill people,” she replies with a straight face, but Yorick knows from past experience that she’s lying about that.
Later, Yorick awoken by a noise, and looks up to see 355 standing in the choir loft. We see her eyes open, and a tear trickling down her cheek, but she doesn’t respond to Yorick’s questions. He realizes she’s sleepwalking.
This is the second time we’ve seen 355 sleepwalking. Could it be a sign of some sort of trauma in her past? We know from Agent 525’s comments in the last episode that Culpepper Ring agents were often recruited based on their lack of close family. Maybe 355’s past is dark enough that she’s still suffering the effects all these years later.
When 355 goes outside, Dr. Mann shows Yorick the photo of 355 that their pursuers were showing around. She says they’re only after 355, and that they would be safer if they left her, and set off for San Francisco on their own.
Yorick says that she’s kept him alive so far, and no, he will not leave her.
But later, Yorick asks 355 to let him help with her plan to draw the pursuers into the church and disable them. 355 rebuffs him and says his job is to wait in the basement.
Yorick asks her if she knows she sleepwalks, and says it wouldn’t be a bad idea for her to have some help now and then.
355 doesn’t like to have her vulnerabilities called out and escalates the conversation into a near-argument, telling Yorick he should be happy that she’s willing to put her life on the line for him.
Yorick is hurt by 355’s words, and having the impulse control of a toddler, as he does, he returns to Mann and agrees to leave with her.
The rest of the this group’s story plays out in combination with the folks in D.C. so we’ll cover it in that section a bit later.
priceMAX is a gold mine
Hero, Sam, Nora and Mackenzie are still with the Amazons, and their leader Roxanne, in a priceMAX big-box store.
Hero gives Sam a vial of testosterone, and tells him the pharmacy has a whole shelf full. “This place is a gold mine,” she tells him.
Nora and her daughter, Mackenzie, are watching a therapy group of sorts. Roxanne presses Laura to talk about all the ways she’s been mistreated by men in her life.
Roxanne is talking about her experiences as a cop, and the crimes committed against women by the men who “love” them, when Nora tries to take Mackenzie and leave. Roxanne stops them and says Mackenzie needs to hear these things.
Roxanne is questioning Mackenzie when Nora has had enough and tells her to go. She is about to confront Roxanne when a jury-rigged alarm goes off, and the women race off to their defensive positions.
A group of women arrives, and say they’re starving, but they’re turned away by Roxanne.
Nora makes an overture to Roxanne in the form of a cup of tea. It’s clear that though she is not drinking Roxanne’s kool-aid, but she understands that she and Mackenzie are safer there with the Amazons than out on their own.
While they’re talking, Roxanne is changing her shirt, revealing that she’s missing her right breast. This is a clear nod to a prominent plot point in the comics, but it doesn’t seem to be going in the same direction in the show. Apparently, Roxanne is a cancer survivor.
Roxanne tells Nora that if she wants to be trusted and accepted, she has to step all the way in, and be part of the group.
The next scene is one that you don’t want to be watching when the kids are in the room. Hero is part of a group of women bathing. The ladies question if Hero is OK, but Hero is reluctant to open up to them. This is also apparent in the way Hero tries to cover herself in the bath, while the other women don’t give their nakedness a second thought.
They express how thankful they are to Roxanne for saving their lives. “She can save you too,” they tell her.
“Whatever you did, whoever you were before, you don’t have to carry that with you.”
We know Hero has a lot of guilt about accidentally killing Mike the night before the incident, so it will be interesting to see if she falls under Roxanne’s spell as the other women seem to have.
Sam is lounging in his bunk when Kelsey comes over, clearly flirting with him, and asks if he’s excited about tonight. “What’s tonight?” he asks. “A funeral…,” she tells him.
Later, as the “funeral” begins, Roxanne tells the group we need to say goodbye to someone we’ve grown to love. She gives a what amounts to a eulogy for Laura, who is standing beside her. Laura disrobes, and there is a ceremony where she is symbolically buried. Nora joins in to show that yes, she does want to be part of the group, though it seems plain that she’s only going through the motions.
Laura is given a baptism of sorts, emerges from the bath, and is welcomed as Athena to cheers from the women.
Sam says this is so fucking weird, but Hero seems enthralled, and you can tell that the idea of being part of a group as welcoming as the Amazons is starting to appeal to her.
Later Roxanne is speaking with Hero, and says she’d like her to stay. Hero tells the story of her fight with Mike, and reveals that she killed him. Roxanne is not the least bit taken aback. “You can be whoever you want here,” she says. “It’s up to you.” The message appears to resonate with Hero, and it seems that a weight has been taken off her shoulders after her confession.
That night, Nora awakens to the sound of crying. She follows the noises, and finds three women beating Kelsey, who was seen speaking with Sam earlier.
Even though Hero has been invited to stay, it’s looking more likely that the invitation will not be extended to Sam as well.
It’s politics as usual in D.C.
Kimberly and Regina Oliver are speaking in an area that has been set up as a shrine to the fallen men. Kimberly points out her husband and sons on the wall of photos.
“Can you believe Jennifer Brown is President?” Kimberly asks. “She’s invincible,” Oliver replies. We don’t hear the conversation, but Kimberly’s reply of “What if she’s not?” makes it clear that she’s about to tell Oliver her suspicions about President Brown’s son.
Later, Kimberly sees Christine in the hallway, and stops her to ask how she’s feeling. Christine reiterates that she’s not ready to tell anyone that she’s pregnant yet, and not even sure if she wants to keep the baby.
Kimberly is understanding, but then surprises Christine when she offers to raise the baby herself. This ties back to the children’s toys we saw fall out of Kimberly’s purse in the last episode. It seems that she really is just desperate to be a mother again.
Now we come to the most interesting scenes of the night. President Brown is called into a room with General Reed and Regina Oliver. The general reveals that the group pursuing 355 is from the 10th Mountain Division, and that they’ve tracked her and her two companions to a church in Pennsylvania.
The general believes that a Secret Service agent would not take a helicopter for a joyride, and that she may be working for someone else.
Of course we know that 355 is actually working for the President, and one of the two companions is the President’s son. It would make things much easier if Brown had confided in the General, but now with Oliver in the room, she can’t say anything.
Back at the church, 355 continues her ruse as she attempts to draw the Army women into the church, but then she discovers that Yorick and Mann have left.
The assault team hears them in the woods, and asks for permission to engage. Oliver watches closely as President Brown appears to hesitate before ordering them to proceed with caution.
Oliver clearly has a good idea what’s going on, after hearing what Kimberly had to say. We don’t know yet if Oliver knows that Yorick is alive and with 355, but she definitely knows that President Brown had something to do with sending the helicopters.
In the woods, 355 dispatches the soldiers one by one, as the President listens to gunfire on the radio.
One of the soldiers gets a good look at Yorick, but when 355 asks him if she saw him, he lies and says no. He remembers the two helicopter pilots and knows 355 will kill the soldier if she is judged to be a threat. Even after all they’ve been through and having the fact of his importance rammed home so many times, he still doesn’t want anyone else to die because of him.
We know that 355 is smart enough not to believe him, but she appears to accept his answer and they do what they can to slow down the soldiers rather than killing them.
Quick Thoughts
We only have four episodes to go, and Yorick and his group are still only in Pennsylvania, so it doesn’t appear likely that they’ll be anywhere near San Francisco when the season ends. That is if they make their way to California at all. 355 is not taking them on a direct route, so maybe she has something else in mind?
I definitely prefer to see Yorick and 355 when they’re getting along; capable, in-charge 355 and slightly bone-headed Yorick following her instructions. I do not enjoy dark, angry 355 as much, so I hope she and Yorick can patch things up again, as they’ve done in past episodes.
I really enjoy the character of Sam, and I’m not looking forward to what I’m guessing will be some sort of betrayal by Hero as she chooses the Amazons over him. I hope I’m wrong, but that type of a story line would seem par for the course.
As much as I like President Brown, and hate Regina Oliver, Oliver does have a point about how the populous would react if they found out the secrets that the President is keeping. It will be interesting to see how that plays out, and I’m curious if they’ll have Oliver “win” at the end of the season, and save Jennifer’s triumphant return for future episodes.
Episode ratings have been steadily dropping so far this season, but the numbers are still decent overall. I think this will be regarded as one of the better episodes, so if they can keep the momentum up for the final four episodes, I think we’ll have a good chance of getting a second season.
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