Calvin joins the hunt aboard the Sir John Franklin while Fonda and Ruth struggle with a possible contamination crisis in Snooks Arm. Meanwhile, Mary and Noah finally address the missing engagement ring.
A moment from “The Ocean Will Have Us All,” Episode 4 of Netflix's Below, as the crisis in Snooks Arm escalates.
Photo credit: Netflix
Spoiler warning: This recap contains spoilers for Episode 4 of Below, “The Ocean Will Have Us All.”
Episode 4 opens with Calvin Penney heading straight for the RSV Sir John Franklin, demanding to know where Wade is. Steve Bruner insists that Wade isn't aboard. According to him, Ruth threatened to impound the vessel unless he agreed to leave both her brother and her nephew on shore.
Before Calvin can get back into his own small boat, two members of the research crew take it and head away from the ship. They turn out to be the Franklin's captain and first mate, leaving everyone else without someone who knows how to operate the vessel. Calvin volunteers. He's accustomed to Newfoundland fishing boats rather than this ship's controls, and I wasn't convinced he knew what he was doing at first, but he manages to get them moving.
Calvin wants the creature killed. Bruner and marine zoologist Dr. Hugo Sayed want to attach a tracking device, arguing that knowing its movements could protect other boats. Once the animal appears, the distinction starts to seem academic. There's blood in the water, the ship is in danger, and their attempts to contact the Coast Guard aren't getting through.
I went into this confrontation still suspecting that the monster was something supernatural. The possibility that the entire mystery might amount to an unusually gigantic squid was honestly a little disappointing. I've never been especially fond of stories that simply take an ordinary dangerous animal and make it enormous.
An emergency in Snooks Arm
Back on land, people are becoming desperately thirsty and behaving erratically. Fonda Howander helps someone trying to drink water from a puddle, then finds herself pressed into service as the nearest thing Snooks Arm has to a medical expert. She keeps reminding people that she's a marine zoologist, not a physician. That doesn't stop everyone from asking her what to do.
The village hall begins to resemble a makeshift treatment centre. Fonda suspects a substance in the iceberg ice could be responsible and advises people to avoid both the ice and local drinking water until she knows more. Residents gather bottled water, while she asks what people had to drink at Linda's bar the night before. Rum and Pepsi with ice appears to be an important detail. She considers bacterial or viral explanations too, without committing to either one.
It's worth remembering that icebergs themselves are entirely ordinary in Newfoundland waters. Environment and Climate Change Canada explains that many originate in western Greenland and move south on the Labrador Current before reaching the Grand Banks and the stretch known as Iceberg Alley. The geography is real, even though the contaminant and the animal connected to this particular iceberg belong to the fiction.
Ruth contacts the Coast Guard and reports a public-health emergency. Jerry is dead; her brother Calvin and nephew Wade are missing; and residents have been using ice from the harbour for days. Medical assistance is being prioritized, but rescue crews are also dealing with incidents at sea. Ruth briefly seems drawn toward the water herself before Fonda intervenes.
I really like Ruth. She's spent much of this series trying to keep people alive and the community functioning while almost everyone around her ignores reasonable warnings. Watching her become vulnerable to the same strange pull was more alarming than another argument about whether anyone should go near the iceberg.
The creature fights back
Aboard the Franklin, the creature comes close enough for the researchers to fire their tracking equipment. Its tough outer body makes the process difficult, and it moves beneath the ship before they finally attach a tag. The crew celebrates, but Calvin has already seen enough to know that getting away safely ought to be their priority.
The ship is taking on water and losing fuel. Their radio situation is no better, yet Bruner refuses to return to port. A tracking signal isn't sufficient proof of his discovery. He wants images of the animal underwater, and he insists they are close enough to risk one more expedition.
The scientists' motivations become clearer when someone reveals that Bruner has lost enormous sums of money and the crew hasn't been paid in months. Sayed is also unwilling to surrender the chance to document a species no one else has seen. What began as a conservation mission is looking increasingly like a desperate gamble for scientific recognition.
Calvin points out the obvious danger and asks for a way to contact home. The others are already preparing a submersible. Despite knowing what's happened to Jerry and seeing the damage to the Franklin, Calvin eventually agrees to go below with Bruner and Sayed.
An engagement without a ring
There is one welcome piece of family news amid the crisis. Noah finally admits to Mary that the diamond ring he has been looking for was supposed to be part of his proposal. He carried it for weeks and planned to ask her to marry him during their visit, but now the ring is missing.
He offers Mary the empty box anyway. She says the ring doesn't matter, and he asks whether that means she'll marry him. It does. The proposal confirms what I'd suspected about Noah's missing ring in Episode 2.
The moment doesn't last long before Barry's distress interrupts everyone. His overwhelming need for water is becoming impossible to control, and Fonda tries to prevent him from hurting himself. Mary's relief and the growing emergency are forced into the same small space, while Calvin remains unreachable.
The dive and the terrible last few minutes
The submersible is tiny. Three grown men squeeze into a compartment that looks barely large enough for one, while Jojo remains aboard the Franklin to operate the ship. I could hardly stand watching them climb in. Calvin looks about as comfortable as I would have felt, especially after being shown a system that can send thousands of volts through the craft's shell if something attacks it.
The researchers descend toward the seabed, following the signal from the tracker. Then the signal stops making sense. Eventually they discover why: the creature appears to have severed the arm carrying the device. Sayed realizes they may have underestimated its intelligence.
A huge eye appears at the submersible's window, almost as if the animal is studying its occupants. I was struck by the moment it seemed to look directly at Calvin. The series has already shown him remembering an encounter with the creature as a child, and the eye contact makes their relationship feel more complicated than a straightforward hunter-and-prey story.
Newfoundland has a genuine historical record of people interpreting strange things in the water as something almost human. In 1610, mariner Richard Whitbourne claimed to have encountered a mermaid-like creature in St. John's Harbour, an account preserved in later historical records. That was a reported sighting, not evidence that mermaids exist, and it offers a historical parallel to the characters' attempts to understand an unfamiliar animal.
The creature begins lifting the submersible and apparently working at its hatch. The men panic as the vessel ascends and pressure warnings sound. There's a frantic struggle over whether to use the electrical defence. I couldn't entirely make out every movement inside the compartment, and I don't want to pretend the episode makes everyone's fate unmistakable.
Back in Snooks Arm, radio calls and flickering lights add to the confusion. The soundtrack shifts to a version of “Soul Cake” as the final images suggest someone has reached shore, with several figures standing nearby. I couldn't tell whether Calvin had survived, whether the creature had somehow brought him back, or who exactly we were seeing. I was still thinking about the huge eye at the submersible window. I'd begun the episode worrying that the mystery would come down to a supersized squid, but after that encounter I'm not so sure. This was a good episode, and with only two left, I can’t wait to see where it goes.
Ontario alternative pop-rock duo Little White Lies released “String Me Along” on October 2, a song that Katie Rose Campbell says grew out of a difficult U.S. tour and a change in how the band approaches its career