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Containment (a spoiler-free review)
I finished watching the series Containment on Netflix the other day. Yes: although I hate zombie stories, I have a morbid fascination with contagion stories. The premise of this story is that a flu virus has been genetically modified to cause hemorrhagic symptoms, resulting in an impressive 100 percent fatality rate, killing its victims just two days after exposure. That’s a trifecta for an infectious disease: easily transmitted, exceptionally deadly, and fast acting. In real life there isn’t any disease that’s all three—or rather, there are some (like meningitis), but we have treatments that can cut down on the deadliness, not to mention vaccines. Anyway, this virus gets loose and our story begins.
The setting is Atlanta, but it’s Atlanta the way Boston is Boston in Fringe, which is to say, in name and sky shots only. I know that Atlanta, like Boston, has a large population of people who’ve moved there from elsewhere, but in this series no one—not one character—attempts anything like a southern accent. Not one character grew up there? Not the pregnant eighteen-year-old? Not the 11-year-old son of the schoolteacher, who’s brought her class on a field trip to the hospital? Nope. No one.
It’s also an astonishingly post-racial Atlanta. We see six couples in the series, three of which are interracial (black-white). And aside from one scene in the first episode in which police major Lex Caranahan (who is black, and one of the two main male characters) stops another cop from beating up a black teen (Zander, the boyfriend of Teresa, the aforementioned pregnant girl—they’re one of the interracial couples), there is no mention whatsoever of police brutality or misuse of power, let alone racially charged brutality and misuse of power. Teresa’s mother’s dismissal of Zander as a viable, genuinely interested, and devoted future father may be oblique racism, and a white National Guard commander’s refusal to accept Lex’s authority at one point also suggests racism, but in both cases there are other ostensible reasons for the characters’ actions and attitudes. The show tries hard to be nonracist itself, too: there’s a black gang that commandeers food distribution and extorts the public, but there’s also a white gang of motorcycle-riding druggies, and Teresa’s mother, a convenience-store owner, is shown to have been opportunistically price gouging before the black gang arrived.
Maybe in an attempt to have broad-spectrum appeal in a polarized country, the series combines this wishful-thinking postracial society with the following notions: the cops are by and large noble, self-sacrificing public servants; government officials are liars; social-activist blogging is dangerous and wrongheaded … until it gets guidance from the heroes, and then it’s the light of truth.
I’d say the male and female characters were equally well developed; the main female characters felt complete and interesting, though the series approves more of women in the mothering, caregiving role than in self-reliant or leadership roles. Jana, Lex’s girlfriend, is self-reliant. She works in the clean room of a data retrieval company, and this is symbolic, because she’s got intimacy issues. Her character arc involves becoming less brittle and more warm, which, well… Dr. Lommers (a government official), the one truly powerful woman in the series, is smart, confident, and decisive, but also merciless (she describes her mentor’s literally fatal flaw as compassion), a liar, and the ultimate villain. [highlight to view spoiler]
One thing I did like about the show was that it distributed roles to characters of all ages. Schoolteacher Katie Frank’s 11-year-old son Quentin has a good role. The actor does a great job in some very affecting scenes, and he and his classmates are there as more than just objects to be worried over (although they’re that, too). Teresa and Zander are teenagers, then there’s a slew of main characters in the 20–40 age range, Dr. Lommers and the dissolute blogger in the 40–50 (or so) age range, and the kindly rat breeder and his wheelchair-bound wife in the over-60 range.
I appreciated the lack of Hollywood betrayals, pointless arguments, and random unpleasantry. Schoolteacher Katie and Handsome Cop Jake gradually fall in love with each other, as they were clearly destined to do, without any stumbles or missteps, which may be unrealistic but which was, for me, a relief. In some cases, however, I felt like maaaybe the show could have included a touch more conflict. The schoolkids’ playing together seemed a little stilted. You get a bunch of bored, frightened kids, and you would surely have some quarrels and bickering.
In storytelling you have to strike a balance between making the world believably rich and complicated and focusing on your main characters and plot developments. It may have been a decision to streamline that had the show disappear all nurses, all doctors, and all janitorial staff from the large hospital in which the outbreak is discovered, and in which unlucky disease victims are placed in isolation. Ebola field hospitals in Sierra Leone were better staffed than this hospital. Every now and then there was a scene with an attending nurse or orderly (usually so they could be blood-sneezed on and become infected), but for the most part, the hospital halls are empty, and the only doctor looking in on the sick is Dr. Cannerts, who first identified the outbreak. Dr. Cannerts presses Handsome Cop Jake into service cremating the dead. There’s no one else who could do this? No other hospital employee? Similarly, it’s implausible that Dr. Cannerts alone would be working on a vaccine or cure to something as direly threatening.
I’m a carping, critical viewer, but I enjoyed the show enough to binge-watch the last four episodes, so if you share my morbid interest in epidemics, check it out and tell me what you think of it.
PS: regarding Into the Inferno, I did see it, and I'll post about it later.
**The series also includes one gay character, who’s favorably portrayed but whose partner is conveniently off screen, and one character in a wheelchair, who isn’t defined by her physical limitation but is definitely shown as vulnerable and in need of support because of it.
The setting is Atlanta, but it’s Atlanta the way Boston is Boston in Fringe, which is to say, in name and sky shots only. I know that Atlanta, like Boston, has a large population of people who’ve moved there from elsewhere, but in this series no one—not one character—attempts anything like a southern accent. Not one character grew up there? Not the pregnant eighteen-year-old? Not the 11-year-old son of the schoolteacher, who’s brought her class on a field trip to the hospital? Nope. No one.
It’s also an astonishingly post-racial Atlanta. We see six couples in the series, three of which are interracial (black-white). And aside from one scene in the first episode in which police major Lex Caranahan (who is black, and one of the two main male characters) stops another cop from beating up a black teen (Zander, the boyfriend of Teresa, the aforementioned pregnant girl—they’re one of the interracial couples), there is no mention whatsoever of police brutality or misuse of power, let alone racially charged brutality and misuse of power. Teresa’s mother’s dismissal of Zander as a viable, genuinely interested, and devoted future father may be oblique racism, and a white National Guard commander’s refusal to accept Lex’s authority at one point also suggests racism, but in both cases there are other ostensible reasons for the characters’ actions and attitudes. The show tries hard to be nonracist itself, too: there’s a black gang that commandeers food distribution and extorts the public, but there’s also a white gang of motorcycle-riding druggies, and Teresa’s mother, a convenience-store owner, is shown to have been opportunistically price gouging before the black gang arrived.
Maybe in an attempt to have broad-spectrum appeal in a polarized country, the series combines this wishful-thinking postracial society with the following notions: the cops are by and large noble, self-sacrificing public servants; government officials are liars; social-activist blogging is dangerous and wrongheaded … until it gets guidance from the heroes, and then it’s the light of truth.
I’d say the male and female characters were equally well developed; the main female characters felt complete and interesting, though the series approves more of women in the mothering, caregiving role than in self-reliant or leadership roles. Jana, Lex’s girlfriend, is self-reliant. She works in the clean room of a data retrieval company, and this is symbolic, because she’s got intimacy issues. Her character arc involves becoming less brittle and more warm, which, well… Dr. Lommers (a government official), the one truly powerful woman in the series, is smart, confident, and decisive, but also merciless (she describes her mentor’s literally fatal flaw as compassion), a liar, and the ultimate villain. [highlight to view spoiler]
One thing I did like about the show was that it distributed roles to characters of all ages. Schoolteacher Katie Frank’s 11-year-old son Quentin has a good role. The actor does a great job in some very affecting scenes, and he and his classmates are there as more than just objects to be worried over (although they’re that, too). Teresa and Zander are teenagers, then there’s a slew of main characters in the 20–40 age range, Dr. Lommers and the dissolute blogger in the 40–50 (or so) age range, and the kindly rat breeder and his wheelchair-bound wife in the over-60 range.
I appreciated the lack of Hollywood betrayals, pointless arguments, and random unpleasantry. Schoolteacher Katie and Handsome Cop Jake gradually fall in love with each other, as they were clearly destined to do, without any stumbles or missteps, which may be unrealistic but which was, for me, a relief. In some cases, however, I felt like maaaybe the show could have included a touch more conflict. The schoolkids’ playing together seemed a little stilted. You get a bunch of bored, frightened kids, and you would surely have some quarrels and bickering.
In storytelling you have to strike a balance between making the world believably rich and complicated and focusing on your main characters and plot developments. It may have been a decision to streamline that had the show disappear all nurses, all doctors, and all janitorial staff from the large hospital in which the outbreak is discovered, and in which unlucky disease victims are placed in isolation. Ebola field hospitals in Sierra Leone were better staffed than this hospital. Every now and then there was a scene with an attending nurse or orderly (usually so they could be blood-sneezed on and become infected), but for the most part, the hospital halls are empty, and the only doctor looking in on the sick is Dr. Cannerts, who first identified the outbreak. Dr. Cannerts presses Handsome Cop Jake into service cremating the dead. There’s no one else who could do this? No other hospital employee? Similarly, it’s implausible that Dr. Cannerts alone would be working on a vaccine or cure to something as direly threatening.
I’m a carping, critical viewer, but I enjoyed the show enough to binge-watch the last four episodes, so if you share my morbid interest in epidemics, check it out and tell me what you think of it.
PS: regarding Into the Inferno, I did see it, and I'll post about it later.
**The series also includes one gay character, who’s favorably portrayed but whose partner is conveniently off screen, and one character in a wheelchair, who isn’t defined by her physical limitation but is definitely shown as vulnerable and in need of support because of it.