Chernobyl Ep 2: No More Covering

I had a really great time watching the second episode of Chernobyl and look forward to attending the event for the third episode. As someone who did not watch the first episode, I was still able to easily pick up on the plot with the help of my friend (who happened to watch with me and had some background knowledge about the accident). Something that struck with me is the character change of General Boris. In the beginning of the episode, you could see that General Boris is trying to downplay the severity of the explosion, rushing to have the meeting adjourned. However, as the episode progresses, General Boris realizes the severity of the explosion after visiting the site and is informed how many years people are expected to live if they continue to allow the citizens to stay. When General Boris got the call about many neighboring countries finding out about the explosion (from the high levels of radiation), there was nothing General Boris had left to hide. Although I can see why General Boris tried to downplay the explosion (to not only avoid negative media attention to the Soviet Union but to also not make citizens panic), I believe that it is always best to be transparent to the people at the end of the day. More specifically, I was shocked by how Professor Legasov also chose to lie about how the people should not be worried about anything when he went to the bar while he was holding General Boris into account moments before about not evacuating the citizens. Overall, it was good that General Boris and Professor Legasov were on the same page (goal is to save the people and prevent as much radiation from emitting as possible) by the end of the episode, but there delay and lack of quick response might be too late.

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