Honestly, the third episode of Churnobly was really unsettling, especially the parts in the hospital. I think those gory clips were more emphatic than when the character’s mentioned the numbers of deaths. The choice to show the gory details forces the audience to realize the severe impact of the radiation. Additionally, the pregnant wife of the fireman portrayed the impact on families. This character was interesting because I was split between admiring her for her loyalty towards her husband and being concerned about her child. As a whole, I think that the wife’s character was used to show the loss and heartbreak of the people who did survive. The effect of Churnobyle exceeds direct deaths and health impacts.

I love this series, it is such a good story, but it still breaks your heart on a Friday night. This episode started with the three volunteers walking into the unknown darkness. Strident noise from the detector tenses up the atmosphere and my heart. I was so impressed by their courage, all of me, from hair to toe, are so tensed up as they go, step by step, until they finally safely returned to applauses. And the firefighter’s wife, the second I saw her I had an ominous feeling. You know how disaster movies always have a pregnant woman to symbolize hope or to dramatize the conflict? I had that oh-oh when I saw her, and I was praying so hard for me to be wrong. Unfortunately, My feelings were right, she is pregnant. I watched her following her husband and talk to him, going into the barriers despite the advice of the nurse. Women stop! What are you doing! Listen to the nurse! I know you want to be with your love but what about your baby?! I was screaming inside, but I can’t blame her at all. I would’ve made the same choice, to die with my love and not to live alone. Individual human beings are so tiny and fragile in front of such disasters, but it’s these moments that humanities shine in us that makes us different.

This episode of Chernobyl did not disappoint, much like the previous ones. A key group of individuals that appear are miners who help with the ongoing works at Chernobyl, primarily to set up a heat exchange for the core. An interesting scene that is shared is one where they ask for fans to cool themselves but are denied this request – so they work bare naked. While it may sound disturbing to us nowadays, it really highlights the severity of the situation and the kinds of sacrifices that needed to be made. One of the most powerful shots I can remember watching this semester is where a man in a clean, polished suit comes to a local mine to inform the miners they are needed to help at the nuclear plant. After ultimately agreeing, each and every miner pats the man in the suit, dirtying the suit with coal dust. While this can be interpreted in many different ways, I saw it as a man being humbled from his position of Minister of Coal – he dresses clean and bright while his workers dress dark and filthy. I also saw this as a way of the miners showing the man how they are all in this together, even if he has a fancy title and an expensive suit. Thus, spreading a lot of coal dust on him showed his fall from a wealthy authority figure into a regular person, like the miners who would be sacrificing their lives at Chernobyl.

When I’m watching tv-series I usually stray away from shows like Chernobyl because the plot is heavily surrounded by loss and I always grow an attachment to certain characters during the show. In the episode, a plan was created to halt the spread of radiation to the Soviet Union’s water supply. It was very frustrating to see Vasily unknowingly poison Lyudmilla. But the storyline highlighted that it’s bigger than them because there are so many lives that are heavily impacted and destroyed by the disaster. The movie highlights how people’s selfishness can lead to a detrimental effect on an entire community and this is closely related to what the world is currently going through.

In the third episode we see the importance of sacrifice for the betterment of society. The miners know that with their lack of clothing they will be exposed to radiation but they still to help install a liquid nitrogen heat exchanger underneath the concrete pad in order to prevent further radiation exposure to others even if it costs their own life. It taught me how important it is that even in bad times to take small actions for the good as it can be truly heroic!

After three episodes of watching the Chernobyl series, I have not been able to stop making connections between the situation portrayed in the show and our current battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. There were various gruesome scenes in this episode, as well as incredibly frustrating character interactions, which has become a recurring theme in the show so far. Several characters, specifically the pregnant woman, continuously avoided the advice and warning of medical professionals telling them not to go near the intensive care patients because of their exposure to dangerous radiation. Those scenes reminded me of the groups of people in our country who refuse to listen to science and deny the terrible consequences of COVID, which just leads to an increase of cases and a further deviation from normality. At the end of the episode, there was a powerful moment where a beautiful day filled with blue skies was contrasted with a ‘mass funeral’ of caskets being lowered into the ground and covered with cement. This could also be seen as a metaphor for our lives in the midst of the pandemic. As tempting as leading a normal life may be, COVID is still sadly the biggest threat the world is facing and millions of human lives are being lost.

I have been an immense devotee of this show since I watched the previous episode, however I can at present never become weary of the show. There is generally such a huge amount to affect in every scene. A subject that was truly pervasive during this scene that stood out with me was the topic of penance for their country. The sacrifice is real. During the scene, diggers were brought to manufacture a fluid nitrogen heat exchanger underneath the reactor and they all needed to assemble the entire thing by hand. The dangers for the undertaking are monstrous and despite the fact that the diggers were not ensured insurance a while later they acknowledged the assignment. As it were, they all consented to forfeit themselves to secure the Soviet Union. This idea is particularly intriguing to me because I discovered that this idea of outrageous penance for everyone’s benefit has been a topic among the occupants of the soviet association since its creation. Although I have watched this before, watching it this time gives me a different feelings than I first watched it.

As someone who was not present for parts 1 and 2 of the Friday Film Chernobyl series, I went into part 3 with an “aw yikes, I’m gonna be so lost” mentality, so I was pleasantly surprised when I could still follow the plot along quite easily.

This episode was the part where they showed a lot of the fallout/repercussions following the main incident and so there were a couple of gruesome scenes that I kind of had to look away from… I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching with the subtitles on because some of the scary scenes would have the sound effects/music captioned on the bottom and made it more bearable to watch (Friday night and all).

It was a pretty sad episode overall… I felt really bad watching maybe 80% of the people there come to terms with their eventual and quickly approaching death. I was super conflicted about the scenes in the hospital where the wife went to visit her husband because you could clearly see how close they were to each other but on the other the back of my mind was constantly going “no no no they told you to stay away you’re going to die” so that was pretty sad too. There were also some political sections that I had a harder time following due to not having much context but overall I enjoyed the episode. I signed up for parts 4 & 5 so I’m looking forward to those as well.

The third episode of Chernobyl took a dark turn, focusing on the aftermath of the disaster. It was truly devastating to see how the radiation took such an intense physical toll on people’s bodies.  I was particularly very taken aback at the damage the radiation had done to Ignatenko, the firefighter. It was very upsetting for his wife to have to see him suffering throughout the process of radiation sickness, especially knowing that she was expecting a child with him. This focus on Ignatenko and his wife really emphasized just how gruesome the effects of radiation and the Chernobyl incident as a whole were. The fact that there are so many other people that were affected in similar ways due to the nuclear explosion is overwhelming and extremely depressing to think about. 

In the third episode of the Chernobyl series, there is a scene in the Kremlin, which ends with the camera holding on to a painting that’s hanging on the wall. That painting is Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 painted by Ilya Repin. The painting depicts the moment after Ivan the Terrible got into a fight with his son and fatally hit him on the head. Ivan appears to be experiencing great grief as he holds his dying son. This painting is indicative of the episode as many of the characters are discussing the loss of life that will need to happen in order to clean up the disaster, which you can clearly see fills them with grief and sorrow for having to condemn these people to almost certain death. This is just the same as how Ivan the Terrible feels grief for an action he caused. This is also representative of much of the disaster aftermath in general. Initially, many of the politicians didn’t think it was a big deal and severely underplayed the gravity of the situation. This later caused even more troubles and caused many people a lot of harm that could have been avoided if it were taken completely seriously at the start.

The camera held on to this painting for a recognizable moment in order to give time for it to sink in as this happened just after it was announced that many more men would be needed to essentially sacrifice their lives in order to help with the cleanup effort. It was a subtle decision, but even if the viewer doesn’t know what the painting is or the history behind it, the imagery of it alone is enough to convey to the viewer the emotions being felt and the graveness of what is transpiring.

“The picture portrays a grief-stricken Ivan the Terrible cradling his mortally wounded son, the Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich. The elder Ivan himself is believed to have dealt the fatal blow to his son.”

This week’s episode was super, super stressful! By the end of the second episode, I could tell that the following episodes would display a lot of information; however, I wasn’t expecting this. I was so upset and frustrated by the plot and the quality of the show. My heart snapped, seeing the firefighter’s wife stay with her husband throughout his death. Hearing that she was pregnant made the situation even more problematic. I have grown to feel for her throughout the film. Knowing that she had to decide between her and her child’s safety or comforting her husband to the grave was tragic.

What made it even worse was learning the myths behind the show Chernobyl. Yes, radiation is hazardous and deadly; however, some details have been portrayed all wrong. For instance, the shot with the man completely covered in blood was more of an art form than anything else. Radiation would not cause symptoms like that. Also, individuals cannot spread radiation after being washed of radioactive particles! Therefore, the wife and baby would not be affected by the husband. This made me upset since the directors have an agenda to make the film as dramatic as possible. Making the film this suspenseful somewhat spreads false information to the viewer. Overall, I would love to talk to the directors to see their take on this play with emotions.

This show put into perspective the devastating, bleak, and morbid nature of the Chernobyl disaster. In this episode one thing that struck me was the image of the firefighter Ignatenko’s decaying body and the dedication of his wife to him. It’s extremely disturbing to realize how radiation sickness, particularly ARS, slowly consumes your body in such a way, and to be afflicted by it is like watching yourself succumb to an inevitable doom. In the show, the wife Lyudmilla steadily watches her husband suffer through this terrible process as his entire body looks increasingly mutilated. To add to the tragedy of the situation, she was carrying their child, and so at the time she risked exposing the child to radiation as if sealing the Ignatenko legacy into a grim fate, forever cursed by radiation and the Chernobyl disaster. The image of the physical deformation of Ignatenko and other victims of radiation sickness viscerally captures the horror, regret, and ugliness associated with this disaster.

Much of Episode 3 of the Chernobyl accident was displayed or “told” from the perspective of the young and strong-willed woman visiting her radiation-burned husband in Moscow. Empathizing with her character, her palpable pain left me feeling slightly disoriented.

Interested in orienting myself and curious to learn more about the Chernobyl incident, I spent some time reading and watching videos. And much like other bloggers came across inaccuracies regarding “the contagion of radiation,” especially in regard to the scene where the science-professor Khomyuk pulls the woman off her husband.

But, looking back on that scene more objectively, the medical drama has become less forefront and instead I’m more focused on the threat Khomyuk used after pulling the woman from her husband, saying she was going to report the hospital to the committee.

The power in those words was enough to silence both the strong-willed woman and the nurse and get Khomyuk arrested. This shows that the metaphoric impact of a potential “radiation” of information was just as powerful as the physical injuries that could be caused by the actual radiation.

Different from the first episode, the characters have finally realized the extent of the situation at hand (to some extent). Even still, the information held by some is seen as a threat, and leads to the arrest of one of the characters as she threatened to reveal information. What I found most interesting in this episode was how easily the wife of one of the characters was able to sneak into a hospital. Maybe because we are in the time of COVID and from volunteering in a hospital this was shocking to me, but I feel there should have been more security or it shouldn’t have been that easy. Especially because this was a situation in which the severity was unknown and because her husband was extremely sick, I found this more surprising.

I have been a huge fan of this show since I first saw earlier this year, but I can still never get tired of the show. There is always so much to impact in each episode. A theme that was really prevalent during this episode that stuck out with me was the theme of sacrifice for their nation. During the episode, miners were called in order to build a liquid nitrogen heat exchanger underneath the reactor and they all had to build the whole thing by hand. The risks for the task are immense and even though the miners were not guaranteed protection afterwards they accepted the task. In a way, they all agreed to sacrifice themselves to protect the Soviet Union. This concept is especially interesting to me since I am now taking a class on the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union and learned that this concept of extreme sacrifice for the greater good has been a theme amongst the inhabitants of the soviet union since its creation. It has been very interesting rewatching Chernobyl with a new perspective on the people.

The overall tone of the third episode in the series was significantly different from its predecessors. This episode did not feel quite as intense as the earlier episodes, nor did it seem like there was as much conflict that needed to be overcome. This episode instead excelled at showcasing the aftermath and long-term repercussions of Chernobyl. One of the most disturbingly well done aspects of this episode was showcasing what happened to many of the faces from the very first episode. It was haunting to see the physical decay of these characters due to their exposure to ionizing radiation, and it accentuated the severity of this disaster. Another interesting aspect of the long-term repercussions that was explored, was the uninhabitability of the area surrounding Chernobyl. An important point of this episode was the struggle to get a proper evacuation zone, and it was consistently mentioned how the surrounding area would effectively be ruined for generations. This reminder of the damage done to the environment reinforced the severity of Chernobyl from a different angle than the aforementioned gruesome imagery, thus crafting a fuller image of the tragedy’s aftermath.

When watching Chernobyl Episode 3, the thing that shocked me most was the demeanor and actions of the coal miners. When the coal miners arrived to dig that relief tunnel to prevent a more massive catastrophe from occurring in the city, they seemed to not waver in their willingness to put their own lives on the line to save others. The willingness these coal miners had to go out and do their jobs regardless of the dangers, all while having an attitude of “who else will do it if not me?” commands a great deal of admiration for their courage. When witnessing other daunting times in human history, it is evident that this attitude can manifest in the most severe of circumstances when needed, but only in those strong enough to step up and sacrifice for the greater good.

During the pandemic, I noticed this occurred with many of the essential and healthcare workers. Despite most of these laborers working sans-hazard pay, many still showed up to work to keep the economy running. Similarly, I remember hearing a story on the news about a woman who had just retired from working in a hospital before widespread COVID-19 hospitalizations hit New York State. She came out of retirement to help the hospital during the most overstressed times in recent months. A piece of adage says that a crisis can bring out the best in humanity or the worst. However, within both this movie and the current catastrophe, we are thankfully seeing much more of the better sides of humankind shine through the dark rain clouds above us.

I was glad to watch “Chernobyl” again, since I was very intrigued watching the first episode. I missed the night when the second episode was on, but seized the chance to watch the third episode. Since watching the first episode, I had actually stumbled upon a Youtube video (spoiler alert!) of a nurse who had actually treated Chernobyl survivors, who was fact checking the miniseries, and said there was a lot of medical inaccuracies regarding the symptoms of radiation exposure. It wasn’t surprising to see that there are historical/medical inaccuracies, since it’s not supposed to be 100% accurate, but I think that the inaccuracies helped with making the situation in the series feel a lot more urgent and dangerous.

Somethings that caught my attention while watching the third episode were the firefighter’s wife’s persistence and dedication to her husband and the KGB and nuclear physicist involvement. Throughout the episode, the wife of the firefighter constantly defies hospital and nurses’ orders by visiting her husband, hugging and touching him, staying overnight with him, and lying about being pregnant, even when the doctors said there was so much risk to harm her own health and her baby. It was honestly remarkable and touching to see her have so much love for her husband, and not be scared about his deterioating state, she’s still able to stand so strong for her husband to create the little last loving memories, lying about being able to see every part of Moscow outside the hospital window just to make him happy.

It was super interesting to see the part about the nuclear physicist trying to figure out why the explosion happened, when all the numbers lined up that it’s impossible an explosion could’ve happened with that situation. Her visiting the hospital and finding out that the explosion happened only after the workers pressed the emergency safety button is so shocking, and I want to keep watching just to see the results of her investigation, why it exploded when everything seemed to be going correctly. Also I have heard of the KGB but I definitely need to do more research to understand their role in Chernobyl, and why they were following Legasov and trying to get information.

Compared to the 2nd episode, the 3rd episode of Chernobyl was less intense and had a more sorrow tone throughout the episode. Legasov and Khomyuk seemed to have a better understanding of the state of the explosion and know what measures need to be taken to prevent as little radiation and damage as possible. Boris seems to be back to his old self of reassuring everyone that “everything is under control” as seen from his speech in the conference with Gorbechav and other officials. Legasov, on the other hand, is now seen in some scenes withholding information from the general public, such as asking Boris if he should be transparent with the coal mine chief and his speech during the conference with Gorbechav in other officials. Although the story of Ignatenko and her husband makes the whole situation more personal in that she represents the many people who have loved ones that were first responders, their story also seems to be a separate plot/entity that makes me question how Ignatenko is going to play a role in the rest of the show.

In the third episode of Chernobyl, it truly illustrated how powerful transparency can be and how useful it is in daily life. For example, Valery and Boris were transparent to the coal workers about everything. They told them that the tunneling work under the reactor was dangerous and was honest with all of the coal workers’ questions. When they did this, the coal workers worked harder than ever and even stripped naked in order to get the job done. In today’s world, constant lies can be frustrating and the hard truth is a better alternative. Additionally, the truth is able to create a bond between people, whether how difficult the truth is. For example, I know that I hate when people lie to me, and when they tell me the truth, whether it’s hard to hear or not, I appreciate it more than lies. The truth makes things much more direct and clearer than lying.

Tonight, with Rose Scholars, I continued the “Chernobyl” HBO mini series. As I’ve written in previous blog posts, the film does a great job at capturing the deceitfulness of the USSR and how the government worked to downplay this among other human rights issues. However, in this post, I would like to focus on things the film did not do so well. One glaring dramatization, even falsehood, was how the film portrayed radiation in victims. It was looked at as a contagious disease, passable to visitors and medical professionals. I was confused by this, as I have never known radiation to be infectious. After looking at additional resources such as the World Health Organization and United Nations’ posts regarding the Chernobyl incident, I can confirm radiation is not a disease. Harm occurs in individuals who have been exposed, but once those individuals have bathed and changed clothes, the only damage is internal. No radiation can be passed from one person to another. The film’s narrative regarding radiation definitely added to the drama and deadliness of the accident’s portrayal, but also creates a false narrative that invokes even more fear into viewers. Typically, documentaries detailing accidents and mishandling make matters seem more severe than they are, or at least focus repeatedly on those severe effects. I see this as particularly problematic as nuclear power will only become more widespread as the earth starts to transition away from fossil fuels and misguided fears on top of rational ones won’t help the public’s enthusiasm to embrace the change. Chernobyl was a terrible and deadly accident, but I feel the cause was not solely nuclear energy or radiation. The root problem was in fact the corrupt system of government that took shortcuts in all of its proceedings, needlessly exposing citizens to dangers of all kinds.