Professor Lin
Episode 4 of The Stranded begins with May asking a conscious Professor Lin where she was after the tsunami hit. Her answers are cryptic and strange, leading her to watch in stone-faced silence as Ice is brought in following his seizure last episode. Without saying a word, Professor Lin returns to her class and immediately looks through the school photos, acquainting herself with who the different students are. Later on in the day, she approaches Kraam and the two discuss his drawings. As she looks through his book, she finds a sketch of the woman from his dreams and numerous vines, something that clearly resonates with her but she keeps her cards close to her chest. After their meeting, Kraam invites May to a private beach with him but when she doesn’t answer, he simply tells her to think on it. As night turns to day, Arisa continues to wander through the jungle alone until she comes across a strange girl who tells her help is on the way. Reluctantly, she follows the girl deeper into the woods, under the pretense that she’ll show her something unique. Ice awakens in the infirmary, breathing heavily after a series of flashes to his past before begging Nahm for her help in performing an exorcism. She agrees to perform it, but in doing so bites off more than she can chew as Ice’s troubled past comes into clarity, something which includes a hit and run that he and his Father covered up. Meanwhile Jack and Krit try to stay strong before we cut back in time and see the two growing closer together and solidifying their beautiful relationship. Speaking of beautiful relationships, May and Kraam meet up together by the shoreline where she tells him to stop being so formal before they share some time together. At the same time, Professor Lin continues to act strangely, berating Ying and Nahm for listening to the audio recordings. While Arisa dives deeper into the jungle, learning of the mystery engulfing this show, she’s suddenly spray-painted across the face and left alone. Antagonized via radio, she stumbles forward and falls into a ravine, causing her to curse her luck. As the episode closes out, Kraam and May marvel at the fireflies by the shore before sleeping together while a montage shows what the rest of our characters are up to. As Professor Lin awakens, The Stranded continues its worrying trend of asking even more questions as we reach the midway point of the show. While there are some nice, dramatic moments here, the lack of answers to any of these questions raised so far puts a dampen on the whole affair. One of the biggest issues I have with the show is how illogical some of these plot points are. Given that Professor Lin just happened to be on the island when this occurred, what was she doing during this time? The students were supposedly alone having a rave but surely she would have alerted the authorities or phoned through prior to the tsunami hitting? On the surface level though, The Stranded is an enjoyable enough show to watch but when you stop to think about the rationale behind some of these decisions, The Stranded really does begin to fall apart.
