Would the World Be Kind
Episode 2 of Y: The Last Man begins with Agent 355 panicking, taking a brief refuge in the bathroom. Breathing heavily, she activates a homing beacon and prepares to brave the chaos outside. We then skip forward to day 8 of the apocalypse. Snow blankets the ground as our Agent heads out to her secret base of operations. Grabbing the comms device, she tries to communicate with the various different bases operating around the US but it’s no good. No one seems to be picking up. All alone, she opens up a box full of gear and finds a note written inside an envelope reading “Not yet.” Well, a bit late for that! Anyway, this note happens to have an address on it. With power plants on the verge of shutting off and fresh food looking like a massive problem, Agent 355 somehow teleports back into the president’s office (honestly, the editing during this sequence is absolutely atrocious) and takes Jennifer aside and admits the truth. Agent 355 reveals how she’s part of a covert task force called Culper Ring and answered only to the President. She was informed of an attempt on the president’s life but quite how and why remains unclear at this point. As the riots get out of hand, numerous women begin storming the White House. Jennifer is the one to step up in the wake of this though, rallying the people together to make the hard choices. She’s going to be President now. We then skip forward again to Day 63. Yorick is isolated, leaving a note for Beth in their apartment that he’s still alive. He doesn’t want to hang about any longer and after staying inside for 2 months, heads out with his mask to brave the elements. Meanwhile, there’s a sinkhole in NYC and with the generators down for 11 days it looks like there could well be some waterborne illnesses spreading in town. Hero is in the midst of all this and with 80,000 women left in the area, and NYC on the verge of collapsing, Jennifer calls on Agent 355 to retrieve her daughter. Hero, as it turns out, happens to be at a school gymnasium which has been turned into a camp for survivors. However, he actual temporary home happens to be with Sam and a couple of other guys. If the vials of testosterone here are anything to go by, it seems that they’re transgender, which explains why they’re not dead. New York has been issued an order to evacuate, with President Jennifer’s voice echoing through the tannoy. However, Jennifer has a meeting with Kimberly, who’s still reeling over the horrors of what she saw in the previous episode. However, there’s bigger problems to deal with. A militia group are currently occupying the Arizona statehouse and they have 12 hostages. These people believe a biological weapon was set off, hence why every male on the planet is dead. In the midst of Jennifer handling this, Kimberly finally speaks to her, reinforcing how important it is to save the embryos at the sperm bank. As she so eloquently puts it “without men, there is no future”. Or, well, without sperm anyway. Jennifer smiles thinly, reminding her that they’ve already saved 100 sperm banks nationwide and that: “We’re just trying to survive the present.” Speaking of foresight, Yorick heads into the subway where water starts to rise up. He’s seeing things, hallucinating and waist-high in water. Needing to dry up, Yorick heads to the launderette after, naked, and trying to find more clothes to get changed into. However, a trio of Asian women there hold a gun up to him, very clearly distrusting of this man. Leaving a Snickers bar on the table as a peace offering, Yorick urges the girls to leave and does so himself – with a handful of clothes of course. Trying his best to find Hero, Yorick heads over to her apartment with Amp, the monkey. However, she’s not there and he’s out of ideas. Hero is at her temporary refuge of course, and unfortunately Sam’s trust in her has come back to bite them. Sam’s buddies have high-tailed it off, taking the testosterone vials with them and leaving him Sam with very little. This is a ticking timebomb that looks like a big catastrophe just waiting to happen. Speaking of time bombs, Agent 355 shows up at Hero’s apartment, looking for the girl. However, she bites off more than she can chew when she finds Yorick instead. Pinning him to the ground, she demands to know who he is. Skip forward and Agent 355 brings him to Jennifer, telling the helicopter pilots to follow her.
The Episode Review
The second episode settles down a little, establishing our main characters and wisely putting Yorick on the backburner. Agent 355 is quickly becoming one of the most interesting characters in the show while Hero’s adventures with Sam come unstuck when she realizes her friend is on borrowed time. That’s not all though and with NYC on the verge of flooding, that spells big trouble for Jennifer and the other officials in the upcoming chapters. Unfortunately, Y: The Last Man falls into the same trap that so many other series do too. How did these characters survive for two months? That’s an awful long time with no electricity so what did they do for food? Is the meat contaminated? How did Yorick survive for two months and why hasn’t anyone else seen his messages? How did he go so long without seeing anyone when there’s still 80,000 people in this area of New York? All of these questions are annoying and distract from the show’s story, especially as things start to become a little more interesting. Despite that, the show does manage to instill some urgency into the main plot. It’s not perfect, and certainly has its fair share of problems, but this does look like a series worth sticking with for the time being.
