'War of the Worlds' Episode 5: From alien corpses to killer cyborgs, the story moves with some strange reveals
Spoilers for 'War of the Worlds' Season 1 Episode 5
After establishing an atmosphere of terror over the course of the first four episodes, 'War of the Worlds' throws in some very confusing reveals in Episode 5 while also allowing for some interesting character moments. Episode 5 pays up on all the things set up in the last episode and further intensifies the mystery of the aliens.
Bill Ward (Gabriel Byrne) and Helen Brown (Elizabeth McGovern) meet up with Kariem Gat Wich Machar (Bayo Gbadamosi), Ash Daniel (Aaron Heffernan) and the Greshams and Bill takes the opportunity to examine the corpse of a dead alien, with some assistance from Tom Gresham (Ty Tennant). In the process, he reveals that the killer cyborgs are just attack dogs being controlled by some sort of external intelligence and finds out about Emily Gresham (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her strange abilities.
He doesn't offer any explanations in the episode but Bill clearly has some theories that he'll hopefully reveal later on in the season. The Gresham patriarch, Jonathan Gresham (Stephen Campbell Moore) is still in France and he prepares to leave Chloe Dumont (Stéphane Caillard) with her son and Noah (Guillaume Gouix), her rapist brother.
We get a pretty intense moment with Sacha (Mathieu Torloting), who chooses to leave Noah behind to be killed by the aliens as punishment for what the man did to Chloe. It's a brutal scene but one that's just a bit satisfying, knowing what a twisted person Noah really is.
Kariem and Emily's connection intensifies with Kariem finding the woman a piano she can practice on. There's a whole sequence with Emily playing the piano that's beautifully put together and the two end up having sex, which we all honestly saw coming.
The situation with Catherine Durand (Léa Drucker) and the soldiers gets pretty confusing when they discover that the alien transmitting station they've been tracking appears to have been destroyed. They encounter some of the cyborgs near the site and they appear to be confused and unresponsive, even when they are practically tortured by some of the soldiers.
It's a pretty weird scene but it lends credence to Bill's theory about the real intelligence behind the invasion remotely controlling the monsters we've seen so far. And just so we don't forget how deadly these creatures are when they're fully functional, the episode ends with some intensely horrifying imagery that will haunt us for a while. Or at least till the next episode arrives with its own share of horror.
New episodes of 'War of the Worlds' Season 1 air every Sunday at 9 pm ET, exclusively on EPIX.
