'ZeroZeroZero' Episode 5: Chris' will to survive becomes the driving force in keeping Emma safe
In 'ZeroZeroZero' Episode 5, Chris and Emma Lynwood find out the hard way what it means to traverse through back channels from Senegal to Casablanca when they get accosted by a jihadi group in the middle of the Sahara Desert in Mali. The incessant bullets that get fired, a bombing at a hotel and a drone attack that kills many of the jihadis that brokered a deal with Emma and Chris, is just the tip of the iceberg. When Emma is led to believe that Chris also died during the drone strike, she is forced to run for her life without him.
In her eyes, Chris has always been someone that she has to protect, someone who is weak, and someone who cannot survive being kidnapped by the jihadis for that matter. As mentioned previously, Chris is anything but weak. He has this deep-seated need to survive because he has been told for a very long time that he would be the first one to fall sick in the family. It's his genetics. In this episode, we see this notion broken into pieces as Chris once again manages to get out of a tight situation without his sister Emma's help.
During the shootout between the jihadi group and Omar's men, Omar is shot and Emma watches more men arrive with guns. There is nothing but end in sight and then she sees a car squeal to a stop and out of it comes Chris. It shouldn't be possible, and the look of disbelief on Emma's face shows how shocked she is. Just as the camera pans from Emma to Chris, we see things unfold from his perspective. After Chris and Emma were separated by the group, what really happened with Chris unravels and keeps us on the edge. The only question in mind being, "How did Chris survive a drone strike?"
We see Chris get blackmailed into helping the jihadi group. First, he sees the leader of the group bid his son goodbye and then he is asked to pose as a doctor so that the same man gets access to a settlement that is guarded by officials. Chris is told that the leader's wife has given birth to a baby and that he needs to bless the baby. While Emma and Omar were led to believe that Chris had accompanied everyone to the site where a drone strike had taken place, the details weren't discussed and what we see transpire instead is a father who is about to lose a son and a son who recently lost his father open up to each other in a moment of weakness.
The drone strike occurs when the men are praying and that is probably the only reason why Chris survived. He was a little ways ahead and the targeted strike killed only the men who stood together to pray. Just moments ago, he had been speaking to one of them about why he couldn't have kids, and how that would be cruel. Now, he looks down on torn pieces of flesh strewn over with one survivor. Chris understands that the only way he and Emma would survive is if he took something of value back with him. Yet again, Chris saved what was left of the cocaine and Emma.
Lives were lost, but in the episode, all of that takes a backseat to what Emma and Chris live through. Death is a companion that is for now keeping Emma and Chris' company but might soon knock on Stefano's door. The beginning of the episode showed how Stefano's plot to fool Nicola's father is not a secret anymore.