December Madness: Chernobyl

Okay, I'm cheating a bit on this one, as I didn't have anything to watch today. This is about the miniseries, Chernobyl. I wanted to go back and re-review one of my all-time favorite shows. It's haunting, dark, and asks the question so prominent at the beginning and the end of the show: "What is the cost of lies?" While this released in 2019, I feel the impact of this show four years later, like the radiation that plagued the soldiers of the Exclusion Zone. I can never claim to understand the pain seen there, nor do I intend to downplay what suffering they accrued, but I will choose to further the message of this show. I will also give a CONTENT WARNING ahead of time: there is gruesome imagery and suicide in this show. Let's break it down.

PLOT: A harrowing tale.

We'll go step by step to understand this show's brilliance. The show immediately hits us with a cold open set three years after the disaster. Our protagonist, Valery Legasov, is dying from radiation sickness. As he finishes one last recording, he chooses to end his life. We then cut back to right as the disaster occurs, but we do not cut to the explosion. We instead see it from the perspective of a woman encountering morning sickness. This is one of the many people we follow on this story, but I will not spoil where her journey ends up. This, however, is one of the many brilliant concepts this show does. Instead of glorifying the explosion, we spend all five episodes finding out how it occured and how it affected all the people within the Exclusion Zone as well as how the cleanup occured. This show is far from focused on the disaster, but instead how the disaster impacted hundreds of thousands of lives if not millions. It's supremely well-written and never is cruel about its intentions. It's an honest showing of the disaster, even if some details are glossed over.

CHARACTERS: Heartbreaking.

There are very very good people in this show, which makes it all the more heartbreaking when the people who act as antagonists make the decisions they do. You understand that the people willing to sacrifice it all to save their homeland are there to do what's right, but those who send them are in fact responsible for much of it. The show decides to never show one person as the single problem for the reactor, but instead a country of complacency as the grand issue. The characters you want to see suffer never do and the characters you want to come out victorious never do. It's a shame to see them suffer. I specify as little as possible because, if you've seen the show, you understand my meaning. If not, go watch it now. The characters are also acted by crazy good actors. Jared Harris delivers his best performance as Legasov, balancing between naivety and hopefulness. Stellan Skarsgard is near perfect in his redemption arc of a character. The late great Paul Ritter plays an unlikeable antagonist to perfection. Con O'Neill and Alex Ferns are standouts, while I found myself enjoying performances as well from Barry Keoghan, Fares Fares, Ralph Ineson, and Adam Nagaitis. There's so many crazy good actors here all doing 100%. Just a phenomenal cast.

SHOTS: Enchanting and enduring.

Jakob Ihre is a scarcely-known cinematographer, but he clearly deserves more work. The cinematography is by far some of the best in a TV show I've ever seen. The way it holds on items we know are dangerous while the score builds is so well-done and haunting that I feel chills anytime I see it. It's beautiful and also shows how lighting can be dark without sacrificing visual clarity. The show just looks beautiful to watch.

SOUND: Dear... god...

Like the best of shows, I find myself listening to tracks from it every so often. Vichnaya Pamyat, a haunting hymn that translates to "Eternal Memory", plays at the very end of the show and is enchantingly beautiful. Additionally, it's not just music that works. It's the ever so low noises that make this show suspenseful. When we zoom in on dangerous artifacts and you either hear this horrifying noise like screeching alarms or the clicking of a geiger counter, you know exactly how doomed the person or object is. It's so well done and is utilized SEVERAL TIMES in the show.

WRITING: Dark and efficient.

A show with this dark of a topic must have incredible writing to show respect to those afflicted by the disaster. Craig Mazin, writer of films such as The Hangover Part 2 and 3, Superhero Movie, and Scary Movies 3 and 4; was chosen for this job. Yeah, I had about as much confidence as the rest of you. However, whatever was holding him back before, clearly wasn't present here. The writing is sharp and efficient while also being dark and meaningful. Even the jokes (as few as they are) are often bleak and thoughtful. The scene between Skarsgard and Harris in Episode 5 where they discuss death is beautiful and poignant to the point of tears. Episode 4, as in all of it, is a dark dark episode involving animal control and is kept lighthearted in parts to distract from the dark topic at hand. Sadly, there is one fatal flaw...

CONS: Historical accuracy!

As accurate as the show can be, it portrays some relatively human people in a bad light while also painting a false narrative over some of the main characters. Much of it is dramatized for television, so I'll give it a bit of leeway, but the treatment of Lyudmilla Ignatenko and Vasily Ignatenko is a bit heinous. Lyudmilla (still alive all these years later) spoke out against it and rightfully so. Additionally, there was no Bridge of Death in real life. Or, rather, the name is a misnomer. Not nearly as many people as this show portrayed as dying were recorded as dying either by Soviet records (mostly false) or official records (mostly true). Strangely, this show tries to say the Bridge of Death had no survivors, which, again, is false. Sometimes, these things do fall through and it's likely just a simple mistake.

LITTLE THINGS: Craig Mazin's redemption arc and THAT EPILOGUE!

This show is a complete tonal change for Craig Mazin and shows where his true talents lied. It's honestly so shocking to me that this was the guy who made some truly terrible comedies and wound up making two of my favorite drama shows in the last couple years. Speaking of, I might review that show as part of the Christmas list. Lastly, I'd like to mention the epilogue. A powerful summary of what happened after set to the track "Vichnaya Pamyat" was all I needed to put this show in my top ten shows of all time if not top three.

VERDICT: A beautiful, poignant, yet somehow grim show.

The show really does inspire haunting visuals and dark topics that never once let off on the suspense. However, within the show is a beauty of life surpassing tragedy. The finale really does show the little rays of hope that came out of this tragedy, despite all the darkness that previously happened. It's a show I say you HAVE to watch in order to understand what truly works about it. Go watch it if you have a few hours to spend, but be prepared to cry, feel the hairs on your neck raise, or just be blown away by the whole thing. It's worth a watch, but prepare to be haunted.

SCORE: 10/10, incredible filmmaking.