Episode 2 of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl.
Seven hours after the accident at Chernobyl, a measuring station in Minsk suddenly has its radiation alarm go off despite there being no obvious source for it. One of the few scientists on duty that day, Dr. Ulyana Khomyuk, takes a sample and determines from the isotopes in the air that the source is some kind of nuclear fuel leak. She calls the nearest nuclear plant, Ignalina, and finds out that while they've also detected a radiation leak, it's actually at a lower level than in Minsk. Khomyuk then decides to call Chernobyl, thinking that it's unlikely to be the source of the leak but that they might know more about its source, only for her to slowly infer the Awful Truth when the plant doesn't answer her call.
Pripyat hospital is overwhelmed with plant workers and firefighters who are now in the full throes of Acute Radiation Syndrome. The attending doctor is in the middle of treating the radiation burns with milk, when Dr. Zinchenko arrives and realizes with horror what has happened. She immediately has the firefighters stripped of their severely contaminated uniforms and has them dumped in the basement, though suffers radiation burns to her own hands in the process. Outside, an angry mob, including Lyudmilla, is slowly building up.
In Moscow, Legasov has arrived for a committee meeting, and as he reads over the dossier he was provided, he slowly (and silently) becomes concerned that they're dealing with an unprecedented catastrophe. Naturally, he's shocked when the actual meeting begins, and Scherbina reassures Mikhail Gorbachev that they're only dealing with a minor accident and a radiation level about equal to a chest x-ray, with most of the attendees being more concerned about whether or not the west knows about the accident. Gorbachev goes to adjourn the meeting, but Legasov objects, pointing out a seemingly innocuous passage about how a firefighter was severely burned by picking up a piece of "black mineral". Scherbina dismisses it as nothing of importance, but Legasov continues his objections, informing the committee that the only place such a black material would be found is in the reactor core, indicating that the core exploded, not just a hydrogen tank. Furthermore, Legasov also points out that the radiation figure is likely vastly higher than has been indicated; the 3.6 roentgen figure would be bad enough, seeing how it's actually equivalent to 400 chest x-rays, but more importantly, it's also the maximum figure that most of the plant's dosimeters can register. After briefly chiding Legasov for speaking out of turn, Gorbachev allows him to continue since he is the expert on the subject after all, and Legasov explains how cataclysmically bad the situation could be if the core actually has exploded. Gorbachev therefore dispatches Scherbina and, over his objections, Legasov to Chernobyl via helicopter. En route, Legasov gives Scherbina a brief explanation of how a nuclear reactor works.
Khomyuk arrives at the headquarters of the Byelorussian Communist Party, but finds her warnings blown off, with the party sticking to the line that what took place in Chernobyl was only a mild accident even when she points out that such an accident wouldn't be detectable from Minsk. Realizing she's not going to get anywhere dealing with the party, she decides to take matters into her own hands.
After the growing mob rushes Pripyat Hospital, Lyudmilla manages to gain access to the building, and is shocked to see that among the patients are several of her neighbours who were stood on the bridge, and are now suffering from radiation burns. Undeterred, she manages to find the major in charge of the situation, who informs her that Vasily is being sent to Moscow for further treatment, and agrees to send her with him.
The helicopter arrives at the plant, and Legasov is horrified to see a blue glow emitting from the core and the roof covered in broken chunks of graphite. Scherbina, failing to comprehend the danger, orders the pilot to take them over the reactor for a better look, causing a terrified Legasov to yell that they'll all be dead in a week if they do so. While Scherbina threatens the pilot with being shot, Legasov tells him that it'd be a Mercy Kill compared to what the radiation would do to them, causing the pilot to reluctantly disobey Scherbina's order.
Shortly afterwards, the helicopter lands at a military camp overseen by General Pikalov, with Bryukhanov and Fomin in attendance. Scherbina is initially prepared to give the two bureaucrats the benefit of the doubt, but their Suspiciously Specific Denials and attempts to denounce Legasov as a trouble-maker only serve to heighten his suspicions, and he tries asking them why the roof would be covered in graphite, something that should only be found in the reactor's core. Caught off-guard, Fomin unconvincingly tries to claim that what he actually saw was burnt concrete, and only succeeds in further convincing Scherbina that the two are lying. Pikalov informs them that they have just received a high-range dosimeter, and on being informed by Legasov that taking readings might be a suicide mission, volunteers to do it himself.
That night, Pikalov drives a heavily shielded truck up towards the ruins of the reactor building. He returns largely unharmed, and informs the assembled dignitaries that the radiation level isn't the 3.6 roentgen that has been the official figure until now, or even the 200 roentgen that Sitnikov detected; rather, it's 15,000. Asked to explain the full implications of this figure, Legasov grimly explains that the reactor did indeed explode, that the exposed core is giving off twice the amount of radiation as the Hiroshima bomb every hour, and that it will continue to do so until all of Europe and Asia is lethally irradiated. Scherbina immediately has Bryukhanov and Fomin arrested and taken away, uninterested by their attempts to shift the blame to Dyatlov, and asks how they can extinguish the fire. Legasov informs him that water will be useless, as it will just get vaporized by the extraordinary heat of the reactor, and that their best bet is to smother it with 5,000 tons of sand and boron. He also recommends the immediate evacuation of Pripyat, but Scherbina refuses this suggestion. Later, at a nearby hotel bar, Legasov is asked by a local couple if they should be worried about the fire, to which he reluctantly lies and says no.
The next day, a squadron of helicopters flies up to the reactor building, each carrying a payload of sand and boron. When the first helicopter goes to fly directly over the core to drop its payload, a panicked Legasov — watching from a nearby rooftop — reminds Scherbina that the helicopters cannot fly over the core. Unfortunately, this order doesn't get relayed to the pilot quickly enough, and the helicopter flies directly over where the radiation is at its worst, delivering a lethal dose to everyone on-board. Fortunately, they don't suffer for long, as the incapacitated pilot inadvertently steers towards a nearby crane; on impact, the helicopter's radiation-damaged rotors immediately disintegrate, and the vehicle falls hundreds of feet to the ground. On being informed by Legasov that there is no other way to smother the reactor fire, Scherbina orders the operation to continue despite the deadly mishap, telling the pilots that they need to pitch their payload onto the exposed core.
After making calls to some contacts, Khomyuk is able to work out that Chernobyl has indeed been the site of a major disaster, and that the authorities are trying to deal with it by smothering the fire with sand and boron. She sets out for the plant, despite knowing full well that the government will have declared it off-limits by now.
In his Pripyat hotel room, Legasov is still dissatisfied with the town's not having been evacuated, and when Scherbina tries to dismiss his concerns, he points out that just by coming here they themselves have already absorbed so much radiation that they'll likely be dead in five years, leaving Scherbina utterly shell-shocked. Things then go From Bad to Worse when they receive a telephone call informing them that the radiation from Chernobyl has reached Sweden, who alerted the U.S., and who in turn used spy satellite photos to confirm that the reactor has exploded. With West Germany having schoolchildren stay inside to avoid being exposed to radiation, the Soviets can no longer feasibly keep people in the town right next to the destroyed reactor.
A fleet of buses soon arrives in Pripyat, accompanied by cars which announce that the town is being "temporarily" evacuated. The citizens, including the multitude of patients in the hospital, are shepherded onto the buses and out of the town, leaving their homes, their belongings, and even their pets. Legasov and Scherbina watch solemnly from a rooftop in the now-abandoned town, as its residents are driven away, never to return.
As the last of the buses leaves the town, Khomyuk arrives at the military checkpoint, and is threatened with arrest if she refuses to leave — which she's actually quite fine with, since it's the fastest way of getting to whoever's in charge. She's brought to Legasov and Scherbina, where she informs them that they've committed a potentially apocalyptic error. The sand and boron that they're dropping will melt down and combine with the reactor debris to form a radioactive lava; Legasov counters that he anticipated this and that it won't become a serious problem for at least a month, but she points out that in two days, the lava will reach the bubbler pools below the reactor. The pools had mistakenly been assumed to be empty, but between every pipe in the building being fractured in the explosion, Akimov's and Toptunov's fruitless efforts to cool the destroyed core, and the water pumped in by the firemen, the pools are full again, with the potential to cause disaster when the lava burns its way into them.
An irate Gorbachev, who has been busy offering up mea culpas to the international community, chairs another committee meeting, this time with Khomyuk in attendance. She explains the situation in terrifying detail, revealing that if the bubbler pools are not drained, the lava will flash-vaporize all the water within and create a thermal explosion several megatons in force, destroying the remaining reactors at Chernobyl and leading to a colossal release of radioactive material which will likely kill the entire population of the Ukraine along with most of Byelorussia, render both countries uninhabitable for a century, and severely contaminate most of eastern Europe. Gorbachev asks why they don't just drain the tanks, to which Legasov replies that it's possible, but that it'd take at least three men, all of whom would likely suffer fatal radiation exposure. After a moment's thought, Gorbachev gives his permission for the operation to go ahead.
Legasov finds it tough going to recruit the necessary three volunteers, until Scherbina reveals the deadly consequences if no-one drains the bubbler pools. Eventually, three technicians from Reactors 1 and 2 volunteer themselves. No sooner have they begun their potential suicide mission, however, than the radiation fries their flashlights, plunging them into darkness.
Preceded by "1:23:45"; succeeded by "Open Wide, O Earth".
Tropes:
- Abandoned Area: A montage near the end of the episode shows the spooky, abandoned town of Pripyat, hours after all the citizens have been put on buses and evacuated. One of the shots features the interior of a restaurant with half-eaten food and drinks still on the tables. (It is of course still abandoned, and is the most infamous Real Life abandoned area in the world.)
- Anti-Radiation Drug: When Khomyuk notices the elevated readings she takes an Iodine tablet and tells her co-worker to do the same. After failing to convince Garanin that something is wrong she pauses on the way out of the office to give his secretary a bottle of Iodine tablets and a warning to get out of the city as soon as possible.
- Apocalyptic Gag Order: Khomyuk encounters this when trying to figure out where the radiation is coming from. All party officials have been instructed to deny any accident at Chernobyl.
- Armor-Piercing Question: "Why did I see graphite on the roof?" Shcherbina to Bryukhanov and Fomin. As Legasov had told Shcherbina in his briefing, graphite is used in the reactor cores and nowhere else; for graphite to be on the roof, the core would have to have exploded. The pair trying to pass it off as burnt concrete, which confirms to Shcherbina that they're lying: he knows enough about concrete to realize that whatever the rubble was, it sure wasn't concrete.
- Armor-Piercing Response: After getting frustrated with Shcherbina not understanding why the people of Pripyat should evacuate when the two of them aren't, Legasov frustratedly shouts that they themselves will be dead in five years just from being this close to the reactor. This sends Shcherbina into Heroic BSoD for most of the episode's remainder, but ultimately drives home for him the gravity of the situation.
- Artistic License – Physics: The idea of a steam explosion in the megaton range is quite simply preposterousnote . You'd probably have to flash-boil a small lake's worth of water to pull it off. The water in the bubbler pool would generate a pretty vicious steam explosion and definitely would disperse what's left of the reactor over an area too wide to control, but leveling cities was never a realistic threatnote . The megatons figure was lifted, apparently without fact-checking, from one account in the oral history Voices from Chernobyl.
- As You Know: While briefing the Kremlin on the effects of the potential third explosion, Khomyuk takes a second to note that Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia are all part of the Soviet Union, as everyone is the room would have been perfectly aware.
- Blame Game: When Shcherbina arrives, Bryukhanov and Fomin immediately present him with a list of individuals they believe are responsible. Shcherbina then asks why he saw graphite outside the core, and Bryukhanov immediately passes the buck to Fomin. Later, when they're being arrested, Fomin protests by saying that Dyatlov was the one in charge — he's actually right, but since no-one knows the cause of the explosion at this time (coupled with, well, his general sliminess up to this point anyway), it just comes across as him pulling a Never My Fault instead of justly blaming the person who decided to violate numerous safety protocols.
- Blatant Lies: While in Pripyat's hotel, a tourist couple (actually a pair of KGB agents) asks Legasov if there is any reason they should be worried. He says "no" so as to not spread a panic, and they are relieved. The show then cuts to a dead deer in the forest while the containment helicopters fly overhead.
- Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: The infamous "Vnimanie, vnimanie..." announcement blared over loudspeakers mounted on military vehicles during the evacuation of Pripyat. The audio used is the same from the real life evacuation.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with the divers' flashlights dying from the radiation, leaving them in the dark below a burning reactor.
- Creepy Basement: To open the sluice gates and drain the water from the reactor, three plant workers must venture into the dark, labyrinthine underbelly of the plant—which, of course, is flooded, forcing them to wade through sometimes waist-high water highly contaminated with radioactive particles.
- Crisis Point Hospital: On the morning after Reactor #4 explodes, casualties begin arriving at the hospital in huge numbers, including power plant engineers, local firefighters, and even ordinary citizens who had the bad luck of being downwind of the burning reactor. All of them are suffering from the initial stages of radiation exposure, and with no safety gear on hand, it's not long before the nurses begin suffering radiation burns as well. Eventually, the place is so crowded that patients are forced to wait out in the corridors, and guards are placed at the front entrance to prevent concerned relatives from investigating.Zinchenko: Get everyone started on an IV.
Nurse: We don't have enough.
Zinchenko: All the children, then.
Nurse: We don't have enough.
Zinchenko: [snaps] As many as you can! - Cryptic Background Reference: In refuting Fomin's excuses, Shcherbina mentions that he "know[s] a lot about concrete." This is never expanded on in-story; in Real Life Shcherbina would have been familiar with concrete from his and his father's long history of construction management.
- Damage Control: The episode focuses on the immediate aftermath of the disaster—the steps taken to care for the injured and drain the water from the reactor to prevent an even worse explosion.
- Disintegrator Ray: Downplayed. The sheer amount of radiation the breached reactor puts out basically turns anything nearby into swiss cheese at the atomic level. This is most pronounced on the helicopter, which splatters when it crashes, rather than shatters. In subsequent episodes, we see what it does to people...
- Desolation Shot: The montage showing that Pripyat is now abandoned.
- Didn't See That Coming: Legasov makes a near apocalyptic mistake despite it being scientifically sound. To put out the fire, he instructs Shcherbina to smother the core in five thousand tons of sand and boron, knowing that the sand will increase the temperature of the reaction and eventually melt down. What he doesn't count on, however, are the control tanks below the reactor being full of water. He had been informed that they were nearly empty, but as a result of the fire hoses pumping water into the reactor all night, the tanks have been filled with runoff—if the meltdown reaches the water, it will instantly vaporize it,causing a thermal explosion powerful enough to pop the other cores, releasing their radiation and essentially making half of Europe virtually uninhabitable for thousands of years. Fortunately, Ulana Khomyuk spots the flaw in his plan, and with the help of three incredibly brave and lucky plant workers the tanks are emptied before the lava reaches them.
- Disproportionate Restitution: Legasov promises a yearly stipend of 400 rubles to any plant worker willing to dive under the reactor and drain the water. Of course it seems ridiculously small in light of what he is trying to get them to do.
- Dramatic Sit-Down: When Legasov (in a moment of frustration) lets slip that he and Shcherbina will likely be dead in five years due to the radiation they've already been exposed to, Shcherbina's iron resolve visibly cracks and he has to sit down. He's so stunned it takes him half a minute to respond to a phone call, with further news that he needs to be sitting down for.
- Drone of Dread: The divers' radiation-detecting dosimeter, which clicks faster and faster as they proceed into the plant until it's practically buzzing. After their lights cut out, they are left in the darkness with only this noise and their own breathing, which crescendo into a horrible tension-building drone before abruptly cutting out as the end of the episode.
- Empty Piles of Clothing:
- The afflicted fire brigade's uniforms are thrown into a pile at Pripyat's hospital's basement. As shown in the epilogue, they are still there to this day . . . and they are probably the most radioactive spot in the city aside from the reactor core itself.
- Invoked again after the evacuation of Pripyat, when the Desolation Shot montage shows clothes left out on lines, never to be gathered up.
- En Route Sum-Up: Legasov explains how a nuclear reactor works to Shcherbina while they are already in a helicopter on the way to the disaster site. Justified by the head-spinning speed with which they were thrown together as a team, and the fact that Shcherbina only realises while talking to Legasov that his lack of basic knowledge will put him at a disadvantage when interviewing specialists.
- Foreshadowing: The poem at the beginning of the episode not only serves as a historically accurate detail (patriotic poems were often played on the radio in the Soviet Union); its content about sacrificing one's life for your country foreshadows the ending where the divers are asked to go on a Suicide Mission.
- From Bad to Worse: Bad enough that there's an explosion in a nuclear power plant, there's graphite on the ground, the core has been cracked open and the plant is pouring out deadly radiation. Then Khomyuk figures out that Legasov's solution of dumping sand and boron to try to smother the core is going to cause a steam explosion in the plant's water reservoirs, poisoning much of Eastern Europe.
- Ghost Town: By the end of the episode, Pripyat has been cleared of its entire civilian population.
- Godzilla Threshold: Why Legasov decides to dump boron and sand on the reactor at first. He knows that this will just melt everything down into "lava", which could cause a lot of problems, but he thinks they have a month to fix that and right now the most important thing is dealing with the huge immediate problem. Unfortunately, it turns out that the window of time he expected to ameliorate the consequences is much shorter than he thought.
- Got Volunteered: Gorbachev sends Legasov to assist Shcherbina on the ground after he reveals how dire the situation at Chernobyl really is.
- Greek Fire: The reactor fire, bordering on Hellfire. Because it's essentially nuclear lava still undergoing fission reactions (which generates heat), dousing it in water is effectively useless as the water would instantly turn to steam. In the end smothering it with sand and boron (a neutron-absorbing material) kills off the fission reactions to the point the fire can be considered "put out".
- Hellish Copter: The helicopter Legasov and Shcherbina are on nearly crashes when the latter orders the helicopter to fly over the open reactor core. Later in the episode, the same happens to a helicopter that is trying to dump in sand and boron.note
- Heroes' Frontier Step: Shcherbina makes his when, after realising how bad the situation is, he storms off - not to save his ass, but to set the wheels to get Legasov the five thousand tons of boron and sand needed to put out the fire.
- Heroic BSoD:
- Legasov has a brief one after reading Shcherbina's report, and was able to read between the lines enough to realize that what he was led to believe was a minor accident was in reality an unprecedented catastrophe with near apocalyptic implications. It takes him seeing the rest of the committee nearly brushing it off to snap him out of it.
- After Legasov shouts at him that they will both be dead from radiation within five years, Shcherbina enters a state of shock, slumping down into a chair with a stunned expression on his face and barely notices the phone ringing beside him. This state persists for most of the episode, but he eventually snaps out of it to deliver a Rousing Speech to the plant workers persuading some of them to volunteer as divers even though it will kill them.
Shcherbina: I'm making my peace with it, and now you make yours. - Heroic Sacrifice: The liquidators know that they're going to die from radiation poisoning in journeying under the reactor but do so anyway because they know the alternative is letting the reactor explode and allowing millions of people to die. Subverted, however, when they all beat the odds and survive after hospitalization (as the epilogue clarifies).
- Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: A couple in a bar in Pripyat asks Legasov whether they should be concerned about the fire at the power plant. Legasov hesitates before telling them "No."
- Hiroshima as a Unit of Measure: Once accurate readings of the radiation levels are taken, Legasov points out that the fire is emitting the equivalent of two Hiroshimas. Every hour. And it's been burning for 20 hours already, and will burn for months.
- If Only You Knew: Ulana Khomyuk is introduced getting radiation alarms in her lab in Minsk, 400 km from Chernobyl. Her assistant mentions the Chernobyl plant as a possible source, but Khomyuk dismisses that possibility, saying, "They'd have to be split open." They are split open, and when further analysis soon convinces her that Chernobyl has to be the source of the contamination, she springs into action.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Legasov retreats to the hotel bar and starts pounding vodka after the first inspection of Chernobyl confirms his worst fears.
- Ironic Episode Title: The episode is titled "Please Remain Calm". It naturally consists of people realizing just how bad things are, having to evacuate and a second explosion nearly occurring that would make things much, much worse.
- I Surrender, Suckers: Heroic version. When threatened with arrest for trespassing on the exclusion zone, Khomyuk encourages the soldier to do it and bring her to "the highest possible authority" so she can inform them on additional danger.
- Kill the Lights: At the end of the episode, the three men sent into the reactor building to drain the water have their lights go out, leading to a Cliffhanger. This is Truth in Television.
- Knight in Sour Armor: The poem at the beginning of the episode is supposed to symbolize this idea. It discusses the Russian ethos of serving one's "great, bitter land" despite its many flaws.
- Lecture as Exposition: En route to the reactor, Shcherbina has Legasov explain to him how a nuclear reactor works so that he can discuss it intelligently—and so that the audience can understand the proceedings.
- Line in the Sand: When the government is looking for three divers for a Suicide Mission, none of the workers is eager to volunteer. Then Shcherbina delivers a short Dare to Be Badass speech about the millions who will die if nobody acts. It works.
- Mercy Kill: Discussed. As Legasov and Shcherbina are approaching Chernobyl, Shcherbina orders the helicopter pilot to fly right over reactor #4 to better see the damage. Legasov advises against it due to the fact that flying through the radioactive smoke would be fatal, but Shcherbina angrily tells the pilot to do it, or he will have him shot. Legasov then goes to the cockpit and tells the pilot that if they fly over the reactor, "I promise you, by tomorrow morning, you'll be begging for that bullet!" After a few nervous seconds, the pilot decides to swerve away from the reactor.
- Misery Builds Character: Discussed, in reference to east Slavic culture itself, during Shcherbina's inspiring speech to convince three plant workers to volunteer for what seems to be a Suicide Mission.Shcherbina: This is what has always set our people apart. A thousand years of sacrifice in our veins. And every generation must know its own suffering.
- The Needs of the Many: Legasov tells Gorbachev that to prevent a steam explosion that will irradiate all of Belarus and Ukraine and kill millions, three operators are going to have to go into the plant and drain the water. But those three men will die from radiation exposure after they do it, which is why Legasov says "We're asking your permission to kill three men." After taking a Beat to digest this, Gorbachev says, "All victories inevitably come at a cost", which is all he says to give the go-ahead.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Legasov's idea to smother the fire with sand and to slow the reaction with boron results in the sand being liquefied into radioactive "lava" and pouring towards water pooled underground, threatening to cause an even greater disaster if they interact. The only way to avert this is to send three men into the dark and highly irradiated underground to pump the water out; even if they succeed, it is a Suicide Mission, and he needs clearance from Gorbachev himself to order it. In his defense, Legasov was aware that dumping the boron/sand mixture would "create problems of its own" (and much of the sand that the lava was made of was already in situ around the reactor where it was intended to act as a safety blanket), but putting out the fire had to take priority because it was spewing radioactive smoke, and he wasn't aware of the pooled water until Khomyuk alerted him to it; in addition, unlike basically everyone else who fucked up to any extent regarding the disaster, he owns his mistake and sets to work trying to prevent its potential consequences.
- Toptunov, Akimov, and the firefighters poured tons of water onto the reactor fire in hopes of putting it out, but the water vaporized upon contact because the fire was so hot, and the now irradiated water vapour floated into the atmosphere, contaminating everything downwind. The water that didn't boil away pooled under the reactor, where it must now be drained away lest the core melt its way down and touch the water, triggering another steam explosion.
- "No More Holding Back" Speech: Shcherbina's Rousing Speech to the potential divers doubles as this, marking the moment where he recovers from his Heroic BSoD from learning that he will die from being near Chernobyl.
- No One Should Survive That!: All three of the "divers" who go into the reactor survive, despite everyone being sure they were undertaking a Suicide Mission.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: Legasov decided to go through with an admittedly risky and imperfect plan of dumping sand and boron on the reactor, believing it was worth it for containing the radiation, and that they have a month to fix the negative consequences. However, he was not aware that there was still water in the tanks, which will now ignite and cause a disastrous second explosion within only two days.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Having been told that Pripyat will not be evacuated, Legasov goes to the hotel where he will be staying. Before going to bed, he goes to the hotel bar where, probably to cope with the burden of not being allowed to tell people to leave the city, he asks for some vodka. When the bartender hands him a glass, Legasov asks if she can serve him the vodka in one of the freshly washed, upside-down ones. Obviously, he wants to avoid drinking from something that might have radioactive particles on it, but then a nearby couple (unbeknownst to him KGB spies) asks him if he did this out of superstition, to which he can only answer in the affirmative.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Khomyuk doesn't think Chernobyl could be the source of the radiation being detected, since it's so far away that it would "have to be split open", but she calls them anyway, suggesting they might know something . . . only to find that they're not answering the phone. She lays the receiver down in shock.
- Legasov's horrified expression when reading Shcherbina's initial report says it all, even if said report downplays the magnitude of the disaster.
- Legasov again, when he first gets a look at the actual state of the reactor from the helicopter.Legasov: What have they done?
- Shcherbina, when Legasov blurts out that they will both be dead in five years simply from being at the site.
- Shcherbina and, by extension, the whole Soviet government when they learn that the West is aware of the incident after the radioactive wind was picked up by scientists in Sweden who alerted the USA, who took satellite pictures of the still burning reactor, meaning the USSR can't act as if nothing happened anymore.
- Khomyuk's report evokes this from everyone present at her briefing, where she explains exactly what will happen if the lava in the core is allowed to vaporize the water beneath the reactor.
- Doctor Zinchenko gets one after waking from a nap in the hospital break room and seeing the ambulances streaming in towards the hospital, then another after carrying a load of the firefighters' gear to the hospital basement and seeing that her hands have radiation burns.
- Only Sane Man: Legasov at the government cabinet meeting, because he is the only one with the technical background to understand that the reports are wrong. At least Gorbachev has the good sense of listening and sending him to further investigate.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- The Soviet news show Vremya broadcasts a twenty-second segment announcing that an accident has occurred at Chernobyl. As was noted by Western journalists at the time, particularly in the recording shown by Peter Jennings, the mere fact that the Soviets were admitting something bad had happened—at all—showed just how serious the accident was.
- Scherbina asks Legasov to give him a rundown of how a nuclear reactor, and adds the threat of being thrown out of the copter. Legasov complies. Moments later, Scherbina tells the pilot to fly over reactor #4, and despite Legasov caving in to death threats earlier, this time Legasov is absolutely freaking out, refusing to back down even on pain of death and warns the pilot that getting a bullet in the head is a mercy kill by comparison. The pilot catches on that when a seemingly nerdy and spineless scientist freaks out and refuses to back down, they really ought to listen.
- Outscare the Enemy: Legasov pulls off a variant. When Shcherbina threatens to shoot the pilot of the helicopter the two are on if he doesn't fly over the reactor, Legasov counters by saying that flying over it will give him a far worse death than what Shcherbina would do to him.
- Phlebotinum Analogy: An example where the phlebotinum is something from Real Life, but that the in-show audience of the lecture and much of the real-life audience wouldn't understand: Legasov compares radiation to millions of microscopic bullets that pummel one's body.
- Pillar of Light: Legasov notes that the faint blue sky beam that has emerged from the power plant once it exploded is ionized air that is the first clear indication that the core is now exposed to the exterior.
- Race Against the Clock: Ulana and Valery tell Gorbachev that they have 48-72 hours to get personnel into the lower levels of Reactor #4 to drain away the water, to prevent the melted core from causing a steam explosion that will kill millions of people.
- Reality Has No Subtitles:
- The poem that plays at the beginning of the episode is in Russian with no subtitles.
- When the government trucks drive around Pripyat, blaring the order to evacuate the town immediately, the loudspeaker warnings are given in unsubtitled Russian. You don't need to speak Russian to understand what is going on; the trope here is used to underline the fear and disorientation that the residents of Pripyat are feeling as they are told with no notice that they have to leave town right away.
- Likewise, the TV report on the incident is in Russian (albeit with subtitles) even though it's not the original Soviet broadcast but a recreation.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite being given reports that the incident at Chernobyl is being managed efficiently, Gorbachev proves willing to listen to Legasov when he insists that reading between the lines of the report suggests that things are much worse than being claimed. However, he also makes it clear that he has no intention of listening to panicked rambling from someone he has never met, thus giving Legasov a moment to collect himself before he continues.
- Revealing Cover Up:
- Khomyuk initially discounts the idea that Chernobyl might be the source of the radiation spike she's been detecting, since that would mean a catastrophe has occurred at the plant which is located over 400km away. She decides to call them anyway to see if they know anything about the radiation, but then can't get through to anyone on account of the phone lines being cut—confirming a catastrophe at Chernobyl.
- During the initial meeting between Shcherbina, Legasov, Bryukhanov, and Fomin, the latter two are confident of being able to talk their way past Shcherbina, who knows nothing about nuclear reactors. But then Shcherbina asks (informed by Legasov) why there is graphite outside the building, which could only have come from inside the reactor core. Bryukhanov freezes for a moment, then turns to Fomin and asks him to explain. Shcherbina may not know anything about nuclear reactors, but he is enough of an experienced bureaucrat to know when someone is trying to cover his ass.
- Ridiculously Potent Explosive: As detailed on the Artistic License page, while the threatened steam explosion in Episode 2 would have indeed have been a major From Bad to Worse moment, that would have been a result of there being much more radiation, and the explosion itself could never been as powerful as claimed.
- Rousing Speech: When one of the core technicians asks Legasov why they should feel compelled to go on a Suicide Mission through highly radioactive water mixed with fuel from the exposed reactor, Shcherbina gives a pretty commanding one.Shcherbina: You'll do it because it must be done. You'll do it because no one else can. And if you don't, millions will die. If you tell me that's not enough, I won't believe you. This is what has always set our people apart. A thousand years of sacrifice in our veins. And every generation must know its own suffering. I spit on the people who did this, and I curse the price I have to pay. But I'm making my peace with it, and now you make yours. And go into that water. Because it must be done.
- Secret Test: A disturbed Legasov has retreated to the hotel bar when a tourist couple mentions the explosion and asks him if there's anything to worry about. He lies and says no, thus passing the Secret Test, as the tourist couple is actually a pair of KGB agents.
- Sensor Suspense: As the three divers descend into the basement of the Chernobyl plant, their dosimeters gradually start creaking faster and faster as they get closer to the core above them, until the sound is almost deafening.
- Shout-Out: The three men who volunteer to become the "divers" do so by each standing up and announcing their name. Craig Mazin refers to this as "the I am Spartacus scene" in the podcast.
- Someone Has to Die: Just getting close enough to the reactor to contain it means massively increased cancer risk for all the workers, but if they don't do anything, the entirety of Europe will be poisoned by the radiation.
- Spotting the Thread: In spite of the report attempting to greatly downplay the disaster, Legasov is able to read between the lines enough to figure out that what happened at Chernobyl is infinitely worse than anyone can imagine. He begins to freak out internally when he reaches the bit in "casualties" about a smooth black mineral severely burning a firefighter's hand (graphite, which can only have come from the core itself) and also points out that the overly-specific figure of 3.6 roentgen happens to also be the maximum reading a personal dosimeter can show, meaning that it is simply the highest number that registered on low-level equipment.
- Spreading Disaster Map Graphic: Khomyuk is able to do this without a visual representation, as she describes, one by one, the countries that a steam explosion at Chernobyl will devastate.
- Spy Speak: Khomyuk and her physicist friend in Moscow, well aware that the phone may be tapped, engage in an elliptical conversation about escaping from "the heat", as well as mentioning a couple of numbers and names (five-year-old Boris and fourteen-year-old Simka) that actually refer to elements on the periodic table. This is how Khomyuk learns that the government in Moscow has ordered sand and boron dumped on the reactor to cover the core and stop the venting of radiation.
- Storyboarding the Apocalypse: Khomyuk gives a graphic description of exactly what will happen if the reactor is allowed to melt down into the water in the bubbler pools:Khomyuk: When the lava enters these tanks, it will instantly superheat and vaporize approximately 7,000 cubic meters of water, causing a significant thermal explosion.
Gorbachev: How significant?
Khomyuk: We estimate between two and four megatons. Everything within a 30-kilometer radius will be completely destroyed, including the three remaining reactors at Chernobyl. The entirety of the radioactive material in all of the cores will be ejected at force, and dispersed by a massive shockwave which will extend approximately 200 kilometers and likely be fatal to the entire population of Kiev as well as a portion of Minsk. The release of radiation will be severe and will impact all of Soviet Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Byelorussia, as well as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and most of East Germany. - Sudden Principled Stand: The government committee formed to respond to the accident is about to disband, believing reports that nothing too serious has happened, when Legasov suddenly slams the table and declares, "No!" before pointing out the details in the report that imply something far more dangerous is going on. The main result of this stand is that he gets sent to Chernobyl along with Shcherbina.
- Suicide Mission: Legasov expects the divers who go into the reactor to die within a week. In actuality, as the epilogue reveals, they survive: One of them died in 2005 and the other two were still alive to receive medals from the Ukrainian government in 2018.
- Superficial Solution: The drops of sand and boron turn out to be a temporary solution that causes its own problems.
- Suspicious Missed Messages: After detecting heightened levels of radiation and trying to call everyone around who might be responsible, Khomyuk ends up calling the titular power plant and finding the phone lines are cut off and she is getting no response, making her realize that something is very much going wrong there.
- This Cannot Be!:
- Fomin insists that Shcherbina could not have seen graphite on the roof of the building, that he must have seen "burnt concrete". This is a mistake, as Shcherbina shoots back that while he doesn't know beans about nuclear power, he does know a lot about concrete, and what he saw on the roof of the building was not concrete. Fomin and Bryukhanov exit stage left immediately.
- Zharkov is visibly confused when they are evacuating Pripyat, as the state had told everyone that the situation was not serious.
- Tranquil Fury: On learning that the amount of radiation being spewed into the air is some 5000x more than Bryukhanov and Fomin had been assuring everyone, Shcherbina never raises his voice — but he nevertheless very quickly makes it clear that the two shouldn't expect a great deal of comfort, freedom or friendly treatment in their near-to-mid future.
- Understatement: The Soviet ministers try to dismiss the levels of radiation as no worse than "a chest X-ray." Even if this were accurate, though, continuous exposure to even that level of radiation is dangerous, which is why technicians who have to administer X-rays every day stay behind special shielding.
- We Have Reserves: Subverted when they need to get a direct reading from close to the reactor core. It's suggested that a soldier could be sent, but General Pikalov decides to go himself.
- Wham Line:
- "It's not 3 roentgen. It's 15,000."
Shcherbina: What does that number mean?Legasov: It means the core is open. It means the fire we're watching with our own eyes is giving off nearly twice the radiation released by the bomb in Hiroshima. That's every single hour, hour after hour. Twenty hours since the explosion, so forty bombs worth by now. Forty-eight more tomorrow, and it will not stop. Not in a week, not in a month. It will burn and spread its poison until the entire continent is dead!- Khomyuk enters and begins explaining the fatal flaw in Legasov's plan, but everything she says is something he is already aware of—until she reveals his mistake about the time frame they're dealing with:Khomyuk: No, you don't have a month. You have approximately two days.
- Worst Aid: The male maternity doctor is not only woefully uninformed about treating radiation injuries; the medical knowledge he does have is itself lacking. As such, when faced with a mob of people bearing obvious radiation burns, he responds by treating them as thermal burns. Zinchenko finds him trying to treat a firefighter's burns by wiping them down with milk.note He also has not removed their contaminated clothing, which only happens when Zinchenko yells at the staff to help her. Justified as many old Soviet doctors, especially in rural areas, did not receive any formal training save for folk remedies or the occasional textbook. Younger doctors, like Zinchenko, had access to Soviet universities and schools and were thus better trained and aware of modern procedures.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Downplayed. When Legasov finishes explaining how a nuclear reactor works, Shcherbina responds that he doesn't need Legasov anymore since that was his whole purpose. However, it is soon clear this is only meant as "so now you can stand in the background and let me do what I was sent for in silence" rather than any kind of threat. When he confirms that Bryukhanov and Fomin were lying to him and the disaster is orders of magnitude worse than originally thought, he makes Legasov his Number Two in helping him contain the crisis.
