Recap / Chernobyl S1E4 "The Happiness of All Mankind"

"It's time to go."

"I serve the Soviet Union ..."

Episode 4 of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl.

August 1986. The evacuation of the area around Chernobyl is well underway — though an elderly woman, who is in the middle of milking her cow, isn't too bothered about this. She explains at length to a soldier how she's lived there all her life, experienced war and all its associated horrors, and certainly isn't going to leave because of something she can't see. The soldier responds by simply shooting the cow and physically removing the woman.

In Kyiv, a now-visibly pregnant Ludmilla is shown into the apartment where she will now live alone, at least until she gives birth.

Legasov and Scherbina are briefing General Tarakanov on the task facing them when it comes to building a protective cover over the ruins of Reactor 4. They explain that there are three zones on the reactor building's roof which need to be cleared of debris — "Katya", with radiation levels of 1,000 roentgen (fatal within two hours, even to a fully protected person), "Nina", with 2,000 roentgen (fatal within one hour), and "Masha", with 12,000 roentgen (fatal within three minutes), making it possibly the most dangerous place on Earth. For the task of clearing Katya and Nina, they have pulled the lunar rovers from the Soviet Union's abortive moon landing program out of storage, and are retrofitting them into small, lightweight bulldozers. However, even the rovers cannot survive the radiation levels on Masha, and neither can any other technology the Soviets have to hand. It's therefore up to Tarakanov to find a solution.

A young man named Pavel has been conscripted to join the quarter-million-strong army of liquidators, and is driven to an encampment near the plant, where he's teamed up with two veterans of the Afghanistan War, Bacho and Garo. In-between chugging down copious amounts of vodka, the two veterans realize just how desperate the situation is becoming if they're now recruiting non-military personnel. They then inform Pavel that they're on animal control duty, and are in charge of "euthanizing" the animals in the exclusion zone, most of whom will be pets.

Despite their fears, the adapted lunar rovers turn out to be quite capable of working in the radioactive environments of Katya and Nina. Masha remains a problem, but General Tarakanov tells Legasov and Scherbina that they may have a solution in the form of a German bomb disposal robot. Only fly in the ointment is that it's a West German robot, which the trio note will likely force the Central Committee to acknowledge the full extent of the disaster during their negotiations to obtain it.

Khomyuk tries digging for the technical specifications of the RBMK design and asks for close to a dozen books, manuals, and research papers, and is only given one, heavily redacted paper, fuelling her suspicions that the state is trying to hide something. She drops in to see a recovering Dyatlov again, and he proves to be still in denial to the point of refusing to even acknowledge the reactor exploded until she shows him a photograph of the destroyed reactor building. Khomyuk reveals that the state forgot to redact the table of contents in the paper she was given, and that the contents imply an issue caused by the AZ-5 button and a positive void coefficient. Dyatlov confesses to having no idea what would have gone there and tells Khomyuk that she's wasting her time; regardless of what caused the accident, the end outcome will be the state suppressing the truth, and a Kangaroo Court that will most likely lead to his execution. Khomyuk leaves, still not much the wiser, but now knowing that if there was a fault in the reactor, even a man as experienced as Dyatlov was unaware of it.

As Pavel, Bacho, and Garo are transported to a clean-up site, the two soldiers tell Pavel that they're only allowed to be exposed to a cumulative total of 24 roentgen before they're sent home, but that the commanding officers conveniently stop checking once they hit 23 roentgen. On arrival at the deserted village, Bacho instructs Pavel on gun safety, and warns him not to let animals suffer — if the first bullet doesn't do the job by itself, he's to finish them off as quickly as possible. They begin doing their grim task and split up, with Pavel soon coming across a dog. He tries to shoo it away, but it walks towards him, happy to see a human for the first time in months. Nervously, he pulls the trigger, but his aim is too unsteady to One-Hit Kill it, leaving it grievously wounded but still alive. The sight of the wounded dog causes him to completely freeze up, forcing Bacho to finish it off and admonish him for letting it suffer, albeit not unsympathetically. When the trio break for lunch, Bacho tells Pavel of his first kill, making the point that while his young colleague's first kill may have been a dog, both his and Garo's first kills were humans. As Bacho takes a moment to reflect on the nature of killing and the toll it takes on someone's psyche and Pavel sits in silent shellshock at the task remaining before him, Garo sums up the purpose of what they're doing by quoting the words on a tattered propaganda banner hung behind them: "Our goal is the happiness of all mankind." The three men contemplate this for a moment before Bacho shrugs it off and slings his gun over his shoulder again, telling the other two it's time to get back to work.

September 1986. The cleanup operation is going well so far, with a good chunk of Katya and Nina now cleared. The bomb disposal robot, "Joker" arrives and is airlifted onto Masha, and the reward for the month-long negotiations and eating crow among the international community... is Joker's electronics completely burning up within approximately ten seconds. Scherbina calls the Central Committee, and completely loses it on finding out that they told West Germany the propaganda figure of 2,000 roentgen (six times lower than the actual figure) was the highest anyone had detected, royally chewing out the committee members and destroying the telephone. With robots out of the question, they discuss other options that night. Scherbina suggests they drop molten lead from helicopters in order to coat the debris, but Tarakanov points out that not only would this be incredibly dangerous, the lead would make the helicopters too heavy to fly. Tarakanov in turn suggests shooting the debris off the roof with explosive bullets, and Scherbina retorts that they'd just set the roof back on fire. Legasov determines that their only remaining option is "Bio-Robots" — people, in other words.

Pavel sweeps another village, thinking there's no way his job can possibly go From Bad to Worse... and is quickly proven wrong when he comes across a dog with a litter of puppies. Bacho quickly realizes that even he can't ask Pavel to do this, and sends him out of the building while he does what needs to be done. Pavel walks away from the building with a blank expression, as a series of gunshots and yelps ring out from within. Afterwards, the trio dig a pit in which they dump a small mountain of dead animals, which is covered over in concrete.

October 1986. General Tarakanov instructs his latest squad of "Bio-Robots" on the immensely dangerous task facing them — they are to go to the roof of Reactor 4, where they will have a mere 90 seconds to scoop up and throw as much debris into the reactor core as possible. We then follow one of the squad members — whose face we never see — as he struggles to scoop up the heavy and potentially lethal debris in his shovel. After the 90 seconds are up, he gets his foot wedged under a large piece of graphite, and struggles to get it out, spending around 20 more seconds on the roof than he was supposed to. Making matters worse, when he gets back inside, he discovers a tear in his protective boot. "Comrade soldier, you're done" calls out the attending officer, in-context telling him to get to the decontamination area, but also hinting that he can at best expect to have decades shaved off his life, and at worst, will be dead within weeks.

December 1986. Lyudmilla is sat in a park near her Kyiv apartment, when she feels a contraction. Before she can get help, she doubles over in pain and collapses, indicating that something is very, very wrong.

In an abandoned schoolhouse in Pripyat, Legasov, Scherbina, and Khomyuk meet up to secretly discuss Legasov's impending speech to an international conference in Vienna. Khomyuk reveals that the Chernobyl plant management committed severe breaches of safety regulations, which likely contributed to the explosion, but that she still isn't entirely sure of its cause, only suspecting that some flaw with the AZ-5 button was a contributing factor. Legasov finally admits that he knew all along of the flaw in question, which is that when AZ-5 is pressed, the graphite tips of the control rods are the first things to enter the core, which briefly accelerates the reaction before the boron in the rods halts it. However, the only situation where that would become a severe problem would be if the reactor was already on the brink of a meltdown, meaning that Dyatlov's actions were indeed the principle cause of the disaster, albeit he had no way of knowing how bad it would be. However, the actual truth doesn't matter; Legasov has already been briefed that his job is to blame the disaster on Dyatlov, Bryukhanov, and Fomin, setting the stage for their eventual show trial. Khomyuk demands that Legasov tell the full truth, which will force the government to repair the remaining RBMK reactors and ensure the same accident can't happen again elsewhere, but Scherbina reminds her that the KGB would exact revenge on Legasov, his family and his friends — themselves included. Still, Khomyuk pleads with Legasov to tell the truth, revealing that Lyudmilla's daughter died only a few hours after birth, having absorbed a lethal dose of radiation in the womb, and asking Legasov whether it's worth lying to protect a country that allows such things to happen.

Nearby, the final squadron of "Bio-Robots" has cleared the last of the debris from the roof, and all are awarded with commendations and a cash reward by General Tarakanov. From the nearby encampment, an already much more jaded Pavel puffs silently on a cigarette.

In a maternity ward in Kyiv, several new mothers are cradling their babies. In the corner of the room, Lyudmilla sits on her bed, next to an empty crib, looking utterly broken.

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Preceded by "Open Wide, O Earth"; succeeded by "Vichnaya Pamyat".

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Tropes:

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Zig-Zagged. The Central Committee ends up negotiating with West Germany to get a police robot to push the graphite off Masha, but they give the propaganda figure (2,000 roentgen, not 12,000) and it fries within seconds. Later, Shcherbina wonders if they can ask the Americans, but Tarakanov points out that even if the Americans have the technology needed and are willing to help, the Central Committee will never stoop so low as to ask them.
• All for Nothing: The Soviet military pressures the government to get more advanced robots from abroad to clear the most radioactive section of the roof. After refusing to ask the Americans and conducting long negotiations with West Germany, they acquire a police robot called "The Joker." but the robot is fried as soon as it is placed on the roof. Turns out, even after accepting the loss of face needed to ask the West for help, the USSR could still not bring itself to inform them of how bad the situation actually was, and told the Germans that the robot needed to withstand 2,000 roentgen (nasty but survivable for a robot) instead of 12,000 (kills everything more complex than a light switch). The response team loses precious months and has to resort to human workers to clean the highly contaminated roof.
• America Saves the Day: Discussed. When they brainstorm possible solutions for the "Masha" roof, Shcherbina brings up the Americans as a last resort for help. Tarakanov says that would only be feasible: 1) if the Americans had that kind of technology (which he doubts), 2) if the Central Committee would lower themselves to asking their arch-enemies for help; and 3) assuming they did, if the Americans would lower themselves by giving such help. Each of those is a very big "if", and all three of them together amounts to a virtual impossibility.
• Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: A soldier threatens to shoot an old woman, who is milking her cow, if she continues to refuse to evacuate. When she continues refusing, there is a gunshot that turns out to be aimed at her cow.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Two of the old Soviet Lunokhod lunar rovers are taken out of mothballs and re-purposed as remote-controlled bulldozers (their design already being radiation-hardened in order to survive in space) and are used to help clear the debris on the roof.
• The Commies Made Me Do It: A literal example—Shcherbina comments that anyone who tries to stand up to the Soviet government will not just be threatening themselves, but encouraging the government to go after their friends and family.
• Cutting the Knot: As a soldier tries to convince an elderly Ukrainian lady to evacuate, she continues to milk her cow while explaining why she will never leave her farm. After he dumps out the milk, she still refuses. The soldier then shoots the cow, giving her no reason left to stay.
• Damage Control: The most liquidation-focused of the five episodes. Army recruits hunt down contaminated animals, Khomyuk investigates RBMK reactors to prevent a similar accident, and Shcherbina and Legasov do their best to clear the roofs without resorting to manual labor...
  Bacho: Those guys over there? They dig up the ground. Those guys, they cut down trees. Those guys I think evacuate people, you know? Like villagers?
• Dare to Be Badass: At the end of the episode, Khomyuk tries to convince Legasov to tell the truth in Vienna about the flawed reactors, at the likely risk of his own Unpersoning.
  Khomyuk: We live in a country where children have to die to save their mothers. To hell with your deal. And to hell with our lives. Someone has to start telling the truth.
• Deadly Euphemism:
  • The "Animal Control" teams are death squads for wildlife, pets, and livestock in the exclusion zone.
  • "Bio-Robots" are humans sent up to clear graphite off the 'Masha' roof, which was radioactive enough to destroy the actual robot sent first.
• Double Meaning: When the liquidator returns from his ninety seconds on the roof and discovers the rip in his boot, the man supervising the project tells, him, "Comrade Soldier, you're done," indicating both that he has completed his task and that he has likely received a fatal dose of radiation.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: The Central Committee's actions encapsulate what's wrong with the USSR. They are asked to find a machine capable of handling the 12,000 roentgen conditions on the "Masha" roof. Legasov has explicitly stated that machines useful in 2,000 roentgen conditions—with heavy shielding—can't survive the former. The Central Committee uses the 2,000 number anyway when asking the West Germans for technical assistance. West Germany operates nuclear power plants; they will know that 2,000 roentgen on a roof itself means a catastrophic core accident and also that no machine can survive the true conditions. Even months into the reality of this crisis the Central Committee haven't learned either the basic physics or that physics don't care about belief.
• Dramatic Slip: During their Race Against the Clock on the rooftop of reactor 4, one of the liquidators gets his boot trapped under heavy debris while running to the exit. On the way back, he trips and falls into a puddle of radioactive water, and once he is inside he discovers that the toe of his boot was torn by the graphite.
• Drone of Dread: The liquidator on the roof is handed a dosimeter before going outside, and its fast clicking is audible throughout the scene, getting faster and more insistent when he is near a particularly dangerous area.
• Epic Fail: To clear the graphite from the roof, the Liquidation Command Team deploys an impressive, state-of-the-art autonomous construction robot ("Joker"). Radiation fries its circuits and renders it inoperable in four seconds. The Team is disappointed. Made worse because like Chernobyl itself, Joker's failure is completely self-inflicted. When party officials contacted the Germans to see if the robot could handle high radiation, they specified the "propaganda number" of 2,000 roentgen instead of the actual 12,000 it would have to endure.
• The Faceless: The liquidator who we follow during his mission on the roof. We never see his face, or learn his fate.
• Failed a Spot Check: One of the KGB agents assigned to watch Khomyuk redacts the majority of documents she requested to look over, and tore out two pages of the one she was allowed to read. However, he failed to do the same to its table of contents, leaving her the clues she needed to unravel the design flaw in the RBMK reactors that was a major factor in the explosion.
• Feet of Clay: The USSR is so desperate to appear strong to the rest of the world that they give the Germans the propaganda number of there never being more than 2,000 roentgen, a sixth of the true radiation. Had they just fessed up to the German supplier, or even been shrewd in saying they detected some higher-level spikes, they wouldn't have wasted so much time getting a robot delivered that was never going to work.
• Forbidden Zone: The section of the roof called "Masha." The radiation there is listed as 12,000 roentgen. Two minutes of exposure cuts your life expectancy in half. The gamma radiation shreds microchips, so no ordinary robot would be able to function on it. As Shcherbina says, that section of roof is the most dangerous place on Earth, and Legasov exhausts every possible option before having to send humans out onto it to clean it up.
• Frontline General: General Tarakanov stays as close to the roof as he can so that he can give the liquidators their briefing. After each clean-up detail is completed, Tarakanov thanks each soldier individually and shakes his hand, not giving a damn if any of them might be contaminated.
• Gaining the Will to Kill: Bacho recants to Pavlov how the first time he killed a man while serving in Afghanistan, he was so traumatized he felt as if he was a completely different person than before. But upon waking up the next day, he realized that he's still him, only now he knows he's the type of person willing to kill another man.
• Genocide Survivor: The elderly Ukrainian woman lists The Holodomor, a man-made famine in which millions of Ukrainians were starved to death by the Soviet government, among the horrors she has endured in her life. This reflects how little the Soviet government cares about the wellbeing of its average citizens, which is one of the show's major themes.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Downplayed, with Khomyuk acting as the good angel telling Legasov to go public about the disaster's causes in Vienna, and Shcherbina acting as the bad angel telling him to take the KGB's deal and protect himself.
• Gory Discretion Shot: None of the animals killed are shot on screen. Subverted in the first dog that Pavel shoots, which is shown with its entrails hanging out after he failed to make his first shot fatal.
• I Know You're Watching Me: Shcherbina knows Moscow Centre is monitoring his invective-filled phone call after Joker's failure, but is just too furious with the higher-ups' Head-in-the-Sand Management to care.
  Shcherbina: OF COURSE I KNOW THEY'RE LISTENING! I WANT THEM TO HEAR! I WANT THEM TO HEAR IT ALL! TELL THOSE IDIOTS WHAT THEY HAVE DONE! I DON'T GIVE A FUCK!
• Ironic Episode Title: The title is taken from a particularly ironic propaganda slogan the liquidators see on a derelict building: "Our Goal Is the Happiness of All Mankind."
  Bacho: I'm happy. I'm happy every day.
• Irony: Of the cruelest possible kind. Legasov admits to Khomyuk and Shcherbina that he and other scientists knew about the design flaw in the RBMK reactor - that pressing the shutdown button would temporarily cause a power spike instead of immediately shutting down the reaction - but he didn't think it would be a problem because such a power spike would only lead to an explosion if the reactor's operators were dumb enough to disregard all the other safety protocols and "take the reactor to the brink of disaster" - which is precisely what Dyatlov did, in the belief that no matter how recklessly the reactor was handled, he could always press the shutdown button.
• It Gets Easier: Bacho tells Pavel that there's no shame in feeling sick after his first kill - it happened to Bacho in Afghanistan.
  Bacho: I thought, well, that's it, Bacho. You put a bullet in someone. You're not you anymore. You'll never be you again. But then you wake up the next morning and you're still you. And you realize: that was you all along. You just didn't know.
• Jitter Cam: A shaky, bouncy Jitter Cam follows the liquidator on his 90-second trip across the roof, shoveling graphite over the rail into the reactor hole—90 seconds because that's all the soldiers are allowed to be up there, disposing of the unfathomably radioactive debris.
• Just Following Orders: The soldier in the opening clearly does not enjoy having to evict an old Ukrainian woman from her home, but his orders were clear that every single person be evacuated whether they want to leave or not. He finally just kills the cow she's been milking to remove her excuse to stay.
• Kangaroo Court: Legasov outright says that Dyatlov, Fomin and Bryukhanov will only get a show trial in a conversation he has with Khomyuk.
• Lecture as Exposition: At the beginning of the episode, an elderly woman gives a soldier a lesson in Ukrainian history, including bits that wouldn't have been discussed in the Soviet era, like Holodomor, the name of which was unheard of in USSR.
• The Man Is Keeping Us Down: The West Germans were perfectly happy to help supply robots to the Soviets—it's too bad the Soviets were lying to them about just how much radiation was on the roof for propaganda purposes, so they ended up with robots not suited to the job.
• Mercy Kill: Bacho tells Pavel that they have been assigned to be "animal control", which consists of them hunting down pets and farm animals so that they don't spread radiation outside the containment zone. Right before they go on patrol, Bacho says he has two rules: 1) Not to point the weapon at him; and 2) If he shoots an animal, make sure it's dead, "don't make it suffer." When Pavel shoots his first dog, the poor thing is left lying and bleeding out, then Bacho comes and finishes it off.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When confronted by Khomyuk, Legasov replies that he was fully aware of the flaw in the reactor, but had no idea it could cause an explosion.
• No Animals Were Harmed: Appears at the end of the episode, which has a whole lot of animal shooting.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The scene of the cleanup crew being sent to the roof to clear the graphite debris is completely devoid of any music and there really isn't much action going on the shot other than them hurriedly throwing the graphite debris back into the core. However, the entire scene is accompanied by the ticking of a Geiger counter which starts ticking faster and faster the closer they get to the core.
• The Oner: The liquidators are tasked with removing graphite from the roof of the reactor buildings. They are only given 90 seconds to do their work. Their shift is done in one shot.
• Poor Communication Kills: The government not bringing itself to tell the Germans the real amount of radiation is bad enough, but actually following with delivering the woefully unprepared robot to the response team without even telling them the robot is unprepared, that takes the cake. The team loses the robot without even having a chance to somehow fit it with extra protection themselves, and has to resort to using human cleaners (the exact scenario they were trying to avoid).
• Race Against the Clock: Shcherbina has no choice but to make soldiers go to the extremely radioactive roofs of the power plants and clear out the contaminated rubble. Each soldier has about 90 seconds to work before they must evacuate the roof and be decontaminated because they'll receive a lifetime of radiation during this minute and a half, that's how deadly the zone is. The soldier the camera follows is unfortunately exposed to the roof, and his torn off shoe is a death sentence.
• Rage Breaking Point: After learning that the government knowingly gave the West Germans the wrong number, rendering the robot useless, Shcherbina's usual measured equanimity gives way to sheer fury.
  Shcherbina: OF COURSE I KNOW THEY'RE LISTENING! I WANT THEM TO HEAR! I WANT THEM TO HEAR IT ALL! DO YOU KNOW WHAT WE DO HERE? TELL THOSE IDIOTS WHAT THEY HAVE DONE! [pause] I DON'T GIVE A FUCK! TELL THEM! GO TELL THEM! RYZHKOV! GO TELL THEM HE'S A JOKE! TELL FUCKING GORBACHEV! TELL THEM! [slams phone repeatedly in frustration]
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Whilst Khomyuk is trying to persuade Legasov that he should go public with the design flaws in the RBMK reactors, Shcherbina is quick to remind her of this.
  Shcherbina: I've known braver souls than you, Khomyuk. Men who had their moment and did nothing. Because when it's your life and the lives of everyone you love, your moral conviction doesn't mean anything. It leaves you. And all you want at that moment... is not to be shot.
• Reckless Gun Usage: Pavel clearly has no idea how to properly handle a firearm. He struggles to load his rifle and constantly holds it so the barrel is pointing in the direction of others.
• Rotten Robotic Replacement: When trying to clean up the roofs, the working plan is to use robots this time instead of using real people as they had in the last two episodes, given that tends to be very dangerous at best and a Suicide Mission at worst. This all goes fine with the first two, relatively less radioactive roofs, but the robot West Germany sends for the most dangerous roof, "Masha", proceeds to break down as soon as it's sent up there thanks to it only being designed to withstand 2000 roentgen (the amount that the Soviets told them was on the roof as propaganda, but way less than the amount that was actually there). This forces them to use humans to clear the roof once again.
• Sadistic Choice: Conversed in the end of the episode. Legasov can either expose the truth of the RBMK reactor's design flaws and incur the wrath of the Kremlin for humiliating the Soviet Union, or he can toe the party line and let the possibility of a second Chernobyl happen.
• Seen It All: The old woman milking her cow sees this as her reason for not wanting to leave: she's endured the revolution, famine, and the Second World War. None of those things, not even the murder of her relatives, could get her to leave her home. So she won't leave because of radiation.
• Sensor Suspense: Given that you can't see the radiation, the scene with the liquidators clearing the roof has to be sold completely on the "soundtrack" of the Geiger counters—to great effect.
• Shoot the Dog: Twice, though both would probably be considered Mercy Kills in the long term. The scenes are designed to drive home the tragedy of the situation and evil of the system that allowed it to happen, rather than the villainy of the characters who carry them out.
  • The episode opens with one of the soldiers sent to evacuate the cities and villages surrounding Chernobyl trying to convince an elderly woman to leave her small farm as she's busy milking her cow. She lists off everything from the Bolshevik Revolution, to Stalin's regime, and finally the Great [Patriotic] War, that she has lived through while staying on her property and tells him the radiation won't change that. The soldier promptly shoots the cow, and tells her to come with him.
  • A more literal example occurs later with Pavel, a new conscript in the Soviet Army, who is assigned to an animal control unit tasked with destroying the pets people had to leave behind, as well as any remaining wildlife. It's made absolutely clear that neither he, nor his superior officer and the other soldier in his unit, enjoy doing it, but see as a task that must be done. And while they, sadly, have to do the same with any pups or other offspring they find, they try to make the deaths as quick and painless as possible.
• Shoot the Television: After his phone conversation with the Kremlin, where it is explained that they were sent sub-par equipment because the Kremlin refused to admit to the German company supplying it just how radioactive the Chernobyl site was, Shcherbina emerges from his trailer, trailing the smashed remains of the phone in his hand. He drops it to the ground and calmly informs his assistant that they will need a new one.
• Slave to PR: The Kremlin negotiates with West Germany for a robot that can handle the astronomical radioactivity on the plant's rooftop but undersells just how radioactive it really is to avoid embarrassment.
• Snowy Screen of Death: The screen goes all static when "Joker" dies.
• Someone to Remember Him By: Cruelly subverted. While Lyudmilla's pregnancy comes to term, months after Vasily's death, her daughter dies four hours after birth because of having been exposed to radiation while in the womb.
• Sound-Only Death: Pavel only hears the shots of Bacho killing the puppies.
• Sparing Them the Dirty Work: Seeing the mother dog with her puppies, Bacho curses under his breath, then tells Pavel to go outside while Bacho does what has to be done.
• That Satisfying "Crunch!": After the team's robot breaks down thanks to the West Germans giving them a robot designed only to withstand a far lower amount of radiation than is actually on the roof (thanks to the Soviets telling them a lower propaganda number), Shcherbina breaks his phone in anger while shouting at the people who told the Germans this.
• Time Skip: The episode starts four months after the explosion.
• Tragic Stillbirth: Lyudmilla's baby dies four hours after being born, thanks to the radiation she was exposed to from being around the plant and spending time with Vasily.
• Vodka Drunkenski: Enforced by the government: the liquidators are given free vodka as reward or to keep morale high. Bacho drinks heavily to numb the pain while on duty killing dogs, and it is implied that Pavel begins doing so as well.
• Walk into Mordor: The team tries to use robots to clear the highly radioactive roofs of graphite but are eventually forced to resort to sending in humans, who can withstand more radiation than robots—in the short term, that is.
• War Is Hell: Downplayed. Bacho mentions how actually killing someone is never as glamorous or exciting as it looks in the movies, just strange and traumatizing.
  Bacho: My first time, Afghanistan. We were moving through a house and... suddenly a man was there and I shot him in the stomach. Yeah, that's a real war story. There are never any good stories like in movies - they're shit.
• Wham Episode: After unrelenting human suffering has been on full display for three episodes, the show goes for the gut punch detailing how pets and domesticated animals have to be dealt with because of radioactive contamination, in conjunction with the actions of the "bio robots" used to clear the plant's roof of lethally radioactive debris. And, just to really pile on the pain, Lyudmilla's baby dies hours after being born because of radiation exposure.
• Wham Line: "Bio-robots. We use bio-robots. [Beat] Men."
• Wham Shot: After the liquidator returns from the roof, the camera reveals a tear in his boot from when it was trapped under that radioactive graphite.
  Overseer: Comrade Soldier... you're done.

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