Lazarus

Episode 6

Let me get this straight: Around fifteen years before the beginning of Lazarus, a bunch of scientists decided to clone Dr. Skinner's brain into an AI construct, except they specifically programmed it to be power-hungry and egotistical, for…Well, I guess to see if they could? In the fifteen years leading up to where we are now, an entire murder-cult has sprung up around this Skinner-bot AI, one that is well-known enough to have major publications run profiles on their very open worship of a computer program that is based directly on the brain of the world's most wanted and dangerous man…and Team Lazarus is the first group in the world to take any action on investigating them? Not only that, but Team Lazarus also unknowingly hired a master-hacker who grew up in and eventually escaped that very same cult? And now, the gang plans just to send Elaina and Leland back to the cult to try and investigate the Evil Skinner Clone AI that every other government agency on the planet completely forgot about until right this moment, under the assumption that they'll be welcomed with open arms instead of being kidnapped and set up as the sacrifices in an incoherent Wicker Man-esque burning ritual?

I feel like I'm losing my mind, here. Normally, I'll claim that people put way too much emphasis on plot holes and logistical inconsistencies, because none of those things should be important if the story is entertaining enough. Now, the main issue is that Lazarus simply is not entertaining enough to distract from its myriad plot and script issues. Still, the fact remains that I'm starting to lose my grip on what even counts as a nitpick versus genuinely major, glaring issues that might cut Lazarus off at the knees. It would be one thing if this show had anything resembling a consistent tone or thematic focus, but every single episode of this show is a crapshoot. As such, all of the stuff that drove me mad in “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” might very well never get referenced again. Does that make the episode better or worse? God only knows.

I've been hoping for an Elaina-focused episode for weeks because she's the character that has gotten the least to do out of anyone save maybe for Hersch 'We've Got Amanda Waller At Home' Lindemann. If only I had known that her showcase chapter would be this baffling and nonsensical mashup of folk and cult horror that feels like just another example of Watanabe and his writers stuffing whatever random interests they're currently fixated on into a script, regardless of whether they have anything to do with the story at hand, or if they will move the hunt for Skinner forward by the measliest of inches.

If anything, this entire episode just makes Elaina make less sense as a character. I knew she was younger than most of the Lazarus crew, but this episode very clearly puts her into the “Not an Adult” camp with Leland. If this cosplayers, and I cannot see how the impact of the episode would have been altered in the slightest. The cult still gets raided by the feds, the gang still learns absolutely nothing of value about Skinner's whereabouts, and I will bet dollars to donuts that the show is going to hit the reset button yet again next week, and not one bit of this ludicrous farting around will have mattered at all.

Rating:

Lazarus is currently streaming on Max and Hulu on Sundays.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.