Neil
In the third episode of Y: The Last Man, Nora and Mackenzie return to a house they’ve been sharing with a few other families. With food running out and snowmelt running low, there’s a tough choice to make. This tough choice sees Nora and Mackenzie left behind. ..
With Agent 355 holding down the fort with her helicopter pilots, Yorick’s presence is being kept hush hush for the time being. However, how long can you keep something like this a secret?
As Marla ventures out into the hallway, she notices the shadows of something moving. She cautiously approaches one of the TVs, only to find that it’s Yorick, hunting for Amp. As she watches him track down his friend, Marla is reminded of all the times they’ve spent together. ..
Yorick finds his monkey but also comes face to face with Marla too. Jennifer shows up with Agent 355, feigning ignorance and claiming there’s no one there and that she’s imagining all of this.
Jennifer is concerned about the CCTV footage from the night before, but 355 reassures her that everything is okay. What’s not okay though is Yorick and his presence inside the building. There could well be a massive incident on their hands if they’re not careful, with 355 mentioning a similar situation in Russia that got completely out of hand. ..
The government building is not actually empty. Yorick wolfs down a massive load of spaghetti, which he eventually throws up later in the episode. This is the most frustrating part of the episode.
The author discusses the struggles and deaths of women who are struggling and dying outside of starvation, but makes it clear that this joker eats more than his fair share without batting an eyelid. He then throws up.
Jennifer learns that there is another big issue on the table. Away from the floods in NYC, there is a nuclear power plant crisis that needs to be dealt with. Given the lack of organized personnel with credentials able to handle this, she calls on her staff to enlist the aid of Dr. Sharon Jacobs.
Dr Jacobs has abandoned her post after her sons’ deaths.
Regina is a woman who has just awoken from a coma and is the next in line to be president of Israel. This throws a massive spanner in the works for Jennifer, who so far has been leading the charge relatively well.
Kimberly, a new agent, sweet talks Agent 355 while she’s investigating details surrounding a geneticist to handle Yorick’s presence. ..
355 wisely keeps the forms hidden, and smiles weakly at the prospect of a card game later that day. Kimberly doesn’t stop there though. In fact, she ends up attending a children’s center where the wife of a deceased politician happens to be. Kim asks for her support “if the time comes”, reinforcing that we could well be looking at a coup for the presidency position. ..
Nora and Mackenzie are left alone after Kenzie’s attempt to protect them from crows fails. Nora digs a grave for her father and brother, who were killed by crows. ..
Agent 355 and the others decide to cart Yorick off to see Dr Mann. It’s ironic name of course, given the circumstances, but Yorick has a condition before he goes – he wants Jennifer to find Beth no matter what.
Jennifer is concerned about the Regina situation, as the woman is unfit for service and has even claimed that “Jesus wasn’t vaccinated.” ..
The group are all in agreement that she can’t be president, with her cabinet standing by Jen’s side. Unfortunately, Kimberly is against her. She believes that her and the other ladies are being squeezed out. Everything looks set to explode at any moment but thankfully the situation is diffused with some petty name-calling and huffy walkouts.
Yorick being in the Pentagon isn’t exactly going to help and could well swing the balance of power away from their family.
Agent 355 tells the pilots that she will stay dark and keep Yorick safe. She has snuck out in a laundry basket and taken to the helicopter with the two pilots. Yorick and the gang fly two separate helicopters but as one of them plunges out the air and explodes in a fireball on the ground, Agent 355 doesn’t even blink as she tells the boy they “keep going”.
After they leave, Jennifer manages to convince Sharon to help out with the nuclear incident, allowing everyone to breathe a sigh of relief.
Jennifer and Kimberly are both in shock after learning about the male victims. Kimberly mentions that Marla conjured up an image of Yorick wandering the hallways, of all people. Jennifer is worried about what this means and whether it’s a sign that something bad is going to happen.
The Episode Review
Agent 355 seems to have killed these two women in cold blood to keep Yorick’s identity a secret. While that seems like a sound plan, it may not be enough.
In this episode, we see that Kimberly is about to make a power play and it looks like she will do so by leaking details of Yorick being alive. After all, Agent 355’s comments about the cameras being “unmanned” are enough to see this as a light bite of foreshadowing for the future episodes.
We could see Kimberly team up with Regina too, especially as this absolutely crazy politician is technically next in line to take over. Either way, it spells big trouble for our main players.
There’s a lot of moving parts in this and the actual post-apocalyptic issues have been largely brushed over, which is a shame. Now, I don’t know how the graphic novel handles this but given the 63 day time jump, we’ve seen nothing about how people have survived beyond thin snippets that the class divides are still in place.
While Yorick wolfs down mountains of spaghetti that these officials seem to have in abundance, people outside in the city are starving. Why not quell the masses by dishing out food? How do they have enough numbers to man tanks and have officers on the ground?
Despite some obvious qualms though, the ending to this episode hints that we’ve got a lot more intriguing plot points for the future to ponder over.
The Last Man is a flawed but entertaining post-apocalyptic romp. ..
