The Lazarus Project Season 1 Episode 3 Review: My Enemy's My Ally
This explained a lot about how Rebrov ended up where he has.
The Lazarus Project Season 1 Episode 3 dug into the former Lazarus agent turned terrorist who was captured, offscreen no less, on the previous episode.
Rebrov's story did an admirable job of making viewers think about who is on the side of right: Lazarus or those such as Rebrov attempting to stop their efforts.
The answer is Lazarus. But things aren't as clear-cut as they previously had seemed.
At the center of this philosophical battle is loss.
Sure, Lazarus is saving millions of people trying to prevent mass-extinction events, as explained on The Lazarus Project Season 1 Episode 1.
But there are those suffering individual losses every time there is a time loop.
These included members of The Lazarus Project itself.
Archie lost her partner/lover Ross when they finally completed their mission to stop a nuclear war in an Eastern European country.
George remained wallowing in his pain. Not only was his and Sarah's baby wiped out by a reset, but Sarah herself was accidentally killed after George had joined Lazarus.
George didn't understand why team members couldn't use their technologies to undo tragedies in their lives, even after Archie lectured him on the topic, using her own loss as a teachable moment.
His team added to his paranoia. Archie rightfully refused to take him on the mission to capture the terrorist group The Lost Glory in the Czech Republic. George couldn't have been in the right frame of mind to go after his loss.
But that was all the more reason to send him home to grieve. His throwing himself into his work to take his mind off Sarah's death had little upside.
After Sarah died, he felt even stronger about using time to resurrect her. So he went to the only person connected to Lazarus who would help him: Rebrov.
Since his capture on The Lazarus Project Season 1 Episode 2, Rebrov hasn't seemed like an evil mastermind. Throughout this episode, we came to understand his motivation better.
So when George approached him about turning back time, Rebrov, was more than willing to help him. Although they had different drives, their interests had aligned.
Rebrov had told his former teammates what he knew about The Last Glory. But George asked the most relevant question of Rebrov -- what would attract the group's attention?
Rebrov knew Big Boy couldn't be utilized without a detonator. So he put George in touch with someone who could build such a device for him.
The shocker was who that person was -- Rebrov's estranged wife, Janet, who had also fallen off Lazarus's radar.
The sad story of Dennis Rebrov and Janet had already been rolled out for about 20 minutes, so viewers knew who Janet was.
A significant consequence of these time loops caused by Lazarus is that children would be born, then disappear when time reset, after which different babies would arrive.
What was baffling is why anyone aware of this dilemma would ever consider starting a family since they could remember every child that got ripped away from them, unlike members of the oblivious public.
But Dennis and Janet decided to defy those odds and attempt to have a baby. And they suffered for that choice, over and over and over again.
Their son came two weeks early, before the checkpoint. But, in a heartwrenching scene, a chemical weapons attack in China forced Wes to call a code black, rolling back time and wiping away the boy as Janet held him at the Lazarus office.
The couple kept trying to have another child. But they chose to do this in 2018, during which time Archie and Ross failed, again and again, to stop a nuclear war from breaking out. As Rebrov said to Wes in a The Lazarus Project quote, the world wants to die, but they won't let it.
During this time, George and Sarah met cute in many different variations, as Archie and Ross couldn't succeed at their mission.
Rebrov and Janet had it so much worse, as they continuously kept getting pregnant, giving birth, then losing their child. They lost any joy from what should have been a special occasion because they knew what was coming next.
Even though Janet initially held George at gunpoint, they bonded as they shared what they had lost because of Lazarus's efforts to keep the world turning.
In the end, Janet did have her daughter living with her. So their determination paid off in the end.
However, Janet's most significant loss was her husband, Dennis.
Loss drove Rebrov off the rails in the end. He demanded at gunpoint that Wes show him who Lazarus was working for. He also raised the question of whether a planet that residents were attempting to kill deserved to be saved.
He showed Wes death up close and personal when he killed two staffers before her. That set him on the run and on his path to becoming a terrorist.
Now that George has the detonator, he must decide whether to work with or around his teammates at Lazarus, possibly being viewed like Rebrov.
To follow the evolving mission of Lazarus, watch The Lazarus Project online.
Is George making the right decision in going in his own direction?
Can he trust Rebrov?
What do you think of Rebrov after learning his back story?
Comment below.