Five Days at Memorial (TV Mini Series) Day Two (2022) User Reviews

Heartbroken

[moviesfilmsreviewsinc · 10/10 · 23 September 2022]

Episode 2 of Five Days at Memorial stars with a faint glimmer of hope in the midst of this horrific storm. Everyone at the hospital is still alive. That's it guys, that's all the hope right now as Susan herself narrates, the worst is still yet to come. With the hospital heating up and water being used quickly, an ominous shot of the trash topped up with empty water bottles is pretty telling and could become a massive problem in the future. The heat is unbearable and even worse, there are rumours spreading across the hospital that people are going to be kicked out. Dr Horace hears these rumours in the main atrium but he tells one of the patients that no one is being forcibly removed. If they have a problem, they can speak to him directly. Funnily enough, these rumours started as a game of Chinese whispers which we see through a series of staff members discussing an incident outside. What actually happened was that a couple of kids were eyeing up a nurse but eyeing up turns to harasser which turns to attacked and then eventually raped, as the story progresses through to others. The editing and sound design for the final 2 minutes of this episode are absolutely fantastic. There's a real sense of dread spreading across this hospital and it's interesting to see how that palpable sense of fear can be made all the worst by rampant rumours that spread in damaging ways. The segment involving the staff outside discussing youths "eyeing up" a nurse and then eventually escalating to a gang rape is a great example of how badly these rumours can spiral out of control. Five Days at Memorial has done a great job so far with its characters and the drama inside the hospital. However, one could argue that Anna's subplot involving her husband Vince is the weakest part of the whole chapter. There's just not a lot of substance to it and given we're told at the start by Susan that she's brave for staying and not leaving when she could have, all the drama there is obsolete given we already know what she's going to do in that situation.

A good preamble episode for the flood disaster to come

[michiganave_p · 10/10 · 28 August 2022]

It was a solid episode of the series transitioning from the hurricane and storm itself to the man-made natural disaster of the flooding.

I was unsure of how they ended E101 with the power going out as the hurricane was becoming more intense and how it would pick back up, as the show actually did skip the rest of the hurricane. I didn't know if I would like it, but in the context of the situation at the hospital, I think it was the right decision to skip the eye of the hurricane as it passed as it wasn't a direct hit to the city nor a real part of the disaster to come.

Instead with where the story went, it drove home the whole mentality in the hospital of them having the false sense that the worst was over in this disaster. Everyone simply let their guard down despite knowing the water wasn't being pumped out of the city and having no critical utility service (electric, water, phones, etc.) which is still a dire situation for a major urban hospital in the hot south not knowing when these services will return.

I do see a few oddities with the Louisiana accents as some raters have pointed out, but I understand where they are coming from as this was a full-on Canadian production in Ontario with none to little photography done in NOLA. A lot of the lower billed cast members are Canadians, even with some of the mid-level characters like Rene Goux being played (very well, in fact) by Canadian character actor Stephen Bogaert.

Then again, NOLA is still an urban area with a lot of transplants, so I don't even think they would even need to make the accents that big of a deal as it's not the Louisiana swamp this story is set in.