The Chernobyl disaster stands as a chilling, heart-wrenching milestone in human history's annals. And when it comes to telling such a tale with the utmost respect and meticulous detail, there's no greater beacon of excellence than HBO. Following their masterpiece 'Band of Brothers,' they once again deliver a historical masterstroke with 'Chernobyl.'
The first episode opens in a dimly lit room, where a man sits at a kitchen table, recording his thoughts on the Chernobyl catastrophe on a tape player. After a solitary cigarette outside, he returns to his doomed solitude and takes his own life. The narrative then flashes back two years and one minute, minutes before the explosion in Ukraine that unleashed this calamity. A foreboding orange glow in the distance signals the reactor core's demise, accompanied by a shockwave of roaring intensity as the residents of Pripyat brace for impact.
Simultaneously, the men at the nuclear plant grapple with what has transpired, their mouths agape as they vomit blood. The core is in shambles, yet Gorbachenko Nikolai insists that the workers bring in the day shift to pour water into the core, despite its complete destruction. As firefighters arrive on the scene and desperately attempt to extinguish the flames, a hospital nurse in the distance queries if they have iodine on hand. Their negative response is a chilling foreshadowing that may prove crucial in upcoming episodes.
Back at the plant, one of the firefighters nurses a burned hand after handling a shattered piece of graphite. The rest of the firefighters enter to contain the inferno while the day workers arrive and speculate on what might be happening. Meanwhile, deep beneath the surface in a bunker, executives and directors huddle over the blast, attempting to conceal the true magnitude of what has transpired. General Pikalov downplays any notion of evacuating the city, while another director calls for military reinforcements to seal off the area.
As the lockdown casts its omnipresent shadow, we shift to the following day, where the Ukrainians continue their lives as if nothing has changed. The final image, one that will haunt me for some time, pans across a pavement, where laughing children skip to school, their joyful chatter contrasting sharply with the bird that falls to the ground, its life extinguished by radiation poisoning.
Chernobyl is a shocking, harrowing, and sickening television experience. It is a brutal reminder of the devastating impact of this disaster and does justice to the history through its use of time stamps and beautifully shot imagery. The long shots, the ominous score, and the incredibly well-paced story combine to make Chernobyl one of the most impactful opening episodes of 2019, and a strong contender for one of the best shows of the year, even at this early stage.
