After barely escaping the Raja unscathed, episode four of AMC’s Nautilus finds Captain Nemo and his crew crossing paths with a swarthy group of shipwrecked Englishmen. Later, Humility and Nemo meet a lone wolf.
Our team, minus Jagadish, safely retreats aboard the Nautilus only to be met by the Dreadnought. When Nemo realizes the Company wants them to surrender the ship, he devises a precarious idea. He swims to the surface, drawing the enemy’s attention. As he swims back down below, Benoit orders the crew into action. The Nautilus spins its engine, stirring up the ocean floor, hiding Nemo in plumes of smoke. Unable to see him, the Company is surprised as Nemo punctures a glass window with a hatchet, flooding the chamber with water. Falling unconscious, Nemo is rescued by Kai.
In this instance, Captain Billy Millais has a flashback. Two school-aged boys are dunking a young Indian boy in a trough of water when a classmate pushes them off. Billy was that classmate defending his only friend, a young Nemo. Back in the present, the Raja seeks to negotiate a new deal with Director Crawley. Given his failure to capture Nemo and betraying his back on The Company years ago, Crawley refuses to oblige the man any longer and stabs him to death.
Desperate for food, Nemo and the Nautilus land on an island where fruit and other nourishment are plentiful. Loti, Kai, Edward, and Benoit remain on the vessel as the rest of the team explores. Soon, there are signs that they aren’t the only hosts on the island.
Humility, Nemo, and Blaster are captured in a booby trap staged by a group of shipwrecked Englishmen. Before being discovered, they are rescued by another stranger named Casimir. She speaks about how she was a seaman on the Ariande before its crew and men wrecked on the island. For two years, she has survived by trusting no one but herself. Others have not been so lucky. As they evade the pursuers, Blaster clumsily meets the perpetrators.
Captain Henry Mogg welcomes Blaster back to their encampment. Due to their prolonged isolation, it’s clear these men are delirious and speak of a sacrifice to give to something they call The Collector. A trade with the entity allows them to survive. Naturally, Blaster is chosen and tied to a raft in the middle of a lake. Suddenly, Nemo and Humility arrive to distract Mogg as Casimir rescues Blaster from above. Suddenly, the Collector appears: a giant eel. They all race to escape as the beast devours Captain Mogg.
The eel chases the crew back into the ocean. Ranbir encourages Casimir to come inside the vessel with no sails. Set in her ways, she refuses and falls victim to the beast. Once submerged beneath the waters, the Nautilus realizes it’s an electric eel as the creature stuns the ship. To preserve power, they shut off all electricity, sitting motionless. The electrical current alerts the Dreadnought, pinging the submarine’s location.
Episodes continue to improve as we learn more about our characters and are placed in settings outside of the seacraft. The development of Captain Millais provides an interesting twist that should truly test that character’s motivations in the future. The exotic setting with its almost Lost-esque mysticism brings something different to the narrative. While the meager special effects will leave much to the imagination, the series remains fun and enchanting, a throwback to the adventure series of the late 1990s.
Rating: 8/10
