The second episode of “The Lazarus Project” brought some new insights into characters. I liked the way that it misdirected me as I wondered where I was being led.

This episode consisted of three arcs. The first of these is the present time. George (Paapa Essiedu) is dealing with Sarah’s (Charly Clive) accident. She ends up comatose in the hospital. The doctor cannot predict when she will wake up.

When Shiv (Rudi Dharmalingam) offers to help George go beat up Karl (Chris Fulton) for pushing Sarah into the rubbish truck’s path, we discover that apparently Karl was not charged for his action. It is true that he didn’t mean to injure her when he pushed her. Yet somehow you would think that he would have been charged with reckless endangerment.

The meeting between George, Shiv, and the now-captured Rebrov (Tom Burke) reveals more plot twists. The idea that the Lazarus Project may not be entirely benevolent is startling to a degree since its purpose is to prevent mass human extinctions. (I guess mass animal extinctions are just too bad.)

How could it be evil to prevent a mass human extinction? Perhaps it is the means to achieve that end that leads to evil deeds.

This also brings up the reality that everything in the present seems utterly transitory now. It can be changed at the push of a button, at least within the past year. So I am finding it hard to invest in current plot lines knowing that there is a deus ex machina that can simply erase them.

The horror of those in the know about the time loops having to relive certain moments, such as the birth of a child (different each time) is very moving. We still have not been told much about the feeling of being dead and then being brought back to life. At this point, we can assume that no memories of an afterlife are being retained when the people are resurrected in the new time loop.

Another pertinent point discussed is that it is just humans controlling the singularity. That is, humans with all of their flaws and sometimes poor reasoning are making these life-or-death decisions. Does this decision-making power being on a grander scale than say the life-or-death decisions of military leaders or doctors make a difference?

The drawback of this line of reasoning is that it can easily lead into a kind of Luddite reasoning. An example of this is “If God had meant us to fly, we would have wings.” This concern about humans being too flawed to take advantage of a resource seems to indicate that the organization should hold itself to a higher level of scrutiny rather than not take advantage of the resource due to reactionary concerns.

The second arc revolves around the first meeting between George and Sarah. As with the third arc below, there are multiple iterations of this event. These moments are shown at different points in time during the first meeting.

At first I wondered what the relevance of showing this was supposed to be. Was it to make us feel that George and Sarah were “destined” to be together no matter what the time loop did? Of course George’s status as a mutant must not have been as well developed at that time since he seemed to not sense what was going on.

But the revelation of why this particular arc was presented did not become obvious to me until the end of the episode. It was not the reason I expected but was much subtler. Spoilers do not permit me to discuss this.

The third arc, occurring in the summer of 2018, when George and Sarah first meet, centers around the reasons for the many time loops in the second arc. This arc begins with the end of the world and a reset. We then see many attempts by Archie (Anjli Mohindra) and Ross (Brian Gleeson) to prevent this mass extinction event.

There was one possible plot flaw that I detected during this arc. It revolved around who in the Lazarus Project controls when to reset the time loop. I felt that it was not likely that a field operative would have that power. Instead you would think that the head of the organization had final control. I can’t discuss when or why this plot flaw occurs due to spoilers.

Another realization that this arc brings is how many different time loops are reset for one mass extinction event. We also discover that indeed events can change in the reset time loop so there is a kind of butterfly event, but it is more of a reset-to-square-one.

I also noticed two times in this episode when the “F”-word was elided out. In the closed captions which I use, it was not mentioned either. I wondered if this was because in the U.K. the “F”-word is allowed on TV where here it is still somewhat taboo on live-broadcast stations.

All in all, lots of food for thought. My concern now is that the ethical dilemmas are given a more detailed analysis in the dialogue.

Don’t miss our review for Episode 1: “The Lazarus Project” Episode 1 and the idea of forever do-overs

When George wakes up one day and finds himself reliving a day from months ago, he thinks he’s lost his mind. All of his recent milestones have been undone, including his success at work and his marriage to the love of his life Sarah. Worst of all, he seems to be the only one who has noticed what’s happened.

That is, until he meets Archie, who recruits George for the Lazarus Project — a secret organisation that has harnessed the ability to turn back time every time the world is at threat of extinction. Like George, those who work at Lazarus are the few people on earth with the ability to remember the events that are undone when time goes back. Alongside colleagues like Archie, standoffish Shiv and their steely leader Wes, George works to prevent global catastrophe — including trying to track down the formidable Rebrov, a wanted criminal intent on detonating a nuclear warhead and destroying the world.

Then a freak accident harms someone close to George. Lazarus won’t let him turn back time to undo it — unless there is the threat of global extinction. Now George must choose to stay loyal or go rogue, as he is faced with the question: if you had the power to rewrite your past, what would you sacrifice to do it…?