The Third Day Episode 5: The Daughter Review

For our review of the last episode of The Third Day, click here.

Synopsis: As the islanders prepare for a fateful birth, Helen reveals her true intentions in coming to Osea and, after joining a search party, is pressed on her past. A peculiar girl befriends Ellie and offers to take her to a mysterious place closed off to outsiders. (HBO)

The slide continues as The Third Day limps its way to the end. The gratuitous mysteries on top of mysteries just doesn’t work anymore and we all just want to get off the island at this point. Things have certainly changed since the first half of the season (the festival had something to do with that) and those unanswered questions continue to loom over this backhalf. Last week’s episode ended with a twist that could be seen from a mile away but the lack of character development thus far kind of undercuts these new characters and their motivations to the point of not caring. The ultimate end of the series is more or less inevitable at this point and this episode moved the plot towards that end. Everything else just doesn’t matter nearly as much as it used to which is just a shame.

The Daughter started with Sam very much on Helen’s mind. Helen revealed her true intentions which were to find Sam. However, the focus shifted to a very pregnant Jess showing up in the Martin’s pub along with a crowd (the baby is obviously important). The noise woke everyone up so Helen came down to help. Once she helped with Jess’ pain, Jess disappeared, prompting a search party. Joining a search party, Helen was confronted with her feelings and her grief after having lost her son and got severely uncomfortable. Meanwhile back to Sam, she showed Mr. Martin his picture and he claimed to not have seen him while offering to discretely help with her search which we know to be a ruse. When confronted with evidence that he was on Osea, the Martins confessed but he had left 3 months prior to get back to her. They claimed to be protecting her from the fact that Sam slept with Jess. Sam had issues which he hinted at before but they were much worse than that.

With their journey seemingly over, Helen and the kids went on their way until they found Jess walking into the ocean (mirroring Sam’s sequence in the first episode). After saving her, Helen took her to a nearby house to help deliver her baby daughter (while her kids waited in another nearby house). After striking up some conversation, Jess confirmed that the baby was Sam’s. She also confirmed that Sam was still in that big house. With that news, Helen decided to go after him while tasking her daughters to watch Jess. However, it did not end up that way as Ellie went off with a mysterious blonde girl who she had befriended earlier, leaving Tallulah alone with Jess.

While Ellie was given a history lesson of the island and one of its beliefs (the founder was Jack the Ripper) as she was deemed special, Tallulah was in danger when she let slip to Jess that she had a brother named Nathan thus confirming her connection to Sam. Jess had to protect her daughter from what she perceived as competition in the island’s line of succession but Tallulah got away. The episode ended with Helen and Sam staring each other down from a distance as the latter was surprised to see his wife.

Perhaps that showdown won’t be as amicable as we thought but it has to end with a family reunion of some sort.

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.