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The North Water Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
5 Episodes 2021 - 2021
Episode 1
Behold the Man
Thu, Jul 15, 202159 mins
Captain Brownlee is recruiting and preparing for an Arctic whaling voyage from Hull to a Highland island port, which only he and stingy financier Baxter know is meant as a front for ship insurance fraud. Harpoonist Henry Drax, the third scoundrel in the know, is thrown out of the harbor pub, having spent his last money on whores, but hopes to help himself to more cash ransacking the room of the new ship surgeon, Patrick Sumner, whom they found self-drugged on laudanum till the innkeeper had him ousted. Irishman Sumner's crooked leg and opium pipe bitterly refer to his traumatic past in the colonial Indian army, which still arouses chilling nightmares.
Episode 2
We Men Are Wretched Things
Thu, Jul 22, 202158 mins
The ship has reached rich Artic waters. As all crew are urged to help hunt seals, surgeon Patrick Sumner feels obliged to volunteer, but almost drowns and suffers even worse nightmares about Gaurav, the Indian orphan boy he failed to protect as promised. Captain Brownlee insists his right hand Cavendish is present 'as judge of characters' when cabin boy Joseph Hannah, a hereditary simpleton whose 'vague ache' complaints Sumner diagnoses conclusively as brutal anal abuse, is questioned but obviously too scared to denounce the rapist. Recovered, Sumner joins in his first whale hunt, a triumph for now friendly Drax, and even volunteers to help cut the fat, only to assist at a horrible discovery in a stinking barrel being cleared from the hull.
Episode 3
Homo Homini Lupus
Thu, Jul 29, 202158 mins
Captain Brownlee reluctantly starts the investigation doc Sumner insists on for the brutal rape and murder of simpleton cabin boy Joseph Hannah. Captain's deputy Cavendish eagerly follows up on rumors that McKendrick, a reputed homosexual (then a major crime) has an eye and his hands on poor, anxious Joseph, hence 'must be' the killer. Sumner insists, before he's locked up as sole suspect, to examine him for sign, none of which are found after he's forced to strip starkers, nor venereal contamination, yet the captain grumbles 'enough trouble', dismissing his remark that Cavendish is too eager to blame McKendrick. While Brownlee plots with fellow captain Morwood to wreck the whaling ship as insurance fraud, Sumner finds McKendrickphysically disabled to commit the crime die to a crushed thumb. Doc inquires for other suspects an settles on Drax, the conspirators' ruthless backup fixer. The captain allows his nude investigation, which initially seems void, until he finds in a festering, so far covered-up wound the very tooth missing from Jacob's mouth. Another crew member dies, skull-crushed.
Episode 4
The Devils of the Earth
Thu, Aug 5, 202154 mins
With the captain dead suspiciously, opposites Sumner and Cavendish are the last officers. Drax, already scheduled for a murder trial back in England, helps Cavendish sink the ship for a promise 'not to counter' an escape opportunity. The ship they hopes to pick them up is gone after a storm, so supplies dwindle as they camp on the ice, unable to hunt or gather enough. Syner's nightmares increase, covering his fate in colonial India as scapegoat for a treasure robbery raid, dismissed and a pariah after hitting the sanctimonious commander back in England. The arrival of two Inuit seal hunters is their only hope for enough meat, but bickering increases how to trade, the only rifles being the best barter currency.
Episode 5
To Live Is to Suffer
Thu, Aug 12, 202157 mins
Drax calls on Cavanaugh to cut him free so he can escape with an Eskimo, but the latter wants to come along, so Drax murders him. The discovery only adds the the others' despair, bickering how to survive as their meager supplies run out. A group sets off in search of an alternative. Sumner remains behind in the tent with old Otto, until he gets obsessed by the sighting of a polar bear, which gets away after he shoot at it. Chasing the bear, Patrick gets lost, ever more delusional, until the bear turns up and is fatally shot. Lost and freezing, he digs himself into the cut-up bear body and faints. An Eskimo finds him and takes him to the tribal village, where he's nursed by and taken under the wing of a missionary who is delighted with a Britton, taking a dim view on his native 'parish charges' and patient with Sumner's secrecy.
