It's a typical episode of Atlantis really, where nothing entirely important happens until the final moments. To be absolutely honest though, I was deceived by Medea and had believed that she had turned, but I was as naive as Jason. Other than that, the episode had nothing all that surprising other than killing off its numerous characters, and in addition it left a lot of information hanging.
I've found the new series pace to be quite engaging, linking each episode carefully together, but this is to the detriment of other elements, such as pacing of individual episodes and dragging on different story lines. The cliffhangers seemed to be the only thing keeping viewers in anticipation. Also, isolated in a complex of caves was not a very exciting location for our characters to bounce dialogue of each other.
Howard Overman has stuck to a very simple skill of trying to make jump scares, but they appear cheap in this below standard episode. The concept of being bitten and over time turning into a zombie is reminiscent and perhaps too similar to that of popular American show, the Walking Dead, but that could be me being nit-picky. Nevertheless, at times the undead attacks were quite exciting to watch, especially when we first see Dion's carcass walking rather aimlessly towards them and his eyes as black as night was, in all fairness, chilling. I was rather disappointed that Dion had died in the first place, he was only just getting some good screen time.
Looking at the positive elements, Pasiphae's awakening was quite profound at the beginning, nicely opening the story. Ariadne's emotional bearing to Jason was long-awaited but showed great development for the characters in the story. Medea's betrayal was also a nice shocker to finish. My favorite moments, however, were the quieter scenes. Orpheus' loyalty to his wife was quite touching, coupled with Ariadne's determination to show her strength and reputation to her Atlantean people.
Overall, the episode left a rather empty gap in the story. Specifically, the story hasn't progressed that far from what happened in the last episode. Pasiphae's location is as of yet unanswered, but hopefully we'll get some more developments next week in the Grey Sisters. As usual, though, Atlantis continues to be filled with cliched moments that seem to stick with it like a moth to a flame. If they want to make the show more accessible to viewers, it's time to move away from the traditional template and start writing outside the box. I'm looking for better next week.
6/10