Five Days at Memorial, Episode 5 Recap & Ending Explained: In its 5th episode, Five Days at Memorial, created by Carlton Cuse and John Ridley, shows the events from Day 5 of the catastrophic Katrina hurricane. The staff and patients from the hospital already went through so much in the first four days with no response from the authorities. With water coming into their hospital premises, the electronic services stopped working, and the impact of this hurricane left them with very little to help their patients. While they started with high hopes, their mental state weakened due to a lack of assistance from those they believed in.
Five Days at Memorial Episode 5 Recap:
The episode starts with a news recording stating many people caught up in several hospitals due to the hurricane, with authorities giving a blind eye. After watching this broadcast on television, Michael (Joe Carroll) manages to get his boss to approve the release of helicopters to New Orleans to rescue and save the residents stuck in this calamity. At the hospital, we see Dr. Pou (Vera Farmiga) and Dr. Baltz (Robert Pine) trying to comfort the patients. One of the DNR patients – Emmet, worries about whether he will be rescued. Meanwhile, the higher-ups from the hospital discuss the possibility of not being able to evacuate the patients, where Susan (Cherry Jones) mentions the need to find ways to provide comfort to those that they cannot evacuate.
One patient’s daughter asks the nurse why her mother is not being treated with proper medical attention. The nurse mentions the orders given to them due to the lack of resources. While that answer doesn’t put her or her mother in comfort, she has no other way but to be okay with the situation. Meanwhile, Mike (JD Evermore) comes on a boat, planning to rescue his mother from the hospital. On his way, he sees people trying to leave through the muddy waters with several bodies floating on the side. That gives him, and ultimately to us, the picture of the horrifying level of numbness this situation imbibed in the people around him.
When Mike reaches the hospital, he immediately rushes in and starts running around to find his mother. A nurse tries to stop him from doing so, but he is not in the mood to listen. He finds his mother without any support given to her, which baffles him. He holds her and brings her out of the hospital to their boat. When he leaves, the security guard jumps into the boat and decides to leave – while the people and staff (especially the douche higher official) call him a coward for escaping this way. Meanwhile, Susan goes to Diane Robichaux (Julie Ann Emery) from the Lifecare hospital, who will try to evacuate or comfort all the patients to the best ability. She mentions how the plan is to leave no living patient behind.
Frustrated by the orders given by the higher-level doctors, Dr. Bryant King (Cornelius Smith Jr.) decides to take matters into his own hand. He advises the medical staff not to stop helping patients no matter what the orders are. On the other side, Susan meets another Dr. Cook and discusses how they should deal with the animals inside the hospital. She wants to find the most humane solution when the doctor suggests an injection of Pentothal that puts them right to sleep. Meanwhile, helicopters start arriving at the hospital, giving a shimmer of hope to the doctors and the patients. The hospital staff starts gearing up to take their patients to the helipad. While the medical staff from Lifecare hospital wanted some of the critical patients to be going out first, the orders state the protocol according to which the DNR patients will be sent out last. At this critical moment, with the hope of rescue, they decide not to argue but to help those that they can.
Meanwhile, we witness the painful death of one of the pets by the method as mentioned earlier, which hits the nail right into the brutality of their situation. Dr. Anna speaks with Susan about the death of other patients from the Lifecare hospital and their utter helplessness. Probably because she has no solution to offer, she advises her to speak with Dr. Cook about it. Later, one of the rescue crew members informs the higher-ups about a mandate and mentions that rescue boats will arrive soon. He mentions that everyone needs to be evacuated by 5 pm, which frustrates Susan since there’s a tiny window of time for them to do the process. After two days of no support, if the ones that suddenly came to help share such demands, it ought to baffle you.
Someone from the medical staff overhears a conversation between Susan and Anna about how they would try to comfort the patients they cannot evacuate and mentions it to Dr. Bryant. He tells this medical professional not to heed it and keep doing her job the way she always had. He even sees Anna giving the injection to one of the patients. While Dr. Baltz refuses to leave – stating how he also needs to be present since he’s a doctor, Susan convinces him to leave and says a final goodbye in a bittersweet moment.
Five Days at Memorial Episode 5 Ending, Explained:
The rescue team tries to make all the people leave the hospital, including the daughter we see in one of the previous scenes. She cries out, saying she doesn’t want to leave her unwell mother behind. Yet, the team tries to take her with them forcefully due to the need to stick to the protocol. Meanwhile, the medical staff from Lifecare hospital gets emotional due to their helplessness in rescuing their patients – most of which are in critical condition.
Diane visits Emmet and says a final goodbye to him before leaving. The incredibly emotional scene shows the care doctors felt for their patients and the silent death that the ones like Emmet already died due to the orders from the authorities. While many patients and staff succeed in escaping the hellhole, the ones like him are left behind. With an incredible shot showcasing the empty insides of the hospital leading to him, the gut-wrenching episode accentuates the very thing that the further narrative hinges upon – the loss of those patients that the authorities could not save in time.
