Main cast: Mel Rodriguez (Philbert Noyce), Sarah Baker (Maggie Noyce), Jason Mitchell (Lenny), Glenn Morshower (Ed), Louis Herthum (The Supervisor), and Vera Farmiga (The Candidate)
Director: Dee Rees

Safe and Sound is inspired by Philip K Dick’s The Hanging Stranger, and yes, other than this episode taking the basic premise of the short story, it is in all other ways a loose “adaptation”.

In the future, the entire North American continent is a single nation called MexUsCan. Don’t look at me; that name is made up by the director as well as screenwriter Dee Rees, so direct your side eyes at her, not me. During this time, life has become so advanced and so commercialized that virtual holographic advertisements intrude into every aspect of the citizen’s life. When our protagonist Philbert Noyce cuts himself while shaving, for example, the bathroom wall behind him flares to life as a holographic fellow starts shilling a razors and shaving foam at him.

Set during the campaign season for the upcoming presidential election, this one has Philbert wondering why they even bother. There is only one political party, and “democracy” here means the people going through the motions to cast the vote for the Candidate, which is assured to win anyway since there is no competition. However, things really get heated for our hero when he hears the Candidate saying “Kill all others!” at various times during her televised interviews – and it seems like only he could hear her say that phrase. What is going on here?

Now, this premise, when used in the short story, makes perfect sense. Here, that premise is plunked into this episode, but Ms Rees has stripped away all the social statements present in the story, to present a generic, banal “Politicians suck – they are all out to get you!” message instead. Worse, the whole plot by the politicians here makes zero sense – if they want a plot to weed out insurrectionists and free-thinkers, surely there are better ways than the one here, which relies very heavily on chance and randomness to succeed.

Worse, this episode is boring. As typical when they have to stretch a short story into a full length episode, this one is padded with filler scenes of conversations that eventually become circular and hence tedious. Even when the action ramps up in the last few scenes of the episode, these scenes feel unnecessarily prolonged just to fill up the airtime.

The cast is generally fine, but this episode lacks logic and it also has nothing interesting to say. As a season ender, this one is a pretty dire way to wrap things up.