Summary
“The Hades Awakening” is a drug-fuelled trip down memory lane for Bentley, as Edwards decides where his loyalties are.
This recap of Treadstone Season 1, Episode 6, “The Hades Awakening”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
Some bad news kicks off Treadstone Episode 6: Mike (Ian Davies) informs Doug (Brian J. Smith) that the man he killed in the previous episode might have been a cop. Doh! Just in time, and as if to prove his point, the police raid his trailer, and Doug is forced to make a hasty escape. A motorbike chase results in a nasty crash. You can always rely on Treadstone for a frenetic opening, and “The Hades Awakening” doesn’t disappoint.
We briefly learn that SoYun (Hyo-Joo Han) is alive but badly injured before nipping back to Budapest in 1973, where Young Petra (Emilia Schüle) is on Bentley’s trail. Of course, Bentley (Jeremy Irvine) is still getting high with his new fancy-lady and sees a vision of himself in Krakow with Frank. We’re witnessing how he got captured by the KGB in the first place. Young, idealistic Petra believes that one day people will volunteer for the program; it isn’t torture, but improvement. I’m sure the subjects — including Bentley — would disagree. She mentions to one of the doctors that there’s something special about him. Probably just lust talking.
In the aftermath of the crash that opened Treadstone Episode 6, Doug is being held at gunpoint by a cop who was apparently present when he killed Patty Vernon (Charlotte Palmer). They’re interrupted by a Treadstone Guy, whose name I didn’t catch. (Do your thing, commenters.) He kills the cop and tells Doug to stay on mission, but he gets a bit too smug so Doug shoots him and escapes. Still alive, Treadstone Guy drives away, and Doug follows.
We briefly see SoYun’s injuries being treated before we join Ellen (Michelle Forbes) and her husband Tom (David Michaels) at a basketball game. Things aren’t going well for her, work-wise. Edwards (Omar Metwally) is making things personal and taking chances that put her at risk. She has to inform Dan (Michael Gaston) that Edwards is essentially rogue with Haynes (Patrick Fugit), and keeping them out of the loop. More info she has dug up on Haynes confirms that his name isn’t actually Haynes at all, but the exact significance of it all is left for later in the season.
Back to Budapest in “The Hades Awakening”, for more of Bentley’s unpleasant initiation memories. Electroshock treatment. Flashing lights. Stress positions. The doctors think he’s no good for the program since he won’t break, but Petra won’t let it go.
In Maryland, Edwards and Haynes arrive at Haynes’ daughter’s residence, but he isn’t there to see her — he’s turning the tables on the opposition, having deduced that agents would be waiting for him there. He and Edwards attack and kill them, including the woman who “woke him up”, which I’m relatively sure was Kerry Godliman’s character Carol, who hasn’t been seen since the premiere. Edwards snaps a photo of her and sends it to Ellen, who figures out she was CIA. The body count that Edwards and Haynes are racking up proves a little too high for Dan.
Bentley, meanwhile, is enduring more flashbacks, this time to him finally giving his name away to Petra. She got through to him. It’s almost romantic — if you’re a psychopath. In small build-up scenes set in the present-day, Doug continues to pursue his target, building a listening device out of a laser pointer and a stolen phone.
More Bentley in Treadstone Episode 6, and more of his training, and then more Matheson (Oliver Walker). This is a major point of contention for Bentley; the thing he can’t forgive himself for. We see him torture Matheson, but not kill him, and we see him hook up with Petra, which is hardly a surprise, and then we see him in the moments just before he murders those three assets from Budapest. What have we learned here? Very little that’s genuinely new or that we hadn’t already assumed, including Bentley and Petra’s politically inconvenient relationship.
But nevermind, since the club in which he’s tripping is raided by the KGB, and he’s forced into a psychedelic tussle on the way out. He makes it but then gets run over — by Petra. She’s caught up to him.
Speaking of making it, SoYun gets home in “The Hades Awakening”, and finds that Dae (Jung Woo Seo) and Jin Woo (Minjun Woo) aren’t there. But Shin is. He tells her that Jin Woo is with his grandmother and that Dae is working on an important project — he won’t be home until it’s finished. As for her, there will be another important mission, and it’s probably in her best interests to do as she’s told — which, of course, she doesn’t, instead stowing herself away in his convoy.
To conclude Treadstone Season 1, Episode 6, Ellen tells Matt that “direct action is authorized” against Haynes, which is CIA muckety-muck speak for kill him, but Edwards won’t. Instead, they resolve to take down the Treadstone project. As a result, Ellen tells Dan that Edwards isn’t compliant, so he dispatches a strike team to bring him and Haynes in. Should be fun.
