High Seas season 3, episode 2 recap – “Masks”

By Jonathon Wilson
Published: August 8, 2020 (Last updated: last month)
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High Seas season 3, episode 2 recap - "Masks"
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Summary

“Masks” complicates the mystery nicely with a big – if far-fetched – twist and a respectable pace.

This recap of High Seas season 3, episode 2, “Masks”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.

Check out our spoiler-free season review.

Check out all our episode recaps.


“Masks”, a fitting title given currently global circumstances, opens with Carolina agreeing to disappear. Admittedly it’s at the behest of a magician, part of the evening’s entertainment, but you know – suspenseful openings and all that.

Eva, meanwhile, is summoned to meet with Steve, who has urgent news for her, but he’s shot dead by a silenced gunshot and can only mutter the world “Katona” before he expires. Naturally, Varela arrives on the scene and immediately casts a side-eye at Eva, who denies all knowledge of the man’s identity.

An investigation into Steve’s death must, of course, take place, and his cabin is the first port of call. Inside, the captain and others find a radio and a suspicious empty vial – a useful new passenger, Ayala, doctor to Diana, is summoned to help figure this out. How convenient.

As Fabio postulates with Eva, someone is obviously onto them and something has gone badly wrong. The Jean-Paul lead proved fruitless, so they have little to go on, though when Eva reveals Steve’s last words, Fabio translates them as the Hungarian word for “soldier”, but also a surname. Friedrich Untermann had a student by the name of Alex Katona, and he might well be aboard himself.

“Masks” reveals more on Ayala, Carmen, and Diana, who know about the virus and have plans of their own – plans that, according to Carmen, it’s time to implement.

Those plans involve Carolina, who, tipped off by Dima, finds a lighter with a hidden compartment hiding a film reel. Rushing to report this to Eva, she’s lured away by Carmen on the pretext of Diana being ill and requiring help. As soon as she enters she’s injected with a muscle relaxant, and we’re treated to the first big twist of this new season: Underneath her bandages, Diana has the exact same face as Carolina.

Diana, as Carolina, goes to Eva, who has been discussing with Fabio the potential of the Bulgarian being Katona. She quizzes her “sister” about the case, and soon Valera turns up with the news that Steve was shot with a 9mm Luger, which exonerates everyone – for now. Either way, Eva confesses about the virus to Carolina, which Fabio isn’t keen on, and which we know to be a big mistake. But Eva’s too deep into the investigation to be cut loose now.

High Seas season 3, episode 2 spends some time on other matters, such as an intimate relationship between Hector and Natalia, and a close call with Veronica, but the focus remains on Eva’s new line of thinking, which leads to Viktor Andonov and his dinner guest, who has reserved the table that Eva and “Carolina” were planning to dine at. It’s a line of thinking rejected by Fabio, though, which doesn’t dissuade Eva, who is later taken by Ana to Viktor’s trashed, blood-stained room. His body, we learn in “Masks”, is strung up to a chair.

Another crime nicely complicates the underlying, interlocking mystery here, and the show is moving along at a fine clip. The doppelganger plot is a bit far-fetched, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary for High Seas. Where it’ll ultimately go is anyone’s guess, but you know this show is. Could be anywhere.

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