Summary
Kaos shows a much nastier streak in its second episode, and the plot starts to cohere a lot better here.
Kaos turns up the heat in Episode 2. It’s nastier, both literally and in its implications. It coheres more than the premiere did, with clear character-driven subplots emerging. There’s still some mystery here and there, but this second chapter benefits from us having a better sense of who’s who and what’s what.
But it’s still a lot, in several ways, and it doesn’t hit the brakes on introducing new characters and mythological elements. With so much to keep track of, let’s get to grips with what went down here and how it might matter going forward.
Meet Caeneus
The start of Episode 2 introduces a new character, Caeneus, who is killed promptly for dishonoring his Gods and his tribe, though we don’t get any indication of how he might have done so. It isn’t immediately clear how Caeneus’s story relates to anything else we’ve seen, but it is obvious that he has a peculiar relationship with his mother. He’s looking at her as he dies and posits a theory about her later.
Prometheus tells us that Caeneus is the second of the three humans who will bring about Zeus’s downfall, but like Riddy he has no idea of his importance just yet. He’s stuck working a bland admin role in the Underworld as a Cerberus handler – the three-headed dogs are much less threatening in this interpretation of the mythology – and waiting around for his mother to die so they can be reunited. However, around the time that Riddy arrives in the Underworld, he’s promoted by Medusa to be a diver, a job he doesn’t want.
More on Caeneus in a bit.
Framing Device
Once the dead have been “processed”, so to speak, they head through “The Frame” – in other words, they pass on. This is the ideal, anyway. Episode 2 of Kaos doesn’t explore this idea with tremendous depth, but it lays out enough of the particulars so that we understand the basics and what it means to not be allowed to pass through. This is the fate reserved for people who enter the Underworld without coins.
Riddy being about to imminently pass through the Frame lends a bit of ticking-clock urgency to Orpheus and Dionysus’s subplot. They’re determined to get to the Underworld and get Riddy back; Orpheus because he’s so madly in love, and Dionysus to prove a point to Zeus. Their plan is to secure entry to the Underworld through The Cave, where desperate people compete to gain access to lost loved ones. The problem, though, is that the place is widely understood to be a scam.
Dionysus insists otherwise, though. It just means winning the game, which in this case is a pub quiz. If only it were that easy.
Riddy Is Stuck
Kaos | Image via Netflix
As it happens, Riddy can’t pass through the Frame anyway. As well as worrying about having cursed the Gods right before her death, she also has to worry about the fact that Orpheus didn’t bury her with her coin. Initially, Riddy thinks this is a mistake since Orpheus was so devoted to her that he never would have done such a cruel thing. But it quickly becomes obvious that he did.
This, as it happens, is the same fate that Caeneus experienced. That’s why he’s stuck here working; Riddy will be assigned a job soon to pass the time while she idles in Limbo. The divers are supposed to help the newly dead cross the River Lethe, but in Riddy’s case, the water won’t rise high enough for her to sink in because of the absence of a coin. Caeneus sees himself in her. He suspects his mother took his coin.
Riddy is devastated, but Prometheus’s voiceover reassures us that she’s where she needs to be.
Zeus Is Unhinged
Episode 2 of Kaos also serves as a reminder about how utterly bonkers Zeus is – and Hera is arguably worse.
Zeus’s terrible behavior is at least rooted in insecurity. He worries that his children don’t like him, which is why he keeps siring more with human women on Earth. He worries the people don’t respect or fear him, which they don’t, and the only way he can think to make them do so is through terrifying displays of force and carnage. He’s an idiot, but his idiocy is rooted in what seems like profound self-loathing.
Hera, on the other hand, is just nuts. When Zeus visits one of his pregnant earthbound beaus, Hera arrives to deny him the admin of another child. She accelerates the pregnancy so that the infant comes skidding out, wailing, across the floor, then turns the child’s mother into a bee and insists Zeus kills the baby. He dutifully agrees.
Zeus takes out his frustrations on Hades, God of the Underworld, and his wife Persephone, giving them even more admin, and then rants to Prometheus about how he’s planning a series of natural disasters and subsequent wars that’ll wipe out half of mankind Thanos-style and keep everyone in check. Prometheus, to his credit, does try to highlight why this is a terrible idea, but until Riddy gets on with her quest, there’s little he can say or do without being sent back to his rock to have his organs feasted on.
Orpheus and Dionysus Get Into The Underworld
The quiz in the Cave is presided over by the Fates, the sisterly personifications of destiny – Clotho (the spinner), Lachesis (the allotter), and Atropos (the inevitable).
The tasks are all about love – Orpheus has to recall every blemish on Riddy’s skin, and then sing her a song without the use of his voice. He passes these two tasks with flying colors, but his effort is undermined by the fact that Lachy knows he removed Riddy’s coin. He’s disqualified, and entry to the Underworld is granted to another couple who have lost their child.
But Dionysus isn’t having this. He asks Lachy if there’s anything else that can be done, and it turns out there is – he simply has to hand over the watch he stole from his father. As it happens, Zeus is also looking for the timepiece and wants to find it before he goes on his genocidal spree. So, the thing is becoming a real MacGuffin at this point.
Nevertheless, Orpheus and Dionysus are granted admission to the Underworld.
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