Summary
Kaos hits the midway point with the stakes heightening and various narrative strands intermingling. Things are really starting to come together now.
Kaos gets back to business as usual in Episode 4, pinging back and forth between different perspectives after the third chapter devoted most of its runtime to introducing Ariadne.
This is good since we’ve spent long enough getting all the pieces in play. Now hitting the halfway point, it makes sense for everything to cohere now that we know who’s who and what’s what. If you need a refresher, remember that we met Riddy and Orpheus in Episode 1, and then were introduced to the particulars of the Underworld in Episode 2.
We have the prophecy, all three humans who’re fated to bring down Zeus, and several key figures from Greek mythology to be getting on with. It’s time to start pushing into the back half of the season.
Zeus Is Losing It
This isn’t exactly news, but Zeus is crazy. And he’s only becoming more and more crazy with every episode. At the start of this one, he’s shooting his ball boys, ostensibly to deduce who stole his missing watch, but clearly for fun as well.
This, as we know, is the least of Zeus’s problems. His sister-wife is banging his brother behind his back, and when he finds out about that all Hell will presumably break loose. And since humans are Zeus’s favorite plaything, well… it doesn’t bode well.
Having said that, though, Zeus has another plaything – Prometheus. Speaking of which…
Prometheus and Charon
Kaos Episode 4 gives us some more background on our reliable – we think! – narrator, Prometheus. In the past, we see him lounging around naked in bed with his lover, Charon, the ferryman of the dead. But they’re both alive here; it’s in lovely, sun-dappled color, not monochrome, which indicates the Underworld scenes.
It becomes clear why. Charon got to the Underworld because Prometheus stabbed him in the neck. But, he had a reason to. It’s fate. Zeus is coming for Prometheus, and Prometheus’s plan hinges on Charon meeting someone – identified by a “mark” – and keeping them safe.
“The greater good always comes at a personal cost,” Prometheus tells us. Quite.
The Man With the Mark
Picking up from the end of Episode 2, Orpheus descends into the Underworld with Anatole – the husband of the couple who lost their child and won the quiz – and without Dionysus, who goes to cash in on what he perceives to be a great victory. Remember, Dionysus gave Lachy and the other Fates his father’s watch, which he’s still looking for.
When Anatole and Orpheus land on a dock on the River Styx, it becomes obvious immediately that Orpheus is the man Prometheus wanted Charon to protect – the wound left from Lachy stabbing him in the hand has healed into a scar remarkably similar to the one on Prometheus’s back.
When Charon eventually picks the two men up, it seems that Prometheus’s betrayal has hardened him. He stops the ferry and tells Anatole and Orpheus that he can only take one of them, seemingly just for the enjoyment of making them fight it out. Orpheus is very quick to betray the pact he just made with his new best friend, but Charon intervenes and throws Anatole overboard when he spots the mark on Orpheus’s hand and recalls Prometheus’s instructions.
Kaos | Image via Netflix
Underworld Admin
There’s a problem in the Underworld – “A soul has escaped from the Nothing,” according to Persephone. This greatly troubles Zeus, and indeed Hades, who wants to sort the matter out himself since he blames his lackadaisical approach to his duties for it.
Caeneus discovers it’s Nax who has seemingly passed through the Frame and returned to the Underworld, which shouldn’t technically be possible. But the new diving team, which now includes Riddy, have enough to be going on with, most pertinently the influx of new souls, including Agatha, the human sacrifice from Olympia Day, and Crixus and Hippolyta, who died at Munis. The latter is especially important since she once again runs into Caeneus.
Hippolyta calls Caeneus “Caenis”, reminds him that he’s a blasphemer, and tells him that his mother gave him up willingly. Later, he explains to Riddy what she is talking about. Caeneus was once an Amazon but left. Riddy assumes he left at 11, which is customary for boys. He clarifies that he left at 15, which makes the point quite clear. He’s trans and was expelled as a “blasphemer” on that basis.
Father and Son
Above ground, Dionysus is hanging around with Orpheus’s kitten Dennis, quite full of himself for having engineered the first human escape from the Underworld in history. But Poseidon brings him back to reality. Far from winning Zeus’s favor, the stunt threatens the very fabric of reality, and if it’s discovered, Zeus will likely go ballistic.
In an effort to calm his father down, Dionysus steals a watch that looks like his old one and gives it to Zeus before he kills every ball boy in the universe. Zeus has been busy, it turns out and has jotted down some plans for humanity, including natural disasters – his favorite starting point because they’re easy and result in an immediate uptick in desperate worship – and an epidemic.
Finally, Zeus is interested in bonding with Dionysus, but worryingly over his plans to torture humanity, which Dionysus, having spent a lot of time among people, isn’t keen on. But will his need for fatherly affection outweigh his morals?
The Worst Is Yet To Come
Zeus has excitedly told Hades that there will be many new souls coming his way, and his new diving team should be ready. Nax has also been found – Riddy and Caeneus see his body being deposited near an underground entrance.
At the end of Kaos Episode 4, a curious Riddy and Caeneus head underground to help Nax, where they discover hundreds and hundreds of souls who supposedly passed through the Frame frozen in stone – Agatha among them.
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