Summary
The Eternaut expands its scope in Episode 3, introducing new characters and points of view as the core cast becomes more spread out.
Episode 3 of The Eternaut, “Magnetism”, is about widening the show’s scope geographically and in terms of its mythology. The core cast, only just reunited at the end of Episode 2, separates once again, encountering new characters and obstacles that crack a window into what’s happening (and where). We’re also getting a steady drip-feed of backstory for our various characters, though particularly Juan, even though the cold open this time concerns Inga obliviously taking the whiskey delivery job from her brother, and she gets a small moment later to reckon with his loss.
This is also the point where human beings are beginning to become much bigger problems than the snow and whatever’s causing it, though that seems to be changing by the end of the episode, as we’ll see. In the meantime, though, there’s a lot of human-sized drama to contend with in “Magnetism”, with the arrival of a new character at the garage, Benito, heralding a string of bad decisions and developments.
Benito is a hardware guy and comes wearing overalls and a welding mask, but the worse news is that he’s holed up with a politician named Roberto with whom Tano has some history. Benito’s group would like use of the garage and any working vehicles, which Tano denies them. His excuse that the station wagon has no fuel remaining is undermined somewhat by Omar promptly driving off in it and crashing into a storefront (Inga later brings it back.)
Whatever went on with Tano and Roberto in the past, it’s clearly influencing the former’s decisions in the present. Roberto puts an artificial deadline on Tano reconsidering his garage decision, which probably contributes to his new idea to move on to Tigre, a tourist and weekend destination located north of Buenos Aires. But Roberto isn’t the only reason.
Tano spends The Eternaut Episode 3 trying to facilitate radio contact, and he eventually manages it, getting through to someone named Denis from Uruguay. Denis doesn’t have good news. Uruguay is also blanketed by snow, and the disaster seems to have hit the entire continent, since he’s in communication with someone from the south of Brazil who is reporting the same thing. Using compasses, Tano determines that the Earth’s entire magnetic field has been altered, an irreparable catastrophe that means help is definitely not coming. As far as Tano’s concerned, everyone’s doomed.
A still from The Eternaut Episode 3 | Image via Netflix
While all this is going on, Juan and Elena head out to the school to find information about Clara’s potential whereabouts. It’s in their little interactions that we get some snippets of Juan’s backstory. We know he wears a hearing aid that has just run out of battery, and he has a history of shooting guns. This, combined with the later admission that his “flashbacks” are worsening since his exposure to the snow, but, crucially, are not entirely new to him, suggests that he’s a veteran of some sort, perhaps struggling with PTSD. He’s also self-medicating, which supports this theory.
At the school, Juan and Elena find Pablo, a teenager who was locked in a bathroom by his friends as a prank and thus has no idea what has happened in the intervening days. His friends are all dead, and Juan isn’t the most sympathetic, so Pablo isn’t inclined to help them. But he does recognise Clara’s friend Luna from one of the school photographs and offers to take them to her home. Pablo refers to Luna as Loli, which virtually confirms that Clara was one of the girls aboard the boat in the cold open of Episode 1.
When the trio arrives at what they think is Luna’s house, they find the entire family dead by the pool outside. But the entire family is Asian, at which point it becomes clear that Pablo has taken them to his own house, not Luna’s. He tries to hop outside in a sleeping bag, but Elena pulls him back to safety. From there, though, he develops a serious fever. Elena convinces Juan to stop at a drug store to pick up supplies, but while they’re there, a pregnant woman named Julieta arrives asking for assistance. But it’s a sting. Julieta’s boyfriend follows her in — they’re both wearing motorcycle helmets — and steals the keys to the car Juan and Elena are using, locking them both in a back room.
Pablo eventually lets Juan and Elena out and they proceed, on foot, back to the garage, which is where they learn that Tano is planning to leave for Tigre. They also stop off at the train Juan passed in Episode 2, but it’s now empty, completely devoid of life.
At the end of The Eternaut Episode 3, Julieta and her boyfriend stop to siphon some gas for their new car, and are both killed by what looks very much like an alien. The plot thickens.
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