‘Five Days At Memorial’ Episode 4: Recap & Ending, Explained: Whom Does Bryant Secretly Give Information?

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“Five Days At Memorial” has brought another episode of the dire atmosphere inside the Memorial hospital. The fourth day of Memorial starts with the hell that the hurricane has made. Although the rescue operation has already taken over, the hospital becomes chosen as a second priority, which leads the sick to die and the hospital employees to be devastated.

“Five Days At Memorial” Episode 4 starts with a deadly ambiance with the real footage of the 2005 hurricane that affected New Orleans. In the interrogative session after thirteen days, it is now the turn of Karen Wynn, the Nurse Manager of the ICU. When she is asked about the deaths of the patients, she replies that people were suffering from pain, so the hospital employees did whatever it took to ease that pain. The fourth day begins with a terrible death agony. When a dying patient is aching from severe issues, Dr. Anna Pou administers a morphine injection to reduce her pain, though Dr. Horace doesn’t seem to approve of that at all. But as a healthcare provider, it’s difficult for them to see a patient suffering. So Anna’s decision seems to be fair to us.

Spoilers Ahead


The Humanity Deterioration

Big problems emerge when destitute Orleanians flock to the Memorial’s shelter. But differences arise when the hospital commanders talk about sheltering people. It’s concluded that they will not shelter any additional people. This issue becomes very controversial until the end, when, according to the orders of the supervision team, the security guards of the memorial fire gunshots in the air to scare the residents of Orléans from heading to the hospital.

Dr. Bryant protested this, wanting to stand up to the people, but his words were lost in the crowd of approval, leaving him alone. In this difficult test of humanity, the Memorial becomes selfish in the eyes of all Orléans. Radio messages spread all around that the guards are bent on killing people instead of freeing them from this disaster.


LifeCare Or Memorial?

Confusing situations also take place within the hospital when conflicts arise between the Memorial and Lifecare. When Diane makes a list of Lifecare patients and gives them to Susan, Susan lowers their priority. She says the National Guard didn’t send a truck, and the Coast Guard helicopter hadn’t even arrived so that they would think about Lifecare later. Diane realizes everyone here wants to save their own life. No one is thinking of a collective rescue. While in her pregnancy, we see her in an extreme state of stress, which raises concerns about the health of Diane and her baby. But all she can think about is Lifecare’s 53 patients getting evacuated. So should she give up?

The coast guard takes too much time to send the helicopters, but at the moment when the President’s plane is seen in the sky, all operations are suspended. It is known that President Bush is traveling from Texas to Washington, DC. The question arises in the minds of the memorial employees about why he is running away selfishly without standing by the people in this disaster situation.


The Separation Of Evacuees

Mike Bowles arrives from the State Department to speak to Susan at the Memorial. He assures the hospital that they will send the rescue boats the next morning, but they have to reorient the evacuation. This means hospital employees have to choose which patients to prioritize for rescue and which to give up on. To make matters clearer, he says that all patients who appear to be active or mildly ill should prioritize the rescue. To identify patients with the grade of mild to severe illnesses, bands of different colors should be tied to their hands. However, he says that it is not possible to rescue all the dying patients, so they have to wear black bands. According to this order, all patients, including Memorial and Lifecare, are isolated by wearing these bands. Some conscious sufferers have no idea why they are wearing black bands. According to health ethics, neither the nurse nor the doctor informs them about their impending death. The death game continues in silence. Susan disagrees wholeheartedly, but disasters make people selfish. She forces her mother to leave early the next morning on a boat from the State Department. Susan can’t think for herself even if she wants to, because, like everyone else, she is responsible for the proper rescue of all sick people. She assures all the employees in the evening that their rescue operation will continue from tomorrow, as at night, it would be risky to transport the ills.


The Memorial Becomes A Warzone

Early tomorrow night, when it is still dark, all the hospital people are gathered to wait for the boat. We see Dr. Ewing and his wife leaving their pet because no animal will be rescued by the team. Without disagreeing with this point, humans prove once again that they can only determine the survival of other species. But the result is not good. While all the hospital employees stand together waiting, Dr. Pou, with a torch, comes out where she sees no sign of the boat and informs everyone about that. Did the State Department simply cheat on the Memorial? Or are they facing a bigger disaster?

When Ewing returns to his room, Rene advises him to come with them. He shares the incident of people from outside entering the hospital and stealing their things.  Rene and the rest of his doctors take up their guns to protect the hospital. And the hospital becomes a war zone. They are all set to shoot anybody who tries to come inside. Despite having security guards, they take over the law to handle it their own way, which is indeed a violent act to manage inside a hospital.


Mark’s Attempt To Rescue His Mother

When the government withdraws to help, a hospitalized patient Vera Le Blanc’s son Mark and his wife Sandra try to evacuate her. When Jill from the hospital describes the miserable situation in the hospital, Mark and Sandra contact the authorities, pleading for their rescue along with Jill’s description. But the authorities declare that the Memorial has been treated as a secondary priority, which has not changed despite Sandra’s repeated pleas. Mark and Sandra don’t want to give up. They decide to get to the hospital anyway, but finally, they get a helping hand from a small family who offers to take them to the hospital in their boat as soon as morning comes.


Whom Did Bryant Secretly Text?

Bryant does not accept the violent anarchy the doctors have decided to do. He remains silent, and we see him alone in a secluded room, texting someone on a mobile phone. According to Sheri Fink’s docu-novel, this is Bryant’s brother, whom he informs about the presence of “Evil entities” in the hospital. By “Evil entities”, he wants to express here the unawareness of Renee and the rest of the doctors. Bryant thinks the hospital should be a place of benevolence but here people are dehumanized during a disaster. Bryant keeps his mouth shut and observes everything.


Dr. Anna Pou

When the light is shed on Dr. Pou, we see Anna still doesn’t get any message from Vince, i.e., her husband. She sends a voice message to Vince about it, but eventually, her phone battery dies. Anna is forced to switch off the phone. We are still in the dark about Vince’s fate. She feels devastated like the rest of the others after the boats’ absence for rescue. To avoid the havoc inside the hospital, she gets into her car in a mental breakdown and cools herself down in the car’s AC. She turns on the radio to find a heartwarming song in the crowd of all the disaster telecasts, and with Ofege’s “It’s Not Easy,” she starts the fifth and final day.


What To Expect From ‘Five Days At Memorial’ Episode 5?

So there are lots of questions to be answered in Episode 5. The biggest question is why Bryant is secretly telling someone about the hospital’s internal situation? Maybe this secret texter can later store all this information as evidence, which we will find out in the next episode. The fog of Vince’s presence doesn’t go away. But the reason for not getting him on the phone for so long may be that something major has happened to him. And the biggest question is why the boats didn’t arrive. Then how will the evacuation be possible? Or will Memorial have to take some drastic action that will result in the deaths of those 45 people? We have enough doubts about Mark’s constant attempts to resuscitate his mother because the hospital guards are constantly shooting anyone who moves toward the hospital. So how Mark and Sandra will get to the Memorial is a big question for us.

“Five Days At Memorial” is quite moving so far. The realistic approach to show the sufferings of the employees and the patients is remarkable. No matter how much the turmoil is going in the way, we are thrilled to see such a good survival series that depicts such realistic efforts to present the sufferings of actual survivors. We fairly guess the next episode is going to show the D-day of the Memorial people, so just keep waiting for a week to witness the horror of the fifth episode.


See More: ‘Five Days At Memorial’ Episode 5: Recap & Ending, Explained: How Doctors Are Going To End The Sufferings?


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Poulami Nanda
Poulami Nanda
Poulami is an artist and an aspiring screenwriter both by profession and passion. Apart from writing stories, poems and songs, studying cinema is her obsession. She is also a freelance painter yet it is the world of cinema that fascinates her the most.

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