We don’t remember who said that juggling is about keeping something in hand and something in the air and controlling the patterns in front of an audience. It has long been an underrated art, and we now believe that it should have been left alone as such. It is fine to be the master of just one trade if you are unable to be the jack of all of them. We wish the makers of “Wreck” had taken this into account. The series describes itself as a horror-comedy, but it manages to be neither of them. We are sorry, but a few murders are not enough to earn a place in the horror genre, especially when there has been no effort to tailor the atmosphere accordingly.
Additionally, why did the writer think that the murderer wearing a duck costume was peak comedy? They even failed to come up with good insults, and Harriet Webb’s dedication as Karen was not enough to salvage the lukewarm dialogue. The thing is, “Wreck” had good actors who actually gave their all but were just let down by uninteresting writing. It would have been a far better series if they had just stuck to keeping it as a murder mystery. Instead, what we have right now looks like the first draft of “Squid Game.” This is how it all goes wrong.
Spoilers Ahead
The Murders On The Ship
It starts when Pippa Walsh jumps off the ship after being chased by a murderer in a duck costume. Right before jumping, she says that the person “doesn’t get to have her.” A few months later, a new person comes on board as part of the crew. His name is Cormac Kelly, but we soon discover that his real name is Jamie Walsh. He is Pippa’s brother, and he has come on board to find out what has happened to his sister. He paid the real Cormac to borrow his identity, but it gets a little complicated when Cormac actually comes on board the ship to stalk his ex-girlfriend, Rosie, who is a Cher impersonator.
As for the rest of the crew, the fake Cormac, whom we will call Jamie for the time being, makes friends with Vivian, and he is given a tour of the ship by the strict and potty-mouthed Officer Karen. While this is all well and good, Jamie starts his investigation right away. He suspects Danny, who was Pippa’s boyfriend on the ship; she had broken up with him just sometime before she went missing. He sneaks into Danny’s room and finds Pippa’s phone under his mattress. But before he can get out, Danny comes back, forcing Jamie to hide in the bathroom. He overhears Danny speaking to Sophie, with the latter saying that Bethany May wants “an out.” The thing is that everyone knows that Pippa jumped from the ship, but her body was never recovered.
Everyone has presumed that she is dead, but Cormac is not convinced. He doesn’t believe that his sister would try to commit suicide, and in some corner of his heart, he feels she is still alive. He could just get the police to investigate the matter, but since it happened on a ship in international waters, it would get all caught up in matters of jurisdiction, which is why Jamie was acting on his own. He manages to get out of Danny’s room safely, but he and Vivian are kidnapped that night by a group of people wearing duck masks. Turns out, they take him to a party. Kidnapping and a bit of ragging with a dead fish are some sort of initiation rites, but it is all in the interest of fun. We suppose they can take care of their traumas later on. At the party, Jamie talks to Danny about Pippa, and the latter brushes it off, saying that Pippa was the clingy one. Jamie is convinced that this must mean that Danny is the culprit because of his flippant and blame-deflecting attitude. However, that night, Danny is attacked and killed by the duck costume murderer.
The next day, while Jamie is getting more and more convinced that Danny is the killer, Vivian and Cormac try to present alternate theories. When they overhear Officer Beaker getting summoned as there is a situation, they follow him. Karen tells the officers and the entertainers’ group that Danny has jumped and committed suicide, but they want to withhold the information for now. This sets Jamie thinking because his only suspect and lead is now dead, but he gets a look at Danny’s body kept in the freezer. Apparently, that is where the ship is forced to keep the bodies when the morgue is full. He and Vivian find stab wounds on his body, which means that Danny was murdered, unlike what the others are saying. By this time, Jamie has managed to unlock Pippa’s phone, and he finds some texts on it, with her blackmailing a guy with his inappropriate picture. When Jamie, Vivian, and Cormac are debating their next move, Cormac suggests that there is a guy in the engine room who does tattoos, and they could ask him about the tattoo in the picture. Jamie and Vivian ask Olly for help, which he is more than willing due to his crush on Jamie.
We know what follows is supposed to be a funny scene, but it is not. Vivian, Olly, and Jamie find the tattoo artist and bring him some CDs in exchange for what they want. The guy tattoos Jamie with Pippa’s name and tells him that the tattoo in the picture belongs to an officer, though he doesn’t know which one.
Meanwhile, Sofia talks to Captain Sam and tells him that they shouldn’t have started dealing drugs with the crew, as that has brought the ire of the mafia upon them. After they talk and reconcile, she asks to meet him. As luck would have it, Cormac ends up hiding in a cupboard while following Rosie and sees Sofia and Sam together. He notices the tattoo on Sam and tells Jamie that he is the guy in the picture. That night, everyone on the ship holds a vigil for Danny. Sofia goes to the theatre for a quiet moment, and Jamie follows her there, which is when he sees her being attacked by a masked man. Jamie saves her, and the man also backs off, but we see that he is Olly, and he is not looking very happy.
The Next Stage Of The Investigation
When Jamie is with Olly, getting his new tattoo disinfected and treated, both of them have a moment, but the officers arrive and insist on searching Olly’s room. When that is being done, Jamie spots the cap that Sofia’s attacker has worn and understands that it is Olly. He and Vivian immediately called the police and told them about Danny’s murder. They speak to the officer and tell her about everything happening on the ship and ask her to see Danny’s body for evidence that it was a murder. They also promise to get Sofia to talk, though that part doesn’t work out in the end. The point was that though the officer found enough evidence of foul play, it was all in vain because she was bribed by the ship’s administration to ignore it so that the ship could preserve its reputation. That night, there is another murder, that of Jerome, and we know by now that something is very wrong in this place.
When Jamie confronts Sam about his affair with Pippa, he reveals that he always knew who Jamie was and tells him that the breakup happened because Pippa found out that he was a married man. Sam further tells Jamie that she had been very distraught during her last days on the ship, so it could mean that there was merit to the theory that she jumped off. Jamie goes through the documents recorded by HR about Pippa’s employment and finds that Sam is telling the truth, though he is still not convinced that she committed suicide. He eventually tries to investigate her room on the ship and finds something that sheds new light on the case. They find dates and cabin numbers scrawled on the floor. In the smoke alarm, they find a list of names. When they checked them on social media, all of them had the same last update that said that they were going on a digital detox. They snuck into the ship’s offices to find any record of the people and found that they had all absconded from the ship, and these entries were logged in by Karen herself. Jamie tells this to Sam, who says that it is normal for people to abscond all the time, but he lets Jerome’s name slip, which Jamie had never mentioned. This reveals to him that something is seriously wrong. Knowing that the cat is out of the bag, Sam admits that he had indeed chased Pippa and witnessed her falling off the ship. When Jamie tries to escape, he is surrounded by the rest of the officers on the ship, proving that they are all in on whatever conspiracy is going on.
When Jamie is locked in a cell, he spots Jerome’s body and is horrified at the sheer number of deaths happening around him. Karen tells Sam to take care of Jamie, that is, to kill him, but Sam obviously doesn’t have it in him to do the deed, and he just pushes him down a chute. Jamie is fine, and he finds Olly, who brings Vivian, Rosie, and Cormac to try and figure out what is happening. They revisit the writing they found on Pippa’s room floor, and Jamie understands that she is pointing toward a room. They find the room and discover that there are hidden passageways in the ship itself that lead to secret rooms. The group breaks up to explore them, but unfortunately, Jamie and Olly get caught, and this time, they finally get to know what is happening. They see a woman from housekeeping being hunted by one of the couples as a sport, as part of their anniversary celebrations. This is what is happening on the ship, which Pippa had discovered. Vivian is in danger because she was with Lily all this time, with whom she has developed a romantic relationship. Lily reveals that Vivian is her birthday gift, and now, she will start hunting her.
‘Wreck’ Ending Explained: What Happens To Vivian And Jamie? Is Pippa Dead Or Alive?
It looks like it is time for the hunt to continue. Henry reveals that the person who committed all those murders was Sam, wearing a duck costume. Pippa had indeed died because she knew too much. Vivian was locked up in a cage, and Olly and Jamie were on the brink of being tortured to find out who else knew about the happenings on the ship. Before that could happen, Cormac and Rosie rescue them, though they all end up getting locked in a room.
They are figuring out what to do when they notice that the room opens to the place of the underground parties. Knowing they can’t do it all alone, Jamie tells the truth to the rest of the crew, and Sofia supports him, knowing that Danny did not kill himself. The entire crew is united as one to rescue Vivian and fight back against the officers. While the officers try to hold them back behind a barricade, they are helpless when the Filipinos come up with their tools, ready to break down everything in their way.
The expression on Karen’s face says that she knows it is a lost cause. Throughout the series, she has been a bit of a bully to the other officers and to the crew in the name of efficiency and authority. In fact, due to her job, she might have thought of herself as being in the same position as the guests that she was serving. But even if she did not think that, she certainly thought of others as being beneath her. What she failed to understand was that the status quo was maintained because people were not aware of the atrocities being committed behind closed doors. It has become human nature to equate material wealth with entitlement, but we often forget that the other side of that coin is that we believe that people with less wealth deserve to stay downtrodden. We explain it away with a myriad of things like lack of hard work, karma, and the poverty mindset or just pure luck, but we often ignore that poverty is not random; it is systematic. The world of collective oppression is because there is a collective acceptance of it, and only a united flight can overturn these systems. Anybody with a counter argument may please focus on the word “collective” once again.
When Karen saw the entire crew coming together to fight, she knew they had lost. Olly had previously told Jamie that being Asian meant that he had to do certain things, despite not wanting to, to survive. But right now, it was the Asians who were leading the fight. We don’t think it was symbolic of anything, but it is never a bad time to discuss the intersectionality of race, class, and wealth.
Meanwhile, Jamie races to rescue Vivian and is helped in the process by Karen. Vivian is in danger as Lily is trying to kill her with a chainsaw. But when Jamie enters the room, due to the distraction, Lily accidentally kills herself. When Vivian and Jamie try to escape, they are surrounded by the guests and by Henry, who tells them that they will never be out of business. Sacramentum is not the only ship it is happening on, and all of the guests are wealthy enough to avoid police trouble. Just as they are about to kill Jamie and Vivian, Rosie comes into the room with the rest of the crew, who are similarly armed and not afraid to fight back. Lauren shoots an arrow at Beaker when he tries to attack them, and Rosie hurts Lily’s mother with an axe when she comes at them. The Baby runs his chainsaw, and it is clear that they won’t hesitate to use it should the need arise.
All that is left to do is for the crew to wait for the ship to arrive at the dock, as they have informed the police. Karen escapes on a lifeboat, and all is well for Olly, Jamie, and Rosie and Cormac. As they wait for the rescue, Pippa looks at the ship from a distance. She is alive, after all, but we don’t think she knows that her brother is on the ship. She tells someone on the boat that something is wrong and goes inside, which is where Season 1 of “Wreck” ends.
Final Thoughts
In the interest of poor wordplay, we can say that “Wreck” was indeed a wreck. The thing is, we don’t mind seeing some British version of “Squid Game,” but the number one fallacy of the series has been that in the interest of trying to do too much, they failed to do even a single thing properly. They wanted mystery; they wanted humor, and they wanted a lot of horror. Well, the jokes weren’t funny, the identity of the murderer was blah, and the horror was clearly the unintentionally funny part. What are we supposed to make of “Wreck”? Even the unfolding of the mystery was a bit jarring, to be honest. The actors brought their best to the characters they were playing. Donal Sage Mackay as Henry Allan was truly menacing, and Oscar Kennedy as Jamie Walsh had our hearts twisted when he spoke about how he was not a good enough brother to Pippa. Olly was cute, and despite Lily’s character arc, she had real chemistry with Vivian, played by Thaddea Graham. These actors and their performances did not deserve such a terrible script. There will undoubtedly be a “Wreck” Season 2, though there shouldn’t be. There is no need to continue a bad product. But if they do, they need to make some serious improvements to make it worth watching.
See More: ‘Wreck’ Season 2: Expectations: What Can We See In The Next Season?
