Pratik Handore
Syfy’s ‘The Ark’ is a science fiction series created by Dean Devlin and Jonathan Glassner. It follows the crew of Ark One, a spacecraft sent to colonize a distant planet. However, after the crew is forced to awaken from their cryosleep ahead of its time, they fave several challenges to survive. In the fifth episode, titled ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back,’ the week’s crisis is radiation from the engine room threatening to kill everyone onboard Ark One. Meanwhile, Felix solves the mystery surrounding Malcolm Perry’s death. If you are wondering how the episode’s twists will affect the ship’s crew going forward, here is everything you need to know about ‘The Ark’ episode 5! SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Ark Episode 5 Recap
The fifth episode, titled ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back,’ opens with Dr. Sanjivni Kabir trying to combat her fatigue using pills. Kabir contemplates taking another pill when she is interrupted by Lt. Spencer Lane. He thanks Dr. Kabir for her work on the ship and offers to look after the med bay so she can get some rest. After Kabir leaves, Lane jumps onto the med bay’s logs and searches for Lt. Sharon Garnet’s medical records. Lane discovers Garnet is a clone and confronts her. However, Garnet plays down Lane’s concerns about her snapping.
Lane brings up the issue of Garnet’s true identity with the council. He demands Lane relinquish control of the ship. However, the council supports Garnet after she explains that she is a first-tier clone. Later, Garnet instructs Eva to bring the ship up to light speed. On the other hand, Lane is recommended to attend therapy sessions with Cat Graham. Lastly, Garnet tells Angus and Alicia to work together and weaponize the substance that struck Ark One.
In the engine room, Eva instructs Gregor, her second-in-command, to fix the issues with the engine and ensure it can perform light-speed travel. However, she instructs him to pull the emergency stop lever if things go sideways. Meanwhile, Cat meets Felix and suspects that Eva killed Malcolm Perry. Felix confronts Eva, and she imprisons Felix in the same cabin where Perry died. She cuts off the oxygen supply in the cabin until Felix almost passes out before explaining if she wanted to kill Perry, she would have made it look like a heart attack.
After Felix is convinced that Eva is not the killer, he checks the ship’s logs and finds further clues. In the engine room, Gregor’s task goes sideways, and the room is filled with radiation that kills Gregor before he can pull the emergency stop lever. Elsewhere, Lane works with Cat and attends his first therapy session while Alicia and Baylor meet since their award hallucination-filled first date. Their interaction ends in a kiss, but Baylor’s motivations remain a mystery.
Later, Alicia and Angus work together to understand the mysterious element they discovered in Brice’s glove. The duo tries to weaponize the element but fails after running several simulations. Instead, they decide to turn the element into a shield that will detect when the same element is used to attack Ark One in the future. However, their progress is interrupted when Felix intervenes and arrests Alicia after finding her tab’s logs connected to Perry’s death. However, Felix believes the true killer is someone else.
Meanwhile, Eva learns of the accident in the engine room and finds Gregor dead. She informs Garnet of the situation and tries to access the emergency stop lever from the bridge remotely. However, Eva fails and decides someone must access the lever manually. Elsewhere, Felix deduces that Baylor killed Perry as he accessed Alicia’s tab and tried to frame Garnet. Baylor is arrested while Garnet, Lane, and Brice contemplate how to deal with the radiation exposure on the ship.
The Ark Episode 5 Ending: Why Did Baylor Kill Perry? What Was Baylor Protecting?
In the episode, viewers finally learn that Baylor was behind the death of Malcolm Perry. However, before we can learn more about his motives, the crew’s attention is diverted to the radiation crisis in the engine room. Brice volunteers to pull the lever, but Garnet turns him down. She proposes completing the task herself as her clone status could protect her from radiation longer. However, Lane drops out of the conversation after receiving a message. He meets Baylor, and while we do not hear their conversation, Lane convinces the murderer to undertake the suicide mission.
Baylor enters the engine room, and after some struggles, he pulls the lever deactivating the radiation and fixing the issue. However, Baylor dies in the process. Ultimately, we hear the conversation between Lane and Baylor in which the latter explains that his true mission was to protect something far more important than his own life. In the final moments, we see Lane heading to the secret room Baylor told him about and discovering two cryo pods inside. In one of the pods is William Trust, the seemingly unstable genius with a God complex who designed the ship. However, the episode ends before we learn more about the reasons for Trust’s presence on the ship.
It seems likely that the entire clone law subplot won’t be for anything and could be connected to Trust’s goals. As Baylor explains in the episode, a group of Trust loyalists is dedicated to protecting the scientist. With Baylor’s death, the mission’s responsibility now rests on Lane. On the other hand, Lane has newfound mutual respect with Garnet could be jeopardized because he is forced to keep the secret. Moreover, we have yet to learn about the larger implications of Trust being hidden on the ship in the first place.
