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Hey guys! Here is the full reaction to Episode 4. I think this one may have been the hardest so far (maybe tied with episode 3). The way they portray the events in this series just make me feel like I'm there. I can't help but get that sick feeling!!

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David RedEagle

This has been a really good series, Im excited to watch another.

Pickupthepieces76

I've been watching along with this one. It's the first time since I saw it when it came out. A very heavy subject, but the storytelling and filmmaking is just off the charts. Easily one of the best shows ever made in my opinion.

Patrick Flanagan

Emily Watson (Ulana Khomyuk) really killed it in this episode. I didn't think of it until that last scene with the three of them talking in secret, but in Watson's first movie (BREAKING THE WAVES, 1996, for which she also earned her first Oscar nomination) the actor playing her husband was Stellan Skarsgard, starring here as Boris Shcherbina. The old farmer woman in the beginning mentioned "the Holodomor." This was when the newly formed USSR decided to collectivize all agriculture in the Ukraine, forcing farmers off their little privately-owned plots of land to work in huge farming communes. The chaos and ineptitude of this system led to massive famine which killed at least 3 million Ukrainians in the 1930s. The liquidators mention Afghanistan. At this point in history the Soviet war in Afghanistan is entering its final stages, having begun in 1979 when the puppet communist regime asked for help in defeating its rebels. The disaster in Chernobyl probably accelerated the Soviet withdrawal but Gorbachev has said he had always intended to terminate the war. While not on the scale of America's war in Vietnam - at our peak we had over half a million servicemen and -women in that war, the USSR had a fraction of that number in Afghanistan - it did, like the Vietnam War, produce a generation of veterans, many of whom were disillusioned with their service and their country. (Also around this time the CIA was funding and training Afghan rebels to fight the Soviets, many of whom went on to found the Taliban in the 1990s.) Given the timeline of events I'm sure lots of these veterans were recalled to active duty to serve as liquidators in and around the Zone of Exclusion.

Michael Hawk

Young men were given a choice: one year in Afghanistan or two minutes on the roof. In retrospect, the better choice looks like it would have been Afghanistan.

Brian McGovern

I guess they would have had to kill all livestock. They mentioned in the last episode that all animals wold have to be killed as they would have been affected, not to mnetion that they probably would not or should not be consuming the animals or any by products of the animals as it would have been contaminated as well.

Tobias Eiken

Image was extremely important to the USSR, cause they wanted to show that their communism was the superior system to the US and their capitalism. Admitting to problems just wasn't an option. Some lives was a small price to pay to uphold the facade.

MetallicOpeth

great episode. a little overblown by people saying how "hard" it is to watch. compared to the human life lost in episode 3, barely seeing some animals get killed isn't that hard to stomach. it's tragic sure, but not "OMG UNBEARABLE"

Jon Johns

AFAIK - Strontium is a dangerous element from fallout and radiation and decay from higher elements. It is mistakenly recognized by the human body as Calcium, and uses it to "build" bones and teeth. After a period of time, the Strontium in your bones and teeth becomes brittle, as it is not as strong as Calcium. The painful death is kind of terrifying, as you just kind of... Disintegrate. So, killing cows, that have been irradiated, that give milk is so important. Any nuclear physicist, or chemistry expert can correct me here.

LightsCameraJake

Hey Cassie, since this mini series is coming to a close, do you have any plans to react shows with more then a season in the future? or multi season content?

Bubba Fett

Soviet volunteers? That's a good one, best joke I've heard all day!!

Catherine LW

Yes, I think it’s exaggerated a bit. Watching those men suffer in agony in ep. 3 was hardest for me. The animals being put down is hard, but at least they’re not in agony and it was to prevent their eventual suffering from radiation poisoning.

Stephen J Michalski

The poor Russian/Ukrainian people........100's upon 100's of years of oppression and poverty......and it doesn't look like their getting out from under it anytime soon. I think this event greatly influenced the move towards the Soviet Unions collapse. It was a time when much of the leadership was transitioning from the old WW2 veterans to younger a little more progressive leaders. This event and the realization that they had 1,000's of nuclear warheads just waiting for their own accident besides their nuclear power plants sent a wave of apprehension through their minds. Unfortunately their brief experiment with democracy collapsed largely due to western short sightedness and greed.....giving the opportunity for the hard line communist to retake control of the country hidden behind a smokescreen of seeming democratic process that is only "window dressing" for western eye's. Putin ( who was KGB) stepped down as president when his term was up......but before doing so changed laws that left him and the hardliners in charge of basically everything. It's why Russia still acts like it did during the Cold War and before .....contentious aggressive and expansionist.

Catherine LW

FYI, another Patreon account I subscribe to moved their comments to Discord. There they can categorize and filter comments so “suggestions” is a category they created there. It’s much easier to post and read than Patreon.

Krusty “Topher”

Interesting idea! This is my only Patreon account so I’m unfamiliar. So Discord is another site? Yeah I had some ideas about how to sort the bracket process easier for her so I just sent it through our regular Message center on here. Not even sure if she reads those though. But Discord sounds like an option.

Catherine LW

Yes, you create a free account at Discord, then link it to your Patreon account (Patreon has instructions). It was easy and the chat function is soooo much better there!

LightsCameraJake

if only she actually ever checks her discord xD Been in there for a hot min and I never see her online or checking. Maybe she checks in stealth mode xD

Catherine LW

Well, it could help with the movie suggestions since it works well over there. I think Cassie will need help with tallying the responses. I think she mentioned getting a family member to help her with that.

Krusty “Topher”

I helped with the last bracket. Well at least I think I did. I tallied the top suggestions and gave them. She was thankful so I’m assuming she used it. I’ve told her I’d always help if need be and I’ve got a better way to tally suggestions that I’ve given. But again…it’s got to be much more difficult to have discord with everyone as quick as she’s growing.

Mikio

Because of the policy of glasnost and improvement in fast communication since just the 60's, most of the people in the USSR heard the eye witness testimonies from liquidators and relatives to the people affected. The show makes a small hint towards it, when they meet the miners who already knows that the Chernobyl accident is bad. Many in the USSR could see the response from the rest of the world, and then compare it to the USSR response and actions. Similarly they learned about all the slow responses and how what the government was broadcasting to the news was clearly not correct. For the first time people could see through the bullshit that the authoritarian regime was saying because of glasnost. The real crisis came because they were also fighting in Afghanistan at the same time. The USSR spend an absurd amount of their capital on the military, and then they got this crisis added on top. For the last 15 years of the USSR, there were shortages of common items and by the early 1980's there were even shortages of bread, and it is when you see the lines of people for shops with empty cells. It is when the web of lies and deceit gets exposed that authoritarian regimes collapse, as not only the publics but also the military opinion turns against the regime. Information would destroy corrupt and oppressive regimes, throughout history those regimes come and go in cycles.

Mikio

I would recommend looking into the allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, and Stalin's meetings with the allies during WW2 if you want to know why Russia is "aggresive and expansionist", since that is actually a wrong and very western narrative. All throughout, the USSR was scared of being encircled and invaded by the capitalist powers, the capitalists had already interferred in the Russian Civil War on Russian soil in 1917, so why would they not do it again. Stalin was so scared of Churchill potentially signing a seperate peace with nazi germany in 1945 that Stalin bypassed his general staff and forced everyone to rush for Berlin no matter the cost. Churchill had actually planned for Operation Unthinkable in 1945, but the Americans would not go along with it. Stalin would stay in Northern Iran to form a buffer zone against the capitalists, the same with Eastern Europe, as they were still scared of being invaded. Stalin was also scared of having the capitalists on their eastern border at North Korea. Putin today wants to avoid being locked in so NATO can invade Russia and tumble the government, so from the Russian and USSR perspective they have always acted defensively, except when they did things in Indochina, Africa and Cuba. The American narative is that the US did their stuff defensively against an aggresive USSR, so pretty much the entire Cold War was 2 nations defending against eachother because each move they did was misunderstood by the opposing faction.

Catherine LW

Thanks but no thanks, Jon! I actually have to withdraw as mod on YouTube because of upcoming work obligations. I just can’t manage it all. 🥴

Mikio

Some people feel a lot more for the innocent animals than for humans, it is extremely individual.

Mikio

All of the livestock did get killed and buried basically like how it is in this episode. All the fields etc. were destroyed and buried as they flipped the earth. AFAIK it is still illegal to grow crop and sell it from inside the exclusion zone. In the Belarus part of the exclusion zone they have a food van since the mid 1990's that drive out there to sell food to the few people who lives in the exclusion zone. The exclusion zone is the largest continous non-cultivated area in Europe.

softshoes

I knew you would have a hard time with this one Cassie. I'd say you took better than I thought you might. Homestretch now and so many of your questions will get answers. You may have been spoiled by now but the last episode makes all the rest the reason for watching. Nicely done miss.❤

Christopher Smith

Drew from Cloth Map did a couple videos from his visit to Chernobyl. Good watch, especially the one about the wild puppies.

Christopher Smith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdgVcL3Xlkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDz599SBRNA