Hello internet world, it’s me, Slick Dungeon. I’ve just finished watching the fifth episode of the horror hit Archive 81 which is currently streaming on Netflix. I’ll be talking about this episode and the episodes before it so fair warning there may be spoilers below. Otherwise, put your cameras down, lock yourself in a secluded archive and come along with me for the review!

This episode is almost fully focused on Melody and we don’t really see Dan until the very end. Much improved from the last episode, there are fewer horror tropes we’ve all seen, although some still exist. Melody continues her pursuit to find out what happened to her mother and once again the episode opens with a bit of television. This time it’s a news report about someone getting hit by a train. This does come into play later but I won’t spoil why in this review.

The mood and atmosphere increases in creepiness this time as Melody desperately tries to find out what happened to her friend. To find out she has to go to the sixth floor of the Visser, which, of course, was the floor she was warned to stay away from in the very first episode. I thought I had an idea of what might be going on but I was completely wrong. The fact it wasn’t what I was thinking was a refreshing development.

Melody is getting more desperate and her behavior, to an outsider, would seem erratic and like she might be capable of doing a lot of strange things. As the audience, we know she’s sane and there are just strange things happening all around her. She gets some vital information about one of the tenants of the building, which I won’t spoil here but let’s just say, it’s a pretty big reveal.

The last ten minutes of this episode are totally what make it worth watching. There’s a huge reveal and a bit twist which just makes everything more complicated.

I will say this about this show. It’s good at slowly doling out complicating factors and having decent twists. However, if the end is lackluster, that could definitely sink the show overall. I hope their final episodes will keep up the weirdness without succumbing to something like Lost where too many things were simply left unexplained. In order to do that they are going to have to fit a lot in to the next few episodes. We’ll see where it goes.

Horrifically yours,

Slick Dungeon

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