Director	Michael Duignan
Writers	David Brechin-Smith, Peter Cox
Starring	Renato Bartolomei, Latham Gaines, Gareth Reeves, Kate Elliott, Danielle Cormack, Scott Wills, Sara Wiseman, Rachel Nash, Andrew Grainger, William Wallace, Lisa Chappell
Genre	Thriller
Tagline	None Listed
Country

Review

Cynthia is having nightmares about her capture by the Liberators and subsequent torture by Sophie. Proving alliances make for strange bedfellows Cynthia passes on Andy's medical file to Sophie, which was apparently her end of the bargain after Sophie helped her escape from The Glen. Later Cynthia poisons the Women's water causing extreme reactions and Hannah to lose her baby due to complications. With some of the women getting worse Cynthia may have gone beyond her intention. In a further effort to heighten Edward's paranoia Cynthia turns off the power to the electric fences allowing an ill fated rescue team from The Glen access to Two Gardens. Saul and Edward immediately suspect Cynthia due to the door to the fence's generator being locked.

Michael, Sophie, and Gina discover that there are coffins for each of the Liberators stored in the infamous shed, once again making a conspiracy more than idle speculation. Edward meanwhile isn't a trusting soul any more after discovering the true extent of Jenni's condition. Ryan blames Michael for the loss of his baby.

The Cult is going from strength to strength with The White Room continuing the recent development of having sub text added to the mystery and at times explosive violence. To be honest television doesn't get much better than this, and if it wasn't for the predominately Kiwi and Aussie accents you could readily believe you were watching a well funded series from the BBC.

Simply a superior episode that had me giving it a standing ovation.

Basically what we're dealing with is the concept of when does the means justify the end. Cynthia will use anything available to move toward her final goal, and that includes preying on the Cult members. Edward, for whatever reason, is equally supportive of Cynthia's at times insane scientific experimentations. As we see in The White Room Edward will also victimise his disciples to get what he wants, Marcus attempts to leave Two Gardens with his sick daughter and ends up imprisoned before being delivered to Cynthia for no doubt more “drug trials”. And of course Sophie is still playing out her end game, at the cost of both the Liberators and the Cult. We have already seen that Michael and Francis will use extreme means to achieve their aims. The White Room asks the audience to examine how far they would go to achieve their ends, and at what cost to those around them.

In a series of flashbacks, first to Iraq and then to Perth, Australia, we learn that Cynthia, or Marie as she was known then, had been experimenting with mind altering drugs for quite sometime, though clearly not under clinical conditions as such. In Iraq her partner, James, develops post traumatic stress disorder and is unable to function as a Doctor. Back in Australia Cynthia convinces him to allow her to administer a drug that will remove the emotions attached to traumatic events by targeting one area of the brain. James quickly gets the same eye discolouration that Jenni currently has and is pretty much catatonic due to Cynthia's drug administration. We see Cynthia meeting Edward in an airport bar as she flees Australia rather than facing the fallout from her illegal drug experiment.

Director Michael Duignan delivers an intense, jam packed episode that really moves the plot arcs along and adds some meat to the bone that has been the series thus far. We now know that Cynthia is delivering mind altering drugs to the members of the Cult, why Edward would agree to this remains to be seen, and that Cynthia is putting pressure on Edward to speed up an “announcement” that no doubt will culminating in a pretty insane drug delivery and devastation in Two Gardens. There's a smoking gun waiting to happen here, one wonders if the Liberators will get the safety back on that item before it goes off and does irrevocable damage to the people they are trying to rescue. Duignan is more than confident in handling the dual tasks of keeping the plot arcs going while layering on the plot exposition that is gradually pulling the true picture of what is going on into the light. I can hardly wait for the next episode, though no doubt we'll get a new Director.

A couple of things intrigued me about The White Room. Sophie handing off Andy's medical file to someone unseen in a car raises a few questions as to what her goal may or may not be. Clearly Sophie isn't about trying to extract one or more people from Two Gardens, and could in fact have more to do with nefarious unknown forces wanting details of Cynthia's progress with the mind altering drug. No not talking about television, the drug of a nation, here kids. I was also wondering when Ryan might wake up to what’s going on, for an obviously intelligent person, the dude was a Lawyer, he seems to be totally under the influence of Edward, and if ever you wanted an example of a false profit of U.S fundamentalism then Edward is your man. Clearly a few cracks are appearing within the Cult, will they came into play by the final episode?

I gave this episode a standing ovation as the end credits rolled, such excellent television, thankfully delivered to my arms via DVD rather than the irritating advert machine that is the idiot box. Got to say am totally hooked and can't wait to see what further developments are heading in my direction. Get yourself brain washed kids, this is simply a slice of rolled gold.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...