The Calling is the fifth episode of the first season of the Netflix original multilingual mystery thriller, 1899. It was released on November 17, 2022.
Synopsis[]
Maura has terrible flashbacks and makes a shocking move. A sound leads some passengers to jump overboard. Maura makes a discovery about her father.
Plot[]
Dressed in a hospital gown with deep bruises around her wrists, Maura finds herself in the middle of a field with a large building in the distance and a nearby grave with a cross that reads "wake up." Suddenly, Maura is back in the asylum, being pulled into a room by two orderlies. She insists that she's not crazy and asks her father what he did to her brother. Maura is then strapped to a chair and a needle is injected into her neck. "Wake up," Maura hears as she awakens on the floor of the Kerberos' dining room. Next to her sits Daniel, who reveals they locked the boy back in the cabinet, in the same manner as the Prometheus' cabinet was barred. She attempts to free him, but the other passengers raise their guns. Eyk reminds Maura that the boy was thrown off the railing with no possible chances of survival, and yet he is back on the ship. Before Eyk agrees to release the boy, he demands to know why her name was on the passenger list of the Prometheus.
Franz insists that if the captain manages to take the bridge, they're still in control of the ship. As long as they hold the machine room, they dictate the ship's course. They're approximately four days from land, and some are wondering what will happen to them when they arrive, as mutiny carries the death penalty. Iben replies that justice is always on the side of the survivors and that light will always prevail. She refuses to surrender, even if it means more sacrifices.
Tove joins Krester and recalls the time Ada bathed the piglet in the font. She was always different from the rest of them and never afraid of their mother, who Tove claims is sick. The voices she hears are not those of God, rather delusion and madness, as God would never ask them to kill an innocent boy, to which Krester responds that Tove has killed before, but she argues that her situation was different. She then reminds Krester of the promise he made her, that they would leave their parents as soon as they arrived in America, but he doesn't seem so certain anymore.
Clémence asks Lucien if he was ever in love with her. He doesn't answer directly, instead explaining that she's lived an easy life, whereas many others struggle daily to get to where she is. She's come to realize that Lucien's life story has all been a lie, that he's not a lieutenant, and that nothing he's told her about his family was true. Every morning, he wakes up wishing that he wasn't in love with Clémence because she's a constant reminder of what he can't have.
Tove enters the dining room, rifle surrendered, explaining that she's come to help stop her mother and the other mutineers. The banging on the cabinet begins again. Refusing to allow the boy's imprisonment any longer, Maura goes to free him against the wishes of the group, who all have their guns raised. One of the passengers opens fire, which Daniel tries to jump in front of but then a wave of energy emits from around Maura, freezing time, allowing her to literally pluck the bullet from out of the air before freeing the boy from the cabinet and coming to the conclusion that the pyramid in the boy's hand is what froze time. She demands that he offer some answers, but he takes her hand and leads her out the dining room instead. When time unfreezes, the group is left in awe to see both Maura and the boy gone. Suddenly, a siren begins blaring.
Eyk looks to Daniel for answers, asking what he and Maura spoke of the night before, but Daniel insists that he doesn't know where she is. Tove intervenes and reminds the captain that it up to him to get the ship back on course. While he doesn't know what exactly happened, this is not their only problem. Eyk explains that they've been firing the furnaces full speed since yesterday. If they keep going at the same rate, they will run out of coal in the next two days, and they'll be lost in the ocean. Daniel agrees and declares that they take back control of the ship. The siren abruptly stops, followed by a steady ticking sound, similar to a clock. This appears to put a large portion of the passengers into a trance; they drop their weapons and begin marching out the dining room, stepping in time with the ticking.
Among those placed in a trance includes the coal workers and Yuk Je, who simply walks out the cabin whilst Ling Yi is in the bathroom. She calls out to her mother and follows the trail of passengers headed to the upper deck. Krester is affected in the same way and heads upstairs as well, with Anker chasing after him, calling out to his unresponsive son.
Franz and the mutineers discover that many of the passengers have all been put in a trance-like state, including Eugen. Franz attempts to stop him, but fails to do so.
Ling Yi follows her mother and the other passengers up to the main deck, where she calls out to Yuk Je, who looks back at her before going overboard, along with Krester and the other entranced passengers. Anker watches helplessly as Krester drops to the water below.
Maura asks the boy where the passengers are going and what's happening, but like before, he doesn't say a word. She begs the boy to speak, but instead, he grabs a notepad and writes down "they are listening." He then pulls Maura close and whispers in her ear that he can't tell her and that she'll have to ask the Creator.
Sebastian returns to the compartment where they keep the lifeboats to input some kind of message into the hidden console.
Eyk's crew and a Franz's crew find themselves face-to-face with one another as the entranced passengers march towards the upper deck. When Anker reveals that they're jumping overboard, including Krester, the rivaling crews work together to try and stop the passengers from making it to the upper deck. Whilst they're distracted, Daniel sneaks away. Olek then sees Ling Yi and rushes to comfort her as she reveals her mother jumped overboard.
Maura follows the boy down the tiled shaft and watches as he uses a green bug to open a pathway down the shaft. It leads them to the same bare mountain terrain from Maura's dream. However, once there, she loses track of the boy and approaches the unmarked grave, gripping tight to the necklace around her neck before noticing the building in the distance.
Daniel races to Maura's room to discover that she and the boy have traveled down the tiled shaft. But the pathway they took closed behind them, so Daniel uses his hand held device to open a new pathway into Maura's memory. However, once there, he only finds the boy and scolds him for bringing her here. Because of his actions, their presence is no longer secret. They've never made it this far, and the boy is hopeful it will work this time. He brought Maura here in hopes that she would remember, but she still doesn't. Unfortunately, they don't have much time, and Daniel needs to stop all of this before they sink the ship. In the meantime, he needed the boy to stay where he is at.
As passengers continue to plunge into the sea, Ramiro rushes back to his cabin to discover that Ángel has barricaded himself inside. Meanwhile, Jérôme breaks into Lucien and Clémence's cabin, where he disarms Lucien and instructs Clémence to tie him up to the bed frame. He then ties Clémence up before restraining himself to ensure none of them jump overboard.
Iben appears to be the latest victim of the ticking, forcing Anker, Tove, and Franz to restrain her before restraining themselves. Elsewhere, Olek ties himself and Ling Yi down, all the while she grieves her mother's death, blaming herself for bringing her mother along.
Wilhelm transcribes a new Morse code message from the company that reads "Sink ship."
Daniel sneaks back down to the engine room and begins reprogramming the steam pressure measuring device installed by the company. There, he is confronted by one of the stokehole workers, who questions him about the device and his identity. The worker becomes suspicious and attacks Daniel with a shovel, accusing him of being a wolf. Daniel tries to explain that if he doesn't turn the machine off, everything will start again. He eventually gains the upper hand by knocking the worker to the ground and grabbing a hold of his hand held device, which renders the worker unconscious or dead.
Maura enters the mental hospital from her dreams to find it derelict and deserted. She approaches room 1011 and opens the door to find a medical experiment chair at the center of the room. Her father appears behind her and asks where did she hide it. After noticing a syringe in his hand, she asks him where her brother Ciaran is, to which he replies that she's not asking the right questions. Suddenly, she's being restrained and forced into the chair while the syringe is injected into her neck.
Maura wakes up back in her room on the Kerberos and exits to find Eyk, who slams her against the wall and asks how she disappeared out of the dining room. Maura explains that it was the boy's doing through the pyramid, which allowed him to stop time. He pulls her into his cabin, where she reveals that her name isn't Maura Franklin. Franklin was her mother's maiden name. Her surname is actually Singleton, and Henry Singleton, the man who bought the ships, is her father. She suspects that everything that's happened to them aboard the Kerberos has been some kind of experiment, as her father dedicated his life to the study of human behavior. He's obsessed with studying the brain and all its functions. He was never interested in owning ships, he simply sought to study the passengers on board.
Moreover, the envelope that Eyk showed Maura, she reveals that she received the same one from her brother, addressed to Henry, short for Henriette, Maura's middle name. It's what her brother used to call her. When they were children, they didn't get along because their father wasn't subtle about Maura being his favorite. About four months ago, her brother contacted her and wanted her to meet him at the docks in Southampton. He said he'd found out something about their father, but her brother never arrived. She then learned that the previous day, the Prometheus, one of the ships her father had bought, had left that same dock. Her brother has now been missing for four months, the same amount of time that the Prometheus has been missing. On the desk, just a few feet away, Maura spots a green bug on the table and captures it before heading down into the tiled shaft and using the bug to open another passage.
The doorway under Eyk's cabin leads them to the woods near his old house where his family burned. He races through the clearing to find the burned remains of the house. He and Maura cautiously enter, during which point, Eyk questions how an entire landscape can fit inside a ship, to which Maura replies this landscape isn't the only one and that there's another shaft under her bed.
Sebastian returns to the bridge, where Wilhelm informs him of the latest message from the company telling them to "sink ship." Wilhelm realizes the captain was right and argues in favor of changing course to return to Europe. However, Sebastian pulls out a hand held device identical to Daniel's and kills Wilhelm.
Maura and Eyk climb back up from the shaft and discuss the dying passengers who are jumping overboard; Maura has come to the conclusion that they aren't really dying at all, doubtful that any of this is real, possibly some kind of dream, which Maura believes that she found out about before but her father made her forget. She remembers being a doctor at a mental hospital but he somehow tries to make her believe she was a patient instead. She doesn't remember who she is, recalling the passenger list from the Prometheus and how she doesn't remember being on the ship, but that doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't. Eyk then reveals that his signature is also in the Prometheus' logbook, suggesting that he was the captain.
Daniel continues to reprogram the machine in the engine room, turning it off and thus stopping the ticking and the passengers from killing themselves.
Ramiro and Ángel sigh with relief after realizing the ticking has stopped. Meanwhile, down in third class, Tove, Anker, and Franz untie themselves before untying Iben, who sobs over Krester's death. And back in first class, Jérôme frees himself of the restraints and then unbinds Clémence before leaving.
Virginia is standing by the deck's rail, nearly about to climb over, when the ticking stops, and she turns around to see Eyk and Maura, to whom she reveals she just had a strange dream. Before long, they're joined by Ángel, Ramiro, Jérôme, Tove, Anker, Iben, Franz, Clémence and Lucien. They seem to be the only survivors, along with Sebastian, who reveals that the company is sending the same message to "sink ship." They're joined by Daniel who reveals that the message isn't meant to sink the Prometheus, rather the Kerberos.
Henry sits at his desk when he gets word of an alert from project Kerberos. He reads the message and says that he doesn't have much time and that he needs the boy as soon as possible. He then opens the curtain to his office, where a large black pyramid looms in the distance.
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Emily Beecham as Maura Franklin
- Aneurin Barnard as Daniel Solace
- Andreas Pietschmann as Eyk Larsen
- Miguel Bernardeau as Ángel
- José Pimentão as Ramiro
- Isabella Wei as Ling Yi
- Gabby Wong as Yuk Je
- Yann Gael as Jérôme
- Mathilde Ollivier as Clémence
- Jonas Bloquet as Lucien
- Rosalie Craig as Virginia Wilson
- Maciej Musial as Olek
- Clara Rosager as Tove
- Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen as Krester
- Maria Erwolter as Iben
- Alexandre Willaume as Anker
- Tino Mewes as Sebastian
- Isaak Dentler as Franz
- Fflyn Edwards as Elliot
- Anton Lesser as Henry Singleton
Co-starring[]
- Joshua Seelenbinder as Eugen
- Jónas Alfreð Birkisson as Einar
- Heidi Toini as Bente
- Richard Hope as Dr. Reginald Murray
- Ben Ashenden as Darrel
- Alexander Owen as Landon
- Niklas Maienschein as Wilhelm
Soundtrack[]
| Song | Artist(s) | Scene |
|---|---|---|
| The Wizard | Black Sabbath | Henry receives an alert from Project Kerberos and looks outside his window, where a large black pyramid resides. |
Gallery[]
Promotional images[]
Episode guide[]
| |
|---|
| Season 1 |
|
"The Ship" • "The Boy" • "The Fog" • "The Fight" • "The Calling" • "The Pyramid" • "The Storm" • "The Key" |