Immigration
Episode 3 of COBRA begins at the university as a student is questioned over the immigrants that broke in, including the escapees who raped 2 girls. One of the other immigrants tried to stop it but it was Nojus Sabonus, the Lithuanian ringleader, who orchestrated the attack. There’s a travel ban in place around the country too and in the Northumberland red zone, Collier drives through and sees waves of people making their way to the hospital relief centre, including someone strung to the lamp post with a sign around his neck; a warning for all those coming near. It turns out one of Ellie’s friends Toby has been talking to journalists. While the group tackle this situation, Archie brings forth the news about the rapists and goes on to make immigration a big issue. Sutherland puts his foot down though and forces them to focus on the situation at hand rather than fuel the flames of xenophobia. With bottled water running low in the Red Zone and the Prime Minister en-route, he implores Fraser to do something to try and fix the issue. Only, the Lorry Drivers Commission speak up on the news, thanks to their leader Rowntree and informs the rest of the UK that the water supply is low. As the Ellie scandal spills over to social media, at the Red Zone the water completely runs out. Collier tries desperately to coordinate the water tanker to get there faster but unfortunately the situation turns violent when people try to lynch one of the men in the crowd, believing him to be an immigrant criminal. Sutherland is forced to turn around during this violent incident while Archie heads on the radio and fuels racial hatred by saying that the immigrants are the one responsible for the violence. While he stirs the pot and prepares to throw Sutherland under the bus via the Ellie scandal, Sutherland and Anna head into the red zone where she implores him not to go outside. With no press around, the PM heads in to see Hussain, the man lynched earlier in the episode, and apologises to him for what happened. Angry and outraged at the attack on him, Sutherland heads outside in the midst of the chaos and addressed the crowd, standing on a stage while his advisors are forced back. It does the trick too and he manages to calm the mob down by telling them another transformer is en-route from Germany. As the episode closes out, Anna caves and sees Edin again, where she spots a message on his phone from someone while her husband receives a notification on his computer that Anna and Edin were spotted together. With seemingly a small pocket of England now left without power, given the generators are operational elsewhere the logical element of COBRA is almost completely thrown out the window. If Germany are supplying another transformer surely they would be able to fly in an emergency supply of water too? Even if the other countries are down and in a black-out, how did the government co-ordinate with them to get a transformer? Of course, if you switch your mind off to this, there’s still the very tiring and on-the-nose immigration issue thrown in here and with stark similarities to Brexit during much of this mass-hysteria, there’s an underlying political message that almost completely dissipates the earlier tension and sci-fi elements. As we reach the halfway point, serious cracks are showing in this one and the soap opera elements don’t help either.
