Chernobyl 1x04 "The Happiness of All Mankind" reaction & review

I agree that this is the "worst" one so far in terms of heartbreak!!! You're so right that it was harder to watch the animal scenes than many of the human scenes, which really does say something......but also, doggos!!! :'( Thank you so much for the explanation! Even though they briefly went into on the show, yours had much more detail and helped me to make sense of it more! The amount and duration are so important in terms of the effects of the radiation. Awww thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it!!!!!! That was definitely a tough one but I'm ready for the conclusion now!!!!!!! Thanks again! :D

Melissa Moore

Ah!!! Got it! Yes, that was the part that wasn't quite clicking for me!!! Thank you for explaining it!!!!

Melissa Moore

Thank you so much!!!!!! I can totally see why you and your wife were a mess after this one! So true that the soldier stepped in so the young boy wouldn't have to kill the puppies. He is such a fascinating character!!!!!!!

Melissa Moore

Hahaha!!!! Well, I mean, I suppose it would be wrong to *not* want me to cry during a series like this.....!! Hope you enjoyed my reaction!

Melissa Moore

The Happiness of All Mankind. Now I remember. THIS is the "worst" episode. Funny how we can react far more emotionaly toward animals than humans sometimes, this episode being a prime example. I wonder what does that says about us. About the dangerosity of radioactivity, and exposition. It's been a long time since I learned about this kind of stuff, but what I know is the duration of exposition is as important as the level of radiation. So thoose poor doggos have not been exposed to a very high level a radiation (relatively of course ...), but they have been for several months. So... The men that have to "take care" of them have been exposed to the same level, but for a far less duration, so the dangerosity is far lower (possibly still too high tho...). A good example for this is, the people working on x-ray imaging in medical field. The amount of radiation you take for an x-ray scan is not negligeable, but it is only for a brief moment. But the personnel that are operating thoose machine are exposed probably several time a day (when it might be once or twice in a lifetime for everyone else). If you ever had one, you might have noticed that the computer for the control are either in another room, or behind a shielding. I will butcher the phrase of Paracelse, but in essence : everything is a poison, if the doses is high enough. This is true for ALL chemicals. For radiation it is the combination of amount and duration. You are almost done with this, courage ! But the worst is already past. Now is time for conclusion. Thanks for the great, and teary :( reaction ! Edit : Now that I realize that I explained what they already explained in the episode, I feel a little dumb (but just a little). Oh well 🙃

Just in case you want to know, the only thing you seemed to be missing with their explanation of the AZ5 issue is that graphite = get hotter, and boron = get colder. So having graphite tips means a bunch of "get hotter" gets pushed into the core when you tell it to shut down with AZ5, and all the get colder doesn't get there if the reactor explodes first. :)

Anna Kyruin

Great reaction Melissa! This is a hard episode to watch. Me and my wife were a mess. A thing that is more admirable about that soldier is that he fully understood the horror of having to shoot those puppies and figuratively took the bullet for the boy in having to shoulder that burden. A remarkably human character.

James Simpkin

I'm here, ready to watch you ball your goddam eyes out. Is it bad that I'm hoping this will make you cry?

Nick R