The following contains spoilers for Lazarus Episode 2, “Life in the Fast Lane,” now streaming on HBO Max.
Shinichiro Watanabe’s Lazarus is in full swing as of its second episode. Axel’s story breaks new ground in Lazarus Episode 2, “Life in the Fast Lane,” even if he and the Lazarus team’s mission doesn’t bear any fruit. Despite the episode’s title, Lazarus isn’t going anywhere quickly, but that may actually work in the series’ favor in the long run. Lazarus Episode 2 continues exactly where the first episode left off, with Axel having been chased down and captured by Hersch’s well-trained group of agents: the Lazarus group.
Consisting of Chris, Leland, Douglas and Eleina, the group is revealed to be a team of specially selected convicts who are effectively being forced into their roles, which makes Axel feel right at home. Lazarus Episode 2 brings audiences a bit deeper into the mystery surrounding the enigmatic Dr Skinner and his miracle drug, Hapna, even though Hersch’s mission to find the doctor is no closer to being accomplished by the end of it. Lazarus feels like it’s starting to settle into its true identity as a mystery series with upbeat action and a cool, sci-fi aesthetic as of the second episode, but this story is clearly more about the journey than the destination.
Fans Learn More About The Lazarus Team Along With Axel In Lazarus Episode 2
The Opening Prologues Reveal More About Lazarus' Characters and Their History With Hapna
It seems that a new prologue explaining the history each main cast member has with Hapna will be a weekly tradition to start each episode of Lazarus for the time being. First, it was Douglas in the premiere who expressed the apocalyptic implications of Hapna. This week, Leland gives his perspective as a teenager who used Hapna for recreational purposes. These are great ways to start the episodes, adding to each character’s personality and backstory while also expanding on the lore of Hapna to bring viewers deeper into Lazarus’ world. Set to calm-yet-ominous music and a slideshow of obscure imagery, these prologue scenes expand on the mystery and are just interesting to look at on the surface.
Following the prologue, fans get their first glimpse at Lazarus’ OP in the second episode, which the debut skipped over in favor of getting right into the action. The OP is a highly stylized mixture of graffiti and industrial art styles as the main cast falls from the sky in monochromatic colors. The opening song is «Vortex» by Kamasi Washington, which was released as a single prior to the anime’s release alongside singles by the series’ two other composers, Floating Points and Bonobo. It’s unclear whether this will remain the OP song for every episode or whether it will alternate between these songs in future episodes, especially considering the credits did technically roll to Bonobo’s “Dark Will Fall” in Lazarus Episode 1. «Vortex» is a beautiful track that perfectly captures the jazzy hip-hop feel of other classic soundtracks in Watanabe-directed series. Lazarus isn’t supposed to be Cowboy Bebop 2.0, but it’s hard to argue against the comparisons with an OP like this.
This team wasn’t formed for personal gain or profit… we’re here to save the world.
— Douglas
The Lazarus Team Firmly Steps Into the Spotlight in Lazarus Episode 2
Following the opening, Lazarus Episode 2 gives the audience some time to sit down with Axel’s new team to get to know everyone better. As it turns out, everyone in the group is a convicted criminal of some sort. Apparently, Eleina is the worst of all, which is ironic considering she’s the quietest and the most unassuming. Another, perhaps unsurprising, revelation in the episode is that everyone in the Lazarus team has taken Hapna in the past, meaning that they all have everything to lose if their mission isn’t a success. Even with the stakes firmly established, though, only Douglas seems to be taking this seriously.
Seeing the group gossip about one another and share their experiences does bring them to life in a way the first episode never got time to. While it was already teased in a trailer before the episode aired, the scene where Chris pulls the car over and kicks Axel out after she learns about his 888-year sentence is a genuinely funny moment that highlights how Axel and Chris work great together as personalities. Douglas’ relationship with Leland also shows some promise, as Leland is an impressionable kid and Douglas clearly has a strong moral compass. The characters themselves seem to be pretty basic archetypes that anime fans have seen millions of times before, but they could still be worth watching for how they interact with one another.
While the episode gives viewers the runaround when it gets into its main conflict at the halfway point, the episode’s first half does move somewhat quickly in providing the audience with information about the cast and main antagonist. By the time Eleina finds a lead on Skinner and the Lazarus team’s first mission is underway, the entire cast has already effectively embraced their mission, and there’s nothing left to be said about it. While Axel is definitely the type to go with the flow anyway, it might’ve made more sense for the members of the team to question Hersch a bit more. By the end of the episode, when both the FBI and DEA reveal they’ve never even heard of “Lazarus,” Hersch and the Lazarus team have become just as enigmatic as Dr Skinner himself, maybe even more so.
Is Dr Skinner Even the Real Villain of Lazarus?
The Mystery Deepens Surrounding Lazarus’ Main Antagonist in Episode 2
Dr Skinner’s personality comes to light more than ever in Lazarus Episode 2. The Lazarus team holds a meeting to go over everything they know about Skinner in hopes of coming up with any leads, and it’s an enlightening sequence. The more audiences learn about Skinner, the more he seems like he could almost be a hero rather than a villain. Skinner gives money to the poor, offers his seat to an old woman on the train, and even leaves a good impression on his home gardener. In Lazarus Episode 2, the question arises: “Why would someone like Skinner, who seems to only want the best for humanity, go to such lengths to destroy it?»
Skinner’s villain origin story thus far is a tale as old as time; a world-renowned scientist warns world leaders of the potential consequences if humanity doesn’t course correct, but no one listens due to the short-term influence his proposals would have on the economy. While absolutely relevant, it’s not exactly original. But that’s probably more a confirmation of how true-to-life this storyline is than anything else. Nevertheless, the fact that Skinner disappeared directly after giving the famous speech the world leaders wouldn’t listen to suggests a pretty clear indication of what’s going on. The fact that none of the characters point this out themselves gives the impression that Lazarus wants the audience to join in on solving the puzzle rather than having it all handed to them, and that’s a pretty fun premise.
A thriving economy isn’t going to help anyone when Earth becomes uninhabitable.
— Dr Skinner
Given what the audience learns about Dr Skinner in this episode, Axel’s carefree attitude seems increasingly opposed to that of the doctor. The main conflict of Lazarus Episode 2 arises when Eleina tracks down Skinner’s name in connection with a company that sells survival shelters. The disconnect between Axel and Skinner is already quite apparent in this detail alone, as the idea of Skinner staying in a bunker for years, cut off from society, is the complete antithesis of Axel, who specializes in breaking out of prison. When Axel suggests the group try to leverage the vaccine to make money if they happen to find Skinner first, it further accentuates the idea that the series’ main protagonist may be a more traditionally morally deplorable person than the anime’s true villain.
Lazarus Episode 2 Challenges Fans to Compare Dr Skinner & Axel
And yet, even as Axel remains a convict with a life sentence who seems not to have a care in the world, he still remains the one trying to save the world from the atrocity Dr Skinner has set in motion. This opposition between a traditionally “good” person being the villain and a traditional “bad” person being the hero is another tried-and-true formula Lazarus adopts, though its willingness to dive so confidently into it does help Skinner’s curious case take shape. This actually makes the end result of the riddle surrounding Skinner even more fascinating because it’ll ultimately reveal whether Lazarus’ message was ever worthwhile to begin with. The real mystery of it all is highlighted best by Axel and Chris’ conflicting dialogue upon first hearing Skinner’s backstory.
As Axel puts it, Skinner “seems like a pretty decent guy,” but Chris wonders if it’s all “too good to be true.” There’s the sense that maybe something else is going on behind the scenes that no one is aware of, and that Skinner himself isn’t who he seems to be. Given AI deepfakes are the simplest technology even in the real world today, it’s not unprecedented to expect a more sophisticated version of this technology could be at play in Lazarus’ sci-fi setting. When Eleina pulls up thousands of matches on Dr Skinner’s face in the episode’s final moments, it almost seems as though Skinner might not even be a real person, and the group is not even on the right track.
Aside from providing enjoyable brain-teasers for fans to think about in the coming weeks, Episode 2 also gives viewers a more in-depth look at some of the technology available in the near-future world of Lazarus. This includes Eleina’s awesome augmented reality computer that looks like something straight out of Serial Experiments Lain, and devices that can activate based on a person’s “vein pattern.” While impressive advancements, the world of Lazarus remains fairly grounded, which is welcome to see from a sci-fi series that roots so many of its themes and story beats on relevant real-world issues.
Lazarus Episode 2 Highlights Another Side of Hapna
Episode 2 Showcases The Dangers of Hapna Beyond its Medicinal Uses
Back in Lazarus Episode 1, the backstory of Hapna mostly focused on its social impact as a pharmaceutical drug, but Episode 2 shows a darker side to it. As with many effective pain medications, Hapna is abused by many. It’s clear that beyond the physical effects, Hapna has a psychological effect that makes it ideal as a recreational drug, especially given it has no adverse side effects. This is first explained by Leland in the second episode’s prologue, and it continues as a theme with the episode’s big fake-out: Kobayashi.
Kobayashi is the owner of the shelter building company that Skinner had apparently bought his own bunker from. When the Lazarus team gets there, they stumble upon Kobayashi sitting in a chair in a bunker, passed out in a room surrounded by open bottles of Hapna. As viewers learn, Kobayashi sought to take his own life by overdosing on Hapna, but its lack of side effects apparently made that impossible. It’s a genuinely sad story in hindsight, though it’s presented more as a punchline to the “gotcha” moment of the episode rather than as a serious plot thread that tackles the tragedy of opioid abuse. This follows the overall tone of the series that began with the first episode, which is that the end of the world just never feels that serious.
Maybe it’s a sign… it may be telling me to live a bit longer. Yeah! I should give it a fresh start! Oh, damnit. I forgot the whole world’s going to die in 30 days anyway…
— Kobayashi
In fact, it’s only after Kobayashi decides he wants to live that he is able to embrace the pain of humanity’s impending doom. On the other hand, the majority of people in Lazarus’ world still seem unable to take their fate all that seriously, which is once again highlighted by a set of television clips in Episode 2 (TV clips seem to be another emerging motif for the series). In one of the clips, a pop star goes on a talk show to promote her new album that’s due to release after the “end of the world” happens in 30 days. She and the host make corny jokes about the whole thing, further emphasizing that their empathy is mostly performative and that no one actually takes it that seriously.
Another very telling scene is when the President holds a press conference explaining where the FDA went wrong in approving the drug. While the press angrily questions him, the entire idea that a press conference like this would even matter when there’s only 30 days left before everyone dies shows how dissociated everyone is from the reality of the situation. Perhaps the greatest shock of this is that it doesn’t feel all that different to what would probably happen in real life, which offers a great mirror for the viewer to look back at themselves and real life society through this lens. This shows the great promise Lazarus has in its recurring themes, though this episode doesn’t seem to dive as deep as it probably could just yet.
Lazarus Episode 2 Is Full of Fast-Paced Action That Suddenly Screeches to a Halt
Lazarus Episode 2’s Episodic Nature Will Feel Like Home For Cowboy Bebop Fans
Amid the interesting emergent themes and mysterious storyline, Lazarus Episode 2’s greatest virtue continues to be its aesthetic. The music, camera angles and overall art style lend themselves to a nostalgic and pleasing series to watch, even in the midst of its most serious action scenes. Axel’s decision to run out into the middle of a gunfight seems a bit less jarring of a decision given the overall chill vibe of the anime, but there’s a sense that the audience could form a real emotional attachment to these characters if the series allows them more slice-of-life moments like those at the start of the episode. As it stands, though, Lazarus never really lets the audience feel like something genuinely bad is going to happen, and that can be its blessing and curse. In one respect, it’s never going to cause viewers pain. On the other hand, watching these high-pressure moments without any real stakes almost feels like taking Hapna.
By the end of the episode, the Lazarus group is no closer to accomplishing its mission, even if the audience has become more engrossed in this world and its lore. While small things about the cast are revealed and greater details about Skinner as a person come to light, the overall storyline doesn’t seem to get very much further from where it was at the start of the episode. That might not be a bad thing in the long run. Lazarus‘ action and atmosphere are central to what makes it fun, but another major part of its intrigue is the mystery it’s building. Lazarus Episode 2 gives fans just enough new information to get them theorizing about what it could all mean, but not enough to have any hope that the Lazarus team will be solving the enigma of Dr Skinner on their own any time soon.
The guy’s practically a saint.
— Axel
Lazarus Episode 2 is a mostly one-off storyline that gives a bit more insight into the characters, particularly the main cast and the dynamic they’ll have with each other. The Lazarus team is generally likable overall, though they’re certainly nothing groundbreaking as a group dynamic. Still, the revelation that they’ve all used Hapna could come to provide an interesting plot thread down the line, especially as each character reveals their experiences with the drug in future prologues.
It’s ironic for an episode titled “Life in the Fast Lane” looks backward more than it moves forward with its story. Lazarus Episode 2 provides viewers with a retrospective into the past of its characters instead of letting them break much new ground on their own. That might actually end up being the biggest draw of the series week to week, as it leaves the true mystery up to the audience and asks them to participate actively. While Lazarus Episode 2 seems to want the audience to work for what they get, what it does give viewers for free is great overall. Axel still pulls off his characteristic cool moves set to an excellent soundtrack, and it’s all rounded out with some genuinely endearing moments with the new cast. However, Lazarus seems to truly be playing the long game with its story, leaving its future uncertain for now.
Lazarus is currently streaming on HBO MAX.
- The cast feels mostly generic
- The overall mission gets nowhere
