Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Rain’ is a post-apocalyptic drama that follows the story of two siblings who survive the end of the world by hiding out in a bunker for six years. When they finally come out, they discover that the world is not the same anymore. The series focuses on the origins of the virus that destroys everything while the survivors try to work out a cure to save the world. As the events unfold, the siblings discover that they are an important part of the whole story surrounding the virus, while also finding out that a lot of secrets had been kept from them.
The Rain Season 1 Recap
‘The Rain’ begins with Simone and Rasmus hurried off by their father to a bunker in the forest. While they don’t understand the sudden need to escape, it soon comes to their attention that a unique virus has taken hold of the world. It comes down with the rain and anyone who comes in contact with it dies. Not just that, but the infection is also highly contagious. Their father assures them that he will return, but he never does. Their mother is killed by the virus, which leaves the siblings alone in the bunker for the next six years.
Eventually, they run out of supplies and are forced to venture outside, not knowing what’s waiting for them. This is when they meet another group of survivors- Martin, Patrick, Beatrice, Lea, and Jean. In getting them to collaborate with her, Simone tells them that there are other bunkers where they can stay, and where they can also find plenty of food. Despite the initial distrust between them, they decide to band together.
Surviving Outside the Bunker
On reaching the second bunker, Simone discovers a clue to the whereabouts of her father. He had been a scientist at Apollon and from the looks of it, he would have gone to the company’s headquarters in Sweden when he had left her and Rasmus. The siblings decide to look for their father and are soon joined by the rest of the group. Their journey takes them through the city which is where they come face to face with other survivors. It turns out that the apocalypse has turned people crueler and more violent. Simone watches a child and her father being killed by a mob, which makes her realize that she had been too trusting of people all along. Her problem increases when Rasmus is stabbed by another survivor who runs away with a part of their food supplies.
The team takes Rasmus back to one of the bunkers. But to save him, they need a proper doctor. They use a map that they had retrieved from The Strangers, a group that captures other survivors. They also discover that they have been walled in what looks like a quarantine zone, which means that the virus hasn’t spread to the rest of the world. The doctor helps them, but when she discovers who Rasmus and Simone’s father is, she attacks them. Patrick arrives just in time to save the siblings, but with the soldiers of Apollon entering the fray, the group has to run for their lives while Jean is captured and, as the group assumes, killed.
In between all this, we also get to see the backstories of the characters, finding out how they found each other and who they were before The Rain. Another angle that develops in the season is the love stories. When the siblings meet the group, Beatrice and Martin are together. Later, however, Beatrice takes a liking to Rasmus, while Martin and Simone are attracted to each other.
Running away from Apollon leads the group to a mansion where they discover that some people have developed a new way of living. Though it seems a welcoming place, Martin becomes suspicious. He is proven right, at the end, when the group discovers that they have been lured into a cannibalistic cult, where each month, one member is sacrificed to be eaten by the others in a huge banquet.
The Truth About Rasmus
After escaping the cult, the next challenge appears in front of them in the form of Rasmus’s infected wound. He is left alone with Beatrice, while Simone, Martin, Patrick, and Lea go to another bunker to look for medicine. By this time, Patrick has become insecure about the budding relationship between Simone and Martin. He gets another reason to be angry with Simone when they discover that her father and Apollon were the ones who created the virus and had tested it on other people, who died because of it.
All of them get drunk and a little scuffle between Patrick and Simone leads to her being thrown out in the rain. To prevent her from being killed by Martin, Lea, too, goes out in the rain. Martin is not able to shoot both of them, and when the girls don’t die, as they were supposed to, they realise that the rain does not have the virus anymore. All of them rejoice at this revelation and Martin kisses Simone. The next day, he tells Patrick to leave the group because he tried to kill Simone.
Meanwhile, Beatrice and Rasmus spend the day together and get close. In the morning, however, when they are asleep, an infected dog licks both of them. Due to this, Beatrice dies, but nothing happens to Rasmus. Later, he is found by Apollon soldiers, who had also captured Patrick. On discovering that Rasmus didn’t die of the infection, they realize that he is immune and needs to be taken to the Apollon lab. Simone fights them on this, but when a heartbroken Rasmus injects himself with the virus and survives, she is forced to go along with their plan.
The Ending
On arriving at Apollon headquarters, Simone and Rasmus meet their father. They also discover that Jean is still alive, and they are given nutritional supplements by Apollon. Simone’s father tells her that when Rasmus was little and had fallen very sick, he had injected him with a pure form of the virus. Due to this, Rasmus’s body has adapted to the virus, which makes him immune to it, but also contagious. Later, Simone also discovers that to get the cure out of Rasmus, he will have to be killed.
To save her brother, she decides to escape from Apollon with the group. When they reach the wall, they discover that the nutritional supplements given to them were actually a trap to keep them inside the zone. This means that Rasmus and Simone, who had not taken the supplements, can leave the quarantine zone, but not the others. Everyone urges Simone to leave with her brother, but in the end, she decides to stick with the group.
In the last scene, we find Sten, the leader of Apollon, telling others that his company has found a way to weaponize the virus, and it turns out that they are also working on other mutations of it.
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