The Sanctuary Network
Register
Advertisement
For King and Country   Credits   Transcript   Images    

"For King and Country" is the eighth episode of the third season of Sanctuary, and the thirty-fourth episode overall in the series.

Synopsis[]

After capturing a dangerous enemy with ties to her past, Helen Magnus is forced to recount a time she would rather forget. A time when the young Five were almost destroyed and a horrible secret was discovered.

Plot[]

Cold Open[]

Following his capture [1], the man who ambushed Helen Magnus in an abandoned warehouse is rushed into the Old City Sanctuary's infirmary. Nikola Tesla removes his breathing mask to see who he is, and is astonished to see him alive. When Henry Foss asks if he knows him, Tesla introduces the man as "Jekyll and Hyde".

Act I[]

A worried Will Zimmerman asks Magnus if he can help, but she tells him to go help Henry. She then explains to him how the Five began their work at the University of Oxford. In a flashback, the five young scientists are conducting an experiment when Adam Worth, one of their classmates, enters and asks them to let him participate. They refuse, and John Druitt tells him in no uncertain terms to leave. While Magnus operates on Worth, Tesla continues the story: The Five discussed adding Worth to the group, but decided against it. Magnus was the one to give him the bad news, which made him angry.

In the present, Magnus cannot find a reason for Worth's organ failure, until they discover that he suffers from some kind of radiation sickness. Meanwhile, Henry and Tesla work on the machine he used. When Worth wakes up, they have a talk with the "evil" side of his personality, who informs him that Druitt has the answers. Magnus says that they do not know if Druitt is even still alive, but Tesla informs her that he does, in fact, know Druitt's whereabouts.

Act II[]

Magnus is furious with Tesla, who explains that Druitt came to him for help, believing that his work on electromagnetism might help him control the energy creature that shared his body. Druitt made Tesla promise that he would not tell Magnus. However, Magnus now insists on being told.

Meanwhile, Will has another talk with Worth and tries to reach his "good" personality. Worth just taunts him, and tells him that they need him to find the underground city.

Tesla is frustrated by the complexity of the unknown technology. With Henry's help, he is able to determine that it is made of organic nanite matter.

Magnus has traveled to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, to find John Druitt. She starts asking for him in the city's slums, and is approached by a teenage girl who wants one hundred dollars for telling her the address.

In the infirmary, Worth tells Will that he should be honored for having met Kali and the and the rest of the hyperspecies abnormal council in the avatar chamber and having been allowed to live. Will asks about the council, but Worth answers with a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, and accuses Magnus of murdering his daughter. He recounts how he went to see The Five and ask for help for Imogene Worth, his child, who is dying of leukemia. Magnus and James Watson tell him that nothing can be done, and leave him in anger of his daughter's fate.

Back in the present, Magnus is ambushed by the teenage girl and her fellow bandits.

Act III[]

Magnus tells the robbers to relax, and throws her remaining money into the air, using the confusion to grab the girl's gun and take control of the situation. The teenager tells her that a bald man paid them to kill anyone looking for him. Magnus deducts that they really do know where he is.

"Of course they know," a voice answers from a door in the back, and Druitt steps into the room.

He tells the bandits that they are all fired, and Magnus makes them leave without their weapons. Druitt almost immediately collapses, and Magnus realizes that he has taken several drugs. She tells him that Worth is alive, which he says is impossible.

In another flashback, Magnus talks with the British Prime Minister, who reveals that his Majesty's government knows all about The Five. He also reveals that Worth has become powerful and wealthy, and that he plans to use a deadly poison to attack London. The Five agree to help.

Back in the present, Will discovers that Worth will die from radiation poisoning, and that he has cross-referenced the blood sample with one from someone else. The result leaves him, Tesla, and Henry with worried faces.

In Cambodia, Magnus has put Druitt into bed, and now lies down next to him, holding his arm. She remembers meeting with him on a bridge in London, where she told him that she could never forgive him for what he did (referring to his time as Jack the Ripper). He answered that he looked forward to continuing their "dance", and teleported away. Watson arrived next, telling her that Griffin and Tesla found a lead to Adam.

Magnus takes Druitt back to the Old City Sanctuary, where Tesla and Will show her a blood sample. She is worried, saying that Worth will die in a matter of weeks. However, they tell her that the blood is not Worth's.

It is hers.

Act IV[]

Will and Magnus discuss what to do next, with Magnus refusing to give in to despair. Will explains that Worth blames her and Watson for his daughters death. Magnus recounts that they did in fact try to save Imogene, but to no effect. Will also asks about Worth's claim that she murdered him. Another flashback shows the Prime Minister informing The Five that King Edward VII personally ordered the assassination of Adam Worth. They refuse, but the Prime Minister tells them that if they take out Worth, his Majesty's government will pardon Druitt and Griffin, and give full support to Magnus's and Watson's efforts to extend the Sanctuary project.

The Five decide to find Worth, and manage to stop his plan to pump cyanide through London's gas lines. They then went after him, tracking him to a mining area. Magnus held him at gunpoint on a cliff, and shot him in the shoulder to stop him from summoning his dark side. He then fell back into the abyss.

Will is distraught that, as he puts it, the whole Sanctuary Network was build on the death of a psychologically challenged man. Magnus angrily rebuffs him and leaves, coughing blood. She then goes to see Druitt, who tells her that he saved Worth from drowning in the river he fell into. Worth told him about a network of safe houses he had created, and asked him to let him go. Believing him to be as good as dead, Druitt did just that, and used the safe houses to avoid capture for decades.

Will confronts Worth, who tells him that the cure for Magnus and himself is in Hollow Earth.

Act V[]

Worth recounted to Magnus how, after Druitt let him go, he drifted with the river into an underground tunnel, eventually being discovered and rescued by the inhabitants of a city in Hollow Earth. With their advanced technology, they healed him and gave him an abnormally long life. He then tells her that she has to take him with her to find an entry point to Hollow Earth.

Later, the team discusses their options, with Magnus violently opposing the notion of giving Worth the map they discovered earlier. However, Tesla arrived with a copy of the Sanctuary charter, which clearly states that if the head of house becomes physically or psychologically compromised, the second-in-command takes over.

Druitt asks where he is going with this. Tesla explains that the person to decide what their course of action will be is not Magnus, but Will.

Cast[]

Series regulars
Guest starring
Featuring

Quotes[]

TESLA: [Looking at Worth's face] Son of a bitch!
HENRY: Who we got?
TESLA: Well, I guess cockroaches can come back from the dead.
HENRY: Who the hell is this guy?
TESLA: Not one person, but two. Prepare to meet Jekyll... And Hyde.

Notes[]

  • Chronology: The plot-line of this episode is an immediate continuation of Episode 3x07 - "Breach"; starting as soon as the team arrives back at the Old City Sanctuary with Adam Worth in tow after previously being at the abandoned building.
  • Chronology: The plot-line of this episode continues directly into the next Episode 3x09 - "Vigilante".
  • Agam Darshi does not appear in this episode.
  • Chronology: Helen Magnus declares to Will Zimmerman that she is 159-years-old, meaning that the events of this episode take place before August 27th, 2010, when she turned 160.
  • Continuity Error: In this episode, Helen Magnus says that Will Zimmerman has known her for three years. This is chronologically incorrect. This episode occurs roughly in the month of ~April 2010. Will joined the Sanctuary in January 2008. Only two years and ~three full months has passed since he was brought on board, leaving her statement ahead by ~nine months (3/4 quarters of a year). Will won't have known her for at least three full years until the season 3 finale Episode 3x20 - "Into the Black" which occurs in ~January 2011.[2]
  • Nigel Griffin is seen in person for the first time.
  • During the flashback at the beginning of the episode, viewers can see some basic algebra formulas on the board, such as (x+y)^2=x^2+2xy+y^2. It's assumed that any math-based elements involved in such an experiment should be far more sophisticated than that.
  • Continuity / Location Issue: After Adam Worth wakes post surgery, Nikola Tesla, Helen Magnus, and Will Zimmerman interrogate him in a secure medical isolation room on a lower level. To receive the answer about how Worth survived in 1908, Worth tells Magnus that she needs to talk to John Druitt. While Magnus herself doesn't know his current location, Tesla admits that he "kind of" knows. In the next scene, Magnus is seen storming into her study followed quickly behind by Tesla as she berates him. There is literally zero reason for this discussion to be taking place here. Realistically, Magnus should have pulled Tesla aside, directing him outside of the isolation room, and stopped somewhere just down the concrete hallway out-of-sight of Worth's sightline through the glass window. It does not make sense for Magnus and Tesla to leave the isolation room, walk through the lower level, wait on the elevator, ride the elevator up to an upper level, get out walk down the hall, and resume talking as they enter the study.
  • Nikola Tesla calls Henry Foss "Heinrich", the German form of the name.
  • Geography: Phnom Penh, Cambodia is fourteen hours ahead of Vancouver, Canada. The flight distance between these two cities is ~7,330 miles. Traveling by commercial airliner at 500mph takes roughly ~15+ hours to complete [3] [4] [5] [6] Even if Helen Magnus traveled by private charter, such as taking a Gulfstream [7], it wouldn't make any significant difference. Considering the amount of time Magnus also spent wandering the city, plus waiting on John Druitt to stabilize from his overdose, having to fly there and back would mean that Magnus would have been away from the Old City Sanctuary for upwards of two full days.
  • Medical: It is unknown if John Druitt teleported with Helen Magnus back to the infirmary. Due to Druitt's current ill health and wavering consciousness, it may have been completely unsafe to teleport at all. Depending on the type of drug and the amount, it takes up to a day or two for a person to recover from drug toxicity (with the drug lingering in the person's brain afterwards anywhere from one to three weeks).[8] While Druitt's source blood altered physiology may reduce the effects [9] and speed up recovery time, it is plausible for him to have taken a fifteen hour plane ride and still required further recovery at the Sanctuary.
    • In the dialogue, when Helen Magnus returns she tells Nikola Tesla and Will Zimmerman that she "told Henry to reactivate the EM shield again." 'Again' may indicate that the shield was previously up just before they arrived, having been dropped to allow them to teleport in. However, 'again' does not undoubtedly equivalate to having been reactivated recently. In the show, the main purpose of the EM shield was to protect against John Druitt teleporting into a Sanctuary. After Ashley Magnus learned the truth about her father and Druitt seemed to mentally stabilize, the EM shield was no longer seemingly needed. It has then only been known to be used as a total lockdown security feature to protect against the Cabal attacks and when the energy creature took over the building. Otherwise, it's only known to be activated once Druitt is inside the building to prevent him from teleporting out for medical reasons. This means the EM shield could have been deactivated since Episode 2x11 - "Haunted" (which potentially occurred up to a few months prior in ~January / February 2010 if it is now indeed ~April 2010).
  • Helen Magnus says, "Moving through dimensions of time and space... It sounds so ridiculous when I say it out loud". This is most likely a tip of the hat to "Doctor Who", a BBC programme about a person who travels through time and space.
  • The Five are offered the mission to terminate Adam Worth in 1908, during the late reign of King Edward VII, meaning the unnamed Prime Minister appearing in the episode is either Henry Campbell-Bannerman or Herbert Henry Asquith. Duncan Fraser, the actor playing him, resembles Campbell-Bannerman most.
    • If the timeframe of the flashbacks happened exactly 102 years in the past in ~April 1908, it is possible for both men to have been Prime Minister at the time. Campbell-Bannerman resigned on April 3rd, with Asquith succeeding him in office starting on April 8th.
  • Scientific / Medical Error: In this episode, Helen Magnus is seen suffering from affects of acute radiation poisoning resulting from her travelling through Adam Worth's trans-dimensional rift in the previous Episode 3x07 - "Breach". When an angry Will Zimmerman visits Worth about this, Worth says that even a small dose will kill you eventually. The show however does not display radiation sickness correctly. Based on how fast Magnus's body is documented to be deteriorating at an increased or equal pace to Worth, it 1) ignores the fact that Magnus's body is more resilient to radiation due to lingering source blood in her system [10], as well as more obviously 2) completely disregards the fact that Worth has been through his rift portal several times, exposing him far more than Magnus going through the rift a single time.
    • The display of affliction is errored as it's incorrectly inversed for the characters. Over the course of Episode 3x07 - "Breach" through Episode 3x11 - "Pax Romana", Adam Worth (who's been exposed to more radiation and who's received more physical injury) is seen to not display any ill symptoms and visually looks to heal and be less and less sick per episode, while Helen Magnus (who's been exposed to less radiation and who's received less physical injury) is seen to display signs of illness and visually looks to worsen in the next Episode 3x09 - "Vigilante".

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. Episode 3x07 - "Breach"
  2. This is further supported by Episode 4x12 - "Sanctuary for None, Part I" that occurs in ~January 2012 in which Captain Franklin says that Will Zimmerman left the Old City Police Department to work for Helen Magnus four years ago.
  3. These distance and travel numbers are a rough estimated average of three different online flight calculators. It includes around a half hour to take-off and land. Air condition / weather factors may extend or shorten this duration.
  4. https://www.travelmath.com/flying-time/from/Vancouver,+Canada/to/Phnom+Penh,+Cambodia
  5. https://www.airportdistancecalculator.com/vancouver-canada-to-phnom-penh-cambodia-flight-time.html#.YlwgzOjMJPY
  6. https://www.flights.com/flights/vancouver-yvr-to-phnom-penh-pnh/
  7. It depends on the model. A G650ER, G700, and G800 would be able to complete the entire flight nonstop without needing to refuel along the way. However, at the time of this episode in early 2010, only the G650 was available.
  8. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4317051/
  9. John Druitt's body may have been more resistant to the effects of the drugs, causing him to take more than a normal person would to pass the threshold.
  10. Supported by a vamped Nikola Tesla in Episode 4x05 - "Resistance" not being affected by similar radiation.
SanctuarySeason 3
● 01 Kali, Part III ● 02 Firewall ● 03 Bank Job ● 04 Trail of Blood ● 05 Hero II: Broken Arrow ● 06 Animus ● 07 Breach ● 08 For King and Country ● 09 Vigilante ● 10 The Hollow Men ● 11 Pax Romana ● 12 Hangover ● 13 One Night ● 14 Metamorphosis ● 15 Wingman ● 16 Awakening ● 17 Normandy ● 18 Carentan ● 19 Out of the Blue ● 20 Into the Black
Story Arc   :   Adam Worth
● 3x02 Firewall ● 3x07 Breach ● 3x08 For King and Country ● 3x09 Vigilante ● 3x10 The Hollow Men ● 3x11 Pax Romana ● 3x18 Carentan ● 3x20 Into the Black ● 4x01 Tempus ● 4x09 Chimera
Story Arc   :   Adam Worth Goes to Hollow Earth
● 3x07 Breach ● 3x08 For King and Country ● 3x09 Vigilante ● 3x10 The Hollow Men ● 3x11 Pax Romana
Story Arc   :   The Five
● 1x07 The Five ● 1x12 Revelations, Part I ● 1x13 Revelations, Part II ● 3x08 For King and Country ● 3x17 Normandy
Story Arc   :   Hollow Earth
● 3x01 Kali, Part III ● 3x02 Firewall ● 3x06 Animus ● 3x07 Breach ● 3x08 For King and Country ● 3x09 Vigilante ● 3x10 The Hollow Men ● 3x11 Pax Romana ● 3x14 Metamorphosis ● 3x19 Out of the Blue ● 3x20 Into the Black ● 4x02 Uprising
Advertisement