In Us We Trust
Episode 4 of The Republic of Sarah begins with Gladys passing out at the church on her piano. However, the rest of the kids make each other jump, including Grover who’s all smiles this episode. That is, until Sarah realizes that all of her transactions online have additional fees. These are foreign transaction fees, meaning they need to go back to the US to purchase anything. The alternative of course, is to create their own currency. Elsewhere, Danny finds himself struggling to concentrate thanks to Grover’s ridiculously loud TV next door. He asks Grover kindly to turn the music down but gets nowhere. Instead, he actually turns it up. Sarah’s Mum decides to head off for additional sobriety support. She’s determined to kick the habit and believes AA isn’t enough. The place she’s chosen doesn’t seem credible to Sarah though and she tries to convince her Mother to take up a more prolific rehab facility. Out of everyone, it’s Danny that changes her mind and she agrees to take her Mother there. That evening, Danny spends time with Grover where he learns Corinne went through a lot of issues when he left. This explains her hostile attitude toward him earlier in the episode. With this in his mind, he runs into Corinne outside and apologizes. It falls on deaf ears though, especially when Corrine admits how much he hurt her. However, the real crux of the issue this episode is the currency, which the kids decide to make from scratch. The townsfolk are understandably worried about investing in a brand new currency and worry about what will happen with the town if they lose this. Just as a reminder here, the alternative to this is Greylock being renovated, temporary housing set-up, each of the residents given a lucrative sum of money and new investment poured in to help improve local facilities. So yeah, that sounds like a really bad deal. Anyway, all the local stores end up with “closing for business” signs put up. Sarah suspects the worst but really, they’ve done this to scare people into buying into their currency. It works too and after pulling off the “biggest scare in history”, they’ve now saved the town with brand new currency. Running throughout the episode is the ongoing romance between Bella and Tyler. On her last night before she goes to college, Bella encourages him to have sex. Tyler is too respectful for that though and in the morning, he sees her off. He also admits that he loves her too in a really touching moment. In the morning, Sarah and Danny reflect on their Mother heading off to rehab. It’s a pretty touching conversation, one that sees them touch briefly on their painful past together.
The Episode Review
Ah, nothing speaks rational, free-thinking people like a good bit of fearmongering! Scaring people into buying currency by making them see the worst that could possibly happen feels like it betrays the entire premise of the show. It also feels eerily close to what’s been happening in the Western world with our media too. Would it not have made more sense to gather everyone together and air out all their concerns? You know, like the other episodes have? It also doesn’t help that Sarah keeps referring to Greylock as “my town” rather than “our town” and everyone keeps ignoring Will. I know he’s a bit of a jerk but he has experience in this leadership role and could actually provide some solid insights for Sarah and her team. Instead, he’s written off as being a “Debbie Downer”. Still, the actual teen drama and romances are what make this show watchable and there’s some pretty good development on both accounts this time. It’s far from perfect but this fourth chapter is at least an improvement over what we’ve seen during the past few episodes. Let’s hope that’s a sign of things to come.
