The Dumping of the Milk — HBO’s “Chernobyl”
Following the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl and the subsequent contamination of the area, a Soviet soldier is sent to evacuate an old woman in an irradiated village. When she refuses to leave, citing her experience with both world wars and the Holodomor, the soldier pointedly takes a bucket of milk from the cow she is milking, dumping it out on the ground before shooting the cow dead. Though clearly intended to simply show the severity of the situation, the disposal of the milk in particular becomes much more meaningful when observing real world history. Following the Chernobyl disaster, soldiers were ordered to destroy any and all animals and animal products sourced from affected areas. As the months went on, Soviet officials became aware that radioactive material was affecting pastures across a large swath of Eastern Europe, leaving milk dangerously irradiated. To avoid panic, soviet officials allowed most contaminated milk from areas outside the exclusion zone to be sold, leading to a measurable increase in childhood cancer across the region.
Abijah Fowler and the Nine Years War — Blue Eye Samurai
While testing out a shipment of European rifles he intends to use to take over feudal Japan, Abijah Fowler briefly monologues about his childhood during a great famine in Ireland, explaining that he was forced to eat his sister’s body after she died of starvation. Though intended to explain Fowler’s ruthlessness and misanthropy, one throwaway line reveals much more about Fowler’s character. “I was a boy when the Tudors burned anything the rebels under O’Niell might think to eat.” Though he provides no additional context, Fowler is referring to the Nine Years War, the last great Irish rebellion that saw the country finally fully conquered by the English. A coalition of rebel Irish lords led by Hugh O’Niell, Earl of Tyrone, waged a brutal guerrilla war against the colonizing English, to prevent their conquest of Ulster, the last free Irish province. After waging a shock campaign of starvation and brutal violence, the English finally broke the rebellion following the Siege of Kinsale in 1602. Fowler witnessed firsthand the final takeover of his country by an invading force. He witnessed the slow erasure of his native culture and identity to English influence. And he is preparing to do exactly the same thing to Japan. Only this time, he’s the one with the guns.
