Revisiting Kingdom Hospital – episode 10

Things get very weird indeed in this episode. The local vicar is found crucified by crack addicts. He dies but keeps on bleeding. Water turns into wine. Loads of food turns up, reminiscent of the tuna fish and loaves of bread story. Things are looking distinctly biblical at the moment, and it all makes for a rather intriguing introduction to an episode that never quite ties things together. The alcoholic PHD has been given his laptop by Mrs Druse, and with it he can read the signals given off by, what he calls, the black noise. These are supposedly voices travelling under the periphery of human hearing, and possibly the root cause of the earthquakes. They appear to be generating from beneath the hospital itself, within the old kingdom. He tells Peter Rickman’s wife that the next earthquake is going to be so destructive it could completely swallow the hospital. At the same time, Mary appears before Rickman and informs him that the way to save the hospital from the next, far more damaging, earthquake, lies in the hands of the “special dreamers,” they being Dr. Elmer, Christa and Abel. In other news, another earthquake destroys a part of the hospital and traps Dr. Lona, security guard Otto, and another doctor, down in the morgue, in the old kingdom. While down there, Otto finds he no longer needs his glasses and, after years of being close to blind, can suddenly see perfectly. Then a white light fills up the place, and the vicar appears to have disappeared from the morgue table, leaving only a bloody shroud in his wake. Dr. Hook and some others take this to show the huge crowd and TV crews that have gathered outside Kingdom Hospital, fuelled by talk of miracles. Cries of “praise God” ring out, along with voices united in spiritual song. I’m not sure what to make of this episode. It seems to have nothing to do with the story as a whole, yet there is no denying it sends shivers down your spine. Incredibly creepy, scary, inspirational and emotional all at once, it takes the series to a new level of seriousness the first few comedy-driven episodes could never have suggested were to follow. Good stuff.