REVIEW: ‘Lazarus’ Episode 4 — “Don’t Stop The Dance”

Lazarus, Shinichiro Watanabe’s latest series, animated by MAPPA and released on Adult Swim, has been off to a slow start. Still, the slower pacing in the landscape of today’s quick-paced action animation series has given the audience enough time and enough moments of investment to begin caring for the core cast. Lazarus Episode 4, “Don’t Stop The Dance,” continues this. Only this time, it’s Christine we get more time with.

At this point, it’s easy to say that Lazarus Season 1 can be boiled down to a case-of-the-week format. In the last two episodes, team Lazarus discovers new clues about Dr. Skinner’s whereabouts and chases them down to find the Hapna creature before everyone who took the drug dies. This continues at the start of Lazarus Episode 4.

The signature narration describes how the world’s embrace of Hapna didn’t begin by curing the disease we heard in Episode 1. Instead, the embrace of Hapna as a miracle began as a rumor; all it took was the rumor that Hapna could cure sadness. Every narrative bit at the top of each episode paints a larger picture of the future that Watanabe has created and brings the audience closer to understanding the disdain that Dr. Skinner feels for the numbness he sees in the world.

Lazarus has evolved into a case-of-the-week anime, and it’s working for this Adult Swim series.

Lazarus Episode 4’s clue to the chase comes from a crypto-wallet. Hersch (Megumi Hayashibara/Jade Kelly) let the team know that Eleina (Manaka Iwami/Annie Wild) has discovered a hidden crypto-wallet that received an influx of funds from stocktrader names Sam Stevenson who received information from a Dr. 909 which allowed him to cash out big before Dr. Skinner announced that the drug’s dire consequences.

Now a sleazebag running a club, the core field members of Lazarus head to Sam’s club in their finest. Aware that Sam is known to pull women into his back VIP area when he’s attracted to them, Christine is set to use her looks, and so is Leland (Yuma Uchida/Bryson Baugus) who has dressed up as a girl who leans to more cutesy than sexy to make sure the group hits Sam’s type.

The core dynamic of the team has become one of the selling points of the series, and that continues in Lazarus Episode 4. Each subsequent episode of the series hasn’t just connected the viewers to the characters but also the characters to each other. They trust each other more and know how to work together, and even their idiosyncrasies have begun to be considered. It’s refreshing, and since we’ve taken time to develop them slowly, it all feels authentic.

Lazarus Episode 4 is paced like a heist, with infiltration as the team’s core mission. If they break into a fight (as Axel suggested and usually does), they can’t get information from Sam. With dance sequences and a new visual palette, MAPPA’s club sequences are intriguing and show a different facet of the studio on this project.

And like clockwork, Sam calls Leland and Christine back to his VIP area, leaving Doug (Makoto Furukawa/Jovan Jackson) and Axel to figure out how to get the digital tattoo to get into the area. Then, Sam tries to drug them. Of course, the duo doesn’t fall for it, and everything erupts from there.

Chad Stahelski’s fight choreography with MAPPA’s animation gets better every episode.

Where Lazarus Episode 4 captures infiltration, this episode also diversifies the action audiences see. In the previous episodes, Axel has stolen the show, especially in Episodes 2 and 3, which also allowed Doug to become a highlight. Here, it’s Christine who gets the spotlight, and ultimately, through the anger she feels toward Sam and his slimy attempt to drug them, we get to know her too.

In Shinichiro Watanabe’s work, Christine embodies an archetype of a “siren” (for lack of a better word) that is more than just how she looks. It’s clear in how she fights, her confidence, and her ability to make Sam feel settled that Christine has gone through a lot to get to this point. Much like we got with Doug, audiences now have an outline of who Christine is, and, like any good action media, it also conveys this through its fight sequences and choreography.

Each team member has a different fighting style, with Axel focusing on quick hits and keeping his opponents off balance; Doug utilizing his strength and suplexing a man into a table; Leland simply running away; and Christine surprisingly ruthless in her fighting against the men around her. When she fights, Christine wants to make her opponent aware that she’s superior, and this is evident in her aggressive approach to attacking, even when she blocks.

Still, Axel gets his brash moment to shine when he latches onto an escaping helicopter and saves the day. Lazarus Episode 4 gives the series a perfect pacing and homages to key action film moments. The ability to keep personalities intact during action sequences relies on the score of the scenes, which Lazarus continues to excel at, and how they move.

Ultimately, though, Sam is just another dead end for the team. Lazarus Episode 4 puts them no closer than they were to finding Dr. Skinner and saving humanity. Sam may have gotten information from Dr. 909, but 909 isn’t Skinner or heaven, someone who knew him. It’s just a really good hacker who got into Delta Medicinal’s information.

Lazarus Episode 4 passes the blame to Hapna’s distributors, not just its creators.

In Lazarus, Dr. Skinner has so far been the only person to get the blame for the danger that people are in. The more we learn, the easier it is to understand why people took the drug, and more importantly, why they needed the drug. When everything is pain, feeling nothing can be a savior. It was a cure that Dr. Skinner put into the world for an unwitting public. Skinner wasn’t the only one with knowledge. Delta Medicinal, the drug’s distributor, also knew.

Lazarus Episode 4’s reveal is substantial because it continues to expand the world as much as it does the characters. This is also clearly a future that is different from anything Shinichiro Watanabe has created before, and more importantly, is hitting on real-world elements in its storytelling. Here, it’s big pharma, and as an American watching the series, the idea that capitalism and selfishness ruin all continues to ring through this world.

Shinichiro Watanabe’s series has finally come into a salient focus, and it’s paying off. If anything, Lazarus Episode 4 continues to prove that sticking with a show and allowing it time to develop is a viewing style we need to return to. Instead of demanding immediate payoff or breakneck pacing, sometimes, low and slow development can be rewarding narratively and, in Lazarus’ case, visually, too.

Lazarus Episode 4 is another strong installment for the series that intensifies the series’ pacing, and I look forward to seeing more from Christine. This series is by far one of the strongest adult animations that Adult Swim has produced recently, and with 24 days remaining before the clock strikes doom, it feels like it’s about to start ramping up.

Lazarus Episode 4 is streaming now on MAX (formerly HBO Max) with new episodes every Saturday.

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