Y: The Last Man review: Season 1 Episode 5, “Mann Hunt”
We’re five episodes into Y: The Last Man and things are heating up. As Agent 355 and Yorick arrive in Boston, Jennifer Brown prepares for the Cabinet Secretary to return to Washington in hopes of taking over as the new president. Yorick is still making questionable decisions, but 355 might be going rogue and it puts everything into a new light. “Mann Hunt” is a game-changing episode that will have lasting implications for the series moving forward.
Though fraught with tension, the mission to get Yorick (Ben Schnetzer) to the geneticist who might be able to figure out what’s why he’s immune to the plague that killed off the rest of the world’s men has been interesting. It proved that Yorick has trouble listening to directions and still seems to not understand the gravity of the situation.
Dr. Allison Mann (Diana Bang) is not only super-smart, but she brings some much-needed levity into the show with her frenetic musings and quirky habits. (She painted penises on all of the old paintings at the Harvard Club as a coping mechanism.) Her research was destroyed when her lab was raided, so if she’s going to be helpful she needs to get to San Francisco to access copies of her research. But that won’t be easy.
Questions loom and lines blur in the latest episode of Y: The Last Man
Until this point, Jennifer Brown (Diane Lane) has been awaiting news of Yorick’s arrival in Boston, but when she learns that a helicopter has been shot down, everything goes to chaos around her. She can’t ask too many questions without drawing unwanted attention — particularly from the ever-attentive Kimberly (Amber Tamblyn) — and she’s under pressure because the former cabinet secretary is heading back to D.C. and she is the rightful next-in-line for the presidency.
The reason Jennifer hasn’t heard anything about her son is that Agent 355 (Ashley Romans) hasn’t checked in yet. When she goes to notify the president of the change in plans, she instead breaks the satellite radio and lies about it. But why?
One of the really compelling aspects of “Mann Hunt” is the introduction of the rebels fighting the military in Boston. Upon their arrival, Yorick and 355 discover that the city is covered in propaganda and graffiti attacking the government for lying about what’s really happening. (Sound familiar? There are even messages that you’d swear were about COVID vaccines.)
Yorick meets some of the rebels and realizes that they’re not the bad guys people make them out to be. They assume he’s a trans man and offer to help him get some testosterone, and he’s welcomed into their fold quite easily. When he meets Allison Man he discovers that she’s on their side, too, and that she doesn’t trust a word from the government because the government is clearly lying about all kinds of things, and Yorick is living proof of it.
Though she’s clearly not on Jennifer Brown’s side, Kimberly can’t help by feel compassion for Christine (Jess Salgueiro) when she thinks she’s having a miscarriage. But when the baby turns out to be alive, things change, and Kimberly reverts to being the conniving politician’s daughter she’s always been.
“Mann Hunt” is a thoughtful episode of Y: The Last Man
“Mann Hunt” really makes you think about things. Y: The Last Man is more than just a show about what happens when all of the men die. It’s about politics, gender, ethics and choosing to do the right thing. Mann and the rebels aren’t wrong about what’s going on, but no one is listening to them. Yorick’s world is being turned upside down as he rethinks the new world around him and his role in it.
The brilliance of “Mann Hunt” is that it makes you think without any effort. You can’t watch what’s happening without asking questions, but you might not be ready for the answers it’s suggesting. The rebels might just be right after all. But what does it all mean?
Until this point, Y: The Last Man has been a post-apocalyptic tale about people trying to cope in the most challenging circumstances imaginable. But now things are shifting. There’s a lot more to consider, and the lines between right and wrong, good and bad, friend and foe are blurring to such a degree that there has to be a reckoning…and soon.
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