Where to watch The Lazarus Project Season 1 in the UK
Season 1 Episodes Recap
Episode 1
George Addo (Paapa Essiedu) is a promising app developer on the brink of massive success and a girlfriend, Sarah (Charly Clive), who is the love of his life. After closing an investment deal, he lives the best six months of his life: he and Sarah expect their first baby, they get married, and they are both the happiest they can be. However, when a global pandemic hits, it threatens to put a stop to everything. It feels like it could be the end of the world, and it is. Then, suddenly. George wakes up to a morning he’s already lived through six months ago. George is the only one who seems to realise this phenomenon and lives a very different six months trying to figure out what happened. This time, there’s no pregnancy, no marriage, Sarah walks out, the pandemic hits once more and after the six months are up George is sent back to 1 July once again.
It's at this point he is contacted by Archie (Anji Mohindra) – an agent from a secret organisation called “The Lazarus Project”. Every time there is a world ending event, the Project is able to utilise a black hole singularity to reset the world back to the last “checkpoint”, which takes place at midnight 1 July precisely each year, until they can figure out a way to prevent the global catastrophe from taking place. The great majority of people cannot perceive these time jumps, but George appears to have a very rare mutation that allows him to remember life before each reset.
Impressed by his resourcefulness, Archie invites him to join the organisation, where he is trained to help stop world ending events – even after they’ve taken place. He’s introduced to the team, headed up by the formidable Elisabeth ‘Wes’ Wesley (Caroline Quentin), and the one fellow agent with the same mutation as George, Shiv (Rudi Dharmalingam). The other agents are only able to perceive the time jump artificially by way of a serum injection.
Trained to work as a field agent, he encounters his first reset when a mission to locate a missing Russian warhead ends with its detonation – an act perpetrated by terrorist and former Lazarus agent Dennis Rebrov (Tom Burke). However, George encounters something even more earth shattering than being caught in a nuclear explosion… A seemingly innocuous impulse decision to slight a rival has catastrophic consequences when Sarah is accidentally thrown under a truck.
Episode 2
With Sarah in intensive care, all George wants to do is reset the clock and make things right. Unfortunately for him, it’s not that simple. It would take an extinction level event to take place to authorise a reset – it cannot be used to bring one person back. A pain that Archie knows too well.
Archie was once paired with a fellow agent, Ross (Brian Gleeson). The two were tasked with preventing nuclear destruction back in 2018 – a mission they failed over and over again. With all other options exhausted, Ross found the one way they could prevent Armageddon – but it meant sacrificing himself in the process. Archie and Ross had become more than just partners by this point, and while the mission was deemed a success and the timeline was allowed to continue, Archie was left devastated, and grief stricken.
George’s heartbreak worsens when the team capture the man responsible for the last world ending event, Rebrov. With that threat neutralised, the timeline is set to continue – and to cement George’s despair, Sarah passes away from her injuries in the hospital. George sets out with the resolve of bringing Sarah back – no matter what.
Episode 3
George confides in the one man who could potentially cause an event so destructive it could trigger a reset – Rebrov. Under imprisonment and being tortured for information on the whereabouts of the missing nuclear warhead, Rebrov shares his story with George.
Much like Archie, Rebrov fell in love with his Lazurus partner, Janet (Vinette Robinson). However, their attempt to live a normal life was best with trauma as a result of their awareness of the timeline resets. Their first child, a boy, was born a mere few months before a reset inadvertently caused by Shiv, and afterwards was erased from existence. Their second, a girl, was born just after 1 July 2018. This coincided with the countless repeated mission failures from Archie and Ross, forcing Janet to undergo the agony of a difficult childbirth over and over again. This takes such a mental toll on Janet that something inside her breaks, and she drives her and her daughter into incoming traffic when learning of another incoming reset.
Learning of this, and crumbling under the strain of constant grief, Rebrov demands the Lazarus machine be destroyed, holding Wes at gunpoint and murdering her assistant. Shiv is able to disarm him, but Rebrov evades capture and goes rogue – intent on allowing the world to come to what he believes is its natural end.
Having heard his story, and coming to question the morality of The Lazarus Projects methods, George follows Rebrov’s clues to Barcelona, where he can find someone who can give him a detonator for the missing warhead. It turns out the contact is none other then Janet. With help from a list of codephrases Rebrov shares with Janet, he earns her trust, she leaves him with the key to setting off a world ending event – the detonator for the missing nuclear warhead.
Episode 4
In 1981, we see Shiv as an infant, who astounds his parents by being able to learn how to speak full sentences overnight. Becoming more aware of the resets as he gets older, Shiv learns the “rules” of the phenomenon and how he can benefit from it – and also how minor actions can have unintended consequences.
Back in modern day, George is able to find the location of “Big Boy” – the missing nuclear warhead – by deciphering clues left by the arms dealers who stole it. The bomb is being kept by an arms dealer in Romania with the intent of selling to the rebel extremist group The Lost Glory, but George’s plans are not going unnoticed.
Shiv has been monitoring George’s movements, and recruits Ryan from tech support to assist in tracking his movements. Following him to Romania, George gets the jump on Shiv and a chase ensues. Trying one last time to talk him out of his current course of action, Shiv leaves himself open and George shoots him. Promising that he’ll bring Shiv back when he brings Sarah back, George shoots him a second time, this time fatally. After tying up loose ends back at the Lazarus base by sending Ryan to his death at the hands of Rebrov, (care of another secret code phrase, “Big Plans Are Afoot” – a kill code that he and Janet created), George puts Shiv’s corpse in the back of his car and heads to find the warhead.
Episode 5
Back in 2018, a freshly graduated Archie is recruited by MI5. After being assigned to an undercover case, she is approached by Shiv, who explains what The Lazarus Project is and that she should halt her mission. In trade, he invites her to the project, offering her an injection of the serum that will not just give her perception of future time jumps, but also every aborted timeline she has ever lived through (an experience referred to as “The Wave”.) She agrees and joins the project.
In the present day, George’s actions have left Shiv AWOL and framed as a mole – a concept Archie in particular refuses to believe. However, the case against Shiv seems airtight when payments to Janet’s rebel organisation Blackbird are discovered (in truth – he had been financially supporting Janet out of guilt for being responsible for the reset that erased her first son).
Back in Romania, George’s hunt for Big Boy is not going to plan. Pulled over by Romanian police, they discover Shiv’s body in his boot and attempt an arrest that leaves them and an innocent truck driver killed. With even more blood on his hands, it’s more important to George than ever that he reset the timeline. After following the clues left by Janet, George locates – and incapacitates – the bomb’s “caretaker”. Posing as a member of the Lost Glory, George is able to convince the caretaker to take him to the bomb, achieving his mission.
The problem is, the bomb is in the middle of nowhere. If he’s going to trigger a cataclysmic event, it’s going to have to go off in a much more populated area. So George and the caretaker head off in the direction of the Russian border… but they are being followed.
Episode 6
Unbeknownst to George, the “caretaker” he is sharing a truck cab with is actually one of a group of mercenaries that have taken ownership of Big Boy from The Lost Glory. Tailing the bomb, their goal is for George to build a rapport with the caretaker so he will share the detonator’s activation code with him – then they can take him out of the equation and take the armed bomb for themselves.
This doesn’t pan out the way they expect, as the truck breaks down. Realising he’s been set up, George takes out the caretaker and opens fire on the mercenaries car. A shootout ends with the mercenaries dead and George stranded in a sparsely populated part of Romania with Big Boy. With no other option, George withdraws to a safe distance and detonates the warhead.
While the world is abuzz after the explosion, its end result is one of confusion, rather than alarm. With casualties relatively low, and no immediate response from the Russians, it’s not the trigger that George needed to reset the clock. It’s not the end for George, though. He successfully convinces Wes that Shiv was the mastermind behind the explosion and has been working with Janet and Rebrov as a mole within Lazarus.
Wes asks George to accompany her to a visit to the Russian Ambassador in London to gauge a possible counterattack. While the meeting is frosty, Wes does not anticipate an escalation from them. Down to his last resort, George secretly contacts the Russian Ambassador with promise of proof that the British are involved in the attack – but after failing to convince her, he kills the Ambassador, her husband and her security details, leaving her terrified son to push the panic alarm.
This finally provokes action from Russia, and missiles are fired. Wes gives the command to reset the timeline, alerting everyone that Robrev will no longer be in their custody and Shiv will need to be apprehended for questioning. The clock goes back to midnight, July 1, and finally., George is reunited with Sarah. His excitement notwithstanding, he can’t stick around too long… Shiv is back and coming straight for him.
Episode 7
It doesn’t take long for Shiv to find George, as he confronts him right outside his flat. But with the standoff in stalemate, an apologetic George points out that the case against Shiv is looking airtight. The payments to Blackbird, the secret messages to Ryan, the kill code that came from Shiv’s phone… even killing George would make him look more guilty. Knowing he is cornered, Shiv escapes into exile. As he leaves, he asks George what it’s like to get everything he wanted, considering what he had to do to get it. “Worth it”, George replies.
Not everything has worked out for the better. Rebrov is free, and a full armed detail in Paris isn’t enough to bring him down this time. Having seen Lazarus from the inside, he’s more dangerous than ever. In fact, it’s likely he allowed himself to be captured just to size up the agency for weaknesses.
For George, none of this matters. He’s able to smooth over the situation that inadvertently caused Sarah’s death in the last timeline and lives a blissful three months with Sarah – only occasionally disturbed by what he had to do to get there. During a romantic break in Paris, Sarah shows signs of wanting to lead a more spontaneous and adventurous life, and George responds by asking her to marry him. She agrees, but when he wakes up the next morning she despondently reneges on that promise. She tells him she has been unsure about them for a while and has found herself wanting something else. Despite his pleas, she moves out of his flat and leaves him heartbroken.
A new situation has arisen, as Janet has apparently been kidnapped by mercenaries linked to China, with evidence Shiv was involved. With her knowledge of Lazarus, it’s a worrying situation.
30 June – checkpoint eve – rolls around. George unexpectedly gets a call from Sarah, asking to meet him at a café the next day. As an anxious George waits for the clock to tick over to July 1, Shiv breaks into his flat. The two clash and George is able to draw his gun. He shoots – and the bullet hits Shiv in the chest at the stroke of midnight. With his last dying moment, Shiv pulls out a sheet of paper, but it’s too soaked in blood to be legible.
With a neighbour alerted by the gunfire, a panicked George disposes of Shiv’s body – sloppily – and meets Sarah at the café the next day. She has met someone new and is due to be married. Not the news George wanted to hear, and a lousy start to this timeline. Three weeks pass, and George is approached by police. Between the neighbour’s concerns and his getting caught on CCTV, they have enough evidence to arrest George for Shiv’s murder. Just as he is apprehended, a blinding flash appears in the sky and the timelines rests, with Shiv once again taking a bullet to the chest. But what caused the reset?
Episode 8
Three weeks before the reset, Janet is held hostage in Hamberg by mercenaries. When gunfire is heard, Chinese agent Zhang uncuffs her and the two escape. Shiv arrives too late to find them, but finds a note from Janet with the phrase “It’ll Be Worth the Wait” along with some Chinese characters. This is the paper he has with him when he is shot by George, and is one of Rebrov and Janet’s codewords for “I’m in trouble – come and find me.” In a flashback, Rebrov is asking Janet out back in 2012, when he receives a text with the same codeword.
It is explained this reset is a result of a second black hole singularity forming, and this is causing a world ending explosion which – due to the Lazarus machines failsafe design – is causing the timeline to reset every three weeks. The only person with the knowledge of how to potentially duplicate the singularity is Janet – and with agent Zhang’s involvement, it appears the Chinese have attempted to develop their own Lazarus machine. This sends Archie on a mission to locate Zhang in China and to find out what is going on.
George, meanwhile., is stuck in a loop of killing Shiv, having to explain the noise to his neighbour, dispose of Shiv’s body, and decide what to do about Sarah. Failing to show up at the café has the result of her walking in on him as he’s disposing of Shiv’s body. On one occasion he’s able to explain what Lazarus is and show her their offices – which has the result of giving her the excitement she’s been craving and the two reunite. On another loop, she flees, and George accidentally runs her down with his car, killing her again. As the timelines repeat, George falls into despair. He finally gives Sarah the option of “waking up” – taking a dose of stolen serum to become aware of the time loop, and all other time resets before it. He leaves her with the syringe.
Over in China, it becomes clear that Zhang too can remember past resets, with China inventing their own serum. China has attempted to make their own Lazarus device, but the execution has been botched, and they need Janet to find a way to fix it. She explains to Archie that Janet has been given to a handler, but she doesn’t know where they are. Archie knows she needs to find the handler in order to find Janet and hopefully stop the repeated resets. The problem? The handler is Shiv, and he is trapped in and endless loop of dying – drowning in his own blood moments after every reset.
Zhang is also able to confirm that she’s been following George’s movements ever since he showed up at Janet’s in Barcelona. She confirms Archie’s suspicions that George was responsible for the nuclear detonation. She confronts George, knowing he betrayed Shiv and the Project to bring Sarah back. Knowing that she’s due to wake up in China with the next reset, she takes no action, but tells George to make things right by finding a way to save Shiv.
After many attempts, George discovers his neighbour is a Paramedic, and he is able to keep Shiv alive long enough this time to tell George that “Rebrov is the key”. Zhang and Archie are able to find Janet’s location, but she is nowhere to be found.
Rebrov enters the Lazarus offices unarmed. Using the code found on Shiv’s note, he has deduced she has somehow been sent back to 2012 – the Chinese have found a way to send her back through the checkpoints. In order to bring Janet back, Lazarus will need his help. Meanwhile, Sarah arrives at George’s flat – she’s woken up.
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