'World on Fire' Recap: Season 2 Episode 2

World on Fire airs Sundays at 8:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream via the PBS app and at wttw.com. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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Harry has left his wife, mother, and daughter in England for the war in North Africa, but there’s a friendly face there: his Dunkirk comrade, Stan. Their unit is working with sappers led by Rajib, who has made a name for herself through bravery. Together, they are trying to drive the Italians out of Egypt in order to secure Suez and the supply of oil to the Allies.

Tom is also returning to the war, on a battleship, after a leave in Manchester during which he learned his father had died. His sister Lois – the mother of Harry’s child – wants to get away, too. She’s afraid she will die if she stays: when a house collapsed on her while she was working for the ambulance corps, she stayed inside, wanting to die, and survived with only minor injuries by luck.

When Lois arrives early one day at her mother-in-law Robina’s house to drop off her baby, Kasia answers the door. She asks Lois to sit with her, and Lois tells Kasia she would give up her baby if possible. Kasia believes Lois is trying to convince herself that she doesn’t care about her daughter so she can justify leaving. Kasia warns Lois it will be difficult.

Robina receives a more permanent visitor just before Christmas, even though she was told to expect him after the holidays. Sir James Danemere arrives with roses, but the flowers don’t make Robina any less uncomfortable. He served in the RAF during World War I and still seems to work for the government. He’ll be staying upstairs, but won’t be around too often.

He is around to play chess with Jan, and to coach him on winning through what he calls “guile” and Jan calls “deceit.” He also asks Robina about Kasia’s legal troubles resulting from an altercation with a xenophobic man in a tea parlor, and offers to help. Kasia later eavesdrops on him speaking to someone through his door at night.

Sir James makes the charges against Kasia disappear, to Robina’s gratitude. Kasia is less thankful, wondering how Sir James did it.

In Paris, the nurse Henriette continues to quietly help British airmen and resistance fighters escape Nazi-controlled territory. The German soldiers are aggressive, pulling a patient from a wheelchair for lacking identification papers and demanding to see the papers of staff members. So the appearance of Henriette’s brother Luc at the hospital with a wound on his head distresses Henriette.

She dresses his wound and tries to sneak him out, but the Gestapo are checking papers at the door. She and he hide in a locked room, where Henriette has hidden a gun. She then sends him to escape through the basement with the gun, but he is apprehended by Germans as soon as he leaves her.

When Henriette next visits a prisoner camp to deliver food and supplies from the hospital, she slips a photo of Luc to Albert, the French African lover of Webster, the American doctor who once worked at Henriette’s hospital. Albert is a prisoner there; Henriette asks if he has seen Luc. He quietly tells her that Luc is at the camp, but that she needs to leave Paris before she is caught.

She refuses, and tries to talk to Luc the next time she delivers food, but Albert bumps into her and stops her. Luc is a known radical, so he is being watched closely. Albert will help him escape if Henriette promises to protect herself by not returning to the camp. She only responds that she has something to help.

The next time she gives Albert a box of food, there’s a vial inside that says “drink me.”

In Germany itself, the teenaged Marga is devoted to the other side. She is no longer attending school, in anticipation of being paired with an exemplary Nazi officer to produce Aryan children. Her friend Gertha tries to change her mind, telling her that the state will keep her baby – but Marga doesn’t care.

She later goes to her former teacher with Gertha, pretending she has changed her mind – but she’s actually turning in Gertha as a traitor. Gertha is questioned on where her “treasonous” beliefs came from, and forced into naming another teacher after her questioner threatens her parents. She is escorted out and sees the teacher, bleeding and limping. She tearfully apologizes to him. He responds that they do what they have to do to survive.

The survival of David is in question every time he flies to fight German bombers over Manchester. He lost a friend on the last raid, but distances himself from every loss with humor. Kasia’s brother Gregor, who works at the airbase, introduces David to Lois at a club, and she warns him that she’s bad luck. The last pilot who proposed to her – Vernon – died in the Battle of Britain.

David ends up spending time with Lois’s friend Connie, but he’s still thinking about Lois. She told him she wants to leave Manchester, and he thinks it’s a good idea. He was raised by his grandparents and turned out okay, so Lois’s baby Vera will, too.

Lois finds her way out when she sees a poster for the Auxiliary Territorial Service: she can go to Cairo to drive an ambulance. She shares her plan with Robina, who objects, but Lois says she’ll die if she stays in Manchester. She thought Robina would understand, as another woman who lacks maternal feelings.

Sir James acquires a Christmas tree for Robina, and sits with her by it, encouraging her to take Vera in for Lois. Robina doesn’t really have a choice, since Lois seems set on going. And Kasia could help raise the baby.

Harry is certainly not around to help. He’s leading an attack on an Italian camp, and gets the enemy to surrender after taking out their machine gun with a grenade. But his unit loses a man later when one of them leaves his tent in a sandstorm to go to the bathroom but loses the rope he tied to lead him back to the tent. Harry finds him buried under sand, and has to write to the man’s family to inform them of the death. He tells them the soldier died in battle.

German bombers again attack Manchester on Christmas Eve. David takes one down but sees one of his comrade’s planes go up in flames, too. For the first time, he seems affected by the death.

Lois brings Vera to Robina’s home the next day, leaving a gift with her before knocking on the door and walking away. Robina watches from her bedroom window.