As we return to the Dekalog, the first thing we notice is that we are at the same apartment complex where the first episode took place. We see a couple wheeling a covered cart — it’s impossible to tell who or what is in the cart. We also notice by the light that it seems to be early morning and it’s not the same season as episode 1.

While characters are still dressed in coats, there is no snowfall. Episode two covers the second commandment -- thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain. Or does it? In some places, this episode is listed as being about false witness, which is most often listed as Commandment 3.

An unknown character is seen raking, but not leaves, it seems to be some kind of brush. Given that the Warsaw climate is not terribly different from Chicago’s I’m assuming this is an early part of spring. The man with the rake notices something on the ground and picks it up … it appears to be rabbit that has been butchered. The man looks straight up at the building closest to fallen item. His eyes train seven or eight stories up upon a greenhouse that has been built into one of the apartments.

So we know that this apartment is somewhat different from the others, and we therefore assume that the inhabitant is also a little different. The man inside this greenhouse is never named, he is referred to as doctor by everyone throughout the episode. He is played by Aleksander Bardini, who was a major star in Poland upon release of the TV series. He led another highly popular Polish TV series and was beginning to break through in major film roles. But he was also a director in Polish theater and opera and a renowned teacher at the State Theater School.

Bardini would go on to appear in two more Kieslowski works -- in "The Double Life of Veronique" as the kindly musical director who approves casting Weronika, and then again in "Three Colours: White."

We see the doctor tend to some of his plants in his greenhouse -- there doesn't seem to be anything fancy, mostly cactuses. The greenhouse is an interesting metaphor for the doctor, a place where plants can grow out of season, separated from time. In this episode and throughout The Dekalog, time is a major character and the doctor’s ability to control time seems to be critical to his being.

The doctor also feeds a parakeet he has in a cage. But before we get too carried away thinking this man is wealthy, we next see him filling up three large pots and a kettle with water and lighting the stove. He needs to boil all of this water to take a bath, which tells us that the housing complex doesn't have reliable water heaters — and this holds up throughout the series.

This operation is interrupted by a knock on the door. The man with the rake has come up to the apartment, rabbit in hand, asking if it is his. The doctor replies "no such luck." He then returns to his boiled water, pouring it into the tub. This is interrupted by what appears to be an attack of angina. The doctor grabs the side of the tub and the pain seems to pass.

Kieslowski, a chain smoker, suffered from heart disease and this scene echoes similar moments in "The Double Life of Veronique" about heart disease.

We next see the doctor carrying what appears to be some recyclable glass bottles in a cloth bag. As he gets to the elevator, he runs into a woman smoking in the hallway. Her name is Dorota Geller. The one distinguishing feature about her is that she has her hair clipped back with a bow. This film was made in the late 1980s and I find it interesting that when I was in college in this same era, it was a popular hairstyle of young women at my school to wear their hair this way. So apparently the bowheads existed both in Missouri and Warsaw.

Dorota acknowledges the doctor, who nods back. We see the doctor walking, presumably to the market, and in the next scene, he has returned with a bag of groceries. She is still in the same spot smoking. The doctor enters his apartment, then hears footsteps, as if someone has walked to his door but not knocked. He sidles to the door, then opens it quickly.

Dorota is there. He says "you want to talk to me," and she agrees. She says that she lives a floor above him and asks if he remembers her. He says, yes, you ran over my dog last year. This does not elicit an explanation or apology from her, which must irritate the doctor. Instead she tells him that her husband is a patient in his hospital. He says, so I presume you want to know his condition. She answers yes.

Here, he exercises his time power. He tells her that relatives can receive information about the status of patients on Wednesdays and she should come to the hospital. She says, so you're not going to tell me beforehand. Now, I want to stop here and note the strangeness of all of this. It does seem like insane bureaucracy for family members to have only one day a week to receive information about the status of patients. On the other hand, it's awfully presumptuous for Dorota to assume that the doctor would know or remember anything useful or authoritative about her husband -- and even if he did, it would make total sense for him to say that I don't want to give you any false information, it's best that you come in so I can review the chart.

But he's clearly irritated by this woman and doesn't give her the satisfaction of any of this detail. She responds that she wishes she had run over him instead his dog.