The symphony of sadness that has characterized this season continues in the finale, turning up the dire consequences of every decision made into a crescendo of loss, missed connections and despair. A few semi-nice things happen to our stalwart cast members, mostly because Theo has taken charge and is mostly benevolent to his friends. But it’s pretty grim goings-on for at least half of the town, and we end in a place of questions rather than solid answers. While not exactly cliffhangers, waking everyone up and then putting them back to sleep shouldn’t really be the pattern for any future seasons.
It seems like there just wasn’t enough time for the seasonal threads to lead very far this year. Or at least to be concluded. The Abbies were massing outside the wall. Why? They spend a lot of time running around in the woods now that Margaret is healed, and we learn there’s a village of sorts in the deep woods. But they don’t attack or build ladders of the dead to get over the walls again.
They don’t really need to, because when the town finally realizes that only Group A are getting into the mountain, while Group B (which sadly includes gay Frank, rebel Xander, and loopy administrator Arlene – “I thought I did a good job for you, Dr. Yedlin!”) are being left to fend for themselves with no food or army, they riot.
Thus begins the creative parade of demises, which includes Xander (given a last minute reprieve by Yedlin, along with Frank, conveniently watching the city burn at his side) shooting a Molotov cocktail before it’s thrown, immolating the rioter on Main Street; a housepainter hanging himself from an eave; and a guard being stabbed in the neck with his own knife as he ushers people through the gate.
The sci-fi fantasy moments are few this episode, as instead, we turn to soap opera for those final emotional beats. Will Yedlin follow through with his plan to infect himself with deadly illnesses and allow the Abbies to eat him? Would they even do that now, considering how they seemed to accept Adam back into their midst so easily? Will C.J. refuse to hibernate along with all his charges, finally uniting with his long-dead wife, who makes a final visit while he ponders turning off his pod? And what of Kerry, who surely got the worst news ever last week, that her lover and chosen leader was also her long-lost son?
Accidental incest may be the darkest moment of the whole season, not even topped by their subsequent gun battle and Jason’s death when Yedlin fails (probably on purpose) to revive him on the operating table. Yedlin asked Kerry to take him out, little knowing the extent of the mind-trip he was setting them both up for. CJ gives the only comforting talk of the episode, assuring Kerry that she of all people deserves a second chance, but she disagrees (“One was enough”), and walks away from her pod and towards Yedlin’s diseases, choosing to take his place so that his leadership will remain an option for humanity.
This is a final acknowledgment of all of Jason’s (and hers, and Pilcher’s) failings, underscored by Yedlin’s own recorded condemnation of everything that led to humanity’s unlikely survival. Which he underlines by shattering a last portrait of Pilcher. So we see Kerry exit the gate, but we don’t know what happens next. We also see a plant growing in the sterile greenhouse (which might mean the soil is fertile again? Mother Nature removes her curse?), and a seemingly human baby born to the Abbies in their wilderness. What does it all mean? The sleepers may never know, because they’ve checked out for another long haul.