The Purge - General Discussion

[Anela]

I need to watch again, because I was distracted, and don't really know what happened. I thought this was the finale, though, so I was surprised by an ad for next week.

[tennisgurl]

Interesting seeing the cold open actually tie into our main story. I guess Ben had some murder tendencies from way back when he was a kid, which just further lends credence to the idea that, shockingly, when a society spends so much time celebrating violence, people get more violent! 

Yeah, maybe following the crazy murderer guy wasnt the best idea ever, he might just be the bad guy! Poor Marcus, he escapes his murderous neighbor and gets his other neighbors to turn on the main asshole, and now he picks up Ben! 

So as it turns out, just because your running around trying to kill people on murder night, you still run the risk of being murdered! So were those God Mask people specifically looking for Ben, or is it just no honor among crazy killers? I have always wondered how often these random bands of weirdos in masks run out of normal people in the vicinity and just start attacking each other?

Edited December 19, 2019 by tennisgurl

[Chaos Theory]

Season 2 was definitely better thought out then season 1.   I really enjoyed the overarching story about the cost of violence and the fact that the NFFA was not being honest or following its own rules.   The finale was very well done.   I thought turning Ryan and Esme into symbols of the resistance and at the same time making Ben a symbol of what is wrong with the system was a great way end the season.  It would have been easy and cathartic to kill Ben but it would have been too easy an answer and wouldn’t have fit what the show was saying about the price of violence.  

Edited December 18, 2019 by Chaos Theory

[BigDfromLA]

What happened to Ben? It looks like he survived, probably walked off and will live to see another purge day. He has become pure evil.

Clint is an idiot. I never understood his deal. People die in surgury. Unfortunately it happens. Blaming the doctor for his wife's death and carrying on a vendetta seems ridiculous and crazy.

[Jediknight]

Ryan and Esme are dead, and Ben is alive.  On the plus side, Ryan and Esme are symbols of the Resistance, and their deaths won't be in vain.  And Esme got Vivian on her side, along with other people working for the NFFA.

Gotta love that Ryan's crew never even thought about touching his cut.  They had complete loyalty to their friend and leader, and when it was broadcast about the team going after Esme they were torn on if they should go help.  They no doubt would have joined Ryan, had he not told them to leave.

And Turner, who left Ben behind in the premiere, is joined up with the Resistance, after the deaths of his brother, his frat brothers, and seeing what the Purge did to Ben.  And Marcus's son is a leader in the Resistance.  That was a great way to bring all the stories together.

[tennisgurl]

I thought that was a really great season finale, and makes me really excited as to what a possible season three could bring. Esme and Ryan might have died and the NFFA are still in power for now...but their sacrifice has led them to become symbols of resistance and has inspired other people, including a still alive Vivienne (yea!), Marcus and his family (who are all closer than ever), Esmes sister, and even Tanner, who is finally taking a stand after losing his brother and frat brothers to Purge violence, and saw Ben become a serial killer, to fight against the NFFA and the Purge, plus the rest of Ryan's crew are living happily in Panama, and sent his cut of the money to help the cause! Oh, and Ben is still alive, and crazier than ever. Like, Ben is so crazy that he is even willing to attack medical personal in designated medical areas, something that even most normal crazy Purgers wont do! 

Ethan Hawk! That was a fun cameo, and oh yeah, that security system ended up totally keeping The Purge from affecting his family. Totally. His cameo also reminds me of my thoughts on the first movie, and how both disappointed I was that this interesting premise was wasted on such a lame "bad guys try to get into a house of people" plot, and that the whole "The Purge totally works guys!" stuff made absolutely no sense. Of course, almost every part of the Purge franchise, especially this show, have existed to answer those very issues I had and deconstruct and play with the entire premise. Not only have they showed much more interesting ideas for what this world is like, this whole season has been about how The Purge very much does NOT work, and that its, in fact, making things even worse, and all of the "crime is almost gone! The Purge is so working!" is just NFFA propaganda. 

 

[Chaos Theory]

What I really liked about this season was that it was a case study on why something like the purge is actually a really bad idea.

1.  The government is gonna eventually break it own rules to keep the peace.

2.   People are going to stew in their own anger (Clint) instead of heal and move on and those already prone to violence (Ben) are going to be made worse not better like the NFFA claims.

3.   How can there be a system of justice when there is so much violence?    It would end up turning an entire system on its head and make otherwise honest public servants (Ryan and Esme)  obsolete.

On the other side they had Marcus and his wife who everyone suspected of being the one who put the hit out on him be the ones who handled everything like fairly reasonable adults.   Yes the wife (whose name I can never remember) fucked up and fucked around but when confronted with it neither of them planned hits on each other.   She even went to a clandestine support group after Marcus nearly got purged.   This was the story about reasonable people acting in a reasonable manner in an unreasonable world.   

[seacliffsal]

Okay, it's probably just me, but I found the donation of money to the resistance to be really hypocritical in that the group used the purge for their own purposes (to score a big hit and then move out of the country and live like royalty) and then when they no longer "needed" the purge they supported the resistance.  Kind of like "we've got ours, now let's end this thing."  Yes, I know we were supposed to support them and their efforts to steal from those who they believed were corrupt, but doesn't that make THEM corrupt?  And to feel so good about themselves for donating that money while sitting in a beautiful restaurant/bar in Panama City.

I never liked the "Ben" story and really wish he had been killed.  Taking out the medical volunteers was horrible.  And, I hope that Marcus will volunteer to help others on all of the remaining purges.

Okay, it took me a while to recognize Ethan Hawke as being in the first Purge movie.  But, once I did recognize him I liked the call back.  Would have liked to see a couple of the characters from the first season in this final episode (maybe just helping out in triage or something). 

[Anela]

I missed a bit of it. Is Marcus still alive? I thought he killed Ben, so I was disappointed to see him still alive at the end. He was over the top, and as much as I wouldn't agree with the purge, seemed to have issues when he was watching that TV show, that was advertising it to little children. He should have died. I wonder if they will have another season with this remaining cast. 

[Jediknight]

13 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Ethan Hawk! That was a fun cameo, and oh yeah, that security system ended up totally keeping The Purge from affecting his family. Totally. His cameo also reminds me of my thoughts on the first movie, and how both disappointed I was that this interesting premise was wasted on such a lame "bad guys try to get into a house of people" plot, and that the whole "The Purge totally works guys!" stuff made absolutely no sense.

 

The best thing about the first movie was Rhys Wakefield hamming it up as much as possible, and chewing all the scenery.

[Chaos Theory]

Yeah the original purge movie was a lame home invasion movie with really good actors.  Lena Heady for god sake played the mom.   But I was seriously surprised when it got a second movie which was leaps and bounds better and a third which was better yet and then Election Day which I actually though would be the last one.   I never did watch The First Purge though.  

[MeThinkMeNot]

I found it hilarious that Ethan Hawke showed up to talk about how it's usually down to user error for the security to not work, considering his son is the reason why he got killed in the first movie.

I was sad when Esme and Ryan died. I was shocked that Marcus' son managed to go in the hospital and stay there and I'm shocked that Marcus' wife had nothing to do with him being purged. She kept acting in a suspicious manner, but ended up being guilty of cheating and that's it.

Ben being alive is dumb. I was hoping the NFFA would take him out, considering how he's a serial killer and everything. But no. The amount of chances he got was messed up. I do like that his frat brother ended up helping the resistance and not becoming a psycho like Ben.

On 12/18/2019 at 1:56 AM, BigDfromLA said:

Clint is an idiot. I never understood his deal. People die in surgury. Unfortunately it happens. Blaming the doctor for his wife's death and carrying on a vendetta seems ridiculous and crazy.

It makes perfect sense in this world though. There's no need to move on from your grief and accept loss when you can just purge your worries away. It's not Marcus' fault that his wife died, But the Purge made Clint believe that he should purge and get his anger out that way.

Edited December 24, 2019 by MeThinkMeNot

[BigDfromLA]

On 12/23/2019 at 10:02 AM, MeThinkMeNot said:

t makes perfect sense in this world though. There's no need to move on from your grief and accept loss when you can just purge your worries away. It's not Marcus' fault that his wife died, But the Purge made Clint believe that he should purge and get his anger out that way.

You make a very good point. You're right.

 

On 12/19/2019 at 9:29 AM, seacliffsal said:

Would have liked to see a couple of the characters from the first season in this final episode (maybe just helping out in triage or something). 

I agree completely. I would really like to see Penelope, Miguel and Pete the Cop return in Season 3, along with some from Season 2 mixed with some new characters. All three of them would definitely be pro resistence.

[opus]

Cancelled.

https://deadline.com/2020/05/the-purge-treadstone-canceled-usa-programming-strategy-shift-two-seasons-one-season-1202934081/

[seacliffsal]

This is sad news to me as I enjoyed both shows featured in that article.  USA used to be a "must see" channel for me (all the way back to Monk, Burn Notice, Psych, etc.) and now it's more of a "whatever."