'The Purge' Season 2 Episode 2 sees rampant police brutality prevailing in a supposedly nonviolent new America
This article contains spoilers for Season 2 Episode 2 'Everything is Fine'.
'The Purge's season two might look like it's all about the nonviolence that the new America is supposedly shrouded with for the rest of the year between two consecutive Purge nights.
However, just one day in and it looks like police authorities working under the New Founding Fathers are exercising brutality for anyone who missed the Purge deadline.
In the debut episode of season two, we saw Tommy — one of the crook's from Ryan's gang — go back to retrieve a bagful of money with just seconds remaining for the Purge end siren to go off.
Their team was performing an elaborate bank heist which was compromised when they got ambushed by Jackals, aka thieves who steal from other thieves on the eponymous night where all crime including murder is legal.
While Tommy did succeed in bringing the bag out, the national surveillance security which has cameras spying on everyone to look for protocol breaches and usage of illegal weapons, decided that his foot was somewhat still inside the establishment after the siren denoting the end of the Purge liberties, went off.
This made him a criminal according to government law, thereby posing a potential threat to their entire team.
Even though Ryan refused to let Tommy tag along with them on their ride back home, episode two shows Tommy catching up minutes later with his bag of money.
Ryan only lets him inside after several double checks and reassurances that he wasn't being followed, and just as the team breaks into celebratory cheers, police sirens wail themselves in, looking for Tommy.
The man voluntarily hands himself over to spare the rest of them the horrors of being arrested but what follows next is unexpected and pretty much horrifying.
Using its signature trope of being a lesson on the ways and mannerisms of the new America, the subplot from episode two shows the police ask Tommy to lie on the ground as they read out the arrest orders.
But it's not just words that are used to warn Tommy of his crimes and rights. The police begin hitting Tommy with their canes one by one, going around in circles, before proceeding to kick and injure him severely.
Then, the bunch pull him up and slam him against a car, tazing him while continuing to beat him up until the scene fades out with the police taking Tommy with them.
When the rest of the team looks to Ryan for answers, he tells them that Tommy will most likely be hauled over to the next Purge — meaning he will be thrown out on the streets in the next annual Purge which is their equivalent of capital punishment.
So much for a nation reborn where legalized crime for 12 consecutive hours is supposed to lower violence rates! 'The Purge' season two airs on Tuedays at 9 pm only on the USA Network.
