'The Purge' Season 2 Episode 2 highlights the disturbing contrast between the affluent and the destitute after a night of legalized crime
This article contains spoilers for season 2, episode 2.
One of the biggest highlights of this week's episode of 'The Purge' season 2 has to be the very explicit insight into the rest of the year in the new America - a nation reborn, thanks to the New Founding Fathers, between two consecutive Purges.
We knew season 2 was going to introduce us to the world of non-violence that supposedly prevails for the rest of the 364 days of the year - something that had made the second episode highly anticipated. We knew all about the Purge night where all crimes including murder are legal for 12 consecutive hours, and we knew of the darkness, the grit, and the horrors of bloodshed and depravity that the night unleashes in the world of James DeMonaco's franchise. But for the first time ever, we are finally getting a glimpse of what follows the dreaded night of all things criminal and morbid, and honestly? It's mortifying.
The eerie calm that dawns with the siren denoting the end of this year's Purge is quite disturbing. People walking out of their houses to bloodied bodies twisted and turned upon their yards like nothing happened is a striking contrast with the backdrop enclosing the consequences others suffered. While massive trucks labeled 'Body Recovery Unit' pick up the dead bodies strewn on the front yard in plastic bags, there's a terrifying rush at public hospitals with doctors criminally understaffed compared to the barrage of patients flooding in from every corner.
Yet, somehow the most terrifying aspect of the clean up after the Purge are the people who literally perform the task. In that, there seems to be a government-supervised facility that arrives at every house to clean up the scene(s) of crime - scrub out blood, remove weapons from bodies that are yet to turn cold, and toss it all away with such reckless abandon, like they are the back end of an extremely unethical slaughterhouse. One of the most disturbing scenes is that of a lady scrubbing out a massive bloodspot from a very expensive looking house's rug, while a dead body lies on the dining table right next to her, with a knife pierced through the dead man's back.
Calm is an understatement for the woman whose placid expression is so done and bored with the job as if she's cleaning the kitchen after preparing a rather elaborate meal for guests she didn't want over in the first place. And if that doesn't send a chill down your spine - which it might not if you're a fan of Blumhouse - the cleaners also set out the dining table for the rest of the family as breakfast time approaches. All of this, while they simply toss the body onto a plastic cover, before placing it next to the trashcans outside the house, for the Body Recovery Unit people to pick it all up.
The scene ends with the rest of the family - mother and her two kids - sitting down for breakfast, with the most plastic smiles painted on their faces. It's obvious the lady killed her husband because she quickly stiffens upon seeing one teeny tiny speck of blood left behind on the table mat, which she quickly covers with her plate. Her shifty gaze, however, is resonated by pretty much every other central character on the show. Everybody looks untrustworthy but such is the charm of the concept of an annual Purge - the night might be over but the trauma lingers on to the next one as those with little to no means suffer the most brutal of consequences.
'The Purge' season 2 airs on Mondays at 9 pm only on USA Network.