'The Purge' Season 2 Episode 3: Ben commits to the 'healing power of violence' and highlights the making of a serial killer
This article contains spoilers for Season 2 Episode 3 'Blindspot'
The arc that Ben's character is following on the ongoing second season of 'The Purge' is nothing short of making of a murderer — a serial killer with a severe bloodlust.
In tonight's episode, we see Ben still reeling under the impact of committing his first murder on the annual Purge night. But while Ben took the man's life as an attempt of self-defence, he can't move on from the sheer feeling of playing god at that moment.
Immediately shutting off from those close to him, his mind repeatedly reenacts the events from that fateful night — specifically him stabbing the masked murderer with blood splattering all over his face and body.
More than trauma, Ben thrives under the thrill he felt at the time — a thrill that not even smoking pot or having sex could give.
In episode three, we see Ben struggling to engage in physical intimacy with his college girlfriend, Kelen. He keeps thinking about the bloody body of the man who almost raped him before Ben murdered him brutally.
Later, when he tries channeling his aggression at a slaughterhouse, he fails to kill any of the animals. It's an anti-climactic end for the boy who just wanted some release. That is until he gets into a small tiff with a roadside farmer selling fresh produce and Ben ends up attacking him.
Hesitant at first, Ben could have let the older man go. The tiff was about the man not giving him back the exact change anyway. It's a pretty petty thing to take someone's life over, but after the slaughterhouse disappointment, this is when Ben realizes his thirst for kill is purely targetted at humans.
When he knocks the old man down on the grass and repeatedly stabs him the way he did to the rapist, Ben doesn't stop at just hurting him brutally.
He goes to the extent of grabbing the nearest heavy rock and lands blow after blow at the man's face — leaving his skull fractured and bleeding in what has been one of the most graphic scenes of violence this season.
Later when he comes home and admits to Kelen about what he did on Purge night, she asks him whether it was absolutely necessary for him to do what he did. He answers in the positive, which is the truth, and she goes back to assure him that he is, in fact, a good person and she loves him dearly.
But it doesn't change a thing in Ben. Instead, it only makes one wonder what risk Kelen is being threatened with.
Amidst the interesting parallel drawn between animal slaughterhouses and people's lives being put up for auction for those willing to pay for it, it's a pretty morbid metamorphosis that both Ben and reborn America is going through.
People are nothing but objects that can be killed for pleasure and release, and the new America is nothing but a glorified slaughterhouse.
'The Purge' Season 2 airs on Tuesdays at 9 pm only on the USA Network.