'The Purge' Season 2 Episode 4: With Esme being stalked, Darren could be targeted next for Drew's study
This article contains spoilers for season 2, episode 4: 'Grief Box'
Right at the end of tonight's episode 4 of 'The Purge' season 2, we find out the expected and inevitable - Esme Carmona is being stalked by her boss.
Of course, when Esme began investigating what her friend Drew was hiding the night she got purged, the whole sneaking around caught her boss's notice, and as is obvious from the ending of her narrative on tonight's episode, him watching her moves through her system's webcam was amplified by Esme finding the body of Drew's only remaining suspect alive. But what has caught our intrigue is what this means for Drew's study which aimed at debunking the NFFA's lies about violence being in control. Worse, does Esme being stalked mean further bad news for Darren Moore?
Darren, as is obvious, is just as passionate about Drew's beliefs and lack of faith in the existing political system's pro-violence nature. He was the one organizing the memorial in honor of their beloved psychology professor, under whom Darren was completing his thesis. So when Esme reached out to him with the documents and recording she found hidden in Drew's apartment, despite her ties with the NFFA, Darren indulged in digging deep.
In tonight's episode, we see Darren reaching out to Esme again, as this time, it was him snooping around Drew's apartment. He is able to discover a list of subjects who were being studied by Drew to observe streaks of violence in their psyche. Some of the test subjects went as far as to admit how the Purge system only helped build up their urge for violence - something that was intact for the rest of the year. Darren insists this study means that what the NFFA is promoting and conditioning for the masses to believe in, particularly the subsiding urges of violence in people thanks to an annual night of purging, is all false. If exposed, the data could debunk all the existing beliefs that the NFFA has been able to fabricate to keep the common people's faith intact - thereby proving to be a massive blow for them.
When Esme tries tracking down the subjects from Drew's documents, every single one of them is labeled deceased in the NFFA system. The only person still alive from the list is a lady called Olivia Hughes, and when Esme tracks her down to her home, what she finds is Olivia's dead body lying in the bathtub. Olivia's wrists appear to have been slit as her body lies in a pool of blood, and even though Esme gathered the surveillance tapes from her building, the videos disappear within moments. A call to the investigating officer informs her that Olivia's case has been closed as it was ruled as a suicide, and when Esme pursues it further, the officer tells her that this might be hard for her to believe considering Esme's sister was troubled too.
While the revelation spills that Esme's sister had taken her own life, the fact that her boss had been watching her through her system's webcam is what puts her at further risk. But more than Esme, Darren is the one who might have to take the fall. Darren has already been labeled as a protester of the system, with him standing in solidarity with Drew's criticism of the NFFA. And considering Drew was prospectively gunned down just for construing the possibility of the NFFA's system increasing violence, once they find out Darren was the one digging into this data, it's only a matter of time before he is targeted as well.
'The Purge' season 2 airs on Tuesdays at 9pm only on USA Network.