'The Purge' Season 2 Episode 5: Ben's evolution into a homicidal maniac beyond redemption poses major threat to Kelen
This article contains spoilers for season 2, episode 5.
This week on The Purge's season 2, Ben's violence reaches a whole other morbid level after his shockingly nonchalant fraternizing with fellow pro-violence propagators. Last week we saw Ben befriending Andy, a student from his university whom he met at a local arms shop. The two bonded over their love for weapons and the NFFA's propaganda supporting the idea of a release through violence's supposed healing power.
They condemned those that didn't believe in the idea of Purging and openly ridiculed a girl for spreading anti-Purge badges at a Remembrance Day party. But all good things come to an end and so did this morbid bond over a mutual love for violence when Ben realizes Andy's obsession is more talk than execution and snaps, something that makes us very worried for Ben's girlfriend, Kelen.
In episode 5, we see Ben and Kelen out on a double date with Andy and a friend of Kelen's. While the four of them discuss books, Ben brings up his interest in historical literature on the Purge and its ideals - something that clearly puts off his date, and by extension, Kelen too. Later in the day, as Ben and Andy are playing an extremely violent video game, Ben asks Andy to tone down on his intense raving of the Purge in front of romantic prospects and play it cool.
This makes Andy accuse Ben of being ashamed of his true instincts enough to play innocent in front of Kelen. Ben, in an attempt to prove his inherent love for violence, ends up bragging about how he killed the farmer a few days ago. This visibly freaks Andy out enough to begin awkwardly stuttering around Ben about how he shouldn't go around telling people. And then the inevitable happens - realizing he can't let a witness like that roam free, Ben grabs one of Andy's many knives and stabs him brutally, causing his imminent death within the next half an hour.
It's obvious in his pursuit of satisfying his violent urges without leaving trails behind, Ben is losing his mind. He hasn't been able to stop thinking about murder the exact way we saw Drew Andrews' test subjects talk about violence. Ben is the living proof of how this supposed 'release' is a facade - an antithesis to the whole purge-curbs-violence-around-the-year propaganda. If anything, purging on that annual celebration of violence only spurred Ben's inherent need to kill people, and while he has been successful at hiding it from Kelen, it won't be long until her anti-purge beliefs get in the way of his murderous instincts.
If Kelen finds out what Ben has been up to, there's no way she will either understand or condone any of these murders he feels the need to commit. And if it comes to a point where she stands in his way, the way Ben's going, he won't back down. He will most likely take her out for no fault of her own, just for crossing him.
'The Purge' season 2 airs on Tuesdays at 9 pm only on USA Network.