'The Purge' season 2 episode 5 reveals Esme's transformation into an NFFA supporter through her sister's tragic past
This article contains spoilers for season 2, episode 5.
After weeks of watching Esme Carmone shaken and stirred from the sudden purging of Drew Andrews, we finally have some answers on why the NFFA surveillance security official was so disturbed by the psychology professor's death. We have known Drew and Esme's bond emerged through Esme's sister, who had been implied to have lived a troubled and short life, but in tonight's episode we finally find out just what had happened to Sophie Carmone that pushed her over the edge and how Drew came into the equation in all of this.
In a flashback from Esme's past, we see her in a whole different light, back when she wasn't working with the NFFA. Dressed in typically fun outfits, her hair worn in long tresses, a relatively younger Esme can be seen walking into her father's house where her younger sister Sophie lives too. Esme's family looks like a fun household and we soon learn the girls' mother has passed away, and in the wake of her death, Sophie has been a recluse, confined to her bedroom mostly.
When Esme barges into Sophie's room, she spots prescription drugs in her bags and striation marks on her wrist, followed by massive bruises and bite marks on her breast. Sophie spills to Esme reluctantly that it is their father. The sexual assault began after their mother died and Esme immediately tells Sophie that she is coming to live with her and not spending a single day in that house.
The next we see the two sisters, they are at Esme's place; Sophie is reluctant about attending therapy under Drew, thus revealing how the now dead psychologist came into their lives. Esme tries her best to convince her sister to keep attending therapy, but right after she leaves for work, Sophie's phone starts getting calls from their father. She ignores the calls but ends up packing her bags and leaving. The scene shifts to a Purge night where Esme's father comes knocking at her door asking about Sophie's whereabouts, but instead, he gets Esme's cold shoulder as she accuses him of his morbid actions towards his little girl.
The man looks apologetic but that isn't enough to melt Esme, who just leaves him stranded outside the house and locks the door from inside as the Purge commencement siren goes off. Despite his earnest pleas, Esme doesn't let her father in. Inevitably, the moment the Purge commences, people on the streets flock around the old man and end up killing him - something that Esme watches from the window, unflinchingly. It's possible that witnessing her heinous father being taken out by the NFFA approved night of violence is what spurred her to have faith in the system. Purging ended the life of a man who had scarred their family for good, so it's no wonder that she sticks by their rules so ardently.
In the present time, Esme might be trying her hardest to dig deep into the mystery of Drew's death, but we finally know what urged a reasonably sound woman to have faith in a system that commercializes violence and monetizes killing other humans. While we don't know how exactly Sophie died, it is of some respite to know that Esme isn't some shallow conditioned cold-blooded believer of violence that the NFFA propagates.
'The Purge' season 2 airs on Wednesdays at 9 pm only on USA Network.