'The Purge' Season 2 Episode 6 upholds the frightening reality that being a purge target indicates being 'somebody' in the new America
This article contains spoilers for season 2, episode 6: 'Happy Holidays'
On tonight's episode 6 of 'The Purge' season 2, we finally reach the sickening depths of NFFA ideals. The New Founding Fathers of America have engrained and conditioned the public with the ideals of violence and its healing release so intensely that after commercializing the annual night of legalized crime through the concept of martyrdom, this week we learn how an American's existence is only valid in the nation reborn as long as someone wants to purge them. In short, propagated by broadcast and media is the idea that being purged is one of the most prestigious feats in the new America.
At the beginning of the episode, we see Delmont Mulroney as a radio show host commentating on the concept of the Purge. In conversation with him is his studio female guests - a middle-aged NFFA official and a young journalist severely anti-purge. The debate sparks on the topic of how the purge has been able to impact violence levels in the show's current timeline with the NFFA official propagating the pros of purging, and the journalist passionately countering the facade the NFFA would like everyone to believe.
This discussion arises in the wake of the murder of Andy Tran - a university student who was super into the idea of the Purge - something that eventually got him killed. Last week we saw Ben finally getting coerced by Andy to admitting his thirst for violence, and in a fit of enthusiasm, Ben ended up bragging about how he killed the farmer. Andy's visibly shaken reaction makes Ben realize he can't leave the boy walking like a witness and he ends up stabbing Andy repeatedly, eventually causing him to bleed to death in the elevator he was escaping in.
The crime was one of the two murders committed off-Purge in the last two years, helping us understand why it created such an outrage in a pro-violence system. The NFFA official at the radio show tries to excuse Andy's death as a case of suicide out of depression, which the journalist severely counters. The latter also brings up the case of the university girl murdered by a masked man on campus, along with the farmer who died from an apparent heatstroke, which unbeknownst to the public as of now, were both actually murders committed by Ben. So supporting the journalist's arguments, Ben is a walking billboard for advertising how the Purge environment only adds to violence as opposed to its purpose of reducing it throughout the year.
Things, however, get even more sickening, as the NFFA official on-air tries to snub the journalist saying she might take out her aggressive anti-purge beliefs next year on the annual night of violence. When they go off the air, Mulroney's radio host sides with the NFFA official and tells the journalist how her passion makes her a natural, but when the journalist straight-up asks the NFFa lady if she threatened her with the purge, the other two just laugh about it.
They show the journalist an app where people are rated on their how actively and how many people want to purge them, and given that the journalist has already scored a whopping 200 plus ever since their chat went on air, she should feel accomplished. After all, "you're nobody in America unless somebody wants to Purge you", the woman is informed and suddenly, the truth behind the idea of 'releasing through the healing power of violence' comes out in the open. There is no release; it's like a glorified, latent 'Hunger Games' of sorts and one would think this is the NFFA's subtle attempt at population control. Making money off of commercializing the trauma is just an added bonus.
'The Purge' season 2 airs on Tuesdays at 9 pm only on USA Network.