'Utopia' Season 1 Ending Explained: True purpose of Jessica Hyde and secret behind the comic book
Spoilers for 'Utopia' Season 1
The twists and turns of 'Utopia' are many, with most of them crowded in towards the finale. While the show's "ragtag group of underdogs" may have saved the world, all they've actually managed is a temporary fix — and in doing so, may have opened the door to an even greater threat down the line. With the game-changing events of the season finale, we take a look at just what it all means, and what kind of world we return to when Season 2 returns.
Who is Mr Rabbit?
Central to the show's events is Mr Rabbit. As revealed by Agent Katherine Milner (Sonja Sohn), Mr Rabbit was a rogue member of a US task force assigned to design and stockpile biological weapons. Mr Rabbit started a new shadow organization called Harvest and sold deadly diseases to the highest bidder. After a deal went sour with regard to the SARS virus, Mr Rabbit was captured, tattooed, and released — with the belief that he could be hunted down. However, Mr Rabbit turned the tables, taking out everyone who knew his identity, then went underground.
As it turns out, Katherine Milner's story ought to be taken with a pinch of salt, as the tattoed symbol for "rabbit" is revealed to have been branded on her side, proving that she is Mr Rabbit after all. The tattoo on Kevin Christie's (Jon Cusack) chest is likely a misdirect — after all, the first thing he says when it's revealed is that "this tattoo does not mean what you think it means."
What are Harvest's goals?
As far as Kevin Christie is concerned, his plan is to create a national panic in America with an engineered disease and the vaccine he deals out to cure victims will sterilize them, in order to reduce the global population to a more manageable state — something that the Avengers' Thanos would have congratulatory snaps for. However, it appears that Kevin's goals and those of Katherine aka "Mr Rabbit" differ.
All Katherine wanted was the return of Jessica Hyde (Sasha Lane). Using the 'Utopia' comic, Katherine lured Jessica straight home so that Katherine could have control of the real prize — the sheer number of different diseases that have somehow been stored on Jessica's back. After Jessica was bitten by an infected bunny, she fell prey to Kevin Christie's disease, making her too weak to fight back.
Katherine appears to have her own plan to use disease to usher in a new Utopia — and she has Jessica, Jessica's unwilling father and a very willing Arby (Christoper Denham) on her side.
Where are our comic book nerd heroes?
Wilson Wilson (Desmin Borges) finds that his beliefs line up with Kevin's, just enough for him to join his team. Becky (Ashleigh LaThrop), after discovering that her Diels disease was in fact an early experiment by Harvest, finds herself trapped with Kevin and Wilson after the latter's betrayal. Ian (Dan Byrd), Grant (Javon 'Wanna' Walton) and Alice (Farrah Mackenzie) have been taken in by the cops, and as far as the public knows, they are bioterrorists who destroyed the only known cure for the "Stearns" virus.
Speaking of which, with the fake vaccine destroyed, the so-called Steans virus is still running rampant and needs its own cure. Micheal Stearns (Rainn Wilson) might be working on just that, having saved one last egg containing the virus, and is last seen driving out of Chicago. With his life in ruins following the reveal that his wife was merely an agent of Harvest, Stearns has nothing left but to find an actual cure for the virus.
This is important, as his last cure only resulted in the death of Lily's (Hadley Robinson) twin — and the Stearns virus has not stopped spreading.
What lies ahead for Season 2?
Assuming the show gets a second season, our shows protagonists are in a dire place, all directly beneath the thumbs of their enemies. Kevin Christie is perfectly poised to just restart production on the sterility vaccine, meaning that it's up to Stearns to find a cure and expose Kevin all at once. In the meantime, Jessica's body is about to be used to give Katherine all that she needs to enact a new plan of deadly diseases.
And the only ones who know her identity are all trapped at Home. The last image of the series reveals that Jessica's father is working on an all-new comic, however, and that may be the key to uncovering everything when Season 2 returns. All episodes of Season 1 of 'Utopia' are now available on Amazon Prime.