Hurray! We’re almost there, and with just one episode of the season left it means it’s time to start wrapping the storylines up and F.G.B set about laying the groundwork for that.
First up I spoke too soon in my praise for FBI Agent Borden. She is of course not who she says she is. Why I decided to give the show the benefit of the doubt, and believe that for once a member of law enforcement would be who they say they are, despite watching endless amounts of TV over the years, which provides enough experience to know law enforcement are never who they say they are, I’ll never know.
Who she is exactly is a mystery at the moment. But her interest in Hollow Sky is very much genuine. Unfortunately, that’s because she wants their technology and Arthur for herself. And to wrap up the clichés, Arthur’s nurse (whose name escapes me) is the one that has betrayed Willa. After she and Luke visit the FBI to speak to Agent Borden and make the discovery that Agent Borden isn’t Agent Borden, she calls Arthur’s nurse at home to warn him that someone will be coming to the house for Arthur and not to let anyone in.
Said warning is of course way too late as fake Borden is already there, along with her henchman who have taken Arthur hostage and are cleaning out the house. She thanks the nurse for getting in contact and assures him he did the right thing. The technology and Arthur are too important to just be rid of. The nurse is feeling a tad bad for his betrayal, but getting his reward and knowing his family will be safe will make him feel a lot better. That reward is being shot, which was completely obvious.
Given how much this show has struggled this season with pacing, this reveal that Arthur’s nurse has double crossed them all comes out of nowhere. There’s been no build-up and barely any screen time given to him, to suggest that he isn’t who he said he was or had bad intentions. Maybe the idea for the writers was to make the reveal as shocking as possible so we’d be wowed, but it doesn’t work.
Tom is finally freed by the Sheriff and makes his way home to Diane. Neither of them have a clue what is going on, where Holden is or Diego and they’re both worried sick. They call Jeff who puts Holden on the phone for a moment, but then the call cuts out. The mail man then arrives to deliver a package from Pastor Ian, which contains a heartfelt note and DVD of Holden sleeping. Sounds innocent enough, except in his sleep he’s tossing and turning and objects are flying through the room.
Tom, Diane and the Sheriff are all completely stunned as they realize just how special Holden really is.
Speaking of Holden, after last weeks episode ended with the revelation he has to go back into the realm, this episode sees him, Edgar, Charlie & Jeff transport the fridge to Edgar’s old house. The reasoning for this is tied up in a lot of technical words I don’t really understand, but I think the basics are in order to use the fridge to get to the realm it needs to be juiced up and Edgar’s house provides juice. With it now being occupied, Edgar & Charlie pose as gas safety officers to get into the house.
Holden & Jeff make their way to the house separately for some reason, and on the way, they’re met by Diego’s arm on the bridge. Diego then attempts to attack Holden, but Jeff reverses the car and they escape.
How exactly they manage to make it to the house if Diego’s army is blocking the bridge I don’t know, and the show clearly doesn’t want us to focus too much on that. They do make it there, Jeff, Charlie, Holden and Edgar get it juiced up, fill the fridge with water, give Holden a walkie-talkie and he’s soon swimming into the realm.
After a bit of initial confusion, Holden finds his way to Frost. He’s completely stunned that Frost is indeed ‘alive’ after seeing the demonic creature apparently take him. Frost explains that what Holden saw was a man being reunited with the love of is life. They then get down to business with Frost informing Holden that the only way he can undo the damage he’s done, and more specifically close the hole, is to kill his younger self. Holden is still holding onto the hope that he can be a normal person, with a normal life, and he’s destined for far more than that. Holden isn’t exactly pleased by the idea of killing his younger self, but Frost holds firm and tells Holden it’s what needs to be done before Diego can be sent back.
After Frost disappears, Holden does indeed stab his younger self. He apologises and his younger self pleads before bleeding out. Holden is then being pulled out of the fridge, and tells Jeff, Edgar & Charlie that he’s done part of what needs to be done, and now he needs to go find Diego.
As Charlie and Holden are all set to go to his house, believing that the most likely place Diego will go, Edgar wants to go back to the hospital. He explains he felt safe there, people were safe from him, and now he’s done what he needed to do, Hollow Sky can do whatever they want to him. Jeff agrees to take Edgar back, but not before Charlie and Edgar have a final word. In that she reveals that she also saw something in the realm, and that is that Holden is going to die. This is obviously to set up the finale and the final battle with Diego, but Edgar very much hopes she’s wrong.
When Charlie and Holden do return to his home, they’re greeted by his parents who are glad he’s safe and Holden wondering where Diego is. With a delightfully panned shot, we discover that Edgar isn’t far away.
Whilst all this is going down, my new favourite trio are having bonding time of their own. Willa and Luke decide to pay a visit to Hollow Sky where they discover death and destruction, and soon meet the man in the yellow jacket.
Luke questions what on earth has happened, and the man in the yellow jacket aptly informs them that the people woke from hibernation and went on a killing spree. Willa informs him that fake Borden is on her way to Hollow Sky for the technology so they need to get rid of it. Man in the yellow jacket informs Willa that they have moved it. There’s just so much sass between the two characters in these scenes, that you can really tell the writers enjoy writing the dialogue for them. The man in the yellow jacket goes on to take Willa & Luke to where Frost is currently in hibernation. He insists that Frost will eventually wake up, and when he does, he will show them all the way to the realm. He refuses to listen to any word against Frost or the realm which is completely understandable, given how much he has sacrificed for Hollow Sky. The man in the yellow jacket needs to believe that everything has been for something, otherwise all the pain and hurt that has been caused is pointless.
Willa takes a moment alone with Frost and in a powerful scene informs him that she might be his daughter by blood, but she’s not responsible for his sins, and she will ends Hollow Sky.
If the second half of this season has taught us anything, it’s that Willa is a far more interesting person away from Holden. That relationship just sucks the life out of her, to an extent him, and also the show. I know that’s not something shippers will want to hear and will point to the moments and time shared together during the first season, but they were few and far between, very much bonded by their time in the realm. Now that they’re out of it, their lives are on two completely different paths, and they just don’t gel well together.
At the beginning of the season I could feel the writers were going to build something between Willa and Luke. The seeds were planted towards the end of the first season, and I was somewhat on the fence over whether the show really needed to go there with them. After all, when this season began the show was badly struggling to juggle the amount of plots it had offered, we didn’t need a pointless love triangle sucking up more screen time. To my pleasant surprise though, the writers have done a solid job in naturally building Willa & Luke’s relationship this year, and the same goes for Charlie & Holden. As the season has progressed they’ve also dropped certain storylines, and shifted the focus towards ones that are far more interesting and move the story forward.
The criticism of the season being too slow still stands though. It took far too long to build Diego’s story up, and as said above, there really should’ve been more build up to Arthur’s nurse betraying them.
The season is finally drawing to a close though, with one episode left and you can watch it on Thursday at 8pm on Freeform.
