"The future's gonna be what the future's gonna be."
So, the season finale is here, and I'm still a little speechless, this is an episode filled with a whole lot of fuck you's and a lot of what the fuck's, there are a lot of mentions of baby Jesus and destiny n one way or another so all I can do is try to make sense of some of this. We pick right up where we left off and things get crazier and crazier, Malcolm hits Ramon for throwing Hailey, and he says the whole family is insane, which I think was a little too much. They take her to the emergency room where they find out she has a hairline fracture, mama Ashley is pissed and wants Ramon to be committed but Kristen and Audrey defend him saying she has always resented her brother and saying Malcolm's the violent one and she kicks them out.
"I am not the enemy."
Farid is feeling the weight of his actions but it seems no one in his family is great at figuring out how to handle it and they're afraid of him. We see a flashback of young Farid where his bipolar mother forces him to punish himself for "killing his father" and then she decides to do it herself but Amir stops her. I have to say I think the acting here should've been better to show the full weight of this. He starts thinking he deserves to be punished and he even uses a zanjeer, a sort of cat o' nine tails.
"Stay here with your God."
Navid and Kristen decide to escape their individual family nightmares but it seems Navid is worried about how fast they're going and how they're following expectations even though no one's pressuring them, but Kristen sees to have her own insecurities and she's kind of a bitch to him. Which they will later agree on when he goes to say goodbye since it seems he and his mother are going to live with his aunt in San Francisco, it's very awkward goodbye. Farid goes to Chuck for help who, while taking care of him, says wanting to know all the answers is a kind of heresy for Islam and reminds him the word itself means surrender, and though that might sound nice it also sounds like the perfect way to keep a people compliant.
On the way to the hospital, Ramon tries to explain he's not crazy but then goes off to hunt a fire figure, though it seems Hailey also smelled the fire. Does this mean she has "porous mind" too? Or are children more perceptive? Anyways, Ramon runs off and Duc decides this is the right time to confront his father about sleeping with an Asian prostitute because it represents his mother to him (I mean, come on, you can be mad about the act, but not all Asian women belong to you, you know?). Greg calls him out on his bullshit, even his celibacy, he tells him he's the one who pretends to be perfect, and it's not working out for him. Then he goes straight to Carmen like a lost puppy and she takes care of him. There's a nice scene where she feels his pain and tells him he has to let go now, and he cries. It as a good scene and I'm pretty sure it would've been amazing for me if I had ever given a fuck about Duc.
"What the fuck have we done?"
Ashley's interview doesn't go as well as she thought when Sharon makes a comment about diversity hiring but she does decide to accept the job offer at Cloth because in spite of telling her over and over again she should do what's best for her, Malcolm remarks how much safer the money would make them. The dealings get interrupted by the big ass emergency, but let's put a pin on that mindboggling stuff.
Audrey's already on edge when she goes to give the interview and then a caller asks about the company's issues with inhumane labor and brings attention to a child labor allegation so Audrey turns on Steve on live Television and then she tells him to go fuck himself and leaves him there stunned. So... I guess she's done with that?
"This is why liberals always loose, anything but utopian is unacceptable"
Greg goes to visit Ike where he learns that when Ramon was a kid Ike dropped him because he was on fire, and he says now he's on fire again, I knew Ike's schizophrenia would be called into question. But then again, he does say he doesn't believe in aliens because they would've contacted him by now since everything else does. Okay.
Ramon's on his way to meet the fire figure and his bike gets stolen by Henry's homeless friend, though it turns out his name is Henry and the man Ramon knows as Henry might not even be real. But that confusion aside, Ramon continues his journey towards the mountain and at 11 11 Mount Hood erupts and the ground shakes. We see the news say there have been casualties and injured and the air is not considered safe for breathing. He continues to recklessly walk towards Mount Hood and there's a very weird moment where we see people's shadows behind him. Well, there are a lot of very weird moments.
So, I guess that's that. Is this the beginning of the apocalypse? I find it somewhat exciting if they're going to go full-on apocalypse next season, and yes, a second season is not a sure thing, but it's Allan Ball, I'm pretty sure HBO will give him at least one more shot. I don't really know how to feel, I think there was something missing about the weight necessary for an episode like this, it was too much of a mixture between the day to day stuff and the full-on crazy shit. I did not like the route Farid took and I did not like how Kristen and Navid's relationship felt ruined, but those last few minutes were impressive, I mean, it feels apocalyptic, the beginning of the end, and I would really like for them to take a leap and go all in, I think something very cool and very original could come of it.
"What does it all mean?"
What did you think of the finale? Are you intrigues by what come's next if there's another season? I look forward to your comments.
