The Big Door Prize S2E10: Deercoming
At the end of last week’s episode, Dusty — shaken by the revelation that he was in Alice’s Morpho vision, and less sure than he was an episode earlier that getting back together with Cass was the right thing — takes his aggressions out on the “jumped up fucking fortune cookie,” and seems to have broken Morpho. The screen now simply reads, “see guide.” Except there is no guide that we know of.
Teenage lovebirds Trina and Jacob also decided last week to move in together, pending parental approval. That approval would normally be unlikely, but the adults on this show are caught up enough in their own drama that Trina can usually manipulate them into doing her bidding. Except this time, Dusty’s too caught up with Morpho, and Cass is nowhere to be found. So Trina asks Jacob to run the idea by her dad, with the presumption that her parents are a “yes.”
Except while he’s doing this, she runs back to his room to do a little snooping. Last week, Jacob showed her Kolton’s Morpho card, recovered from his dead brother’s wallet. Jacob couldn’t bring himself to look at it, and asked Trina to respect that. She doesn’t. The minute Jacob’s distracted, she finds Kolton’s card and pulls it from its envelope. It reads: Guide.
It’s a pretty great reveal, especially given the obvious choice for guide would be Hana, given her inexplicable connection to the machine. And it reinforces the show’s central metaphor, as when Morpho showed everyone in the town their potential, what it really revealed is that none of them have any idea how to achieve it, and everyone just wants guidance in what to do next and how to live their best life.
So while on the surface, this episode is like last season’s finale — a town-wide event brings the characters together and brings their drama to a head — it’s really about Morpho. Yes, Dusty and Cass re-examine their relationship once again. Yes, Trina’s deceptions blow up in her face. Yes, Izzy gets a big selfish moment and then a moment that makes her look not so bad.
But that all feels like background stuff compared to the ongoing mystery of Morpho, and the deeper questions it contains. The first season, we wondered where the machine came from and how it worked and what its connection to Hana is; this season it beggars belief that it could know enough about the town’s residents to make an animated “vision” for each of them. And as its connection to Hana starts to come into focus, we get a bigger question: why? Who put this machine here (and there does seem to be someone), and where is all of this going?
And we come back to the big question we started with in the very first episode. What does it mean to live up to your potential? Is that even possible? Is it even desirable?
Everyone’s trying their best to find their way. And many of the characters — Jacob, Giorgio, Beau, Mr. Johnson — seem like they’re in a better place than they were when this all started. But Dusty’s been forced to re-examine his entire life, and in doing so harmed his relationships with his wife and his daughter, maybe irreparably. And while he was initially Morpho’s biggest skeptic, he’s now turned away from everyone else in his life, fruitlessly looking to the machine for answers. And while we get some tantalizing hints, we get no answers to end season two. Just a surreal final scene that raises even bigger questions for season three.
Stray potential:
• In between plot points, we get recurring glimpses of the Deercoming parade, complete with absurdly elaborate floats manned by various supporting characters. Honestly, this racially diverse small town with a thriving Main Street and the budget to hold big public events might be a more fantastical element than the machine that tells you your potential.
• We’ve talked all season about how the show swings, sometimes awkwardly, between silly and emotionally resonant. We’re not sure if Cass’ big moment of self-actualization coming while dressed as a giant meatball on Giorgio’s float works, but boy does it encapsulate everything about how this show operates.
• Subject’s TV coverage is taking a summer vacation but we’ll be back with more episodic reviews when The Umbrella Academy returns for its final season on August 8.