Into the Badlands wrapped up its second
season earlier this week. Getting into
spoilers here (for this episode, as well as Sleepy Hollow’s “Ragnarok” and Orange is the New Black’s “The Animals.”)
After
being separated for the whole of the season, Sunny and Veil finally find their
way back to one another, with Sunny fighting and slashing his way across the
wastelands to return to his family and Veil holding out in a hellish prison,
hoping Sunny’s still alive but having no assurance of that fact. In the finale, Sunny has finally made it back
to the Badlands and hits Quinn’s compound with Bajie, tearing it up something
good, and Veil and Sunny are finally reuinited… for about two seconds.
I know
that’s an exaggeration. They share a
beautiful time-stopping kiss together and Sunny is introduced, at last, to his
son Henry. There are all kinds of
baddies (and explosions) for Sunny to contend with, and Quinn in particular has
a knock-down drag-out fight with Sunny that gets super dicey in places. It seems like, after all the pain and all the
time apart, Sunny and Veil are going to get their hard-fought chance to begin a
life together, and the show does give that its due. It just doesn’t feel like it when, at the
last second, Quinn staggers back to his feet and grabs Veil, holding a blade to
her as he demands that Sunny hand over Henry in exchange for Veil. Sunny cries out in anguish as the woman he
loves makes the choice, stabbing Quinn through her own body to take him down
with her. With her final breaths, she
implores Sunny to teach Henry how to be good.
This episode
naturally brought to mind the deaths of Abbie on Sleepy Hollow and Poussey on Orange
is the New Black, and after my brain was able to compose thoughts more
complex than, They did it, they really
killed her – damnit, I started to compare my feelings here to my reactions
there.
First of
all, since Veil is very squarely Sunny’s love interest and her characterization
has, if only slightly, coasted on that a bit, that makes this the most classic fridging
of the three deaths. Veil does have a
small amount of agency in her death scene – if she had to die, I like that it
was while simultaneously killing Quinn, who was such a skin-crawlingly vile
captor to her – but ultimately, she’s dead so Sunny can mourn her (and feel
guilt about her death being caused by his past sins catching up to him, as
Nathaniel Moon hinted to him earlier in the season.)
In terms
of comparing it to the other two episodes, Veil’s death doesn’t make me see red
to the extent that Abbie’s did. Sleepy Hollow made me feel like it was
throwing half of its foundation as a show in the garbage, undermining that
wonderful character’s worth to the series while reframing her entire narrative
as having been about propping up Ichabod’s story. I don’t get that with Veil, in part because,
while I really liked her a lot, Into the
Badlands is more of an ensemble and has never been “about” Veil the way
that Sleepy Hollow was about Abbie. On a more positive note, I don’t really see
the show devaluing her. It will be
telling how the series moves forward, if the events here continue to
reverberate with Sunny for a long time, but at least in this moment, the
episode is heavy with the loss that Veil’s death brings.
That
said, Poussey’s death was done in such a way that I lamented that it had to be
her even as I understood the story reasons why they did it. It was a heartbreaking episode for me, and I
still miss Poussey terribly (it’s going to be such a different experience
watching season 5 without her in it.)
But just as Veil’s death doesn’t infuriate me like Abbie’s, it also doesn’t
move me like Poussey’s. That’s because
the story doesn’t do the work to make
it tragic but inevitable. In fact, it’s
pretty downright sloppy. There’s no way
Quinn should’ve still been alive after Sunny running him through multiples times with his sword (with rings on it!), but even if that wasn’t
the case, there’s nooooo way Sunny
would’ve turned his back on Quinn without cutting off his head first. After what happened with them at the end of
last season, Sunny would’ve made damn sure Quinn was really dead, and the way
he’s freely slicing off limbs and heads and cutting
a dude in half earlier in the episode only highlights how stupid it is for
him not to do the same here.
So, if
Abbie’s death left me shaking my fist and Poussey’s left me shaking with tears,
Veil’s left me shaking my head. My
prevailing thought, still, is for what? Why was it so essential that she had to die
in such a hastily-done way, and why am I seeing such a disappointing fridging
on a show I’ve come to expect more of?
Badly done, show – badly done.
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