Another episode that brings the Lost vibes, at least in terms of basic structure. We’re jumping back in time to catch up with what a certain subset of characters were doing between seasons, taking us up to the same point where we were at the end of the last week’s episode. Totally brings back those Lost early season 2 memories, where we spent like three weeks waiting to resolve the hatch cliffhanger. I’m eager to move forward and find out what happens next, but I’m also curious about what’s been happening in the interim, so I’m all right with this interlude (spoilers for the season 2 premiere.)
After the events of last season, Kevin, Jill, and Nora are attempting to figure out what their lives will be going ahead. When Nora gets an incredibly-creepy offer on her house from some departure obsessives, she decides she has to get out of Mapleton. The destination? Miracle, Texas, where the new makeshift family ends up making some big moves to change their lives.
For me, the best part of this episode is the further insight into Miracle. For all that it’s a picturesque little “heart of America” type town, its bustling pilgrimage-tourism industry works out well for the residents but gets darker and more desperate on the flipside. Lost, searching people are grasping to get close to Miracle in any way that they can – clamoring to vacation in their state/national(?) park (I didn’t catch which) is like queuing up for Coachella tickets, and real estate is so prized that available houses are sold same-day at auction. As the Garveys and Nora wade into this frenzied environment, there’s some sense of, “Wow, what is wrong with all these people?”, but as their own idyllic Miracle dreams get threatened, they’re pushed further and further to preserve them.
Another thing I appreciate is some relative honesty between Kevin, Nora, and Jill. The conversations and resulting reactions aren’t all necessarily what I would’ve wanted, but I’m so sick of TV characters artificially clinging on to secrets and causing huge conflicts that could be avoided if they just talked to each other. Here’s hoping that trend continues with them.
It’s another episode that’s fairly light on Christopher Eccleston. Matt is in a couple scenes, welcoming Nora and the Garveys to Miracle. It’s clear that he’s caught a bit of the Miracle mania as well, not as reasonably well-adjusted as he appeared in the season premiere. Like Nora, he’s latched onto Miracle as something that he needs, and he’ll put himself through a lot to hold onto it. Eccleston does a nice job playing it, that slight addict tinge of forced cheerfulness as he insists that everything’s great. He also has what feels like a quintessentially-Matt reaction to unexpected house guests, which makes me smile.
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