The NOS4A2 Season Finale Managed to Find Some Hope in Its Very Weird Darkness – Gizmodo

Jonathan Langdon as Lou Carmody, Ashleigh Cummings as Vic McQueen, Jahkara J. Smith as Maggie Leigh, and Jason David as Wayne McQueen.Photo: Zach Dilgard/AMC

AMCs Joe Hill adaptation NOS4A2 wrapped up its second season last night. After bringing the epic conflict between TVs oddest vampire and the motorcycle-riding young mom whos trying to end his reign of terror to surreal heights in its second-to-last episode, the finale felt like a giant exhale...for the most part.

Throughout season two, NOS4A2 has shifted its focus away from its troubled hero, Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings), and onto its even more troubled villain, Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto). We got a full-on backstory, showing us Manx in his pre-vampire days, growing up in the brothel where his mother worked. There, he started to cultivate his hatred of women; he also naively began working as a procurer for the town pedophile (as it happens, young Manx ends up killing them both).

We also met Manxs wife, Cassie (Celeste Arias), who he grows to loathe because he thinks she doesnt support his dream of starting a chauffeur business. (She doesnt, but thats mostly because she thinks Manx is prioritizing his ambitions over his familys day-to-day survival.) She dies circa the late 1930s, which is also when Manx transforms their young daughter, Millie (Mattea Conforti), into a mini-vampire wholl stay frozen in childhood forever.

All this gives more than enough insight into Manxs motivations, as well as the terrifying rage thats always bubbling just below his overly formal mannerisms. That NOS4A2 wanted to expose Manxs inner layers makes sense; not only is he the title character, but theres also so much about him that feels wildly random without context. Why is he obsessed with Christmas? Millie was born on December 25. Why the twisted need to save the kids he kidnaps? Hes trying to make up for aiding a child molester. Why does he have a fancy-ass Rolls-Royce Wraith? Well, it was to be the flagship car in that business that never quite got off the ground.

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Thanks to season one, we already know all about Vic McQueen and a fair amount about her BFF, Maggie (Jahkara J. Smith, who brings some much-needed brightness to the shows perpetual gloom), so it makes sense for Charlie to get his due. And Quinto is able to make his fantastical character feel believable in all his guises, including those involving a ton of old-age make-up when Manxs powers are at their weakest. But all that focus on character-building, not to mention all those flashbacks, robbed NOS4A2's second seasonof some of its forward momentum.

While season one was all about a teenaged Vic discovering her powersalong with her entry into the strange world that brought her into contact with Manx in the first placeseason two has rarely felt as exciting or urgent. Its also been obvious from the jump that season twos thrust would be Manx kidnaps Vics kid, building toward a showdown inside Christmasland, the holiday-themed psychic creation where Manx hides his stolen children.

Season twos curveballs, if you can call them that, come courtesy of the kids at the center of the Vic-Manx power struggle: Vics son Wayne (Jason David), and Millie Manx. NOS4A2 has shown us several children being snatched up by the villain and his assistant, Bing (lafur Darri lafsson, whose ability to make such a monstrous character sympathetic is pretty astonishing), and we see how Manx feeds on the essence of the young souls once theyre ensconced in his Wraith. But its not until Wayne is captured that we really see how the transformation affects Manxs victims, beyond their sudden sprouting of pointy monster teeth. Theres a mind-control element that turns vulnerable kids against their parents, which Vic finds out the hard way when she and Maggie charge into Christmasland to rescue a boy who stubbornly doesnt want to be rescued.

Meanwhileamid her growing suspicions that Christmasland is more prison than playlandMillie reunites with her own long-lost mother, who pops up as a ghost to remind her daughter of the life she left behind. Its a startling enough encounter that Millies inspired to slip through Christmaslands borders and enter the real world at the end of episode nine. Finale spoilers below, so stop reading if you havent watched season twos tenth episode, Bats.

Christmasland is goneblown up by Vic and Maggies strategically placed array of bombs after Vic manages to rescue Wayne and free the other kids. Charlie Manx is gonekilled when Vic makes his Wraith crash through the magical bridge she uses to get around, then cremated when his body washes up in the real world. You know he aint coming back from that, especially when we see his Wraith being crushed to bits in a junkyard.

What remains, however, is the trauma. When the scene flashes to one month later, we see Wayne still hasnt fully recovered from his time under Manxs spell; neither has Vic, for that matter. But we do see that the familywith the help of the steadfast Lou (Jonathan Langdon)is starting to figure out the healing process. Not so lucky is little Millie Manx, whose eagerness to break into the world beyond Christmasland apparently evaporated as soon as she escaped. Not only is she reluctant to break the special ornament thatll release her soul and restore her to real girl status, shes determined to rebuild Christmasland, though its unclear if she has inherited her fathers ability to do that.

What is perfectly clear, however, is that her turn toward redemption earlier in the season was just a temporary thing; now that shes prowling around the ruins of Christmasland, shes taken to feeding on any human who dares get too close. Well, a ghouls gotta eat, right?

AMC hasnt yet announced anything about bringing NOS4A2 back for a third season, but the finale does leave one obvious place for the story to pick up: with Maggie. After her relationship with Tabitha (Ashley Romans) ends, mostly because the down-to-earth FBI agent would prefer not to have a girlfriend whos a magical risk-taker by nature, Maggie decides to fully embrace her supernatural gifts. Shes been through a load of shit over the last two seasonsshes been beat up, run over, stabbed, and worst of all, treated as a second-banana characterbut it hasnt stopped her from being curious about what other hidden realms are out there for her to explore.

Last we see of her, shes excitedly taking an enchanted elevator to somewhere called the World of Thought. If NOS4A2 decides to keep going, it should leave vampires, motorcycles, and anything pertaining to Christmas behind, and absolutely follow Maggie instead.

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The NOS4A2 Season Finale Managed to Find Some Hope in Its Very Weird Darkness - Gizmodo