The bulk of this season finale is told in the context of a current day interview being conducted with Lana Winters by a reporter with the Kennedy Center Honors. Through this interview, we find out what has become of the rest of the key players from Briarcliff.
The little bit we do not get from Lana is a brief recap of what was not told to us in the beginning of the season. Johnny is walking through the remnants of Briarcliff while listening to Lana’s audio book about the fall of Briarcliff. This is when the honeymooning couple enters that we saw in the first couple of episodes. It was in fact Johnny that cut the husband’s arm off.
During the interview it is revealed that in addition to writing 6 best sellers, Lana really made her mark in television. She snuck into Briarcliff with a camera crew and made a documentary showing the appalling conditions that it fell into after the state took it over. Lana tells an even better story of how she found Sister Jude and rescued. Lana admits that never happened, but would have been the ending she wanted. Jude was gone by the time she arrived.
Johnny is shown as a member of the crew working with the interview team, and has gained entry into Lana’s home.
Lana also tells of how she visited Kit, after having found out that he took Jude out of Briarcliff. Kit rescued Sister Jude from Briarcliff so that he could finally leave everything behind and move on with his life. Jude had some rough times, but Kit’s children took her out to the woods one day, and when they returned she was better than ever.
Jude became a grandmother of sorts to the children, but after about 6 months she got sick. Jude eventually passed away, calling on the Angel of Death for the last time, saying she was finally ready for her.
Lana had another expose that drew some ire from the community. She confronted Cardinal Timothy Howard with evidence of Dr Arden’s human experimentation. In light of this, Cardinal Howard committed suicide.
During the interview, Lana confesses a secret she has held for years. She tells the interviewer that her son did not die at birth as she had claimed in her book. He survived, and she gave him up for adoption so that he could have a regular life that she wouldn’t be able to provide. She did track him down as a child and saw him once, helping him with a bully. Throughout all of this, Johnny is sitting in the other room listening.
After Lana visited with Kit, they saw each other more frequently, to the point where Lana became godmother to Kit’s children. Kit remarried and his children grew up to be a successful law professor and neurosurgeon. Kit was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in his early 40’s, and disappeared. A follow up scene shows the white lights returning for Kit and presumably taking him away. He is never heard from again.
The interview crew leaves, and Lana calls out Johnny, knowing that he is still there. Johnny reveals that he killed the first crew member that showed up and took his spot. Lana tells Johnny that she knew this day would always come. In reality, police had questioned her about the murder of a couple in Oliver Thredson’s old house, and the suspect was Johnny.
Johnny tells Lana that he knew she was his mother that day at the playground when she helped him. He bought Thredson’s confession tape online and drew the conclusion that Oliver had loved him and Lana never did.
Johnny pulls out a gun and points it at Lana. She sweet talks him into putting the gun down, and in a not so unexpected turn, Lana takes the gun and kills Johnny.
That’s all folks. Season two is now over. A mostly enjoyable season, with some unexplained/unfinished storylines, such as the aliens and the “specialness” of Kit’s children. The devil in Briarcliff portion of the season was very interesting and entertaining, but didn’t seem to fit in with the story at all. They did do a very good job of turning Lana into a semi-villain of sorts, and the scenes in the last episode of Sister Jude’s rejuvenation and death were very moving and extremely well done.
I can’t wait to see what they have in store for season three next fall.
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