After the hugely dramatic revelations of last
week, we’ve arrived at the season finale. Let’s see how they wrap this up
(preferably without killing the whole cast again).
After the obligatory ominous scenes we actually start
with Max seeing a ghost for once – his father at the foot of his bed who leaves
behind a watch. When he goes to tell Ellie, he finds her trying to leave
without telling anyone (nice, Ellie, real nice); she knows who Eve is (she is)
so she considers all her questions to be answered (Uh… I can think of a few
more). But Max begs her to at least try to speak to his dad since he’s started
haunting him again, which Ellie grudgingly agrees to. Dad’s quite good with
communicating with objects – leaving a photograph this time.
Max wants Ellie to touch the objects, see if she can get
a vision; but she refuses, thinking Max wanted it too much and was just seeing
things. As far as they know, he’s never been in the asylum, so what’s the point
of even trying (really Ellie? Wow, 2 seconds touching the watch, that’s all he
asks). She plays sceptic with the pictures and the watch appearing (really,
after what they’ve been though, the medium plays sceptic). Finally, grudgingly,
Ellie holds the picture, but doesn’t get a vision. He wants her to keep trying
but she doesn’t want to see any more ghosts, she just wants to leave.
Max confronts her about leaving, she’ll be going
somewhere she can’t tell anyone anything about ghosts, she came looking for
answers and didn’t really get any etc etc. It’s not that productive
Meanwhile Dan returns, more than slightly panicked and
tells Keria about following Warren, his blackout, and finding a dead body which
may be Kate’s. Keira, being sensible, wants to go to the police, but Dan wasn’t
to doublecheck what he saw – so goes to confront Warren. And Warren cracks and
tells Dan about Joseph Baylor, the evil man who worked in the hospital how he
could communicate with the dead and the evil, terrible things he did to the
people here. He claims that when he found out Warren stopped him – but it was
too late. He blames Joseph for Kate’s death – because killing girls is what he
does.
Keira sees that Ellie is leaving and worries that it’s
because Warren has said something after Keira told him that Warren and Ellie
both had the same simple on their arm. Keira is treated to Ellie blowing up a
bit at her as well as Warren - and Ellie deciding she needs to hear what Warren
said himself. She drags Max into a search for documents – which gets nowhere.
But Ellie is convinced Warren knows something and was involved in the Bedlam
circle that abused people. Max points out it can’t just be a symbol for the
abusers because they’ve marked Ellie with it as well – she’s being too
simplistic.
Their argument is derailed by Max walking into his room
and seeing a funeral urn full of ashes dumped on his bed with the word “son”
written in them – and a key buried among them. As soon as Ellie touches it, she
gets a vision. Through which she sees a place – a passage to a garden with a
sundial. Max sets off to search, but Ellie sees Eve and decides she can’t go –
that Max has to go alone – until Max gasps at the sheer ridiculousness of this
They find the sundial, Ellie takes a moment to chide Max
for being obsessed with his issues (please, join me in gaping at that
statement) before the find the door Eve left through – which the key they found
fits. They open it – and Eve is inside there as well, time for another vision
of Eve down the tunnel.
Back to Dan and Keira, with Dan telling Keira what Warren
told her – she is both trauamtised at her friend’s death (Kate and Keira have
been friends since they were small children) and duly suspicious that Warren
knows Joseph has come back for revenge but doesn’t know what he’s getting
revenge for. She thinks Warren has lost his mind and killed Kate – and wants to
call the police now. Dan promises he will.
Max and Ellie are still exploring the tunnels which, in
true Bedlam fashion, are very very spooky indeed. They discuss the chance of
Max’s dad being there – since he didn’t die there how can they get a vision of
him (if Eve is Ellie, she clearly didn’t die there either? Ellie’s logic is not
excellent). They get split up in the
dark – Ellie following Eve and Max following his dad’s ghost; until someone grabs
Max and throws him in a small room with his dad’s keys (they’re rapidly running
out of junk his dad could have owned)… and his dad’s ghost. And this time, the
ghost talks to him, it’s all touching and sweet – until the ghost turns into
Joseph Baylor who declares “she’s mine” and puts a plastic bag over Max’s head.
Ellie keeps wandering in ever increasing spookiness and has the supreme vision – Eve being taken out of a cage by Joseph Baylor, taking to a room with blood stained dolls. He approaches her with a knife while she runs screaming - he chases and slips on the marbles she dropped, dropping the knife, she screams “no daddy!” (daddy? Oh the plot thickens!). He gets up and grabs her, but she has picked up the knife and he ends up with a deep stab wound in his side/stomach – letting her go. Ellie returns to herself – in the room of the blood-stained dolls (super-creepy dolls I might add) and Baylor enters the room.
Back to the surface, Keira confronts Dan not
understanding why he hasn’t called the police and why he is protecting his boss
who has killed her best friend. Dan spills the big secret - Warren is his dad.
Meanwhile, Max wakes up, outside, tied up, with a bag over his head. He
struggles free and manages to pull the bag off before it kills him and rushes
all dishevelled to Dan and Keira asking where Warren is so they can find
Joseph. Dan and Max go to look –Keira thinks Warren has Ellie now and calls the
police.
Dan finds Warren – on top of the building ready to jump,
calling himself a coward who thought he could come back to bedlam as if nothing
had happened, saying he’s been changed by the building. Darren grabs him and
pulls him from the edge and tells him Ellie is missing. Warren goes to rescue
Ellie – but knocks Dan unconscious, he’s already lost one child to Joseph
Baylor, he refuses to lose another
Ellie is in Joseph Baylor’s hands – and he’s creepier
than creepy. Killing him only made him stronger he claims – and that he, like
she and her
brother Jed (moooore revelations!) see no barrier between the living and
the dead. Yes, he’s creepy, ye gods he is ultra ultra creepy.
Warren runs down the building, sending Keira to look
after the unconscious Dan and dragging Max behind him, Max is full of
questions, Warren doesn’t have time for answers – he’s just powerful and
dangerous. At last we have a confrontation – Max and Warren meet up with Ellie
and Joseph; Ellie horrified that Warren knew about Joseph, but Warren says he
never realised Ellie was Eve. Warren and Joseph argue about the string of girls
Jospeh killed – since before Eve/Ellie was even born and Joseph mocks Max about
his dad’s death – all while sunny, glowing Eve points Ellie to a knife on the
floor. She slashes him – making him let go, and Warren tells her and Max to
run, leaving Warren and Joseph.
Outside, Ellie sees Eve fade away, leaving behind her
stuffed toy. She picks it up and has another vision – of Joseph, stabbed,
coming to get Eve, but being hit from behind by a younger Warren, who rescues
her from Bedlam. In the present, Warren stands over Joseph’s body while Max
asks Ellie what Joseph was – but no-one knows.
The police arrive that Keira called, they go into the
basement with Dan… and find Warren’s body, his throat cut, and no sign of
Joseph. On his body was the suicide note he wrote for when he was going to
throw himself off the building. His note leaves everything to Dan.
Ellie realises that Joseph must have killed Warren and
decides she’s the only one who can stop him and she’s going to make him wish he
never had a daughter. So she – and Max – are staying at bedlam.
As we end, we zoom in on Ellie’s abdomen – inside is a foetus
with a Bedlam mark on it (so much for her abortion, it seems).
So season finale notes.
Ok, that was an epic final confrontation, with bags of
creepy and an even creepier cliffhanger.
I was very wary of this season. Killing off the entire
cast from season 1 except Warren was a huge risk – but I’m impressed that they
managed it. And they kept the creepy levels high, Bedlam has always been
extremely good at atmosphere and this seasons maintained it throughout.
I liked very much that this series was a lot more
racially inclusive than last season and that Dan (and to a much lesser extent,
Keira) had their own stories and storylines rather than just being sidekicks or
background characters, even if we didn’t see as much of them as Ellie and Max.
It was a big improvement on Molly in the last season.
I’m much less happy with the complete absence of GBLT
characters – especially after the shoddy treatment of Ryan (last minute reveal
at that) at the end of season 1. It’s also glaring that while all the old cast
get some explanation for where they’ve gone, no matter how shallow, Ryan is
still unexplained.
My main problem with this season is Ellie. Her treatment
of the people around her (especially Max, and really epitomised in this episode
– she knew about his dad and for the first time he has a hint of him and she
drags her feet and tries to run?) just makes her a really unpleasant person.
I do feel they needed more on Joseph Baylor, or at least
more people saying his name. It felt a little out of the left field – they needed
to use some of the earlier episodes to stress his part in Bedlam (rather
than, say, having the ghostly bride who was raped so decided to attack
adulterous women). That’s one of my main complaints – too much of the
reveal was packed into the last episode without sufficient foundation or
foreshadowing.
