The end of Awake was always go to be kind of unsatisfying . The show was cut curt after just one time of year and there were immense metaphysical questions as well as an Evil Conspiracy up in the air . So it ’s probably for the best that the show ’s creators opt for the Full Mindfuck terminate , as defend to attempt to make genuine stop . Here ’s what we get out of it .
spoiler ahead …
So there are a few ways to read what take place in last nighttime ’s series finale of Awake :
1 ) Rex is really bushed and Hannah is alive . And the episode where Michael run short bungee cord - jump and cease “ awaken up ” in the world where Rex is alive is the tight that Michael comes to facing realness . Michael almost has a genuine abreaction and starts coping with Rex ’s death , and break down cry and gross out out — but then he ca n’t handle letting go of his son , so he invent a whole illusion about Detective Hawkins , leading him to unravel this conspiracy that ’s all in his own head . In the goal , Michael ’s obsession with Hawkins and denial of his own Word ’s death leads him to go nuts and get himself lock away up — while meanwhile , his imaginary world in which Rex is alive has a perfect solvent , in which all the “ spoiled guys ” get caught .
2 ) Hannah is really dead and Rex is alert . And Michael look a crisis in last night ’s episode , when he realizes that so as to take in Captain Harper , the last of the coconspirator behind the car stroke , he must let go of his delusions about Hannah really being animated . That ’s why he has that extended aspiration episode where he come across his own self , who assure him that he has to take a drastic step to get Harper . And then he sound out goodbye to his wife in the pipe dream sequence , while also confronting the evidence that Harper was part of the evil confederacy . But once he follow in criminate Harper , going by the Christian Bible , he ’s meeting with his therapist who congratulates him on making a breakthrough in recognise the “ Hannah is awake ” reality as a ambition .
And at that moment , Michael check . He is finally recognizing that he ’s let go of his utter married woman , and he ’s going to have to entrust to live in a world with his Logos and mourn his wife ’s expiration . And rather , he concocts a novel phantasy , in which the therapist all of a sudden pauses like a videotape , and he is able to take the air out into a humans where both his wife and his Logos are alive . Surprise !
3 ) Both Hannah and Rex are alive . And Michael ’s just been having an extended fugue state . Or something ? I ’m not even certain how that would ferment . There ’s almost no way to take that ending literally , that I can see .
4 ) Michael has had a psychotic break . This is probably what “ really ” bump . As we ’ve pointed out over and over again , neither of Michael ’s worlds has ever entirely made sense , and this “ they ’re both alive ” ending decidedly made no sense at all . The show ’s final second are best seen as Michael divorcing himself from the genuine globe once and for all , encompass a altogether delusional fantasy in which he gets to have utterly everything he wants . We may never know what “ really ” happened on this show , but the most potential explanation is that the auto crash do Michael ’s brain to splinter . And the whole run of the show has been Michael reject to come to grips with reality , over and over again — until eventually , he just outright breaks .
practiced dead reckoning ? Both the wife and the kid are drained , there is no conspiracy , and Michael has been doing his caper as a bull this whole time , while getting less and less in touching with reality .
In any case , the bit that Michael “ take on ” his other ego , this show started to experience a mo like the finale of The Prisoner , where Number Six finally unmasks figure One and finds his own face there . That was our cue that the show is descending into surrealism , with Vega in a Penguin suit and door that go miraculously to other places , via dream system of logic . Including a farewell dinner party with Hannah . ( Oh , and the two shrink arguing with each other was priceless , especially Dr. Jones saying that if she ’s a figment of Michael ’s resource , that just proves even his subconscious is a better shrink than Dr. Lee . )
Except that The Prisoner was about escaping from the Village — while here , Michael is elude from realism . But in both cases , the “ leakage ” is a matter of bust out of the consensual reality that everybody else occupies , and confirm the soul ’s power to opt his own destiny . And that , apparently , always involves people in penguin suits and unearthly “ Dem Dry Bones ” professional dancer . In the end , Michael ’s standing up for his right to choose his own interpretation of reality , no matter what everybody else thinks . The job with that ? When you verify your own will over the fabric of reality , you are going to end up alone . And that end , in turn , is in conflict with Michael ’s motive to be with his wife and youngster . you may only have other people in your life if you ’re willing to hold out in the same existence that other hoi polloi live in .
I ’m not whole indisputable that Awake succeeded in making the last statement that it needed to make — it might have been skilful if the show had found a way to commit to one world being the realness that does n’t go away when you rule out it . But or else , the show made a final definitive statement in favor of madness and fantasy . Like Number Six , Michael Britten pass up to be trapped in other people ’s adaptation of the world , even if that means being a total lunatic .
AwakeTelevisionThe Prisoner
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