[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for The Institute‘s Season 1 finale, “Fight.”]
The Institute came crumbling down in Sunday’s (August 24) Season 1 finale episode, bringing closure to some of the characters’ journeys and opening up new paths of potential exploration in the already-announced second season of the Stephen King adaptation.
In it, Luke Ellis (Joe Freeman) convinced Tim Jamieson (Ben Barnes) and Wendy (Hannah Galway) to help him return to the Institute, ostensibly after making a deal with Stackhouse (Julian Richings). As the only student with precognition skills, he was promised special treatment in exchange for bringing himself and Sigsby (Mary-Louise Parker) back to work. Instead of turning himself in, though, he pulled a bait and switch so he could sneak in the back and try to free his friends.
Mary-Louise Parker as Ms. Sigsby, Ben Barnes as Tim Jamieson, Joe Freeman as Luke Ellis
MGM+
At the same time, Avery (Viggo Hanvelt) was leading a new “movie night” operation meant to send someone careening off a cliff, but what he was really doing was plotting with Luke and the others to revolt. By turning to the “big phone” — that is, connecting with other kids at other institutes around the world — they were able to rise up against their captors, revive the comatose subjects, a.k.a. “gorks,” and begin the process of escaping.
Stackhouse got them trapped, though, in a concrete tunnel, and while Luke was able to get the door open eventually, it was too late for many of the children, as Stackhouse’s minions dropped poison gas on them. Instead of running away, Avery remained in the tunnel with several other kids to finish the job of taking down the Institute from within.
The only students to survive the collapse of the building were Luke, Kalisha (Simone Miller), Nick (Fionn Laird), and George (Arlen So). Also still alive, apparently, was Sigsby, who caught a ride away from the scene after somehow escaping the imploding building.
Now, with Luke & Co. heading off to who knows where with Tim and Wendy, what might be in store for the characters?
Both Freeman and Miller hope to see the series explore more of the precognition talent element that wasn’t covered much in Season 1.
“I would like to know more about precognition and what the PC track actually means,” Freeman said of a potential path for Season 2.
“I think it would be really cool if we got to dive into more of the PC track because we allude to it throughout the series a little bit, but to really dive into that. Obviously, we see that Luke has precognition, so [I’d like] to kind of explore that lane,” Miller added.
Freeman also hopes the next season will open up the world of the show to some of the other institutes we got a brief glimpse into there at the end.
“When I first spoke to [executive producer] Ben Cavell about this, I really loved the idea of they’re gonna completely get a new cast, new Institute, and it’s gonna be from the perspective of one in Japan or anywhere… It doesn’t look like it’s going that way, if a Season 2 happens, but … I think it is a really interesting idea to just have it in a different language and in a completely different place,” he said. At the same time, he’s also curious about what Luke’s future holds, especially now that he’s essentially homeless and orphaned by the Institute.
Birva Pandya as Iris, Fionn Laird as Nicky Wilholm, Simone Miller as Kalisha
MGM+
For Miller, the possibility of exploring her character and the others in a new light is particularly exciting. Season 2, she hopes, will “further delve into the relationships. We have a little triangle going on, I think it would be really interesting to kind of let that breathe … I think just letting them be kids still, and exploring those awkward growing pains as well as moving into their relationships and feelings [would be great].”
One character that won’t be back is, of course, little Avery, who was also an anchor of Season 1, and both actors reflected on the experience of saying goodbye to him and the actor portraying him.
“The emotion of it was real because that was one of the last things we filmed,” Freeman remembered. “I think it was sad for little Viggo because that was his last day on set, and so we were all getting ready to say goodbye to him.”
“To see the youngest of us be the one to kind of bear the final blow, it was a hard one for sure. All of us really felt the gravity of that scene. There was no other way to go about it than through,” Miller added. “We just wanted to let Viggo shine. I think it was more about channeling our energy into him and letting that kickass kid have his moment.”
The actors also weighed in on the morality line presented by Sigsby, who explained to Luke, Tim, and Wendy that the reason the Institute kidnapped, imprisoned, abused, and used all of those children to turn them into a telepathic hit squad was that it was necessary to save the entire world.
Freeman, for one, thought Luke was partly “swayed” by Sigsby’s logic. “It’s that hand-tied moment of, ‘Well if you were in charge, what would you do? We’re doing what we can to prevent billions of deaths, and yeah, there are not very nice things happening in the process, but in the grand scheme of things, in the bigger picture, well, we’ve got to do something, otherwise the world’s going to end,’” he reasoned. However, it wasn’t enough to stop it from tearing it all down.
While Miller’s Kalisha wasn’t present for that particular revelation, she suspected that the character would be “crushed” by it if and when she does hear the truth. “I think once she’s given the opportunity to be outside, looking inwards, it would crush anybody to know you’re part of an assassination. As a kid, how do you even begin to process what that means,” she mused. “But she’s graced with the support of her friends, which they’re really going to hold onto each other for dear life. They need to. So yeah, moving forward, it’s definitely a needed conversation — especially for Kalisha. Her nature is to protect, so to find out she’s been put in the position where she’s done exactly the opposite is really a blow to her core attributes and what she stands for.”
We’ll have to wait until Season 2 arrives to see whether and how these characters will move on from this horrendous experience, and this time, with no book to base the coming episodes on, literally anything is possible.
The Institute, Now Streaming, MGM+
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