Brave New World Season 1 finale recap: Red Soma

Brave New World Season 1 finale recap: Red Soma

We’ve reached the end of Brave New World and the Season 1 finale is full of twists, turns, and some very Westworld-level confusion. While some of the plot developments were intriguing, others left me completely blindsided or perplexed.

The carnage of the hour begins after Henry’s body is discovered. Mustafa and Bernard both debate what they should do about John, who they blame for starting the descent of New London — despite the fact this began well before he arrived, considering one fo the Epsilon workers committed suicide in the first episode.

Nonetheless, Mustafa names Bernard the new Director, a promotion he’s wanted and hungered for since the beginning. It figures that as soon as Bernard gets his dream job, his entire world crumbles into ashes.

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Hiding out with the Epsilon workers, John realizes that he’s flamed the fans of rebellion, but he has no interest in being a leader for their cause. Still, it is him that gives them the idea to burn it all down and eliminate the hierarchy for good. He even joins them in smashing the soma distillery to pieces.

As soon as the New Londoners start to realize their seemingly neverending stock of happy pills has gone dry, they go ballistic and chaos breaks out as people scour every nook and cranny for soma and turn on each other in an increasingly violent fashion.

The Epsilons next plan is to start murdering every Alpha and Beta they see. To John’s credit, he tries to stop them once he realizes their intention, but it’s far too late to stop by that point. All he wants is to track down Lenina and get out of New London, once and for all.

Ultimately, when the Epsilons are winding down their mass murder spree, Bernard and John stand amid a hallway filled with bodies. Bernard blames John for everything that happened, noting that he witnessed John put the bullets in the guns back in the Savage Lands. He has a track record of being involved in rebellions and then not taking accountability for his actions.

Both men pause from their argument, however, when they notice a woman’s body that looks suspiciously like Lenina on the ground. Before they can turn her over, the real Lenina appears behind them.

She and John share an intimate moment as Bernard somberly walks away from them. Lenina admits that John frightens her and that everywhere he goes, chaos seems to follow.

Beyond this somewhat straightforward plot comes some of the more off-the-wall parts of the episode. Frannie and a few other New Londoners undergo a reconditioning process that morphs them into hardened assassins. They try to take Lenina away and force her into reconditioning, too, but she manages to escape.

I’m not really sure what happened in reconditioning or its purpose in the story. It’s not really explained why Frannie suddenly starts zapping people and running around acting like a dominatrix murderer.

Also, as TV Insider pointed out in their recap, the entire side plot revolving around Indra and Mustafa doesn’t work well for the show as a whole. It’s one of the less interesting stories and I still don’t entirely understand what the writers were going for there.

Indra is supposedly based on Mustafa’s daughter she may have had in the past? Mustafa recruits CJack60 to help her turn off the underground machine where Elliot and the other Indra creators are hooked up. CJack60 kills his maker and brutally cuts his optic out of his eye.

Once the creators are disconnected, everything melts away and we cut to Bernard trapped in a strange world filled with vibrant red bubbles. He faces Indra, who tells him she doesn’t like being alone, and neither does Bernard, so she’s chosen him for some secret task.

Again, this is all very confusing and I don’t know what we’re meant to take away from all of this yet.

Brave New World sets up some plot ideas for a potential Season 2.

Moving forward, we see Bernard wake up in the Savage Lands, the barrier between the worlds has disintegrated and he’s alone aside from Wilhelmina, who has drastically changed since she accessed all of John’s memories and emotions. Together, they find a mysterious gold box on the ground and take it with them to the road where Sheila pulls up in her truck.

She tells Bernard that she told him never to return, but he gives her the gold box and upon looking inside, she tells him and Helm to get in the truck. They drive off and the camera zooms in on Bernard’s eye, he appears to be possessed by Indra now.

As for Lenina, she is crowned the new Director by Mustafa, who says she’s “different” from the rest, and as Lenina goes about her work, we watch John go fishing and living a solemn life in a rundown townhouse constructed underneath New London.

He and Lenina appear to have a mostly virtual relationship now, as a projection of her is seen in John’s home while he eats. He doesn’t look too thrilled.

If the show gets renewed, I’m assuming we’ll be seeing a much different Bernard as he perhaps takes control of the Savages in a different way, while Lenina tries to adapt to life as a Director and balancing a complicated relationship with John.

What did you think of Brave New World Season 1? Are you hoping the series gets renewed for another season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The first season of Brave New World is now streaming on Peacock TV.