TV Review - The Purge (2018)

When James DeMonaco created The Purge (2013), the idea of making all crime, including murder legal for one night a year, was basically just a pretense for a home-invasion, horror film. Whatever point the premise was trying to make about human behavior or society at large was lost. The subsequent sequels have opened up the films into action flicks usually with a cop or military character leading the charge or a good part of the narrative. Those sequels have also attempted to explore or build out the premise. The film that came out this summer called The First Purge actually attempted to depict how the premise came to be. The basic idea is revealed to be that of class warfare where the rich eliminates the poor, or else there is this inherent notion that humans need to act our or get out really aggressive or violent tendencies.

DeMonaco's point might be that American society in particular needs these tendencies unleashed in order for it to be better. Whatever benefits can't possibly justify the senseless slaughters and all credible arguments against the premise have never truly been explored. This series provides an opportunity to explore those arguments but instead this series appears to be again what the movies are, which are just a depiction of a night of mayhem where people are trying to survive the murder and chaos. Unfortunately, DeMonaco doesn't really take any time to reflect upon what he's wrought.

As such, there isn't much to this series that you couldn't get in abundance and better in several other TV shows or some movies. If you want to see a show about the kind of lawlessness depicted here, one could check out the Netflix western, Godless. At times, this show will make you think you're watching The Hunger Games (2012) in terms of how poor people or innocent people are slaughtered for sport. If you need to see people in desperate situations trying to survive, sometimes in gory ways and often times in distrust of each other, you can watch The Walking Dead. It might in fact be preferable to turn on those shows as all of them in general are better produced than this somewhat slick and polished shlock.

Gabriel Chavarria (East Los High) stars as Miguel Guerrero, a former marine who comes to the town where his sister is after she sends him a letter indicating she might kill herself in order to be with their parents who died in a previous purge. The show gives him a moment in the first episode where it shows he's not just the standard-issue tough guy like Frank Grillo's character in several of the sequels. The series gives him a moment to see that he can be afraid and vulnerable, which is good, and hopefully the series might reveal more about him, but right now, he just seems like an action-figure going from one place to another trying to find his sister and that's it.

Amanda Warren (The Leftovers) also stars as Jane Barber, an executive at a high-powered firm. She decides to work on purge night at her firm's office, which is protected by bodyguards. Unlike Miguel, we get flashbacks of her life quickly. She was hired to work at the firm. The guy who did so is apparently a sleaze or might not be treating Jane completely fairly now. She might be using the purge night to get revenge on that guy, David Ryker, played by William Baldwin. Through her, we get yet another revenge plot, one that traffics in the recent #MeToo or Time's Up Movements.

Colin Woodell (The Originals) co-stars as Rick and Hannah Emily Anderson (Jigsaw) also co-stars as Jenna. Rick and Jenna are a young couple that is seemingly wealthy, although not as wealthy as they would want. They have connections to wealthy people, which they use on purge night to try to get whatever ventures they want off the ground later. They go to a party on purge night where wealthy people gather to wait out the carnage and in some cases watch the carnage on special cameras. It's revealed that both Rick and Jenna had a three-way or threesome with a girl named Lila, played by Lili Simmons (Ray Donovan). Lila just happens to be at the party. What they have to do to get their venture off the ground and working out their feelings and relationship to Lila seems to be what's on their plate, but right now it doesn't seem very compelling.

But, a criticism of the films and now this TV show is the insistence that every narrative that is depicted is a narrative that takes place on purge night, which is only one night a year. Part of the premise of the series is that as a result of the purge, the crime-rate and the unemployment-rate have dropped to only one-percent nationwide. You have to suspend your disbelief to accept that, but why? That premise defies all reason for how and why crimes are actually committed. The presumption is that if people are able to purge, or get out these aggressive tendencies, that will stop them from wanting to commit crimes other days of the year. That might be more interesting to see depicted throughout the rest of the year and not just on purge night because one question is what do politicians campaign on the rest of the year if purge night has basically solved crime and the economy?

Yet, the cause of crimes is not simply because human beings have aggressive tendencies. There are a myriad of other reasons why crimes are committed. If a person is starving and they steal food to survive, having a purge night only one night a year won't solve that person's hunger. Even if they stole food on purge night, there's no way they can steal enough food for a whole year until the next purge night comes back. It also doesn't seem likely that drug dealers or bigger drug operations would all of sudden stop simply due to purge night. It also doesn't seem likely that they would only operate or sell drugs on that day. They wouldn't be able to do enough business to sustain them. The same could be said for prostitution. It's not as if men are only going to want to have or buy sex only on purge night.

As is the case with a few TV shows, there is a religious cult thrown into the mix. The Leftovers and The Handmaid's Tale are definitely shows that came to mind when the religious cult appears in this show. Instead of all-white or dashes of red, the purge-cult dresses in blue. They don blue robes and blue hoods. On purge night, they drive around in a blue school bus and offer cult members up as sacrifices to people in masks who feel the need to murder on purge night. Penelope has joined this cult, which is essentially a suicide group, and Penelope's disillusion and escape from this cult feel like what's going to preoccupy the narrative, but it will be a wonder if the series explores how this cult even came to be and what religious significance it holds that could not be accomplished from the people just drinking poison juice or something.

Speaking of religion, one has to be curious about Muslim terrorists. Purge night means that all police, fire and emergency services are unavailable. There's a rule that explosive devices or weapons of mass destruction can't be used, but why would terrorists care about that rule? Terrorists could seemingly take advantage of purge night. The idea that no terrorist attacks have occurred on any purge night feels pretty unbelievable. Plus, purge starts at night, but what if a 9/11 attack occurs that morning, would the purge night still continue as planned?

Perhaps, it's just me, but the most interesting drama is not the drama of that night. It's instead the aftermath of that night. In the days and weeks after purge night, do people really feel no guilt about the things they've done? Is being a psychopath or a maniac like a switch that people can just turn on and off for purge night? A TV series like this could have been the perfect vehicle to explore that aftermath, but alas it isn't.

Rated TV-MA-LSV.
Running Time: 1 hr. / 10 eps.
Tuesdays at 10PM on USA.