PRVIEWING SEASON TWO OF THE PURGE TV – NYC COMIC-CON PANEL & SCREENING

The Purge TV
USA Network
Season Two begins Tuesday, October 15, 8/9c
[All images courtesy Astrid Stawiarz/USA Network]

Back in August, I looked at the teaser for The Purge TV Season Two, hunting for clues and hints regarding the new season of the dystopian horror franchise. I made some educated guesses and advanced my hopes for what Season Two might bring.

“It’ll be interesting if Season Two both follows and reinterprets last season’s format. Season One flashed back to the choices made by characters leading up to Purge Night. I’d love to see this season mix it up a bit, mixing Purge Night events with flashforwards, showing this season’s characters dealing with the consequences in the following days, months after the Purge.”

It looks like some of my wishes are coming true in The Purge Universe in this new season, premiering Tuesday, October 15 9/8C on USA Network.

Instead of flashforwards, Season Two begins in the final hours of Purge Night, and as I hoped, follows our new cast of characters from the day after the Purge through the rest of the year. The standard Purge formula – follow a group of disparate characters through one Purge Night – is undoubtedly thrilling, involving, and hooks me in every time. But it’s wonderful to see the creative Powers That Be shake things up a bit.

New York Comic Con - 2019 — Joel Allan, Paola Nunez, &and Executive Producer Krystal Houghton Ziv at 2019 New York Comic-Con.

At the New York Comic-Con, the cast, writers, and creator James DeMonaco gathered for a screening and panel discussion. According to DeMonaco and series writers and Executive Producers Krystal Houghton Ziv and James Roland, Season Two will include some interesting tweaks on the franchise formula.

*World Building. The framework of the original Purge movie was simple (a home invasion thriller), but within that simplicity was room to expand and grow a fictional world. As DeMonaco noted,”Season 2 is committed to illuminating “slices of the [Purge] world” and “the repercussions of the Purge” outside of Purge Night. “The real estate of the 10 hours of TV allows to explore the world.”

*When I dove into the Season Two trailer, analyzing the music, symbols, characters for clues. In particular, I wondered about the prominence of the “God Mask”, worn by “Young Ghoul Face” (LaKeith Stansfield) in The Purge: Anarchy (2014). Kristen Houghton Ziv, notes “the writers wanted to incorporate something similar to the God Mask that appeared in The Purge: Anarchy, and ended up deciding to bring back the God Mask in all its terrifying glory.”

*Houghton Ziv clarified the Purge chronology, stating that the new season takes place 15 years after the first Purge on Staten Island” In my write up for the first season’s premiere episode, “What Is America”, DeMonaco identified just when in the Purge timeline the new series took place.

*When is The Purge series set? Creator/Executive Producer/Writer James DeMonaco told Vulture, “The TV show takes place between the first Purge and the last movie. We’re kind of right in the middle of all the Purge timelines, so it’s before Charlie Roan … if 20 Purges have taken place, or 15, we’re probably on the seventh or eighth in the TV show.”

*According to ScreenRant’s very helpful timeline, the New Founding Fathers of America attain power in 2014 and the first Purge takes place in 2017. Based on DeMonaco’s comment, that probably sets this season in 2024/2025.

So if Season One took place during the seventh or eighth Purge, and Season Two is set fifteen years after the first Purge, we’re probably looking at a seven to eight-year time leap between seasons. Which would be 2032?

Season Two of The Purge TV premieres Tuesday, October 15 at 9/8c on USA Network with “This Is Not a Test”.

Until then fellow citizens,“Just remember all the good The Purge does.”

Official images, information, and other Purge related goodies can be found here.

My Deep Dives into The Purge Season One are here. Click the links for more of my deep dives into Bates Motel and The Exorcist. Channel Zero recaps and deep dives can be found here at F&S and SciFi4Me.com.

THE PURGE TV RETURNS-WITH CLUES FOR SEASON TWO IN TRAILER & POSTER?

The Purge Season Two
A USA television event
(All images courtesy Alfonso Bresciani/USA Network)

The trailer and poster art for Season Two of USA’s The Purge series is here, along with some intriguing hints and clues for the next installment of the Blumhouse horror franchise created by James Demonaco. Before its’ October debut, let’s see what hints the art and trailer may provide.

First, check out the poster above. Most interesting to me? The return of the “God” mask worn by “Young Ghoul Face” (LaKeith Stanfield) in The Purge: Anarchy (2014). If this is the same mask as worn in that film, it’s looking a bit bloodier than what we saw in the film. Also, are we seeing the sun rise in the East, or set in the West?

Young Ghoul Face - Univ Pictures — LaKeith Stanfield as “Young Ghoul Face” in *The Purge: Anarchy* (Image courtesy Universal Pictures)

Now, check out the Season Two trailer –

A few interesting snippets of dialog in those two minutes

*An unidentified voice claims, “The Purge is making people more violent, not just on Purge, but every day of the year.

*A young woman first says to Ben (Joel Allen), “What happens on Purge Night says on Purge Night,” then “You haven’t been yourself,” to which he responds, “I know.” We see Ben drawing the same mask worn by the intruder who breaks into Marcus Moore’s house.

*Marcus Moore (Derek Luke) says “Someone tried to Purge me,”and “whoever is after me, they are not going to wait a year.”

*Is the second season moving forward chronologically from Purge Night, or featuring flash-forwards instead of Season One’s flashbacks, as I speculated here?

And the image below brings to my mind a potential connection between the two seasons. Does Ben share a school and/or fraternity connection with Season One’s Rick Betancourt (Colin Woodell)? Last season, Checkov’s fraternity paddle played a major part in Rick’s storyline, even if the fraternity houses appear to be different. Did Rick attend (the apparently fictional) Cooke University in New Orleans, LA?

The Delta Tau Gamma house is all decked out for Purge Night!

*The trailer’s musical accompaniment? A twangy, post-apocalyptic sounding version of “Blood On the Risers,” a WWII-era paratrooper song.

He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright,

He checked all his equipment and made sure his pack was tight;

He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar,

“You ain’t gonna jump no more!”

(CHORUS)

Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,

Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,

Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,

He ain’t gonna jump no more!

My Deep Dives into The Purge season one can be found here. Click the links for more of my deep dives into Bates Motel and The Exorcist. Channel Zero recaps and deep dives can be found here at F&S and SciFi4Me.com.

Until this fall citizens, “Just remember all the good The Purge does.”

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Welcome to the movement that began as a simple experiment. Formerly titled Purge: The Island, this year’s installment in the Purge franchise will be a prequel to all of the previous films, and it now has the fitting title, The First Purge. Behind every tradition lies a revolution in The First Purge, arriving July 4, 2018… […]

via Lawless Brutality Will Resume in Prequel ‘The First Purge’; Official Poster Makes a Statement — Bloody Disgusting!