The producers of the second season of the Colony are just mean. There’s no other way to say it. On an emotional level, the final episode felt very real. Jim has gone bug nuts crazy; Sian leaves the group without a second thought, and the rest start arguing about who asked who if they wanted to leave most.

The fire bombing of their old house was a little over the top. Where did the other group get explosives? Then, the final frame, showing a large group of people walking out of the house the group thought they would take over.

I appreciate that they wanted to have at least one person exposed to the virus and be removed, after all, what kind of apocalypse is this if there’s no actual danger. I wish it hadn’t been Michael and Amber (late arrival, early departure) but I understand why it happened.

What I don’t understand is why everyone else is still all gung ho to go to the fishing shack. They’ve been attacked, and kidnapped, but no deadly virus. Now they’re all eager to leave the attacks to go somewhere where half of the scouting party “died”. Does that really make sense?

It’s called a moment of recognition, and it is an essential component to a good novel. I realize The Colony is unscripted, but a moment of recognition is what I need to continue caring about these people. Just a moment to realize they aren’t the only ones struggling to survive, that the way to rebuild society is not to attack everyone you see.

But the producers have taken away that possibility. By refusing to give the colonists any positive interactions with strangers, they have taken away the one thing that makes these people human beings, not animals struggling to survive.

I really want to like this season of the Colony more. I remember last season being so much better. Once again we had two contrived encounters. The first one negative; the second positive. Once again, the only positive encounter centers around adding a new person to the group. There are no positive encounters when we don’t need to integrate new people. Why were there raiders when the pregnant woman came and they were all around the house, but not when they all left the house to have dinner with Tick?

There’s enough inherent drama in the situation. Let it be.