The second season of 9 Good Strangers has been a superb continuation of Hulu’s adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s eponymous novel. We now have a brand new set of strangers with deeply interconnected trauma being dredged up with the help of Masha’s secret, psychedelic mushroom brew, as she makes an attempt to guide them in the direction of therapeutic whereas straddling emotional baggage of her personal.
So, you would possibly ask, “What may presumably go improper?” and the reply is nearly every thing, however, after the final episode I’m far more taken with what went proper.
Let’s discuss Matteo’s session
After Peter reveals to the remainder of the visitors that Masha has used him as a guinea pig to check her new “beta” expertise that enables wearers to relive traumatic occasions as if for the primary time, she asks the group who wish to expertise it subsequent, however selects Matteo after he’s the one one who doesn’t volunteer.
We knew he’d sneak up on us with some heavy hitting emotional moments as quickly as he arrived unexpectedly as Victoria’s a lot youthful boyfriend, who she supposedly simply met whereas touring, and he awkwardly and vaguely introduced that each of his dad and mom died “within the warfare“, as a result of the rule of 9 Good Strangers is that everybody has baggage and depth, whether or not they put on it on their sleeve or not.
We obtain some actually essential items of knowledge over the course of episodes 5 and 6—David is Tatiana’s organic father, and Masha suspects him of being chargeable for her homicide, after she was focused throughout an investigation into his enterprise dealings with satellites, which we study Victoria’s husband and Imogen’s father labored with earlier than his demise.
Those self same satellites have been chargeable for drone strikes that killed Matteo’s household. Matteo was cared for by Agnes in a subject hospital, and supplied a stuffed-animal model of Brian’s puppet, Jesse Bear, to simply fully tie the tales collectively. As Matteo “relives” a dialog with Agnes detailing how he was discovered on a soccer subject, and a close-by “constructing” was fully destroyed, killing his dad and mom, Matteo confirms they have been “academics” suggesting the drones focused and/or destroyed a college, morally tainting David and Imogen’s father respectively.
As Matteo re-experiences the traumatic occasion, we see how clearly conscious he’s of what has occurred. He experiences the consequences of the drug as if it have been a lucid dream. The information of his household’s demise is so ingrained into his psyche, he does not react to the psychological stimuli as if he was dwelling it for the primary time.
What’s new, nevertheless, is his means to note a banner with butterflies within the hospital tent. These butterflies “fly” off the banner, and out of the reminiscence, into the room with Matteo and Masha the place he fortunately explains his response to the expertise, sharing that he was informed as a toddler that butterflies signify the souls of the useless.
Masha confronts Matteo for refusing to interface together with his personal ache, after which he delivers a good looking speech the place he explains that he desires his ache, as a result of it’s his:
These folks, they suppose that they wish to run away from their unhappiness, to bury it within the grave or to put on it like a…like a badge. My household…I miss them a lot. Every single day. I don’t need to not miss them, to overlook that they’re gone. My ache, as you say, my grief, it’s occurred to me. Nevertheless it’s not all that I’m. I’m a boy who was beloved and misplaced this love. The factor that everybody—everybody fears most of their life, and it’s occurred to me, so sure, there may be ache. However there is no such thing as a concern of loss, as a result of…I already misplaced. So, I can don’t have anything to concern. There is just one me. And isn’t that fantastic?
Masha is so moved by his self-awareness and emotional fortitude that she ends the session and tells him he’s free to go. When he asks if every thing “was okay”, she responds, “Good” whereas Large Thief’s Adrienne Lenker’s croons in an masterfully executed needle drop that carries the scene into Imogen’s reckoning together with her mom’s seizure following a dosage of Masha’s medicine that wasn’t calibrated for Victoria’s well being struggles.
Matteo lastly reveals that Victoria’s mysterious ailment is ALS, and he’s not solely her boyfriend, however her caretaker. Whereas he seems to be absolutely rounded out as a personality in these emotional scenes, one essential element is lacking. How may an orphan like Matteo type a relationship with the very widow of the person who’s partly chargeable for his household’s demise? It’s undoubtedly too near be a coincidence, and makes us query his motive for getting near her within the first place.
Earlier than we’ve got an opportunity to seek out out, showrunners drop one more bombshell, as we uncover Masha’s mentor, Helena, handed away in 2022, and most of their interactions we’ve seen so far, if not all, have been the results of Masha’s psychedelic hallucinations. This opens up every kind of questions on her energy wrestle with Martin, and the true nature of their strained relationship.
Evidently, this week’s episode is sure to have a ton of solutions ready for us, however till then, we’ll nonetheless be fawning over our favourite good stranger, Matteo.