I’m thinking about Melanie and Georgie’s cult and honestly I kind of wish that either of them lost themself in it a little bit. I think it be really interesting for, let’s say Melanie for this example, to buy into the idea that being able to walk freely through the apocalypse makes them special.
Maybe Melanie could INSIST that her and Georgie save more people from their domains while Georgie tries to convince her that drawing too much attention to themselves will be disastrous. Which could lead to Melanie pulling a “It’s our duty as the chosen one,” type of deal and saving more people than can stay under the radar and therefore getting all the cultist caught.
Or Georgie could be the one that buys too much into it and starts undercutting all of Jon’s practical but bittersweet plans to stop the apocalypse because she’s started to believe the idea that she has enough control over the end of the world to will a better ending for it.
I think this idea is neat because it would give Melanie and/or Georgie a chance to get more understanding of Jon. Jon spends five seasons being told “You’re a monster,” despite his constant uphill battle for his humanity, and Melanie and Georgie are, at many points, the one saying it.
I think it would have been interesting for them to put into a position where everyone around them is saying “You’re special. You’re important. You’re practically a God,” until they lean into it because it would make them understand the impact Elias had on Jon when he was whispering all the same things into his ear. It’s not so easy to keep your humanity when everyone around you has already discarded it, and that would be a perspective altering lesson to learn in the final hour.
Season 5 is a constant fight for Jon’s humanity. it’s a back and fourth between Jon being The Archivist who ended up the world, and Jon being Jon Sims who cares about people and wants to make things right. In this moment, Jon is The Archivist.
Jon says that he’s reduced Trever to even lower than prey by making him bait…while simultaneously using Martin for bait to lurer in Trever.
He put him in a dangerous situation to let Basira catch up to them, which really wasn’t necessary considering he could see Basira the whole time and knew her about location. He knew she was close so he could have just…waited for her enter a slightly less dangerous area before catching up. Or he could have told Martin to wait somewhere (and there was probably a “somewhere” considering the various places away from everyone Jon finds to give statements) while he confronted Trever and got Basira on board.
But instead Jon plays along with the concept of The Hunt. He uses a bait (Martin) to lure in prey (Trevor) to get taken down by a predator (Basira.) He’s playing by The Fears rules even though he doesn’t have too, and for me this is a moment that really shows Jon’s struggle with keeping his humanity.
He’s inclined to go along the fears and play games that he can’t actually win. It’s like he’s trying to play connect four with only three pieces. And that’s the both the fatal flaw and the tragedy of Jon’s character. He can’t give up the game, but the only way to win was to not play at all, and he lost before the series even began.
