The Clearing Season 1 Episode 7 Review: This Too Shall Pass
After several installments of slow-burn, The Clearing finally picks up the pace to set up its final pieces on the penultimate episode. The Clearing Season 1 Episode 7, “This Too Shall Pass,” leads to several revelations and a terrifying turn for Freya.
The revelation that Adrienne has medical power of attorney over Freya after springing her from a mental hospital adds a whole new layer to their dynamic. It explains how she can have such complicated feelings yet still feel indebted to Adrienne.
When her adopted mom and Wayne both turn on her, Adrienne is there to pick up the pieces.
Freya’s storyline about being admitted after losing custody of Max also adds an interesting thread to the series overall. We’ve gone from Adrienne’s mother being admitted, to Adrienne getting an innocent woman admitted to now freeing Amy.
Adrienne knows better than anyone how that system is weaponized against women and even uses it to her advantage, faking dementia so that she’s not made to go to retrial and threatening Freya that she’ll recommit her if she ever tells. Maybe it’s not much to go off of, but any intentionality in a show that otherwise seemed interested in just pushing around puzzle pieces instead of fitting them together feels like a minor win.
It will be interesting to see what The Clearing wants to say about this theme by the end of the season, especially as it is also a perpetrator in intentionally making Freya seem unreliable and unstable to those around her and viewers. Even when her protector Joe finds out everything she’s lied about, he’s quick to abandon her too.
When he claims he could have helped Freya, she just admits defeatedly that no one could have helped her. The dead-eyed look she gives is one of the most haunting shots of the series.
The flashback to Joe losing his job over the bungled investigation proves her even more right to the viewers. He never really could free her from Adrienne or give any of the children justice.
We see at the wedding she’s not “crazy” she just never really had a chance to heal, and neither did many of her siblings. At the wedding, Freya flashes between seeing them as their adult selves and her memory of them as children, reminding you of just what they all endured.
The wedding scene deserves a diatribe on how messed up it is that one of the former Kindred invites Adrienne to their wedding. Especially when they also invite their “siblings” who are chronically ill or watched someone commit suicide because of their trauma from that woman.
The event certainly drums up a lot of dramatic tension and we even get to see Anton and Joe in a fistfight, but it also makes the episode feel a bit overstuffed. There’s more good than bad though and it’s the first installment to make me wish we had more time with the story and not less.
Having Billy taken at the end is terrifying, and the show successfully creates a real sense of panic between the cuts underwater and the framing of Billy from behind like he’s being watched. You’ll be urging Freya to resurface from the water despite knowing in your gut she’ll be too late.
With the truth about Asha still not revealed, The Clearing now has to account for the fate of two children in its finale.
What did you think of this episode of The Clearing? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The Clearing airs Wednesdays on Hulu.
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Breeze Riley
Breeze Riley is a pop culture fanatic who decided to turn her love of watching too much TV into a hobby writing and podcasting about it. Although she's a convention-going sci-fi and fantasy nerd, she's just as likely to be watching an off-beat comedy or period drama.