The Clearing Season 1 Episode 8 Review: Island

After a season full of questions and speculation, The Clearing Season 1 Episode 8, “Island,” finally offers viewers some conclusive answers. Whether those answers are enough to make the viewing experience satisfying is another question.

So many things hinted at earlier in the season are brought to the forefront on this episode, but you can’t help but feel it’s all too little too late. This is especially true because the answers are the expected ones.

In her frantic search for Billy, Freya uncovers the Kindred’s new compound on an offshore island where children and couples are buying into the same old lies that Adrienne and Lathan sell. Shockingly Billy isn’t there and Adrienne gaslights Freya into believing that she must have hurt Billy and suppressed the memory.

Sadly she’s not the only one accusing Freya since even the police treat her like a suspect in the investigation given her history with Max. Despite my issues with Freya’s characterization throughout the season, there is something so deeply sad about her it’s hard to not want better for her.

The biggest answer uncovered during this confrontation, of what happened to Asha, is also sad but not surprising. Of course, Asha died, why else was she never found?

The fact a drugged-up Amy participated in her death when commanded by Adrienne to baptize her is heartbreaking and explains a lot about the water imagery in the show. All of Amy/Freya’s mental health problems probably trace back to this hidden trauma, but uncovering the truth doesn’t really offer her any freedom.

The revelation that Henrik and Hannah are her and Anton’s birth parents is also not a surprise given they were never reunited with their birth parents and we knew Hannah had two children. Still, it provides an emotional punch learning that Henrik agreed to take the blame for the kidnapping knowing Adrienne had a taped confession from his daughter about killing Asha.

Maybe you’ll be sympathetic to him, but perhaps you’ll be just as angry as Freya that neither parent did what they should have to protect her as a child. Ultimately everyone in Adrienne’s orbit is a victim, but that doesn’t excuse their participation in creating more victims.

Take Anton, who nearly shoots an escaping Freya in an attempt to protect Adrienne and the Kindred. He and Amy both deserve better than what they were given as children.

I appreciated the full circle moment of Freya saving herself by holding her breath underwater, but the show’s insistence on the finale on focusing on metaphor and imagery feels muted under the rushed attempt to wrap up such a complicated story.

Ultimately thanks to Joe and Colin’s help Freya is rescued and Adrienne is arrested again and the Kindred 2.0 is disbanded. Calling it a happy ending would be a stretch though.

Does anyone really get justice in The Clearing when everyone already paid such a high cost? Their vindication, whether it be Joe finally getting Adrienne arrested or Henrik finally doing something to save his daughter, doesn’t erase what they’ve already lost.

Some catharsis is offered in the end when we see Freya reunited with both of her children and Max assuring her Billy “doesn’t belong to them.” With The Clearing over you can only hope Freya means it when she replies, “None of us do.”

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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