Summary
The Gift gets very Dark in its second season finale, and the possibility of a third outing is almost a given at this point. After this go-around, the show has earned it.
This review of The Gift Season 2, Episode 8 contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
Check out our thoughts on the first season.
Check out our spoiler-free thoughts on the second season.
Well, folks, we’ve reached another finale. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the strength of this follow-up, and haven’t really felt the length of eight episodes. There’s certainly a sense of urgency picking up for this finale, though, which is why the opening scene is of Erhan trying to leave the hospital and being told he can’t as we cut to a shot of Hannah outside the room. Everything is still to play for.
Serdar has been arrested. And Ozan is alive. The young man is ready to hear everything, he claims, every detail. Serdar says that for the first time in his life, he’s proud of his son. He explains how Melek was sick and eventually died. Ozan was nine at the time and couldn’t accept it. He says that looking at Ozan always brought back the pain — he always blamed himself when he looked at him. Eventually, “they” found him. He was to watch Atiye until the moment was right for the door to open; if she was able to open the door, he could get his wife back and atone for the things he was sorry for. (Ozan laughs at the idea of that last bit). Serdar explains that over time they showed him things, and he realized he’d do anything for them. He even learned their language, which he finds hilarious, for some reason. As Ozan walks way, Serdar struggles for breath, and a nearby light goes out. He smiles.
The next we see of Serdar, he’s waking up next to Atiye. He tells her the nosebleeds are going to get worse and then she’ll suffer a small stroke; her immune system will attack the baby, then her, then her organs will shut down. Serdar knows this because he apparently made it happen. The world was running out of resources and too many babies were being born. He asks the obvious question — why didn’t she let him down? She explains that she’d have hurt herself in hurting him. When he asks how she could forgive a person like him, she asks if perhaps he has someone he needs to forgive, such as his father. Atiye gets pretty high-minded in discussing the endless possibilities of the universe, presumably in the hopes of bamboozling Serdar into contrition. He hurries her along since time is running out and she can’t let “them” stop her.
Nazim tells Elif that Erhan had a duty to fulfill that has now passed to her. He tells her where Atiye has gone so that she can do so, while Hannah identifies Erhan’s body and apologizes to him. We see her in the hospital preparing to smother him, but she receives a call telling her to get out of there. The Gift season 2, episode 8 is being pretty deliberately unclear about its sequencing of events — we next see Erhan driving, stopping in front of the little girl in white, who won’t get out of the road. She asks him who he is and his mind riffles through a little montage of past events. He hears Atiye telling him they’re going to have a daughter. This is Season 1 Erhan, it seems.
Erhan’s mining operation finally unearths the temple. Melek, meanwhile, roots round Serdar’s hidden model, while the voice of Ozan implores her to find Atiye, who’ll apparently lead her to him. Under the model, she finds photographs and blueprints which depict the tree we’ve seen so much of at this point, halfway between heaven and earth. Mustafa returns home to find Serap, who’s pretty chirpy. She tells him a story of their house being raided when she was little, her mother forging death certificates for her and her sister — that’s why she has a death certificate. In his dreams, he has seen how they met in another life. It’s a tearful scene; true love always wins in the end.
In bed in hospital, struggling for breath, Serdar confesses to the deaths he’s responsible for, from Erhan and Ozan to the pregnant women. He says there’s an organization behind all of it. He used to work for them, but it’s over now. He’s done. Mustafa, he’s recording this, agrees with him. He’s finished. Hannah is outside his room, disguised as a nurse. He expected her arrival and seems pretty okay with her smothering him. As he dies, he recalls being in the well one last time. She takes his ring.
Melek finally catches up with Atiye and handcuffs herself to her. She wants Atiye to take her to Ozan. Atiye tries to explain that it doesn’t work like that, but she isn’t listening. Elif arrives at just the right moment to talk some sense into her. It’s a relatively well-written speech and she reveals that she’s pregnant with Ozan’s baby, which compels Melek to let Atiye go. She hugs them both, and when she leaves, Melek and Elif embrace too. A touching scene for the finale.
Atiye and Erhan (led by the little girl) arrive in the cave at the same time. Torchlight plays off the purple crystals. Both arrive at either side of the purple tunnel, unaware of the other, and climb inside. Eventually, they meet in the middle. She tells him they’re going to have a baby girl, and that there’s another world out there where Cansu is alive and babies can’t be born. He tells her he discovered this cave before his father and met her a long, long time ago. But she says she has to leave him; her baby has to be born in the other world, to give them hope. He begs her to stay with him, but she leaves.
Zühre, fondling one of the familiar symbols, confirms that Atiye and Erhan represent Adam and Eve, Jesus and Magdelene, Isis and Osiris; she represents all women. As she gives birth, she’s told it’s time for her to be what she was meant to be, and we hear a baby cry.
Melek, in a bare hospital room, is united with Ozan — on the CCTV footage, we see her there alone. As Atiye cradles her baby, the door opens and the wind picks up — she cradles the infant against it. In her white dress, bloodstained, she runs through the woods, in pursuit of someone carrying her child, as we see mourners assemble at her funeral. Eventually, she arrives at the funeral, a familiar scene, demanding to know where her daughter has been taken as we see the kid being put into a crib by Ozan, who is given further instructions by a computer. Season 3 it is, then.
What did you think of The Gift Season 2, Episode 8? Comment below.
