**Warning: This article contains spoilers for Unchosen.**
Netflix’s Unchosen ends with an explosion of violence inside its cloistered cult, which falls under the control of an even more ruthless figure than before.
Throughout the series, we’ve seen married couple Rosie (Molly Windsor) and Adam (Asa Butterfield) process their confusing feelings towards enigmatic outsider Sam (Fra Fee).
Initially appearing as the brave hero-type by rescuing their daughter from a near-death experience, Sam later discloses that he’s on the run from the law, but remains vague about how this came to be.
Of course, we ultimately learn that he is a cold-blooded killer, whose cunning mind renders him highly effective at coercing the cult’s pious and submissive followers.
The final act picks up against the backdrop of an almighty storm, as Rosie and Adam attempt to flee the fellowship’s compound after learning that Sam had threatened their young daughter, Grace.
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As the rain becomes torrential, they are intercepted by an increasingly unstable Sam, who is furious to see that Rosie’s bags are packed, having deluded himself into thinking they had a future together.
The subsequent struggle is without doubt Unchosen’s weakest section, which is particularly disappointing when it also happens to be the dramatic crescendo.
For a moment, it’s easy to forget that this story is unfolding in the confines of a fundamentalist cult, as Sam very nearly drowns Rosie in a large vat at the sawmill.
Although Unchosen screenwriter Julie Gearey has clarified (via TUDUM) that Sam isn’t a “full psychopath,” I suspect it would be difficult to draw that conclusion if someone were holding your own head underwater while manically screaming.
My point being that, whether Gearey intended for this or not, Sam appears completely unhinged in these distressing scenes, which discard his devious strategies and emotional manipulation in favour of plain brutality.
The former was far more interesting to watch unfold, particularly in the context of a cult, where the agency and critical thinking of members is purposefully eroded day-by-day, making them vulnerable targets to someone with Sam’s charisma and intellect.
By contrast, this slasher movie set-piece feels like a rushed and easy way out of a story that had seemed to be taking a more measured approach.
Fortunately, whether by his genuine love for her, his genuine religious awakening, or both, Sam decides not to kill Rosie and lets her up for air, before she flees the scene with Grace in tow.
In the epilogue, they wind up at the home of Mrs Phillips (Siobhan Finneran), who has moved in with the outsider son she had been forced to disown many years earlier.
Before we get there, though, Sam and Adam have their final confrontation.
Adam aims the revolver left by Mr Phillips (Christopher Eccleston) at Sam, who has now calmed down from his near-murderous outburst.
Sam disarms Adam by handing him the mobile phone on which he recorded their sexual encounter, reminding the devout believer of the ‘sinful’ secret that he’s kept buried for all these years.
“All I had to do was manipulate you, Adam, because that’s who you are,” declares Sam, as his prey collapses to his knees in shock and horror.
It’s a welcome, if sudden, return to the scheming Sam we first met, but it sits uncomfortably that Adam gets a more thoughtful, poignant ending than Rosie, who is reduced to begging for her life and thrashing around in a dirty tub.
Violence against women and girls is a very real scourge on society, so you could argue that there’s an ugly truth to how this finale plays out.
But the extreme force of this scene feels unearned and unnecessary in a story that had initially been about the less obvious abuses found in cults, such as coercive control and sexual crimes.
That idea falls to the wayside in a sequence that could just as easily take place on Emmerdale Farm than it could on the grounds of a cloistered religious community.
Gearey does, at least, return to the original premise in her last scene, which takes us back to the worship hall one year on from these grim events.
With ex-leader Mr Phillips in custody (framed for a drunk driving fatality) and would-be successor Adam cowed by scandalous footage, we learn that it’s Sam himself who has stepped up to become the cult’s new head.
He certainly has the people skills for the job, although it is surprising that neither Rosie nor Mrs Phillips has tipped off the police to Sam’s location, now that they’ve realised that he’s a dangerous murderer on the run.
Would they not want to protect the people they know who remain inside, even if those same individuals have disowned them for defecting? Or what about Mr Phillips, whose identification of Sam to the police could well have saved his own skin?
As for Adam, did he also walk away or has he been locked in an empty bedroom, just as he’d once done to his own brother? The latter would be poetic justice for a man who, lest we forget, has committed inexcusable crimes of his own – but we just don’t know.
These unresolved plot threads add to the sense that this ending really could have used a bit more time in the oven. Unless the series has sights on becoming the UK’s answer to The Handmaid’s Tale, in which case we have many, many more joyless seasons to go.
Unchosen is available to stream on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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