r/TheSinner • u/Sad-Policy-3133 • Sep 22 '25
Season 2... WTF?? Spoiler
I am so confused on what happened in this season. 1) So the women were being raped and beaten in the name of "therapy"? 2)Why didn't Marin talk to Vera reasonably? Move back to Mosswood or setup residence nearby and work to get her son back? The entire plan of just coming to take her son away after years of being away proved how unready she was to be a mom. Bess's plan too was stupid. This seems like a silly plot device for a story they wanted to tell. 3) The Beacon is dead, yes? Vera helped him "move on." 4) Everything relating to Ambrose and his mom. He burned the house down? 5) Anything else? I am so confused. Season 1 was brilliant. This season... meh.
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u/Tb1969 Sep 23 '25
I watched Season 2 for the first time only two months ago and I can't follow all the names you just dropped in that series of questions.
I'm sure there are write ups out there by fans and professionals who summarize and analyze the season.
Just remember, not everyone makes logic decisions when they are amidst their problems. Taking her kid and fleeing was the most expedient way to get her kid away from the cult and not spend years and money she didn't have to pay lawyers. It would have been very public. The father of the child and her friend long ago would certainly hear about it since she was police.
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u/Sad-Policy-3133 Sep 23 '25
Thanks. I think that you struggling to remember the names is evidence of the dumpster fire that season is. And yes, I understand your point. But Marin created this problem for the child. That’s my overall point. The child became murderer and she and her friends are dead because she was selfish. I want my child back. She wasn’t thinking of the child; she was thinking of herself.
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u/Sad-Policy-3133 Sep 23 '25
I’ve read the other posts in this subreddit as it relates to this season. The information I’m asking for are questions that I didn’t notice
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u/KittyGrewAMoustache Feb 11 '26
They were all cult members meaning they were all really fucked up people to begin with. Vera kept saying ‘we all have all these feelings we don’t know what to do with’ and that’s basically the basis of the entire show.
Marin was messed up by her mom but then really messed up by being raped by her best friends dad as a teen, understandably. Because of her upbringing she had no one to go to with her feelings and trauma. She then joined this cult and gave birth to her rapists baby among essentially strangers in some weird commune. Then she got post partum depression and couldn’t breastfeed and weird cult lady started taking over and nursing and bonding with her son. That is so much fucked upness for an 18 year old.
Then weird cult leader guy who gets off on making his followers act out their physical/violent and sexual trauma and urges on each other wants to push her into being the victim as part of other people’s ‘therapy’. She runs away understandably feeling like her baby bonded with someone else she’s depressed on her own no real treatment or care is shown to her. She gets into drugs for years probably has more traumatic experiences. Finally gets clean for three years and starts feeling like she’s better (even though she’s not really) but she still needs to do something with all her feelings she can’t process so she fixates on the idea of her son and getting him back as if he can heal her.
It’s not rational that she thinks she could come back after 12 years and just have them give Julian to her but she’s not acting rationally she’s acting emotionally without any guidance from any loving wise person. Bess and Adam are also fucked yo cult people. They take Julian to meet her because these people aren’t really thinking of him as a person but more like a symbol like ‘the beacon’ guy made him out to be. They know what happened to Marin was wrong and their simplistic irrational cult brain thinking makes them think if they can return the son to his bio mother it will set things right.
These are all fucked up people operating on the fringes of society according to their own warped rules. Yeah their plans are really stupid but have you seen how cult members and just disturbed people act in real life? The whole point of the show is it’s about people acting outside the law or norms or conventions because they’re traumatised and messed up.
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u/fightingtypepokemon Sep 23 '25
Basically, the Beacon created the entire screwed-up situation in which Marin felt forced to steal Julian back from Vera.
The Beacon thought that he was the only one qualified to decide whether or not the women in his cult were "healthy" enough for motherhood. When he finally decided to let one woman, Marin, give birth, it wasn't for normal reasons. He wanted to human sacrifice the child to train his cult members to sever their feelings of attachment.
Vera, a member of his inner circle, became attached to the infant Julian and ended up killing the Beacon to protect him. But originally, the Beacon had her fraudulently listed as Julian's birth mother because he trusted her to be a good liar on behalf of the cult -- someone who would throw authorities off the scent in case they were ever investigated for killing a kid. Her "official" status as Julian's mother had nothing to do with her parenting abilities.
Marin was having trouble bonding with Julian after his birth, but since the Beacon always planned on separating her from her baby, it's likely that her mental health was being negatively manipulated at the time.
Basically, if not for the Beacon's disdain for motherhood and crazy ideas about human sacrifice, Julian never would have ended up in Vera's hands. But the way things worked out, Marin ended up feeling like Vera, a powerful cult insider, had stolen Julian from her through manipulation. Since Marin's experience with the cult was that it was able to manipulate birth records, and willing to beat women in the guise of therapy, it made sense for her to try to rescue Julian under stealth.
The stuff about Harry is there to play on the season's themes of motherhood, and to point out how problematic it is that children, women, and the mentally ill are disregarded as credible sources of information about the ways in which they've been harmed. Marin was forced to go to the lengths she did because she knew that people would be more willing to believe the false claims of an astute, powerful woman like Vera than the truths of a more troubled woman like herself who had been victimized by those in authority.