Rectify
Episode 7 of Undone Season 2 starts with Jacob, Alma and Becca all being greeted by a young Geraldine on the other side of Alma’s door. “You found me.” She says. It turns out Geraldine left her younger self behind the door; the painful memories of her regretful childhood. We’re in Poland and Geraldine’s mother happens to be a soothsayer, which is basically a fortune teller. A soldier shows up with a wad of money at their door, demanding she read his future. Normally they only do this for friends and family but given he has an intimidating demeanour, she agrees to help. These visions are concentrated to bowls of water, Jacob explains, as the four watch Geraldine’s mother work. We’re also told that she’s training Geraldine to do the same thing. Geraldine notices something horrible in the water but refuses to tell her parents, who tip the bowl over on the floor in frustration. Geraldine doesn’t remember what she saw either, but believes that whatever it was, it’s tied up with the fog they’ve all been seeing. So what’s in the fog? Well apparently the other part of Geraldine’s collage, especially if these fragmented memories are anything to go by. It now puts the moments in the hospital into perspective, with that separate brown piece of fabric representing her childhood trauma. This collage manifests itself into a strangely beautiful structure, with no rhyme or reason. Stairs lead to nowhere, rooms are crooked edges of Geraldine’s subconscious, and young Geraldine is afraid. She doesn’t want to go near it, believing the other versions of Geraldine will shun her. It’s now apparent that something happened in the past; one moment that changed Geraldine’s life forever. What ensues from here is a collage of different memories, as the young Geraldine is rejected by every different version of Geraldine that the group visit. From her wedding day to time in the hospital, nothing seems to be working. In fact, one of these memories sees Jacob take a baseball and smash it through the TV; a moment to protect his own mother after she lashes out at the ghostly apparition of Jacob and the girls. Jacob has an idea and somehow manages to transport inside young Jacob’s memories. He convinces his mother to open up, at least a little. She talks about her trip to America. This opens up a picture of Geraldine wearing her mother’s red coat in the hallway we saw before. When young Geraldine touches it, we head back to see what she saw in the reflecting pool. Geraldine watches as that officer from before curses and holds onto her mother. They eventually take her away. Geraldine watches all of this, cowering inside a wooden shed, as her parents are taken away. Geraldine blames herself for her parents dying and left the country in a ship, which catches us up to the timeline. The origin point of all this bad luck and drama seems to stem from the moment where young Geraldine looked in the reflecting pool. Not telling her parents what she saw appears to be the catalyst. Jacob realizes the importance of all this and tries to change this memory. Parts of the collage start to shift and break as Jacob throws himself into this . It’s no good though and it just does not work. Alma takes a detour and convinces another Geraldine to come along and help talk young Geraldine into accepting that this is part of their history. This seems to do the trick and it changes things for everyone, as all the other Geraldines from the different timelines come forth and forgive the young child for bearing this burden all these years. As everyone piles in for a big hug, the timeline changes. This embracing of one’s past allows for Geraldine to come forth and embrace her true name – Ruchel. Off the back of this, Ruchel never ends up in hospital. The family also adopt Alejandro and grow up together as a big happy family until Ruchel passes away, where they light a candle to honour her memory.
The Episode Review
The penultimate episode to Undone brings together the gorgeous visuals and trippy aesthetic we’ve come accustomed to across these two seasons and bended that with a poignant and well written character journey into Geraldine’s past. It’s evident now that she’s the key to all of this and upon changing her past, it appears the family have finally managed to turn a corner and undone (no pun intended!) all the wrongs up until this point. However, there’s also the possibility that everything could go wrong but given we only have one more episode left, it’ll be interesting to see whether there are any repercussions for what they’ve done. Either way, this was a great chapter and it sets everything up beautifully for the finale to follow.
