‘The Passage’ Canceled at Fox — 8 Questions the Series Left Hanging (PHOTOS)
What happened to Wolgast?
He was alive in the immediate aftermath of Amy’s departure, and Amy seems to think he’s still alive 97 years later. But what is he up to? Is he trying to find her? She’s certainly been trying to find him.
In the book, Wolgast turns into a pseudo-viral who ends up helping Amy, but in the show it seems like he’s still pretty human since the “cure” didn’t turn him into a bloodsucker. It’s possible a second season would have explored some uncharted territory for his character, or at least modify him from the source material. And speaking of characters who aren’t around much in the source material… what happened to Wolgast’s wife, Lila?
Is Babcock still a “good” viral?
Another surprising element of the final two episodes was Shauna Babcock’s expressed regret at Fanning’s plan. Her conversation with Sykes proved she was struggling with what she was and didn’t want to hurt innocent people, which seems to have played into the system she set up with Richards where she feeds on criminals rather than chowing down on the innocent.
That said, 97 years is a very long time, and Shauna was already getting pretty hungry and pretty annoyed with her Familiar. Babcock’s male counterpart was one of the book’s main antagonists, and though she’s a sympathetic antihero at this point on the show, she might not have remain so if there had been a second installment.
Are Babcock and Richards still living (unhappily) in Vegas?
One of the most surprising elements of the finale was Richards’ decision to live as a Familiar with Babcock rather than dying in the aftermath of the escape from Project NOAH. He seemed to be grappling with that decision at the end of the finale, hating how connected he was to his viral savior — though things did get pretty steamy between them at the end, so maybe it’s not all bad.
The book’s version of Richards is quite different, and quite dead at this point in the story. If The Passage had gotten a second season, the very existence of his character and his on-again, off-again bond with Babcock would have been marked divergences from the source material.
Is Jonas Lear still alive? Is Lacey?
Lear and Lacey were an unexpected pairing in the finale, but they worked together surprisingly well — Lacey talked Lear out of suicide, and she talked him into continuing work on developing a cure. Lear’s decision to inject himself with his experimental serum before the bombs hit might very well have saved him, but did it stop him from aging for 97 years? And did he give a dose to Lacey, too?
In the books, Lacey’s still around after that gigantic time jump, though Lear died 54 years earlier. He rescued her after the fall of Project NOAH, and they stuck together and eventually fell in love. Already there are a few differences from book to screen, where they’re concerned; Lacey “rescued” Lear on the show, and it seems likely he will survive the time jump. It’s unclear whether the rest of their story would have imitated the source material.
What’s the deal with the rest of the world?
Toward the end of the final episode, the world outside the United States decided it had had enough and nuked many of the major U.S. cities in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading. Whether or not that was the right move could be up for debate, but it matters most in the context of one question: did it work?
Ideally, Season 2 would have explored whether or not those drastic measures were successful. And in addition, which of the main characters survived those explosions?
Where did Fanning go?
“Home” would be a good guess, considering all the Virals (save for Babcock) made a beeline for their home cities and turned them into hotspots of chaos and doom. But where is home, for Fanning?
The show left his whereabouts ambiguous after his escape, though he did show up to make life complicated for Amy one more time before the time jump. It seems possible he might still be hanging out in the place where he’s from, feeding on people — or he might be tracking Amy down.
What was the place Amy found at the end?
Book readers know, show watchers were probably left a little confused. After the time jump in the books, Amy ends up at a place called First Colony, which is a community of survivors. Their struggles are many of the same as characters on The Walking Dead face — running out of supplies, running out of food, etc.
First Colony is also heavily influenced by Babcock, who is the main villain for them in the first book. It would have been interesting to see how, or if, that storyline would have played out in Season 2, and whether anyone in First Colony had knowledge of Wolgast’s whereabouts.
What did Amy’s vision of the future mean?
Perhaps the most puzzling element of the finale was Amy’s brief glimpse into what appeared to be the future… and the future doesn’t look so great for Fanning. In her vision, an older Amy shows a starving Fanning mercy by feeding him her blood.
Whether or not the show would have addressed this in a second season is up in the air — did they really spoil the conclusion to their main villain’s arc so soon? — but this vision could provide some proof that Babcock might be the real danger, not Fanning.
[Warning: the following contains major spoilers for The Passage two-part finale “Stay in the Light” and “Last Lesson,” and The Passage book series]
Fox’s The Passage fed hungry book-readers when it adapted a key component of the novel’s plot: A 100-year time jump. But for those who hadn’t read the books, the twist might’ve seemed to come out of nowhere — all of a sudden, bam! It’s a century later but Amy looks almost exactly the same, and the fates of several key characters are up in the air.
A time jump of that length means it’s likely not everyone survived. Some — namely the eerie virals — are almost guaranteed to still be around, while others might not be so lucky.
Unfortunately, Fox has canceled the series, but here are some questions we wish we’d gotten a chance to see answered.
