‘The Clearing’ Episodes 1 and 2, Recap & Ending Explained: What Happens to Asha?
Welcome to the Recap and Ending Explained for The Clearing, a new mystery thriller series coming to Hulu this week. The series is based on the novel “In The Clearing” written by P.J. Pomare. In it, the author tries to tell a story based on the real-life events of The Family, a cult that was formed in the 1960s and made waves in the 1980s after the police discovered the many terrible things they did to the kids under their care. The event inspired creators Elise McCredie and Matt Cameron to create this show starring Teresa Palmer, Miranda Otto, Julia Savage, and Hazem Shammas.
The Clearing is a slow burner, a story that deals with many subjects and is able to give its characters the time to react to situations in a proper way. The story still moves at a very nice pace, and the end of each episode offers a new revelation to keep things moving. However, it is certain that for some people, it might be just a bit too slow. The narrative gives the audience bits and pieces of the story little by little so they can put them together by themselves. This will be more homework than necessary for some, but thanks to the great atmosphere and the acting, the payoff is worth the wait.
The following paragraphs contain spoilers for The Clearing, Episodes 1 and 2. Read at your own risk.
What Happens To Asha?
The Clearing splits its narrative into two different places in time. One follows a character named Freya, a single overprotective mother who lives with his son. The other one is that of a young girl named Amy. When the series starts, the first thing we see is Amy, who at the time is thirteen years old, carving her name on a tree. Down the road, an even younger girl appears and starts exchanging words with Amy. Amy is there to be a distraction. An older woman pulls from a white van and kidnaps the younger girl. Amy grabs the girl’s key from the ground and rides the van.
On the road, there is something certainly off about the kidnapping, if the kidnapping wasn’t cruel and creepy enough. Amy, and the van’s driver, are just teenagers, and they have this blonde, almost white hair that makes them stand out from afar. The older woman is different. She seems mad and grabs the younger girl with all her strength. The girl faints and then wakes up at Amy’s place. There, the younger girl is named Asha. Asha struggles, she demands to be taken home, but the people around him don’t want to listen. She is forced into activities with other kids in the compound.
Very quickly, it is clear that this is a sort of cult led by a woman named Adrienne. This woman controls everything the kids, who she calls her children and the rest of the adult staff. Adrienne calls the children her children, but she isn’t the children’s mother. Asha’s arrival becomes a problem because the kidnapping will attract attention the cult doesn’t want. Amy cares for Asha and teaches her the cult’s ways. She fails, as Asha will not stop fighting. She knows this is not her home and won’t accept it.
Adrienne has the children believe they are treated well, so when Asha explains that back at home, she has toys and television and that she can eat whenever she wants, Amy cannot believe it. Asha tries to escape several times, and Amy is punished. Adrienne gives her high doses of LSD, and she trips pretty badly.
It is torture for her. Adrienne’s congregation believes that the kids are actually hers and that they are perfect. She sells this idea to bring each of her followers closer to perfection.
Asha keeps fighting, and after Amy wakes up from one of her LSD trips and searches for Asha, she is told that Asha is gone home. It is implied that they just killed Asha instead of suffering more from her struggle against the cult’s ways. Amy keeps Asha’s house key with her as a memento.
Why Is Freya So Paranoid?
The other main character of the show is Freya, the single mother, and her story is a lot less traumatic but not less stressful. Freya seems to have a very solid relationship with her son, and all seems pretty well. However, she gets triggered when she sees the news on TV that a girl has been kidnapped.
Freya starts believing that someone seems to be after her and her son, and she begins protecting him a lot more than usual. When her son hides behind a door and doesn’t want to go out, she forces the door and hits it. An accident, but Freya feels very sorry about it.
Freya goes to visit her senile mother, and she is revealed to be Adrienne, who is not really totally up there. Adrienne calls him Amy, and it is revealed that Freya is actually a grown-up Amy. It is a mystery yet why she changed her name. Freya also makes contact with an old detective; she believes that the old van she has seen around her home is the one that kidnapped the girl from the news. Her worries are dismissed, though.
Adrienne keeps escaping her nursing home, and Freya has to keep going to bring her back. It is quite stressful, and on top of that, she is being questioned about her son’s injury at home. At the end of the second episode, when she brings her home one last time, Adrienne seems lucid for the first time and tells her that losing a child is the worst thing a mother can experience.
However, later, she calls a mysterious figure driving the white van that Freya is suspicious about. Even in her state, Adrienne seems ready to rebuild her family again by kidnapping more children.
Who is this strange woman? Is she someone from Amy’s past, and what is Adrienne planning after so long away from her cult? We will have to wait and see.
