Aahana Swrup
‘The Red Road’ season 2 dives back into the world of Walpole, where mysteries thrive, and conflict between communities is ripe as ever. The story opens a year after the explosive finale of season 1, which finds co-protagonists Harold and Kopus at drastically different points in their lives. Where the former has managed to secure himself a promotion and a promising career, the latter earned another notch in his ever-growing rap sheet. Although they manage to steer clear of each other’s lives, their paths once again entangle with the fishy death of Chief Mac.
Meanwhile, Jean continues medicating her condition to silence the voices in her head, only to discover that the voices may have something of value to say. On the other hand, Junior, freshly out of juvie, embarks on a personal journey of self-discovery. However, all of these narratives come clashing together when Levi Gall, a tribe Chief from Connecticut, comes to the New Jersey area, looking to exploit the Lenape tribe’s new federal recognition to his own advantage. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Red Road Season 2 Recap
Phillip Kopus and Harold Jensen both manage to walk away from their climactic and bloodied confrontation with the Albanian gangster thanks to coordinated cover stories. Yet, where the cop gains a promotion or two out of the incident, the ex-con only finds himself back in the slammer. A year later, the latter is finally out on parole. Similarly, his ex-protege, Junior, has been released from juvenile detention and is now under the mentorship of tribe chief Mac. For the same reason, he’s all the more distraught when he finds the older man’s dead body in his cabin late one night. Kopus arrives at the scene before him and subsequently becomes a person of interest by the time the authorities arrive. In turn, Junior sticks up for him, blurring details of their arrival’s timeline in his favor. However, little does he know that Kopus’ early arrival had allowed him to spot and stash a bagful of cash he had found beside the Chief’s dead body.
In the aftermath, the FBI becomes involved in solving the murder, which puts pressure on the local department to find Junior, whose statement was of interest in the investigation. As a result, Harold, who is vying for the Captain’s position, begins pursuing the lead. During this time, Kopus finds himself to be an even bigger pariah than before as everyone suspects him of the crime. Simultaneously, his mother and Mac’s sister, Marie, who is currently in cancer remission, becomes the Interim Chief of the Tribe. This makes her of interest to Levi, who is eager to have a casino opened on the Tribe’s land. Even though Mac was strictly against such construction on the Lenape community’s sovereign lands, Marie finds herself considering the prospect for its financial benefits. In recent years, most of the Tribe has started collecting cancer diagnoses. Therefore, the community was in dire need of quick resources.
Nonetheless, this decision attracts the dismay of many, including lawyer/activist Sky and Junior. Back in Walpole, Jean considers engaging in alternative treatment for her schizophrenia, namely confronting the voices in her head in a controlled environment instead of constantly blocking them out. Eventually, Harold manages to accidentally pursue and kill a suspect, who is later identified as Mac’s killer. This unsatisfying end to the investigation earns him his promotion, landing him in the Captain’s office. However, this turns out to be a double-edged sword. As it turns out, the previous Captain, Warren, who killed himself in the aftermath of his wife’s death, was sitting on a big secret. Somehow, this secret seems to be connected to Jack Kopus, Phillip’s father, who is currently in prison for the murder of multiple law enforcement agents. After some unofficial negotiations, he agrees to tell Harold the truth.
Apparently, a few decades ago, Walpole was involved in some shady practices involving a significant waste contract family. During this time, the waste company dumped out tonnes of paint sludge into the mines in the mountains while paying off officers, like Warren, and town officials to look the other way. By the time they stopped the illegal and harmful dumping practice, it was only because the mines were filled to the brim. As a result, it’s no surprise that there’s a cancer epidemic in the Lenape tribe, some of which is starting to seep into the valley town as well. Jack, who was a truck driver for these sludge dumping runs, has been sitting on this secret for people like Warren for decades. Yet, as the new Captain, Harold has no intention of continuing this tradition of secrecy. Meanwhile, Kopus figures out the mysterious motives behind Mac’s murder, which inadvertently set Junior up for a deadly confrontation against his father, Levi.
The Red Road Season 2 Ending: Does Marie Die? What Will Happen to the Tribe?
By the finale of ‘The Red Road’ season 2, the protagonists arrive at a precarious point in their narratives. This is especially true for Kopus, who remains as in hot waters as ever. Even though he has managed to prevent Junior from doing something brash, namely killing his father, Levi, the danger to his own head remains. Early on in the season, the ex-con steals a bag of cash from the crime scene where he discovers Mac’s dead body. This cash belongs to Levi and had been left behind by his hired assassins by mistake. It doesn’t take long for the attackers to realize that Kopus has the money on account of his being one of the first people who discovered the dead body. As such, he easily becomes a target for Levi.
In the aftermath of Junior’s ill-advised trip to Connecticut, the Chief ends up rolling up to the Lenape tribe in an effort to exact revenge upon Kopus. Nonetheless, the latter is prepared for the attack and quickly overpowers his attackers, including Levi. However, he soon discovers that his place of residence isn’t where the worst of the trouble is brewing. As it turns out, Levi sent out a band of his hired muscle to Marie’s house next door. The current Interim Chief of the Tribe doesn’t make for a good political enemy, given the land’s inability to house a casino on account of its lead problem. Nonetheless, Levi may have different motives for the attack. Earlier, Junior had tried to carry out an assassination plot on the outsider Chief as a part of his personal vengeance.
Nonetheless, Kopus and Harold had managed to rescue Junior before Levi could deliver any punishment for his son’s unsuccessful attempt. Despite their estrangement, it seems like the latter holds some affection, or at least expectations from his son. Even so, the assassination attempt seems to have pushed things too far for him. For the same reason, he put a hit on Junior, which ultimately led to the death of Marie. In the end, Kopus’ mother dies from the attack, leaving her sons, both biological and adopted, devastated. Furthermore, it leaves the future of the Tribe up in the air as it loses its second Chief since its federal recognition. Ultimately, the Tribe’s future remains uncertain, leaving space open for a number of characters to take over as the leader, including Sky or even Kopus.
Who is Really Responsible For the Lead in the Water?
Shortly after Harold uncovers the reality about the paint sludge inside the mountains surrounding the valley, he’s quick to inform the residents. Despite the chaos this promises to cause, he knows that ignorance will only lead to worse outcomes as the town continues to consume lead in its waters. From the get-go, the cop remains aware that the city officials, if not responsible for the civic problem, have always been aware of it. After all, he himself learns about it through a secret letter left to him by his predecessor, Captain Warren. Nonetheless, given the relative novelty of the news, no concrete investigation has been conducted into the matter to determine the guilty parties at play.
For the same reason, people like Jean’s father, David, are eager to shed the suspicious light on themselves by pointing fingers at the Lenape tribe. As such, rumors soon began to spread about the Tribe’s involvement in dumping the toxic material into the mountains’ mines. Although Harold knows it to be untrue, he needs some outside help to extract information and evidence about the incident’s real origins. It just turns out that Jack is the one who holds the key to this information. Consequently, the Captain ends up convincing Marie to have a chat with her ex-husband to try and recover any information that the Tribe could use to defend itself against the baseless accusations.
Thus, the full truth finally comes out. Although it is true that the waste contract company employed the mob to provide drivers for their trucks, the vehicles themselves were supplied to them from elsewhere. Apparently, it was the city itself that provided the company with the trucks that were used to transport the sludge to the mountains for dumping. Furthermore, in a moment of wisdom, Jack manages to secure evidence to prove the same. He has a photo from Kopus’ childhood with a city-supplied truck in the background. The truck’s suspicious presence in the mountains, paired with Jack’s testimony, could prove to be viable evidence in a lawsuit against the city. Even though Marie dies before she can use this information to the Tribe’s advantage, she manages to share it with Sky, setting the lawyer up to transition to a more significant role in this storyline.
Who Killed Mac? Why?
In some ways, Mac’s death becomes a nucleus for the storyline in season 2. Even though Harold accidentally solves the case early on, many questions still persist. For instance, since the suspected killer died before his arrest, his motivations remain ambiguous and unanswered. Even so, it doesn’t take long for characters like Kopus to figure out the real truth. Before his death, Mac was being pursued by Levi, who was interested in partnering up with the Lenape tribe to open up a casino in the newly federally recognized sovereign lands. Nonetheless, the Chief was strictly against this idea. He wanted to use the land to carry the legacy of his people instead of chasing after fortune by giving up their own identity. Additionally, the mountains’ sacred status also influenced his refusal of the idea.
Naturally, this posed a big problem for Levi, who was eager to secure additional ports of revenue. For the same reason, he ended up sending two of his men to Mac’s house with a hefty bribe in hand. However, when the duo tried to convince the Chief to accept the bribe and with it Levi’s proposition, he ended up coming out with his gun. Although he only fires a warning shot to get the hired muscle out of his property, the younger man mistakes it for an attack on his uncle and ends up shooting Mac in the chest. Thus, the death, though a part of a bigger scheme at play, was only an unintended accident caused by a trigger-happy goon. Junior, who embarks on a mission of vengeance after the assassination, learns about the same while escaping from Levi’s reservations. Coincidentally enough, his co-escapee turns out to be the same man who had killed the Chief.
Whose Voices Does Jean Hear in Her Head?
Jean’s relationship with her schizophrenia becomes another significant storyline in season 2 that intersects with the mystery-ridden history of the town’s past. This time around, the character tries to better understand her condition by allowing herself to confront the voices in her head in an attempt to understand their origin and purpose. Eventually, this brings her to one specific hallucination she keeps having revolving around a nest of broken bird eggs. As it turns out, this vision has roots in her childhood. When Jean was a young girl, she remembers receiving a parcel from a man at her house’s door. The parcel, addressed to her father, contained a nest of broken bird eggs as well as one intact black egg.
Jean ended up keeping that black egg while passing the parcel along to her father. However, afterward, David denies the existence of such a parcel, leading his daughter to believe she was imagining things. Even so, she clearly remembers finding the egg in her belongings later until it too vanished one day. Jean’s unorthodox therapy sessions allow her to unearth this memory. Thus, when Harold begins ot unravel the mystery of the town’s lead water, which points toward David’s guilt in the matter, things begin ot fall into place.
As such, Jean realizes that her father has always known about her schizophrenia. In fact, her brother had the same condition, which began to manifest much earlier. Nonetheless, David refused to get Brian any professional help, unwilling to “tarnish” the family name. Instead, he tried to medicate his son on his own by routinely carrying out sessions where he would tie a plastic bag over the young boy’s head as a disciplinary tactic. In the end, this is what drove Brian to commit suicide. Although Jean never knew the entire truth, she glimpsed conversations and more in her own childhood. However, her parents managed to convince her against the legitimacy of these instances. For the same reason, the voices in her head ended up taking the form of her parents. Eventually, this realization leads down murky roads, namely, David’s death.
Read More: Is The Red Road Based on a True Story?
