The Order Finale Recap: Who Didn't Survive the 'Magic Apocalypse'?

Andy Swift
·4 min read

Friendly warning: We’re about to break down the second season finale of Netflix’s The Order. Beware of spoilers.

For Alyssa Drake’s sake, we sure hope Netflix decides to renew The Order for a third season. The all-powerful practitioner appeared to meet her grizzly demise in the final moments of the finale, a hectic hour that also gave us a twisted return, a long-awaited showdown and the unintentionally hilarious death of a certain eyepatch-clad Councilor judge.

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Following Salvador’s death in Episode 9, a grief-stricken Alyssa was more determined than ever to carry out Praxis’ vision, commanding her fellow practitioners to intentionally trigger eruptions until the Order agreed to make magic accessible to everyone without sacrifice. As an additional “screw you,” Alyssa also stole Vera’s powers, which she held hostage in the hopes of swapping them for the Order’s highly coveted incantation. In fact, Alyssa was so focused on making Salvador’s dream a reality that she completely ignored Vera’s warnings about the consequences of the spell: Performing magic without sacrifice turns the practitioner into the sacrifice, so while a person enjoys “the pleasure of easy incantations,” there’s actually a “magic cancer” slowly eating them alive. Simply put, “Nothing frees practitioners from sacrifice. You pay now, or you pay later. Later costs more.”

Meanwhile, Gabrielle awoke in the “collective unconscious,” where Kyle confirmed that she is now a werewolf. Naturally, she responded the way anyone in her situation would: “This is your fault!” she screamed. “You dick! You dead dick!” He also passed down an order from Midnight that she was to kill Jack, which she instantly opposed in the most Gabrielle way possible: “Jack’s basic, but it’s not a killing offense.” For this reason, Midnight didn’t give her a choice, invading her psyche and assuming control of her body to ensure a successful mission.

Gabrielle becoming possessed wasn’t an ideal turn of events, but at least the wolves had a fourth supernatural being to finally rescue Lilith. (Speaking of which, Jack’s assessment of that situation was the highlight of the episode for me: “Open a passage to the demon realm? What happened to me? I was gonna be a marine biologist!”) Upon discovering that the spell to save Lilith required the sacrifice of a witch, Nicole volunteered her own life, prompting Randall to erase that information from Nicole’s memory entirely. Instead, Russell found his own sacrifice, which he promised to explain later. (Let’s just say that Kepler won’t be picking anyone up from fencing lessons anymore.)

The wolves’ second attempt at rescuing Lilith proved successful, but it’s unclear to what degree the friend that they “rescued” from the demon realm is even the same person anymore. “This isn’t my home,” she told Nicole. “You took me from my home… and you need to send me back!” The markings on her face were troubling enough, but now I’m officially concerned. (On the bright side, Midnight agreed to let Jack live. That has nothing to do with Lilith, but hey, a win’s a win!)

As if all of the above wasn’t enough, Praxis’ eruptions took a turn for the unruly, triggering a slightly more time-sensitive problem: a literal magic apocalypse. At Jack’s behest, Alyssa agreed to a temporary ceasefire, offering to apply her power to Vera’s knowledge and put the kibosh on the End of Days. But the truce was short-lived, as Alyssa was ready to kill Vera moments after averting doomsday. And had Kyle not intervened to remind Alyssa that Midnight was still after her, she probably would have done it.

Sadly, Jack’s moment of heroism was overshadowed by what happened next: While attempting to flee the scene, Alyssa was ambushed and mauled by Midnight… seemingly to death.

Order fans, did the finale end the way you anticipated? What are your hopes for a (potential) Season 3? Grade the finale and the season below, then drop a comment with more of your Order-ly thoughts.

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