Hello friends and welcome back to TV Tuesday! This week I’m bring you all my thoughts on season 2 of the TV show, The Dead Zone based on the book by Stephen King.

So the second season starts off where the first one left off, with Greg Stillson joining the cast and that he can be bad news. 

We learn that Walt is going to be running against him for congress, but we don’t get too much after that because Walt is pulled away to save some kids in a mine… a mine that Johnny’s grandfather (now he) owns.

In this mine, they get trapped and no one knows if they’re going to make it out alive. Johnny does, but Walt comes out badly hurt. Johnny gets a vision that Walt dies and I was not happy about that. I hate this whole love triangle thing they’ve got set up here, and yes if Walt died that’d leave Sarah and Johnny to be together, but I kinda don’t want them to be together.

Anyways, Walt falls into a coma, a predicament Sarah knows all too well. Johnny obviously feels bad for her, so he wants to use his power to see if he can wake Walt. Turns out he can, and he tries to find out where he is and bring him back. 

This is where we get the origin story for Walt and Sarah; they met at the hospital when she was still hoping Johnny would come around and he just happened to be there and he became friends with her; when it seemed that Johnny wouldn’t wake up the two got together and he helped raise Johnny Junior, which they’re calling JJ this season. 

In the end Johnny convinces Walt to stay alive, for Sarah’s sake, even though this evil old man is telling him otherwise, and Walt ends up listening to Johnny and he wakes up. 

Then the show goes back to Johnny using his ability to save people, he saves millions of babies from being born with a defect from an anti-aging cream; he stops a plane from crashing; he helps set a man who government secret memories free from their watch; he gets involved with the mob; stops a plague from infesting a school (when one of the health workers on the show said it’s a corona virus, it got really weird to watch, at least Johnny was able to see into the future to stop it… where was Johnny now?!); he stops a woman from being shot and robbed and he helps the government with an anti-terrorist operation. 

We get an episode where Johnny gets into an accident and he needs 7 different people’s blood for a transfusion, which seems excessive to me, but what do I know? After he’s got their blood, he starts to see and be these people. When he sees that one of them dies he does everything in his power to save that person… whoever they are. It was a weird twist on his powers.

We do eventually go back to Stillson plot. First, I have to say that the guy who plays Stillson doesn’t do a good job of playing an unlikeable character. Like Johnny hates him, but I don’t feel it. 

So basically, Johnny learns that Stillson wants to blow up D.C. and the world so he wants to stop him from winning congress so he joins the opposing side, Fischer… only this guy isn’t any better; it’s honestly picking between two evils here. But when Johnny finds out that Fischer didn’t win his medals from Vietnam honestly and a young Vietnamese boy starts to haunt him, he knows he can’t endorse this guy either. In the end he forces Fischer to come out, tell the truth and to back out of the election. This now just leaves Stillson… I don’t think good news is coming from this. 

We get an episode where his ability leads him to be kidnapped so they can find out who killed one of their own, and another episode where he has to choose whose life to save between two of his friends – this gets Johnny so worked up about trying to save them both that different outcomes keep happening where someone dies. In the end, his original vision comes true, but damn to have this ability would be suuuper stressful I think. 

Well, this ends up weighing on Johnny and he becomes a shut it. Everyone in his life is worried about him; they want to throw him an intervention, but on the way there a tornado keeps following Johnny. At first, I had no idea what this was meant to represent but after a while this tornado was punishing Johnny for trying to play god essentially. When Johnny promises to never do it again, it goes away.  

We finally get to learn more about Bruce, Johnny’s best friend and one-dimensional character. Bruce’s father dies, and Johnny goes with him to the funeral and we see Bruce as a child, giving a sermon, as his father is a sermon; hr spent all his childhood in the church and that’s what drove him away from his family. 

When Johnny keeps touching the family he keeps seeing weird visions of Bruce’s father shooting him – talk about weird. When Bruce touches his father and Johnny touches Bruce’s shoulder (stay with me here) it sends Bruce into an alternative universe, a universe where he never left home and that he took over sermons at the church.

Obviously, Bruce has no memory of the past years in this universe so he gives a sermon on Johnny. Meanwhile, he’s trying to find Johnny so he can return back to normal. We find Johnny, but he’s not the person we’ve come to know. He’s this cold-hearted man who is out for revenge. 

I do like that they bring in the plot from the book where Johnny goes to the Stillson rally planning on murdering him. I say I like this because I like what the show did with it. They kept it real to the book that he did it, but they made the alternative universe in which a version of Johnny did it, but not the real Johnny – so it’s like it happened, but didn’t… if that makes sense. 

Bruce does end up finding him and tries to stop him but it’s no use. After Johnny makes his move, it’s Bruce’s father who shoots Johnny, like in the vision he saw. 

Then Bruce and his father are able to have this heart to heart one last time before they go back to the real world. I think this was actually a really good episode, even if they’re using the Black character to make the white one better (as they portrayed it as Johnny would have become this gun-toting, evil guy if Bruce hadn’t of been in his life) I like that they gave Bruce the chance to reconcile with his father. Now can we get more Bruce? I hate how one dimensional they make him. 

Sadly, we didn’t get more Bruce, I think we got less, which sucks… we did learn that his last name is Lewis. 

This season Sarah wants Johnny to get closer to JJ because Johnny is his real father, but it’s a slow process. Plus, Johnny doesn’t really know what to talk to JJ about; it’s always awkward but I think he’s starting to get on a level that they’re both comfortable with, science. 

We get an episode where Johnny tries to use his ability to save a boxer’s life, but when all he sees is the man dying he starts to give up, but in the end the boxer does die, but wins the match, causing this guy to question Johnny’s legitimacy. I’m wondering if this is going to be foreshadowing for the next season, perhaps?  

So, the season ends with what I guess is going to lead into the next season, the apocalypse. At the end of season one we got a taste of it, Johnny saw that Stillson was going to end the world, we just didn’t know how… well we still don’t. 

Johnny ends up seeing this guy and the guy keeps following him. Long story short, this guy is from the future and has seen the apocalypse and is mad at Johnny for not stopping it since he’s the only one who knows. 

At first we’re led to believe this guy is a vision, but he’s a real person from the future that only Johnny can see… but he can only see this guy if he’s holding something… the end of Johnny’s cane that he found amongst the rubble in the future.

I kinda like that they’re trying to bring a new perspective and spin fresh ideas but at the same time you can kinda see that they’re grasping at straws at this point because they’ve used up all the book could give them. How this show has another 4 seasons is beyond me, but I guess I’m going to find out.

I’m really interested to see where the apocalypse plot is going to go though, because the way this ended was just Johnny helping this guy and trying to change the way things go down so hopefully there isn’t an apocalypse, but that doesn’t work. So far, the show has only hinted at it in both season finales; I’d like more lead up, maybe next season.