YMMV / The Purge (2018)

• Complete Monster
  • Season 1:
    • Good Leader Tavis is the charismatic leader of the Mercy Cult, preaching the benefits of letting others Purge upon you. In truth, Tavis is a member of the NFFA, paid to round up youth the government has deemed "disposable" and systematically wipe them out. Operating for years, Tavis takes in youth with nowhere else to go, grooms them to believe in her cause, then has them ritualistically sacrifice themselves on Purge Night, even when the victims begin to doubt their mission and beg to live. With the youth she targets being brutally murdered, assaulted, or even trafficked to the Carnival of Flesh, Tavis is a despicable figure even among the NFFA.
    • David Ryker is the CEO of Ryker Moore Equity and hides his monstrous sexism behind a charming façade. Believing that Purge Night is the time for him to reclaim his status as a man, David has women kidnapped off of the street and tied up for his "living art gallery", where he and other men are free to molest them to their heart's content to make up for the fact that he can't do so any other day of the year, threatening to kill them if they don't go along with it. When Jane arrives, he has her tied up as well, taking vindictive pleasure in telling her that he knows she'll never recover from his abuse of her before molesting her as well.
  • Season 2: Ben Gardner is a college student who gets his first kill on Purge night, unlocking a repressed bloodlust within him. Outside of the Purge, Ben murders a farmer for supposedly shortchanging him, and when he learns that the NFFA covered it up to protect Purge statistics, he decides that this means he can get away with murder. Ben begins killing people more often, first another college student, then his best friend; later on, he chokes his already dying girlfriend to death to protect his secret. On the next Purge night, he massacres his frat house because they express concern for his mental state, including duct taping Turner's hands to a machete and forcing him to kill his friend out of spite. When he's injured after killing several other Purgers and is saved by doctors, Ben slaughters as many of them as he can, taking offense to them robbing Purgers of their kills before attempting to kill Marcus for attempting to "play God". Fully intending to continue killing everyone in sight outside of Purge Night, Ben serves as the living embodiment of everything wrong with the Purge.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: It is said by Rick that Lila was "not well" at one time, implying some unknown mental health issue she went through at some point between her relationship with him and Jenna and the Purge.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • In season 1, Good Leader Tavis, the intense, charismatic leader of a cult selling people to purgers, inspired this reaction (or at least Evil Is Cool), being considered to be more of a zealot than a fraud by some and even being one of just two characters, not from the series, but from the franchise to get a Wikipedia page.
  • Complete Monster Ben's arc of transforming into a Serial Killer still had some fans arguing about what a troubled misguided not entirely malicious guy he was all the way to the season 2 finale (if not past that).
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • In season one, a lot of people liked Pete, the tough ex-cop providing support for those seeking to avoid the annual Purge. Vigilante Militia leader only has a few appearances but is also very popular, due to how she leads a Vigilante Militia to protect women and take revenge on their rapists, murderers and abusers during the Purge.
  • In season 2, Ryan's fellow bank robbers Tommy and Sara and Esme's fellow surveillance monitor turned rebel Vivian are supporting characters who have very good fan reception.
• Even Better Sequel: The first season, while not outright disliked, is generally considered to be inferior to the second season. The first struggles with some pacing issues and is largely just one of the movies spread out over ten episodes, while the second gives us a look at the America we don't get to see in the movies - the country outside of the Purge - and demonstrate what the country would have to be like for the rest of the year for the Purge to be accepted.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In season 2, Bobby Sheridan suggests that the solution to off-Purge violence is to have the Purge more often, as it clearly shows that people need to let out more aggression. That exact situation comes to pass in The Forever Purge, and it ends with the complete collapse of the United States of America.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The Matron Saints. A group who use the Purge not to spread suffering and death, but to protect women and punish those who would hurt them. Even among all the depravity of Purge Night, some people choose good.
  • In "7:01am", Marcus talks with a med student at the triage center who's feeling doubt about how much help she'll be able to provide him. He points out that she's not even a full medical student yet, and yet she's out here saving lives on Purge Night - that's all the proof he needs to know that she'll be a great doctor.
    Student: I've never done this before, I don't know that I'm qualified.
    Marcus: You haven't even taken the MCATs and you're spending your Purge Night here. You know what that tells me?
    Student: No.
    Marcus: You're gonna be a great doctor.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • In season one, some reviewers commented how Lila's stab wound didn't look necessarily fatal.
  • Later in season one, Jane's death by choking, given how it only lasts about thirty seconds and in real life medical sources say it takes several minutes to fatally choke someone.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Season 1:
    • Miguel Guerrero is the older brother of Penelope, determined to find her no matter who gets in his way. Over the course of the evening, Miguel faces down insurmountable odds and crushes all resistance; whether that's through facing down the Gauntlet, getting inside the Carnival of Flesh by trafficking one of its members to them, killing Henry even while he's tied down, or even managing to track down Good Leader Tavis's bus, Miguel utilizes his quick thinking and tactical training to assess every threat, neutralize them, and protect his sister along the way. Later teaming up with Pete the Cop to track down Joe Owens, Miguel even manages to reverse engineer Joe's traps despite not being a bomb technician, getting rid of the Carnival's guards as well as killing Joe himself after the sirens had already gone off. Driven purely by his love for his sister, Miguel proves himself to be far more than the brutish Marine he originally seems to be.
    • Pete the Cop is a former police officer with such a legendary reputation that he's off-limits on Purge Night. Using this reputation to enforce a Truce Zone inside his cantina, where people may either seek safety or plan their Purges as they please, Pete utilizes his connections around the city to make him a valuable source of information. Originally only helping Miguel find his sister in exchange for his car, Pete later tricks Miguel into working with a collector for the Carnival, knowing Miguel wouldn't work with the man otherwise. Later shedding his caustic exterior to reveal the hero beneath, Pete helps Miguel track down Joe and deduces his plans from minimal information, later forming the plan to take down the Carnival's guards all at once before covering for Miguel's murder of Joe.
    • Madelyn is the leader of the Matron Saints, a group of women who spend their Purge Night protecting other women from dangerous men. Armed to the teeth and ready for anything, Madelyn is introduced saving Jane from an Attempted Rape by threatening the man into a retreat, later managing to flush out the drug he gave her with materials from her RV. When the group gets a call from a woman being abused, Madelyn leads the raid on the apartment with lightning-fast precision, taking down the danger within moments and caring for the wounded woman all the while. It is then revealed that the Matron Saints brand their targets with the word "PIG", ensuring that women recognize men who will hurt them when given the chance and giving out cards to others to continue protecting them.
  • Season 2:
    • Esmerelda "Esme" Carmona is one of the NFFA's leading agents who, unlike most of the party, genuinely believes in her cause. After witnessing a friend be Purged, Esme begins investigating the death, very quickly managing to uncover a conspiracy by the government to cover up negative Purge statistics and protect their own image. Despite being named a criminal, Esme stays one step ahead of them and allies with Ryan Grant, combining her plan to expose the government for its corruption with his plan to rob a plane. Working with a mole to place the NFFA's security away from her and Ryan, Esme manages to get inside the government's building and broadcast the truth to the public, encouraging the people to resist the Purge; when this gets her executed in spite of the Purge ending, it's revealed that Esme left the microphone on, tricking the NFFA into exposing themselves and making her a martyr to the resistance.
    • Ryan Grant is a former police officer turned brilliant bank robber. Introduced leading a successful bank robbery and outsmarting a rival gang along the way, Ryan spends the next year preparing for the next heist, discovering how the banks move their money and creating the plan to retrieve it. When forced to ally with his former co-workers, all corrupt, Ryan then leads them on while he works with Esme to ensure their plans go successfully, all while planning to escape the country. Come Purge Night, Ryan betrays his enemies to the rival gang, knowing that his crew is skilled enough to take the money back from the gang themselves, and successfully claims the money for his crew. When he then learns that Esme's going to expose the government, Ryan singlehandedly takes on an NFFA death squad to buy her the time she needs, ultimately protecting her down to his last bullet at the cost of his life.
• Strangled by the Red String: In season 2, Ryan and Esme go from barely trusting each other to being lovers during the Time Skip in the last few episodes, with little explanation of how.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: There's actually a whole article complaining about how Kelen's season 2 death felt cruel and her surviving to return for revenge on Purge night had the potential for a better ending.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Rick and Jenna's argument is supposed to show her in the right to be scared of him for being willing to kill someone to gain the funding they need, alongside the idea that everything he's done is really just so he can climb the social ladder. The issue is that while her arguments would hold up in the real world, in the world of The Purge, being willing to kill one person to receive the funding to help potentially hundreds of others is a genuinely acceptable possibility, and when we don't necessarily them well enough to believe that Rick is becoming more villainous as time has gone on, it comes off more as Both Sides Have a Point. It doesn't help that when Rick makes a very valid point - that Jenna basically left him to die when she learned the mansion would be attacked but chose to find Lila instead of him - Jenna completely brushes it off and it goes ignored.
• The Woobie: Charlie the high school bully, who Joe kidnaps for tormenting him in his youth. Charlie confesses and appears genuinely remorseful for his bullying, while noting that he is worse off, having lived off the streets for the last ten years and was found beaten by a gang on purge night. Joe appears to have forgiven Charlie and they embrace, only for Charlie to be stabbed for lying about not knowing Joe earlier.

---