Episodic Classics: Enlightened, "No Doubt" & "Agent of Change"| Season 2, Episodes 7 & 8
Amy wins and loses and Enlightened comes to a fitting end
Mike White, bless his hopeful heart, had plans for a third season of Enlightened that never came. In interviews, White spoke of exploring the fallout of Amy’s actions against Abaddon and how her newfound fame as a courageous whistleblower impacted her relationships with her family, her ex-husband, the very angry CEO hell bent on ruining her, and Amy’s own evolving view of herself once the dust has settled. I’d watch it naturally, but as it stands there’s a suitably ambiguous beauty to how these final two episodes of Enlightened’s run explore the open-ended nature of Amy Jellicoe’s search for a higher purpose.
As we’ll see, the road to enlightenment is littered with the smoking husks of dreams and ideals stripped away in the journey. The Amy we see departing the series in “Agent of Change” is and is not the Amy of the pilot, even if the core of her quixotic desire to mend the world remains, burnished and transformed by experience. The road to enlightenment can’t end or i…