‘Station Eleven’ Episode 2 Recap: Texting at the End of the World

I’ll tell you when I lost it during Station Eleven’s second episode. It was after young Kirsten Raymonde finally received a text back from her parents, whom she’d been frantically trying to reach for god knows how long. “Hello?  ??  Pls answer mom  I’m safe  I’m with a family” read her outgoing messages.

“The body of the owner of this phone is located in the morgue at Lakeview Memorial Hospital,” read the reply. “Do not come here.”

After screaming at the top of her lungs and trashing the room around her, eight-year-old Kirsten staggers out into the hallway, where her concerned ersatz guardians Jeevan and Frank wait with concern. She shows them the message, and collapses, sobbing, into Jeevan’s arms. 

That’s when I started sobbing too.

Weaving timelines together deftly, subtly, and at times mysteriously, this episode (“A Hawk from a Handsaw”) ratchets up the emotional impact of the apocalypse that has befallen Kirsten, Jeevan, and their world. It plants seeds of hope, insofar as the adult Kirsten is firmly embedded in a loving community of traveling actors and musicians…then plants seeds of fear when a deceitful stranger appears, speaking of prophecies and quoting a book only Kirsten and those closest to her have ever read.

At least that’s what she believes. It’s hard to know how seriously we are to take young Kirsten’s claim that the graphic novel Station Eleven, given to her by actor Arthur Leander, is the only copy in existence. What we do know is that she’s clung to it through hell and high water. It was her traveling companion for some time after…well, after something caused her and Jeevan to part, and for longer still after she and Jeevan left Frank behind in that apartment. It’s in her possession when, as an acne-prone pre-adolescent, she warily approaches a woman named Sarah, aka the Conductor (Lori Petty, aka the motherfucking Tank Girl), who first welcomes her into the theatrical troupe called the Traveling Symphony.

And it’s quoted back to her by a man called David (Daniel Zovatto, It Follows), who attends the Symphony’s performance with his ward Cody (Luca Villacis, Channel Zero: Candle Cove). Kirsten, who’s playing Hamlet in the troupe’s latest production, sees through David’s lies about who he is and where he’s been, and stabs him in the gut without thinking twice when he threatens her friends. It’s then that he says the lines he’s been quoting are part of a prophecy, though by whom and about what is unclear. 

And unfortunately for Kristen, the stab wound isn’t fatal; David is wheeled off by Cody to survive another day, and the ramifications for the Traveling Symphony are very much up in the air.

Once again clocking in at a tight 45 minutes—only slightly longer than your conventional broadcast-network drama, minus commercial breaks—this episode of Station Eleven bounces artfully between total devastation, dread-tinged mystery, and cockeyed optimism. On the latter point, who wouldn’t want to believe that communities of kind-hearted artists would form in the aftermath of an apocalypse? Indeed, the Traveling Symphony are so beloved by the survivor communities along their circuitous route that they’re greeted like legit celebrities—particularly Kirsten, a star whom the onlookers call for by her first name, like she’s Madonna or Cher. 

Speaking of stars, this is a major star turn by the great Mackenzie Davis, who like any performer from Halt and Catch Fire has endeared me to them for life. She’s a taut bowstring of a character, reacting with petulance when a pregnant friend (Clark Backo) opts to stay behind when the troupe moves on, and with justified suspicion when David and Cody show up; the ease with which she stabs David speaks to a life of bitter hardship. (That hardship is deftly conveyed in the makeup for the post-apocalyptic young Kirsten, who’s all shaggy hair and pubescent acne and dirt-encrusted fingers.) And hey, if you’ve ever wanted to see Cameron from Halt on horseback like some conquering hero, boy oh boy have I got good news for you.

There are other newcomers to the community besides the mysterious David and Cody, it should be noted. Dylan Taylor impresses as Dan, a wannabe actor who successfully auditions for the group by performing Bill Pullman’s presidential monologue from Independence Day, while Enrico Colatoni appears an emissary from a so-called “Museum of Civilization” that requests a command performance by the Symphony.

If it’s unclear which of these characters and plot threads will end up being important, that strikes me as being sort of the point. Station Eleven is a big messy story about the big mess left behind when human civilization collapses and dies. Its Traveling Symphony is a sort of ambulatory best-case scenario. Is there a worst-case scenario to come?

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.

Watch Station Eleven Episode 2 on HBO Max