Aahana Swrup
In ‘Absentia,’ Emily Byrne’s life takes a drastic turn once she escapes from her six-year-long abduction, only to find herself implicated in a string of murders. In the period of her disappearance, her husband, fellow FBI Agent Nick Durand, dedicated himself to searching for her. However, once she was assumed dead, even her husband ended up giving up and moving on with his life. As a result, when the formerly MIA agent returns, it’s to discover that her husband has remarried, making his new wife, Alice Durand, an integral part of the family’s makeup. Initially, the dynamic between Emily and Alice remains ripe with resentment and distrust. However, in season 2, the plotline revolving around Dr. Semo Oduwale and his “resilience serum” introduces a new facet of the latter’s characterization and storyline. Ultimately, this leads the character to her unfortunate and final demise. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Alice was an Accomplice in Dr. Oduwale’s Schemes
As Nick’s second wife and Flynn’s stepmother, Alice has always occupied a complicated role in Emily’s narrative. From the beginning, a distinct feeling surrounds the former character, instilling a sense that she has somehow stolen the protagonist’s life in one way or another. Furthermore, although her distrust toward Emily is understandable at times, her passive aggression and scepticism over her husband’s first wife cast her in an apathetic and dispassionate light. In season 2, these instances are enhanced when a surprising and intrinsic truth about Alice comes into the light. As it turns out, the latter has been Dr. Oduwale’s partner in crime for a long time.
Dr. Oduwale is working on a resilience serum that is intended to relieve the effects of PTSD and stress in the subjects. However, it has the added side effect of increased aggression and violence, which ends up causing much hurt to the victims. In investigating the case, Emily learns that her own blood was used in the creation of this serum. While her kidnapper, Laurie Colson, abducted and tortured her for six years, she supplied Oduwale with her blood samples, so that her blood could be used as the main ingredient for the serum. Later, in her absence, Alice inserts herself into Nick and Flynn’s lives to use the latter for the doctor’s research.
Alice Dies During a Confrontation With Emily
Once Emily figures out the role Alice played in Oduwale’s demented research, it inevitably leads to a confrontation between the two women. Initially, the latter attempts to downplay her involvement in the research, insisting that she never knew the true scope of her partner-in-crime’s work. She claims that she believed they were working on simply monitoring stress rather than creating a dangerous bioagent. Furthermore, Alice insists that she never knew that the blood central to Oduwale’s research belonged to Emily in the first place. She uses the same justification to explain why she killed the doctor in the first place. However, Emily knows better than to fall for the woman’s lies.
In reality, Alice has always been a sound and informed accomplice to Oduwale’s crime. Later, when she does kill the doctor, it’s an act of self-preservation to ensure her own cover doesn’t get blown. Still, despite knowing all this, Emily decides to give the woman a second chance. She chooses to believe her when she says her feelings of love and care for Nick and Flynn grew and became genuine with time. Therefore, the FBI agent allows her the chance to disappear, leaving her memory intact and untainted in her family’s mind. Nonetheless, while Emily lowers her weapon, Alice keeps hers pointed at the agent. Yet, before her intentions can become clear, Special Agent Julianne Gunnarsen ends up intervening and killing her. At the end of the encounter, Alice dies, and Emily is left to break the difficult news to Nick and Flynn.
Julianne’s Involvement With Meridian Compelled Her to Kill Alice
Although Alice’s death arrives in season 2, all the threads surrounding her end only conclude in season 3. Ever since the violent altercation between her, Alice, and Julianne, Emily found herself constantly fixating on the latter’s decision to kill the armed woman. She believes there were numerous non-lethal solutions to the situation. For the same reason, she can’t bring herself to trust the special agent in charge after witnessing her trigger-happy actions. In the end, her suspicions are proven to be true. Toward the end of season 3, after Emily has rescued Nick and shut down Meridian’s refugee human testing camps, she and a handful of trusted agents investigate Kai’s stolen files to discover the identity of the real mole in the Agency.
This brings them to Special Agent Julianne Gunnarsen. As it turns out, she has been working for the European criminal organization for a long time. Additionally, the organization itself had bought Oduwale’s research in the past few years. As a result, both the doctor and his accomplice, Alice, were working under Merdian in some way or another. This made both of them possible liabilities for the organization, since it stood to lose their anonymity if either of them decided to talk. For the same reason, once Alice’s cover was compromised, Julianne was sent in to kill the woman since she was considered “too soft” and unreliable. In turn, the FBI agent followed through with the damning command in her pursuit to join the powerful in their ranks.
Read More: Absentia Season 4: Why Was it Canceled?
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