Diksha Sundriyal
Would you be okay if you had superpowers? You’d be ecstatic, right! Everyone dreams of having superpowers. Some entertain the idea of saving the world from bad guys as the Avengers do. Others simply want something that can help them stand up against their bullies. Everyone has their reasons, but they all want to be superheroes. Sydney is not one of them.
She is not okay with it at all, and that’s what ‘I Am Not Okay with This’ is about. The Netflix series follows the trials and tribulations of the teen who is tackling grief, loss, angst, sexuality, and everything else at the same time, along with her superpowers that have suddenly shown face. Slowly and steadily, Sydney finds her bearings and starts to unravel her potential while finding some answers about where these powers could have come from. At the end of the season, she makes a shocking discovery. Here, we try to make sense of it. If you haven’t yet seen the show, head over to Netflix. SPOILERS AHEAD
Plot Summary
Sydney is a boring girl living in a boring town. Nothing interesting ever happens with her, or at least, it wasn’t used to. Suddenly, things take a turn and she finds herself in the middle of a swirling pool of problems that she can’t get out of. She has a crush on her best friend, and she always fights with her mother. Her weed-smoking neighbor wants to be friends with her, and she can suddenly move things with her mind. How can she ever be okay with all of this?
The Ending: Who’s the Stalker?
There are a number of problems in Syd’s life. Her budding superpowers have increased the tension for her, but that is not the end of it. At the end of the fourth episode, when she walks out of the bowling alley after almost killing Stanley, we find a mysterious figure staring at her from a distance. Sydney doesn’t notice him and, moments later, he disappears into thin air. He shows up the next day in the library and scares Syd so much that she suffers another bout and knocks out the bookshelves. This leads to her paranoia and she starts to think that someone is keeping an eye on her.
She is constantly on the lookout, shuts the blinds on her windows, and is also easily irritated. However, when she finds out that her father had gone through the same thing, she relaxes a bit. She wonders if her paranoia is exactly like that of her father. Maybe he, too, had become suspicious due to his powers and thought that someone had been lingering around when in reality, there was no one there. When she lets go of her paranoia, things get back to normal and it looks like she might have been right. But then, at the end of the final episode, the stalker resurfaces.
After the events of the homecoming, Sydney runs away and finds herself at the structure in the woods, which Stanley claimed was built by his great-great-great-grandfather, or so. While she considers what’s next for her, the entity materializes behind her. It is a man, but because he is wearing a hood, we can’t see his face. Sydney asks him if she should be scared, and he says they should be scared. And then, “let’s begin”.
So, who is this mysterious character and what do they want from Sydney? While this will become clear in the next season, there is a possibility that it might be someone Sydney already knows. Could it be her father? The fact that he is dead doesn’t help his case, but right now, we don’t know much about this man either. And the way he disappears and reappears, he might as well be a ghost! So maybe it is Sydney’s father’s ghost.
Other than her, he is the only one who possesses superpowers, or at least, that’s what is hinted at by the way Syd’s mother talks about him. Yes, he committed suicide, but maybe he didn’t really die. Maybe it is one of his powers to not die, or come back from the dead. Or, perhaps he did die and then came back as a ghost to help his daughter. This theory also paves the way for defining the “they” that he spoke of. At first, it looks like he might be talking about the townspeople in general. But, what if, he didn’t kill himself? What if he was murdered, and the “they” that he wants to scare are the people who killed him or drove him to death?
Another possibility is that this is the same person who had been following Syd’s father. Because he doesn’t attack Syd, we believe that he might want to help her or want her help. Maybe he wanted the same from her father, but he grew too paranoid and killed himself. Now, Sydney is this man’s only option. Or, maybe this man is the villain, as previously assumed and has a trap for Sydney.
Read More: I Am Not Okay With This Episode 1 Review
