Station Eleven

I have watched this complex, challenging, and ultimately triumphant post-apocalyptic series three times, despite knowing everything that’s going to happen. It’s based on a book by Emily St John Mandel, with some major changes (including a redemption arc). Mackenzie Davis as Kirsten Raymonde gives the performance of her career, ranging from an abandoned young child to a powerful champion to an angry attacker to, finally, the hero who both saves and welcomes everyone. It covers several different timelines, with cuts to the main characters in each of these different timelines, from the day civilization basically ended due to a global plague, to the initial struggles for the few survivors, to the post-technology sparsely-populated world twenty years later.

Himesh Patel is Jeevan, the man who rescues the orphaned Kirsten, and Gael Garcia Bernal is Arthur Leander, a complex and important character (despite dying in the first scene). Danielle Deadwyler plays Arthur’s first wife and Caitlin FitzGerald is his second wife. We see them before they knew Arthur, as they each met and married Arthur, and as they each eventually encounter the day of the plague. Danielle Deadwyler, in particular, takes actions throughout that save numerous lives. All but one percent of the planet dies in those first few days, and we see the small group, The Traveling Symphony, as they pick up the pieces and become a caravan bringing Shakespeare to small towns in Michigan twenty years later. Technology is gone; the symphony is led by horses. The 2.7 million people in Chicago, where Kristen and Jeevan encounter the plague, are reduced to fewer than 27,000; and the northern Michigan towns where the symphony travels have at most a few hundred people.

Yet they survive, and persist, and bring music, drama, and joy. We see Kirsten challenged and attacked several times, escaping and developing survival skills. We see her mourn the loss of colleagues, and take on bandits and other threats, but we also see her learn to see the good in some of those threatening people. We see her separated from Jeevan by attackers, and we see her grow up without him, and then we see their triumphant reunion. The series finally ends with the song United We Stand by The Brotherhood of Man, and there could not be a more perfect ending: after hours and episodes of trials, challenges, conflicts, farewells and reunions, deaths and near-deaths, it perfectly summarizes what the entire time trip has meant to all these people. They’re united. They stand together. They accept each other. It’s a teary ending, and the tears are all of joy.

See the  Rolling Stone review and the Vanity Fair review.