'Reverie' season one finale recap: 'Point of Origin'

On the season one finale of Reverie, Mara and the team must work together to stop Oliver from destroying the Reverie program.

“Point of Origin” begins where the previous episode ended, with Mara and Ray in a Reverie program. Mara explains Reverie to Ray and tells him she’s there because she wants answers. The two go into a Reverie of her sister, Jaime’s old house. She asks him why he killed Jamie and Brynn. Mara’s sister found out that he lost his job and she packed luggage bags. Ray thought she was leaving him and grabbed the gun to try and control Jamie. He says when he heard the sirens, he decided they should all die. He says he can’t remember what they look like anymore and knows his grief and guilt will never go away.

Alexis goes to her parents' house and they all chat. They go through some old pictures in an album and Alexis looks at all the photos her parents have of her throughout the house. When her father brings in her birthday cake, she asks why Dylan’s name isn’t on it as well. She confronts them about not having pictures of Dylan everywhere. They say they miss him, but her mother says they won’t talk to the computer program. They also don’t want Alexis to focus on the guilt she felt about Dylan’s death. Alexis goes to take out the trash later, but she’s attacked by Oliver.

Mara asks if Ray remembers what happened. Ray says Mara shouldn’t blame herself; he was planning on committing suicide anyway. Seconds later, Mara is torn from Reverie as Paul hurriedly explains that Alexis is missing.

Charlie shows the team camera footage of Oliver near Alexis’s last known location. Charlie announces he’s going to go search Oliver’s apartment. Paul asks his coworker Casey to get information on Oliver. Casey asks about Alexis and mentions she’s hasn’t been online in hours. Moments later, they see Alexis’s BCI is activated and the tablet shows Alexis is in a Reverie.

Oliver holds Alexis prisoner in a Reverie he edited, claiming she won’t be harmed. He says he wants to fix all of Reverie’s problems: the derealizations, people not leaving the program, the military involvement. He says everything will change that night, and leaves Alexis trapped in the edited Reverie.

Charlie finds a computer in Oliver’s apartment and Paul works on finding Oliver’s information. Mara enters the Reverie program and finds herself in a creepy, abandoned school. Back at Orina-Tech, Paul notes the air conditioning just went down for repairs. He, Casey, and Dylan figure out Oliver has Alexis’s key and is trying to shut down the Reverie servers. If he succeeds, every person using Reverie could be harmed.

Charlie asks Dylan to find every piece of information on Oliver to help the team. Monica arrives and brings a gift for Dylan: government tech to help him find Alexis.

Mara continues to search for Alexis in the creepy school Reverie. Scary, smoking apparitions attack try to attack Mara. The hallway doors all connect to one another, so she uses chalk to mark them with an “x” and move on to the next door. Mara finds Alexis and they two talk through the door. Alexis confirms Mara is who she claims and tells her Oliver’s plans. The two work together and get Alexis out of the room.

Dylan doesn’t find much about Oliver before he moved to America. The AI shows the group an article about a school fire and a photo of Oliver with some classmates on a retreat. Monica and Charlie tell Paul that Oliver’s been back to that mountain location lately and they’re leaving to investigate. Paul tells his team to work on cooling off the server and to make it so no other users can get into Reverie. Moments later, Oliver shows up to Orina-Tech disguised as a repairman and locks down the building uses Alexis’s key.

Mara and Alexis look for the mandala so they can exit the program. The apparitions from before appear and Alexis says they’re what Oliver saw during his derealizations. The two women hear someone crying and find Alexis’s parents, who blame Alexis for Dylan’s death. Mara gets through to her friend, assuring her that her real parents would never blame her for her brother’s death.

REVERIE -- "Point of Origin" Episode 110 -- Pictured: (l-r) Jessica Lu as Alexis Barrett, Sarah Shahi as Mara Kint -- (Photo by: Chris Haston/NBC)

Alexis and Mara move through the door and find a world of still people with strange, tech clouded eyes. Alexis explains Reverie sometimes shows you your greatest fear, like Paul with his abusive father. Alexis’s greatest fear was of Reverie ruining the world. Mara tells her Reverie helped her get through her own personal tragedies. She reminds Alexis that Reverie can do more good than harm. The two reach the mandala and exit the program.

Alexis wakes up in a cabin in the woods Oliver frequented. Monica and Charlie got there moments before and the three get ready to leave. Monica notices some equipment and they all realize Oliver isn’t attacking the company via the internet; he’s going to destroy the program onsite.

The team gathers at Orina-Tech. They’ve got emergency personnel around and have evacuated most of the building. Paul’s worried about the six thousand people still in Reverie. Alexis says all the Reverie backups are in the building, and if the main system blows, Reverie is gone. Mara argues to go in and reason with Oliver. The team ultimately agrees and Alexis uses her tech skills to get Mara and Charlie safely through the locked-down building.

Mara finds Oliver and they two talk. Mara confronts Oliver about burning down his school when he was younger. She says she believes him and they can talk over his fears about Reverie. Oliver doesn’t listen. Charlie shoots him, but Oliver still manages to light the fuse. Seconds later, he grabs his tablet and goes inside Reverie as the room around him burns. Charlie and Mara get out and the paramedics wheel out a burnt, unconscious Oliver on a stretcher.

Three weeks later, Alexis, Monica, and Charlie give an update to the Reverie backers. Oliver is still in a coma, and therefore not a threat. The thousand people still in Reverie when everything went up in smoke are doing okay. Alexis tells them Mara is testing the Reverie program for any bugs and they expect to reboot Reverie that day.

Mara asks Paul for his help in going to see Ray again in Reverie. Mara tells Ray she doesn’t want to feel angry anymore. She gives him a photo of him, Jaime, and Brynn. As Mara leaves the program, Ray finally lets go in real life and flatlines in the hospital. Later, Mara tells Paul she feels like now that she’s helped Ray, she’s truly able to help anyone.

Alexis talks to Dylan in her office. She tells him she’s going to upgrade him because his voice got harmed in the shutdown. Alexis then explains to AI Dylan how the real Dylan died. She was working on a project one night in a locked garage. Dylan was upset and beat on the door, so Alexis was annoyed and put on music. She didn’t hear Dylan climb up the trellis to get into the garage and fall into the greenhouse. Alexis says she was too late to save her brother. She tells Dylan that creating him was a way of keeping her brother alive. Alexis thinks holding onto her dead brother has made it difficult for her to move on and see her program clearly. She tells Dylan it’s time for him to “grow up.”

Alexis gives a speech to the Orina-Tech employees and reveals the new Dylan. He answers in a new, adult voice. The Reverie program is put back online and the employees cheer. Paul looks over the user data and frowns. He goes over to Mara and shows her the tablet, which says she’s in Reverie at that moment. They both confusedly wonder what is going on. The season ends with a disheveled Mara still in Oliver’s creepy Reverie, endlessly marking “x’s” on the doors in chalk.

Season one of Reverie was really interesting. I wasn’t expecting too much from this show based on the first episode, but it got better with each episode. I like the main characters and thought in general, the character development was good for ten episodes. Alexis ended up being my favorite character and I look forward to seeing how she continues to evolve. I’m interested in finding out exactly what happened to Mara at the e nd.So far, NBC has not renewed Reverie for a second season.