Season 1 of The Horror of Dolores Roach has ended on a cliffhanger, along with a lot of deliberately missing details that will undoubtedly be a part of Season 2 of the series. But since it hasn’t been announced yet, we can consider that Season 1 was the first and only season of the show. We saw Dolores become a Sweeney Todd-level famous villain due to terrible circumstances, go on the run for four years, and then kill the man who had started it all by setting her up for prison time. Now that her main goal has been accomplished, she can go back on the run to wherever she wants and lead the rest of her life in the peace she has always craved. The writers’ intent could have been to explore only a single facet of the story, that of how she became what she was, and then leave the rest to the audience’s imagination. But considering how well thought out the main storyline was, that doesn’t seem as likely as there is more to the story that will come up in future seasons.
There are two likely ways in which this plays out. There is a difference of four years between the events at the restaurant and the time Dolores came back from the dead. Just like Season 1, Season 2 of The Horror of Dolores Roach might reveal the story through flashbacks, giving us a glimpse of what Dolores was up to in the four years that nobody heard from her. The second way could be that she continues her journey in the present day. Assuming that the person she killed was not Dominic, she would still be searching for him. Otherwise, if she has indeed killed Dominic, his gang members or loved ones might be after her life, or maybe she simply starts looking for a new purpose. That is a huge question for us and for Dolores herself: what is she if not for Dominic? She had loved him and dedicated her life to him, and after all these years in prison, even though she doesn’t care to have any romantic interest in him, finding and killing him is still the driving force behind her actions. However, it could be that she wants some answers. Though Marcie had said that she was just the scapegoat, we doubt Dolores is satisfied with that explanation. In fact, it is here that we detect notes of Kill Bill in addition to Sweeney Todd, which is why it is hard for us to believe that the person she killed at the end of Season 1 was Dominic. It just couldn’t have been that simple.
But moving on from the crisis of her identity, there is the question of what she did in those four years. She needed money to get by, so she may have stolen and plundered, which can possibly mean another trail of dead bodies. She was wrongfully accused of being a cannibal in season 1, but season 2 may have some sort of twist with her being a long-hunted serial killer, though her actions may have been motivated by a need for food and shelter. She must have been looking for Dominic this whole time, so what are the trails she followed, and what answers did she find? In one of the episodes of Season 1, she finds that Dominic had lied to her about where he was from. This means that she may have found other lies and loopholes and constructed some narrative from them all. That could also apply to her search in the events of the present day. There is no telling what she will do with the podcast boy as her new sidekick.
We also felt that there was something unexplored about her relationship with Tabitha, her cellmate. Dolores mentions that she not only learned massaging from her but also how to throw punches and kill someone. We can speculate that maybe she needed the skill for self-defense inside the prison, but why did Tabitha know how to do that? It is odd that a masseuse’s hands were cut off, so what kind of things was she involved in? Additionally, it looked like Tabitha was just as capable of holding a grudge as Dolores, which we saw in her attitude when Dolores went to visit her. That could mean that, given the way Dolores is looking for Dominic, Tabitha might send some of her people to look for Dolores. There is something to uncover when it comes to their relationship, and this could be an interesting arc for the coming seasons.
Finally, we have the most visible question of all: when did Dolores get her makeover? Usually, when people make drastic changes in their appearance, it means that they want to present a different or newer version of themselves. It could also be used to signify the difference in the person between two different timelines. In this case, we believe that the story leading up to her new look would be one of her acceptance of her demons. All of the murders she committed in Season 1 were done in a state of panic or anger. Maybe we will see her learn to kill with reason and precision, and this shift will erase every last trace of doubt that she has scope for redemption. In our review of the series, we mentioned how the story was an example of the madness of female anger and why it is far more dangerous than a man’s anger. It is an exploration of that very emotion that manifests so uniquely in women that makes minute details, like a makeover, so important.
As for the other questions, we still don’t know why Dolores was branded a cannibal or whether anybody ever suspected Luis. Is Nellie still in prison, and what happened to Dominic’s relative? Did she have something to do with podcast boy’s exploitation of Dolores’ story, and how did he ever find evidence to corroborate what he said? The lore of Dolores Roach has only reached Broadway, and provided that podcast boy (we don’t remember his name) is not killed by Dolores, we may just see her using him and his influence for her own benefit, to twist the narrative and clear her name, or to find Dominic going forward. Dolores is at the point where she will kill anyone for merely looking at her the wrong way, and we are eager to see how she plays with that impulse of hers in Season 2 of The Horror of Dolores Roach.
