ne of the most common questions that comes up when talking about intimate partner violence is, “Why did the person not leave?” While we have only just started discussing the financial and social constraints that hold back women, we still have to acknowledge the manufactured co-dependency of the partner and the way we, as a society, view relationships and the gendered roles within them, which end up affecting one’s perception of their partner’s behavior. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart promised to explore that aspect of such relationships but ended up barely touching on it. To speak about the last episode, while it finally revealed all the secrets, it absolutely failed to even dedicate a good few lines to this topic, even though it was the basis of the series. This is a difficult show to watch because of the subject matter, but to put in such half-hearted efforts on the actual message makes us think that the writers never understood the story themselves. Either way, we are at the end of it, and here is a recap of Episode 7, the last episode of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.
Spoiler Alert
What is the truth about Alice’s childhood?
It wouldn’t be entirely false if we said that we expected Alice to face disbelief and derision when she presented her side of the story to the world. Right from the beginning, Dylan has been a master manipulator who knows how to make people believe his side of the story over others. We understood this when we noticed that Lulu wasn’t able to say much about Dylan despite always seeming to be vary of him. It is a classic tactic of pushing and pulling without being too aggressive about either, which makes one question whether they imagined it all. Nobody, except Lulu, believes Alice when she shows up with her wounds because Dylan has injuries of his own to show.
Alice is not believed when she says that she hurt Dylan only to protect herself. That is because Dylan has very cleverly used Alice’s past against her by revealing that her qualifications for the job were faked and that there was a fire in her childhood that she was involved in. These were things that Alice had told Dylan in confidence, and he ended up using them against her. This gets worse in the case of Alice after she loses her temper at a tourist for plucking flowers when the sign said not to. Understanding that it is going to be a long and hard battle, Alice decides that she doesn’t want to fight it. She calls her grandmother and Twig, asking for their help, and they come down to Agnes Bluff to take care of her. After Alice is a little more healed, June tells her the truth about her brother, causing her to fly into a rage. Alice immediately goes to meet Sally Morgan, and that is where she comes to know some long-held truths about her mother and the fire that consumed her childhood home.
Alice had blamed herself for the fire because she believed that she had started it in the outhouse and that it must have spread to the main house. But right then, Sally reveals that Agnes had always been planning to leave Clem, and she was very close to executing her plan. She was going to take Alice and Charlie to Thornfield, and Sally was helping her with it. But that day, when Alice accidentally started the fire in the outhouse, Clem had lost his temper and was close to suffocating the life out of his daughter. That is when Agnes attacked him and set him on fire, all in an effort to rescue her daughter. It was during this time that she went into labor, and they all ended up at the hospital. The fire was never Alice’s fault, and to be honest, neither was it Agnes’. She had done what she could in that situation for the protection of herself and her children. With this new truth coming to light, Alice certainly needs time to re-evaluate her entire life, and she chooses to stay back with Charlie at Sally and John’s house.
Does Alice Fight Against Dylan?
Two months pass, and Alice is coming to terms with her feelings while still being confused about Dylan. The reason it is so hard to fight against abusive relationships is that they are interlaced with love. There was an attraction and affection between Dylan and Alice, and that still confused her long after she had decided that she did not want to be in his vicinity. We see an example of it when Charlie asks June if any part of him resembles Clem. June tells him that he looks a little bit like him, but he shouldn’t be embarrassed about it since there is a good side to their father as well. It is the presence of this good side that makes women make excuses for the person’s abusive behavior, and that is what Alice did in her childhood, and that is what she is doing now with Dylan.
Meanwhile, June’s health is getting worse, and she remembers how Clem attacked her when she had forbidden him from making changes to Thornfield. It was at that moment that June had asked Twig to stop Agnes from leaving with him, but she had been too late. In the present day, June spends her last few moments spending time with the woman she loves and enjoying a gin and tonic with some chips for herself.
When Alice comes back to Thornfield, June has already passed away. Nobody holds it against Alice for not forgiving her grandmother in time, though it would have been nice if luck had been on their side and June had been able to take her granddaughter’s phone call. June’s funeral is a “close-knit” affair with her family, Sally, John, and Charlie, along with all the women she had ever helped in her life. Additionally, June had also left behind a letter for Alice, directing her to a journal where she kept a record of the crimes that the flowers were subjected to before they came to seek refuge in Thornfield.
June had fiercely protected Alice, to the point that Alice was not able to recognize that she was being subjected to and tolerating the very things that she and her grandmother had worked against their whole lives. We cannot forget that when June came to pick up Alice in Agnes Bluff, she had called herself “a screwed-up flower”. This showed that despite growing up in a particular environment, a lack of perspective made Alice focus more on the victimhood of the women than the mentality of the perpetrator. As Alice goes through the accounts of the women at Thornfield, she realizes that she must be their voice, as June wanted her to be, and for that, she must fight against what had happened to her.
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart episode 7 ends with Alice and the others setting fire to the tree that had haunted June for such a long time. She had seen her failures and her fears in it, especially those connected to Clem. It was time to put that behind and move forward into the future with the grandeur of June’s legacy. As for Alice, while we are not shown it in the series, the look of resolve on her face makes us think that she would raise her voice against Dylan and fight against the wrongs done to her.
Final Thoughts
It is as hard to hate this show as it is to love it. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart had its heart in the right place, but its execution simply missed the point. Series like this are not just for entertainment, so if they have been unable to properly deliver the message that they should have, criticism is warranted. It’s just a hard show to recommend to others, but we can talk if they do end up watching it.
