WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for Another Life season 2.
In Another Life season 2, the crew of the spaceship Salvare suffers more tragedy with the deaths of August and Oliver, as well as Javier being left comatose due to an unsuccessful surgery. The crew has lost many people on their mission, but what makes these three characters' deaths odd is that their individual stories were left unresolved. Why would the writers remove the trio from the main plot while leaving their character arcs incomplete?
Netflix's sci-fi drama Another Life follows astronauts sent on a mission in outer space after a massive crystalline structure lands on Earth and is discovered to be sending a signal to the star Pi Canis Majoris. The astronauts use the signal to find the whereabouts of the structures' creators, but the mission becomes more dangerous when they discover the sinister plans that the aliens have for Earth. Reviews for Another Life have been mostly negative, with both critics and audiences taking issue with the show's handling of character development, and this issue makes itself clear after the loss of three protagonists from season 1.
In a sense, Another Life emphasizes the drama and danger of space travel through the fact that any character could die unexpectedly, but the show falls short in that characters are often killed off before viewers become attached to them. This issue presents itself most often when minor characters die, such as how a pilot named Beauchamp dies in season 2’s first episode despite having only been introduced in the previous season's final few episodes. It is all the more confusing that August, Oliver, and Javier are sidelined from the main story when they have been treated as primary members of the Salvare’s crew. However, given how Another Life season 1 ends, the reason why August, Oliver, and Javier all meet such tragic ends could be to reinforce the notion that no character is impervious to the danger of the mission, not even those whom the audience views as major characters.
The first few episodes of Another Life season 2 function as a means for establishing that the stakes have been raised for the Salvare’s mission. The detail that makes the loss of August, Oliver, and Javier so striking is the fact that the trio were main characters, and typically only characters with minor roles made up the number of deaths from season 1. The show’s purpose for eliminating the trio from the main storyline could also be for the sake of introducing new characters, as other crew members are awakened shortly following August and Oliver’s deaths. An occurrence that becomes commonplace on-board Salvare is the act of waking up other crewmembers from a state of suspended animation whenever one of their officers is lost. Another Life season 2 manages to subvert the audience’s expectations with this dark aspect of its story, particularly with August and Oliver's deaths, since they remind viewers that the Salvare embarked on its mission with backup personnel because anyone from the main crew could be lost at any time.
The uncertainty of whether any character may survive in Another Life is effective for building drama, but it proves detrimental to the show because it leaves many character arcs unfinished. Oliver is shown to have become braver from his experiences since he attempts to sacrifice himself to save August, but details such as August mysteriously becoming pregnant and Javier being left comatose are overlooked. Another Life presents interesting subplots for each character, but future episodes will hopefully provide the protagonists with more definitive endings.