“It all makes sense now. Virgil (the older Black man in the trailer), was actually Erika's father, and not John's. Virgil sexually assaulted Evie when she was around 10 years old, and her mother Erica did not want to believe it was happening (perhaps she was also abused by him as a child, and so she was in denial about his predatory nature). Still in denial about the abuse, Erika did not do anything to protect Evie, and this is why Evie felt detached from her family and resentful towards her mother... and eventually why she decided to join Meg and the Guilty Remant, because she bonded with Meg for having a similar hatred for their mothers. This is also why Evie wrote on the bridge that her mother understood why she was doing all this (because of Erika's apathy and denial during Evie's childhood abuse). 6 years ago, John found out about Erika's father abusing Evie and then shot him, and so then John went to prison for the attempted murder of his father-in-law. John had been filled with rage ever since... not just towards Virgil (his father-in-law) for the abuse... but also towards Erika (his wife) for not doing enough to protect their daughter from Virgil. Erika was so detached and disallusioned from that tragedy, that she was going to leave her family and take off because she just couldn't deal with everthing (she told Nora about this during her departure interview). Meg initially joined the Guilty Remnant last year because she was disallusioned with her life and just totally lost... but during her time there, she saw the truth, in that the Guilty Remnant was actually a bullshit cult and wrong about everything, and that the loving bond of family was the ONLY thing that truly mattered. Laurie, indirectly, helped Meg see this by the strong feelings she couldn't hide that she still had for her daughter Jill (the G.R. was teaching everyone the opposite, in that they said nothing mattered, as the world had ended on 10/14). Meg figured out that the G.R. was a fraud and decided to take control of her branch of the group and do things her own way, and it was then that she planned this grand gesture in Jarden Texas to get people to wake up and see what really mattered to them... and she did this thru the bomb scare on the bridge...and by doing so, she also enabled all the lost people trapped in the campgrounds to have the freedom to move into the town as they had been so desperate to do for as long as they had been there (she hated the hypocrisy of the privileged town's people). She made a similar gesture towards Tom earlier in the season, as she tried to scare him back into caring about what really mattered to him (his family), when she raped him (to get him "pregnant", by planting the seed of realization of the truth), and by scaring him to death, by pretending to douse him with gasoline. She did all these thngs to scare people out of their tortured misery and apathy, and back into the reality of what really mattered - the love for the people most close to them in their lives (their family). If the series is renewed for a 3rd season, then I fully expect it will focus primarily on the Murphys (John, Erika, Michael, and Evie), and less on Kevin and his family, as his demons have been vanquished. He literally went to Hell and back again (twice) to find his way back home to his family, and so his story is finally resolved. Kevin finally feels grounded and at peace with what happened on 4 years earlier on October 14th, and so he is no longer suicidal or afraid... and finally able to allow himself to love, and be loved in return. He has been reborn.”
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