Netflix recently released the Polish series “Open Your Eyes”. It’s a six episode series that follows an amnesiac girl as she tries to recover her memory at the Second Chance center. While she’s there, she starts to feel as though things are not quite right and tries to put together all of the pieces. The foreign series that Netflix releases have twist after twist and “Open Your Eyes” is no exception. If you’re here that means that you more than likely have watched the series. If you haven’t watched the series, know that what comes to follow is SPOILER CITY!
Spoiler Recap
Let’s start at the end of episode 5. Julia/Carolina takes the plunge into the lake and wakes up. We see her sister (the red haired girl that was haunting Julia’s dreams) and her mother. Turns out that she was in a coma the entire time! You would think that that means that what she experienced was just a dream. NOPE! Julia sees the orderlies that were at the Second Chance center in the hallway of the hospital. It looks as though they are talking to her and walking straight toward her. The doctor comes and wakes her from we can only assume is a waking dream and the orderlies have disappeared.
Carolina talks to a man during her discharge and it turns out that the man is Shem’s father. He shows her a picture of Shem and let’s her know that he lost his battle to encephalitis and has died. Shem also died in the “coma world” after a mental break when he didn’t get selected to perform with a dance group. On the way home, she notices a woman on a bus stop billboard for an opera and recognizes her as Magda, the crazy lady that gave her the doll.
Once home, Carolina goes to sleep and once again slips into “coma world”. She sees that they’re taking Adam somewhere. Obviously, she’s happy that he’s alive but she doesn’t want to be there. She wakes up before anyone can harm her. Later, she goes to the piano and tries to play. She has a hard time playing her favorite Debussy song ‘Clair de Lune’. Something that came naturally to her before she went into the coma and even while she was in coma world. Her mom and sister tell her that they’re sure her skills will come back. It will just take some time because of everything that she’s experienced. She says that she can just tell that she’s lost her ability to play piano.
Carolina decides to go and see Magda. Magda is a famous opera singer but when we see her she’s struggling to sing her warm-up notes. As Carolina leaves, Magda gives her a book. Inside of that book, we see the building where the Second Chance amnesiac center is located. We learn that all of this is very real and not just something that happened in Carolina’s head.
Carolina visits the building with her sister and with a nurse from the hospital (she remembered him when she was in coma world). We find out that it isn’t being used as an amnesiac center but it is being renovated to be a B&B. As Carolina walks through the building, we notice that the building is very familiar to her. She imagines the desks, tables, and chairs that were in the “coma world” center. The woman showing them around tells them that although the building was never an amnesia center, her husband would occasionally bring home patients to help them with their memory loss.
As they’re leaving, we see families in another part of the building. The woman tells them that she did rent out part of the building because they have to pay the bills somehow. It’s rented out to a group that helps kids discover their talents before they lose interest using brain stimulation (sound familiar). We learn that the woman even has her daughter in the program. The daughter walks up, gives Carolina the “I see you” fingers, and walks off. So even though Second Chance isn’t at this building, something did actually happen.
Eventually, Carolina goes back to school. She hears Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ song that she loved and always played. The song that she played at her talent show while she was at Second Chance in the “coma world”. She follows the song and sees Adam playing the it on the piano and doing an amazing job (despite him not having a talent). She’s happy and crying to know that Adam is ok. That is until he KICKS OFF HIS SHOES while he’s playing. If you remember, that’s the same thing that Carolina would do when she would play. Despite feeling like something is off, she still goes up to him after. She hugs him and tells him that she is happy to see him. BUT HE DOESN’T RECOGNIZE HER! Not only that but it turns out that his name isn’t even Adam, it’s XAVIER! Then his dad pops up, the music teacher/nurse guy at Second Chance, and tells Carolina “Adam won’t remember you and you should forget about him too.”
SO WHAT HAPPENED AT THE END?
So let’s get into some things we may have forgotten. There were kids at Second Chance. They were usually only there during the day. They would also sit in, along with their parents, on the talent shows that the older patients would put on. Everyone, except for Adam, has a talent. Magda was a famous opera singer, Julia was an amazing pianist, Shem could dance his butt off. All of the people running the place are a bunch of jerks.
So what happened to Julia’s amazing piano playing skills?
They were transferred to Adam! Or maybe we should call him Xavier now since Adam isn’t his real name. Remember when Julia was playing piano for her concert? The piano was sitting above that mysterious black machine. As she was playing, it was swirling blue lights all around. Almost like it was sucking her talent from her. As Julia is playing we see her kick off her shoes when she gets really into playing. They also show Adam/Xavier laid in a bed with nodes connected to his brain and it’s lighting up as Julia plays. He’s also listening to what she’s playing through headphones in his ears. We get a glimpse of the fact that Adam now has Julia’s talent when they run away in the coma world and he starts playing the piano like he’s been playing his whole life. Then we know for sure when he kicks off his shoes during his performance in the real world.
Sidenote: I’m pretty sure that Julia’s skills were transferred to her! Remember that memory she had of being at a recording studio with the brain cap on her head. Her mom tells her to play and then Julia gets nervous and pees on herself (I’m 100% sure that’s why she kicks off her shoes while she plays). That’s the same cap that Adam was wearing when Julia’s skills were transferred to him and she’s about the age of the other kids at the Second Chance center.
Where were Julia and Adam that whole time?
They haven’t told us! They kind of hinted that it’s a parallel world of sorts. One that seems can only be accessed by being in a coma. But we learn that while Julia was in a coma, the headmaster lady was pretending to be her mother’s psychiatrist. So we know that there has to be a second way to get to this other world/plane.
So what’s next for Julia and is there a season 2?
The headmaster lady, Morulska, visited Julia and let her know that she’s trying to take down Peter, Adam/Xavier’s dad, and that she wants her help. She feels some type of way since he got her fired. So she’s going to help Julia help the others escape, hopefully get Julia’s talent back somehow (maybe it’s gone forever in Adam), and take down Peter. Morulska tells Julia that this isn’t the only facility that nefariously takes people’s talents while they’re in a coma. But from what I peeped, it may be the first time that they successfully used it to transfer the talent to someone that’s not a child. The last scene is Julia sitting on her bed holding one of the black boxes so maybe having that is a key to go to and from the other world.
So Netflix hasn’t let us know yet if “Open Your Eyes” has been renewed for a second season but the series has set us up nicely for one. I’ll keep you posted here when I find out more!
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