Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Daybreak season 1.
The season finale of Netflix’s post-apocalyptic teen drama Daybreak has a surprise final twist, which appears to set up the beloved Sam Dean (Sophie Simnett) as a villain for season 2. After declining Josh’s (Colin Ford) offer to resume their romance, Sam embraces her role of Queen Bee and sits down on her throne as the new leader of the teen tribe - much to the horror of Josh and his friends. Is Sam on her way to becoming a tyrant, or is the ending simply skewed by Josh’s perspective?
For most of Daybreak season 1, Sam appears only in flashbacks as Josh recollects their seemingly idyllic love story, in which Sam is a manic pixie dream girl who is liked by everyone and always seems to be making the world a brighter place. However, in episode 8, “Post Mates,” we get to see the last day of their relationship - this time with Sam’s perspective in play. Sam repeatedly tells Josh that he doesn’t know her as well as he thinks he does, and that his fantasy version of her doesn’t match up with reality. In particular, Josh is shocked to learn that Sam isn’t the virgin he’d imagined her to be, but is actually sexually experienced - something that clearly bothers him.
Once she rejoins the present-day narrative, Sam makes the rather bad decision of releasing Baron Triumph (Matthew Broderick) so that he can usurp Turbo Bro Jock (Cody Kearsley) as the leader of the school tribe. But while this might appear to lay the groundwork for Sam ultimately becoming an evil leader herself, Daybreak season 1’s ending is more complex than that.
How Daybreak Sets Sam Up For A Season 2 Villain Role
Sam’s viral video, in which she runs around a mall paying people compliments to make them feel better, ends up causing her a great deal of angst. Between people perceiving her as some kind of perfect angel, and hateful online comments tearing her down, she struggles to separate who she actually is from who people think she is, and in particular is unenthusiastic about being elected homecoming queen. It’s not until the final minutes of Daybreak’s season finale that she finally seems to know who she is. Telling Josh that he still doesn’t really know her, she climbs on board the parade float, with Mona Lisa (Jeanté Godlock) joining her. “These are my people,” Sam says. “And they need a leader. They need me.” The jocks swiftly pledge allegiance to her as she claims her throne, and on paper it seems like a very empowering moment.
The indication of Sam stepping into a villain role comes from three places: the ominous music as she ascends to leadership, the cutaways to the surrounding fire and destruction, and the horrified looks on the faces of Josh, Angelica (Alyvia Alyn Lind), Ms. Crumble (Krysta Rodriguez), Wesley (Austin Crute), and Turbo, as well as the crowd of non-jock students. Sam embracing the role of leader is framed like a Daenerys Targaryen heel turn, and with Baron Triumph dead, there’s certainly room for a new main antagonist. But while it’s true that Daybreak had thus far framed Josh as the Jon Snow analog - a reluctant hero who is ultimately thrust into a leadership role - he’s a long way from being a perfect hero.
Sam Was Right to Reject Josh
What makes Daybreak’s season finale so interesting is that the filmmaking cues that paint Sam as a villain are at odds with the script and what we actually know about her character. For starters, it’s clear that Sam is right about Josh having fallen in love with a fantasy version of her rather than the real thing. He might know what her favorite flower is, but his plan for their future envisioned them living in a Craftsman home (a style that Sam hates), and throughout Daybreak season 1 he never stops thinking of her as a damsel who needs to be rescued. Above all, Josh’s happy imaginings of them being reunited and getting back together have conveniently left out the fact that in the last conversation they had, he called Sam a slut. Needless to say, Sam electing not to take Josh back is a completely understandable decision - but Josh probably doesn’t see it that way.
Josh Is An Unreliable Narrator
The big question hanging over the final few seconds of Daybreak season 1 is whether Sam is framed as a villain because she actually has villainous intentions, or whether Josh simply perceives her as a villain because she’s just officially broken up with him. Throughout season 1, Daybreak repeatedly establishes the idea of an unreliable narrator: what we see and hear isn’t necessarily what’s actually happening, but rather an idea of events as told by whichever character is currently narrating. For Josh and Angelica, that means breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience - or even, at one point, Josh talking to his own past self and explaining that their meeting is just a storytelling technique.
Several characters suggest that Josh is a natural leader for the surviving kids of Glendale, but that contradicts much of what we see of Josh in the show. He’s singularly focused on finding Sam to the point of making a lot of selfish decisions, prefers to look out for himself in the apocalypse rather than taking others under his wing, and quite frankly is a bit of a d**k. Just as Wesley imagines his own life as a samurai movie narrated by RZA, Josh seems to have been raised on too many movies that depict a random mediocre white guy as the reluctant hero. That would explain why Sam comes across as such a villain in Daybreak season 1’s ending: she’s taking the place that Josh subconsciously thinks he deserves.
Will Sam Turn Evil in Daybreak Season 2?
The ambiguity of Daybreak’s season 1 finale can only be cleared up by season 2 (assuming the series receives a renewal from Netflix). Based on that ending, it seems like the jock army has gladly accepted Sam as their new leader, but the other students seem reluctant. Will Sam pull a Daenerys Targaryen and react to disloyalty with a scorched earth approach? Will she prove herself as a leader and win the other students over with kindness? Or will we see the teens split off into factions, with Sam leading her own tribe and Josh continuing to lead the Daybreakers? The latter definitely seems like the most likely scenario, as well as the one that will push Sam to reveal what kind of leader she really is.
Resources are limited in post-apocalyptic Glendale, even if the show does take a few liberties with realism (like solar panels providing enough electricity to power an entire shopping mall). Even if Sam’s leadership style isn’t the same as Turbo’s, with random rampages and killings, there are plenty of ways in which she could be forced into conflict with Josh. If that happens, then the second season of Daybreak could continue to paint her as a villain without necessarily needing her to do anything villainous. If the twist ending of season 1 is that Sam is a villain, perhaps the twist ending of season 2 will be that she’s actually the hero - and it’s Josh who ends up going down a villainous path.
Whatever happens, it will definitely be interesting to see how this cliffhanger plays out. Who exactly is the “real” Sam Dean?
More: What To Expect From Daybreak Season 2
