SPOILER ALERT AND WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Madison Season 1, Episode 6. It also contains discussion about suicide.

The Madison finale gives the first season a perfect ending: audiences feel the storyline has a certain amount of resolution, while there’s also potential for Season 2. Season 1, Episode 6, “I Give Me Permission,” is about Stacy Clyburn turning the page. But the Paramount+ show also spells out what the second season is going to be.

The bulk of the episode continues the theme from Episode 5, of how the Clyburn family doesn’t quite fit back into their lives in New York City. The centerpiece of the hour is the memorial that Liliana planned, so that Preston’s friends and acquaintances in the city also have a chance to mourn him. But as with the funeral in Episode 5, there’s a buildup to that event to give it maximum emotional impact.

The inciting incident in “I Give Me Permission” is the flip side of what happened to Paige McIntosh in the Madison premiere, and presumably Taylor Sheridan chose that on purpose. Paige started the season being punched and robbed, and she ends the season punching a coworker who insults her father. Sheridan stumbles a bit in his writing of Paige’s officemates, who are overly stereotypical in the same way that Landman Season 2 struggled with. The woman that Paige hints rants about the carbon footprint of private planes before using that as an excuse for why “[Preston] deserved to die.” At that point, no one can fault Paige for hitting her, but there’s no denying that the characters are too broadly drawn.

Stacy and Abby have to come to Paige’s rescue, with a phone-call assistant from Van. Stacy convinces the other woman to change her mind about pressing charges, by chastizing her once she learns that the other woman’s father died of cancer. It’s a slight suspension of disbelief that Stacy would be allowed to approach her so bluntly, when the police wouldn’t initially let Stacy talk to her own daughter. But the way Michelle Pfeiffer delivers that verbal excoriation makes it worth the handwaving.

Yet while Paige’s incident is the catalyst for most of the episode, The Madison also checks in on the other members of the family to assess how changed they are. Abby is meeting with her friends and they want gossip about Van; the audience also finally meets Abby’s ex Dallas, who is exactly as pretentious as viewers have imagined him to be. Russell is mostly relegated to comic relief again, unfortunately, though he does have an excellent moment near the end when he runs interference for Stacy. There’s enough information to get a sense of where every one of the main players is at this break in their journey.

The Madison circles back around to center on Stacy, who continues her therapy sessions with Phil. Sheridan has made excellent use of Phil as a character, avoiding the cliches of TV therapists and making him feel like a human being. Phil is unafraid to challenge Stacy, and while her insults in his direction are starting to get tired, there’s a clear appreciation that is building between them. It’s then spelled out at the memorial. Therapy in The Madison isn’t just lip service; it’s constructive. Phil ends up having some of the best lines in the whole episode.

When the episode gets to the memorial, director Christina Alexandra Voros creates some of her best shots yet. The contrast between the white of the building and the black wardrobe of the attendees, as well as the sweeping shots of just how big the place is. It all creates a sense of an ending for both Stacy and the audience. It’s not really shocking when she walks out of the memorial, considering that she had talked about not being there at all—instead, it feels like an inevitability. And if one looks back, it’s been foreshadowed for episodes now, since Stacy first spoke about moving to Montana.

Audiences will get a good jump scare out of the last few minutes, however. When Abby, Russell and Paige are worried about Stacy and searching for her, the audience has a much better idea of where she is; they’re just waiting for the characters to catch up. The actual surprise is in the shot where The Madison makes viewers think that Stacy has died by suicide next to Preston’s gravesite. This is a bold choice—as it could have gone either way. It would have been incredibly grim to end the season on that note, and of course to go into Season 2 without Pfeiffer, who is the force behind the show.

However, given the depth of Stacy’s grief and her belief that she doesn’t know how to function without her husband, it would also be an understandable loss. Stacy even hinted in this direction in Episode 5, when she talked to Liliana about if she could forget how to breathe. So the audience has a reason to think that Stacy may not be alive. But for all the tragedy that Sheridan has written, he chooses an ending that has hope—albeit all kinds of logistical problems. Stacy moving to Montana permanently clearly sets the stage for The Madison Season 2. However, fans will wonder when she tells her family that she’s not a missing person? Or does she? Does she want to disappear completely? Obviously, the other characters will have to find her for there to be a second season, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be right away or even by choice. The Madison finale doesn’t care about those issues. It just wants Stacy to be free, and she is. And that’s a fine place to leave the story, so the audience can envision what her future looks like.

The Madison streams Saturdays on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Paramount+.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.