There’s something peculiar about time in the show, hinted at by the
identical watches given to brothers Jake and Vince by their father. In the
first episode, a robber wrestles Jake for his watch, and Vince’s watch is
stolen early on. The narrative is riddled with anachronisms: cheques and cash
instead of crypto; underground casinos rather than online gambling; heroin
instead of fentanyl. Nostalgia permeates the story—cassette tapes, photographs,
and memories of the past. The timeline is ambiguous, but what’s clear is that
the brothers are trapped in the same nightmare as their parents’ generation:
poverty, violence, infidelity, intoxication, and addiction repeat across
generations. The shadow self is symbolically killed—by a falling bowling ball
and a plunge from a building—leading to Jake’s supposed rebirth. Yet, there’s
something eerie and artificial about it. In the final scene, we realize this
“new life” is counterfeit, dressed up as noble but merely echoing his father’s
footsteps as a bar owner.
They say the truth will set you free—a phrase that traces back to Jesus.
The truth here is that contemporary America is ensnared in a generational
curse. Each generation attempts to escape it, only to find itself back in the
same pit. It’s like trying to get clean by rubbing mud all over oneself. Black
Rabbit evokes The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky, another tale of
brothers killing their father. But Dostoyevsky included a third brother—a
priest—who represented goodness and purity. In Black Rabbit, there is no
such figure. America, it seems, denounced God long ago. Jake and Vince cry out
to God and Jesus Christ—not in prayer, but in despair and profanity, with their
backs to Him. Society is too proud to turn to God, yet too broken
not to cry out.
The absurdity is evident early on when jewelry is transacted at the
Black Rabbit. Jewelry—metal and stones with no practical use—commands absurd
prices. Other illusions follow: artwork, gourmet hotdog, interior décor, media,
dance, sports—the list goes on. Vince may call himself a former addict, but the
culture around him is addicted to distraction, numbing discomfort with
spectacle. The final montage, supposedly showing fresh starts, reveals
characters repeating the same patterns. Jake’s new role as a bartender in a
fancy bar is laughable—it’s no different in substance from a street-corner
dealer. The setting may be polished, but the function remains the same. It’s
reminiscent of Tony twirling in the kitchen while the restaurant is about to be
sold to the mafia or its owner killed.
I’ve come to believe that cultural artifacts like this show, regardless
of the creators’ intentions, reflect the spiritual state of society. I’m unsure
whether the show intentionally ends with no real change. After The Brothers
Karamazov, Russia experienced a revolution led by the Bolsheviks, whose
anti-religious campaigns led to widespread violence against Christians—almost
as if the novel’s patricide foreshadowed reality. I don’t foresee such upheaval
in America; the “Father” was killed long ago, as Black Rabbit suggests.
Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th-century scientist and mystic, wrote about
his visions of heaven and hell. He argued that we cannot truly know good and
evil unless we define good as what is good in God’s sight, and evil as sin because God
is the source and definition of goodness. Turning away from evil is inherently
good but only if we recognize evil as sin. Otherwise, we merely hide it from
public view. This idea resonated with me while watching Black Rabbit,
which presents a world where no one knows what is good or bad. Laws exist but
are routinely broken by shadowy organizations. Social expectations and cultural
norms are stacked like a house of cards. We see this confusion when Jake and
Roxie argue over Jake’s treatment of Anna—he acted as an employer, Roxie
expected friendship. We see hypocrisy when Gen mocks Vince for his drug
addiction while she routinely indulges in alcohol and weed. We see warped justice when Anna
receives financial compensation while Jules, the rapist, remains free.
Much of today’s world suffers from this same lack of clarity in good and evil—whether due to cultural relativism or political ideology. This is the spiritual damnation, the generational curse we face. We go in circles, each generation slightly different but fundamentally the same—like the latest model of a smartphone.