"The Leftovers" (HBO series)

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by AKA, Jun 29, 2014.

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  1. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident

    I was referring to Lost. Sorry. We apparently got our wires crossed.
     
  2. Veltri

    Veltri ♪♫♫♪♪♫♫♪

    Location:
    Canada
    Right, Matt and John. Matt (I think second hand info) who needs a messiah for his own religious reasons (or coping) and John who's a professional bs'er. And you mentioned Mike before who was part of things with his grandfather(?) that many didn't believe was on the up and up.

    But all this is just my interpretation. Who knows??
     
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  3. rufus t firefly

    rufus t firefly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona
    I really liked the scene with Matt and Nora in the beach chairs before she gets in the tank.. I thought that was really well acted. The third season was probably the weakest of the three overall. As someone said earlier, I appreciated the weirdness and unique qualities that the series had to offer. I never lost interest , and these days, thats saying a lot.
     
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  4. Scotian

    Scotian Amnesia Hazed

    I'd agree that season three is the weakest of the three or maybe just stranger. I was happy with the finale although Nora speech about going to 2%land seemed a bit close to some of these shows where everything is explained to the audience at the end. I would have been just as satisfied not knowing where the departed went or didn't go. But as discussed, she could have made the whole thing up. Based on the first two seasons, still in my top 5 favourites. Now on to Twin Peaks.
     
  5. Splungeworthy

    Splungeworthy Forum Rezidentura

    This would take a whole 'nother season son.
     
  6. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    i know.....cuse and lindlolf srike again.
     
  7. Scotian

    Scotian Amnesia Hazed

    I hope so because now, based on Lost & The Leftovers, when I see Damon Lindelof's name on something, I know I'm in for a rich challenging experience. Controversial for sure but these are both groundbreaking & brace shows. Carleton Cuse has nothing to do with this one, btw. He was busy working on Bates Motel (another excellent show).
     
  8. Scotian

    Scotian Amnesia Hazed

  9. I'm not going to look that deep into it.

    If Nora was lying, or just giving herself something to believe in, then that means Matt was keeping her secret, too, because he was there. I don't see that happening. The tank filled up to the top, where we see Nora taking her 30 second breath. I don't think there was any turning back.

    Still, it doesn't matter if she went or not. She gave a story that was just as good as any, for herself, for Kevin, and for the audience. We believe what we want to believe.

    Christopher Sunday asked Kevin if he believed that there was a song that could change the weather. Kevin told him, "No." That was an honest answer. Nora asked him if he believed her, and he said, "Yes," which was also an honest answer.

    It doesn't matter where they went. What's done is done.

    I wasn't satisfied with season, but episode #1, #7 & #8 made it all worthwhile. It felt complete.
     
  10. GentleSenator

    GentleSenator what if

    Location:
    Aloha, OR
    her story was very much written, acted, and filmed to leave it up to us regarding whether we felt it was true or not. because ultimately, it doesn't matter if it was. nora dealt with her demons and kevin dealt with his. now they're holding hands again.
     
  11. Chris from Chicago

    Chris from Chicago Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes

    I rewatched the episode. Half of her story she was looking down or away from him. Not something you do if you're telling the truth to someone you care about.

    At least this is my interpretation of how that went down.
     
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  12. GentleSenator

    GentleSenator what if

    Location:
    Aloha, OR
    fair enough!
     
  13. Chris from Chicago

    Chris from Chicago Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes

    For what it's worth, I'm not insisting that you or anyone else agree with me. I realize it's open to interpretation. It's just the way I see it.
     
  14. GentleSenator

    GentleSenator what if

    Location:
    Aloha, OR
    right! that's really the whole point of my post that you quoted. was it true? was it a lie? up to each of us to wonder and care.
     
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  15. Scotian

    Scotian Amnesia Hazed

    I found her story possible up until she said she tracked down the inventor and asked him to rebuild the machine so she could go back. That seems like it would be an awful lot of work to do because one person asked you to.
     
  16. Man, no joke; I almost wrote this today about her adventure, but I left it out, because by the time I got to that thought, I began to think it didn't matter. That's where her story fell apart for me, too. Yet, I go back to Matt being able to keep a secret, and Matt never keeps a secret, so she had to have...wait!

    What if nobody incinerates, or goes anywhere in this machine? The mold - or "fossil" - that is wheeled by, with the humanoid form, is what everybody sees, as it is a prop to further bolster the volunteer's belief in a magical machine that will whisk them away. They go into the tank; they hold their breath for 30 seconds, but it's not really 30 seconds, because by the time the drug inside of the water hits their nervous system they are knocked out. The tank is drained; the person is removed from the tank, and then the scientists leave the unconscious person, naked, right where machine used to be, only when they awaken the scientists have split.

    The result is that the person thinks they are somewhere else. They wander. They create whatever it is they need to get them by. Eventually they realize that wherever you go, there you are. Whoever you are, that is you...until finally you either kill yourself, or you wake up to the fact that there are no answers. You have "died" and come back to life, exactly as you wanted, but it is only you there, the same as it's always been since the day of your birth, and the day of your death.

    After all, we gestate in the womb in fetal position, and die the same.

    I don't want to buy too much into my own theory, yet it's entirely possible that the scientists are giving their volunteers exactly what they need.
     
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  17. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    me too, even though i know ahead of time that there will be definitive ending.
     
  18. ghostdwg

    ghostdwg Senior Member

    Location:
    New Milford, CT
    I thoroughly enjoyed the finale, and whether or not you believe Nora's story the last 10 minutes was powerful stuff-Carrie Coon was remarkable throughout the series.
     
  19. dynamicalories

    dynamicalories Forum Resident

    Location:
    Peekskill, NY
    Why does anything happen? Why is there something instead of nothing?
     
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  20. JOS53

    JOS53 Well-Known Member

    Location:
    New York State
    It's interesting to compare Nora's speech in the Season One pilot, when she talks about her family, to her story at the end of the finale. The "Heroes' Day" speech was so specific and textured - the day the family spent at the beach; the family suffering food-poisoning together - the fever-heat, the collective nausea, etc... - it all felt like lived and precious memory, clung to detail by detail in order to preserve it. The story of her journey to 2% land, by contrast, sounds sketchy and abstract, more like a fable or myth than lived experience. The contrast may be making a point about Nora's memory - what she retains reflecting what she values - or it may be a clue about the nature of the experiences she's recounting. My sense of it is that she's moved into fairy-tale territory at the end, and Kevin knows it and is content to let her have the story she needs, so they can finally meet as they both need to.
     
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  21. Scotian

    Scotian Amnesia Hazed

    A sign of a great show is that you think about it for a long time after. Just to add to my comment about Nora asking the inventor to rebuild the machine for her. After he built it wouldn't there be continuous traffic back to the real world from departedland? Why would she be the only one? I'm sure there would be quite a demand for the departed to get back to their families. Her story is a general one made up by someone that knows nothing about how something is actually done. It would be like someone stranded out in the desert with three flat tires. How did you get back? I found someone that made me three new tires.
     
  22. Because it didn't happen, or, at least not exactly as she said it did. Something happened. I'm sure there is a truth to Nora. This goes back to the title of the episode, "The Book of Nora."

    I could also imagine Matt going berserk at the last moment and shutting everything down. Everybody clears the scene, leaving Nora naked and alone. That way it's Matt's secret and not Nora's. Matt can keep his own secrets, just not anybody else's.

    If Matt did, indeed, shut it down, this would tie into their talk about "the bravest girl in the world," where it ends up that it was Matt who helped shape Nora into the strong woman she grew up to be. Matt always reinforced this belief in Nora by always addressing her that way in his letters.

    So, when Nora was in the tank, and Matt shut it down, this was his last gift to the bravest girl in the world, that she could get through this, that she could gain closure on her own, once she realized that the answers were within her all along.

    I mean, wasn't that shell game exactly what Laurie and John were giving their rubes? They wouldn't "contact" the departed, yet psychologically by imparting a sense of health from the dead, they still reinforced a belief that the departed could also be in a happy place (or, at the very least, they didn't just blink out of existence).

    Back to Matt, though, he wouldn't have even needed to go berserk to stop the machine from doing its task (if it was even a functioning machine that did anything). They could have simply explained to Matt that the machine didn't really work like they said it did, thus Matt keeps his secret. After all, Nora just showed up. She wasn't even booked to cross over. They had turned her down. Everything was done off the cuff.

    I'm going to maintain that the machine was a placebo. It wasn't real. What is real is what the people did with their lives after they didn't go anywhere.
     
  23. JOS53

    JOS53 Well-Known Member

    Location:
    New York State
    Remember that John and Laurie didn't "do" departures, because they couldn't bring resolution to a "leftover," - only to someone suffering a natural loss. So they got out of the departure market...
     
  24. Right. That's why I said: "They wouldn't 'contact the departed."

    Maybe I didn't express my point well enough.

    People came to Jarden, Texas because that's where nobody departed on October 14th. They expected a miracle there. So, because of that, the visitors had a predisposition - or they had preconditioned themselves - to experience a special place where miracles happen.

    Laurie and John refused to contact the departed, but that doesn't mean that people didn't feel better about those who departed, because John and Laurie gave them a sense of ease.

    All they needed to do was believe, just as Nora did. It's no coincidence that Nora had been in contact with Laurie. Laurie the master shrink of the post-departure world.
     
  25. JD Aldie

    JD Aldie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tulsa, OK, USA
    There was no way to satisfy the entire audience. It's Lost / Sopranos all over again.
     
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