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The Leftovers S3 |OT| The End Is Near - Premieres Sunday 4/16, 9pm on HBO

O

Ogni-XR21

Member
We don't even know if she killed herself. She was definitely thinking about it and probably planned on doing so but the verdict is still out.

And please you guys, stop quoting Erigu, totally defeats the purpose of putting him on ignore.
Yes, I'm that selfish
 
D

digitalrelic

Banned
Erigu said:
I never really know what to answer to that, as I like a whole bunch of stuff, actually, believe it or not! Plus, I generally find myself unable to grade these things. Depends on the mood of the moment, really.
Just off the top of my head / my recently viewed threads, and since we recently talked about character arcs and I think the term actually fits in that instance, I'm enjoying Better Call Saul quite a bit.
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Definitely can't disagree with you there. BCS is probably my favorite show​ on television right now.
 
T

ThLunarian

Member
Erigu said:
I didn't quite say that. The problem is that the show did show us that she had kids, that she had recently re-married, that she had a new life in Jarden, and did nothing to show us that she was at the end of her rope until, well, she killed herself this week. That's a bit of a problem. Kind of a hard sell, if you will, storytelling-wise.


Well, she seemed to be doing okay until this week, at least...

Also, as I've already mentioned, I have a problem with this idea the show keeps pushing, that those people are entirely unequipped to deal with the seeming randomness of the Departure or the fact they don't know if their loved ones are still "out there" or not. That lack of closure isn't something exclusive to that fictional world, it really isn't anything new. We've had senseless deaths and missing persons for quite some time, now. Not that everybody manages to get over something like that, naturally, but the show makes it seem absolutely impossible: "we're all gone", "we're all broken", etc.
It's even weirder to see the show try and sell the idea that people would massively gravitate toward nihilism (even the kind that makes you dress all in white, write everything down and play cruel pranks on people) when there is something new about the Departure. We're not talking about a bunch of people getting randomly zapped by cosmic rays. Since only human beings departed (no other living creature, animal or even primate) and they, amazingly enough, did so with their clothes (yet not their baby seat nor anything else they were in contact with, judging from the first episode of the show), one has to assume it was caused by something intelligent that cares about mankind specifically. That's a pretty big fucking deal that should seriously embolden religious people (sure, we don't know why those were picked over others, but gods "work in mysterious ways", don't they?) and wreak havoc among atheists... but nope, nihilism it is, "nothing matters anymore, waaah". What the...?



I never really know what to answer to that, as I like a whole bunch of stuff, actually, believe it or not! Plus, I generally find myself unable to grade these things. Depends on the mood of the moment, really.
Just off the top of my head / my recently viewed threads, and since we recently talked about character arcs and I think the term actually fits in that instance, I'm enjoying Better Call Saul quite a bit.



I even felt bad for that guy on the boat. No, I'm not convinced that's the best suicide method, Nora. That seems about as "good" as jumping in front of a train. Could be an accident, definitely will fuck with the driver.
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I'm on mobile so it would be a hassle to separate the quote, but to respond:

Laurie hasn't shown many indications of being "okay" since the series began. We've seen her in the GR, we've seen her trying to rehabilitate them to questionable success, we've seen her lose her shit and go ballistic on a book publisher, we've seen her become a conwoman by pimping out both her son and her new husband. She did seem like she was sort of alright in the season 3 premiere, but that quickly fell apart when people started going Australia and hatching Neo Jesus plots. Laurie has been plagued by a feeling of loss and having no idea what to do since the very beginning. This didn't just come out of nowhere for her.

If the departure happened in real life, everyone would go ballistic and there is no way to predict what would happen. One guess is as good as any other. I don't think it's a fair criticism of the show to say that since you think a fantastical event would provoke a different reaction, that makes it a bad story.


Also, it wasn't just humans, if you believe Kevin Sr's story about the chicken :p (I actually don't remember if other animals were mentioned anywhere else in the series so I'm not trying to start a serious argument about that, but if you remember then feel free to correct me)
 
E

Erigu

Member
ThLunarian said:
Laurie hasn't shown many indications of being "okay" since the series began.
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True, I was thinking of her situation as of season 3, specifically.
(as I've said earlier in this thread, I agree that her new "job" is super questionable, but that's another matter: she seemed to be happy / fine with that)

She did seem like she was sort of alright in the season 3 premiere, but that quickly fell apart when people started going Australia and hatching Neo Jesus plots.
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But that only began last week, and it merely looked like she felt Kevin was in trouble and she could help, then. She didn't seem particularly disoriented or distressed. In fact, the show appeared to play on that by making her the odd one in that group: annoyingly reasonable and well-adjusted, considering what the others' "mission" was in the first place.

If the departure happened in real life, everyone would go ballistic and there is no way to predict what would happen. One guess is as good as any other.
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Damn. That would certainly make science fiction really easy to write, but I completely disagree. Speculation can be more or less well thought-out. And in the case of The Leftovers, I think they seriously dropped the ball.

Also, it wasn't just humans, if you believe Kevin Sr's story about the chicken :p (I actually don't remember if other animals were mentioned anywhere else in the series so I'm not trying to start a serious argument about that, but if you remember then feel free to correct me)
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... I'm pretty sure it's just supposed to be humans, but you're making me doubt, with that chicken!
Still, even ignoring that, the rest should be enough to assume the phenomenon was caused by something intelligent.
 
F

FantasticMrFoxdie

Mumber
lol so i'm finally fully caught up after about 2 weeks of slowburn binge watching this show

and come to this thread


to see everyone lost their damn minds too


Goddamn this season
holy fuck this show. :(
Don't even know where to start this show is something else. Treading all time great for me.

This last episode :'''(
Can't believe they used this song. haven't heard it in probably a decade and when it came on my mind exploded.
https://youtu.be/cTXeg-Swq9w
Suicide it's a suicide. Suicide it's a suicide

and yeah Laurie is dead guys.
but hey maybe Kevin will see her on the other side
 
Corpsepyre

Corpsepyre

Banned
I don't know how this will end, but I wouldn't be surprised if Jesus literally comes down. Lindelof sure does love him some Christian theology and references galore.
 
S

Saty

Member
It's not like the explanations of Laurie's train-of-thought leading to her decision are totally groundless but i do feel this episode left too many blanks to be filled not by what's happening on the screen. Generally, a narrative can paint any 2 pictures and you can bet there will be viewers\readers that will connect dots, fill gaps and present valid argument.
This doesn't exempt the writer from doing some legwork or from illuminating the inner-workings of the character etc.

I don't think this episode did that for Laurie in a satisfying way, and indeed there was not the slightest indication this season that Laurie was on the verge of anything of that sort (thanks again shortened-final-season). So yes, you can always call back S1 stuff but then you are glossing over the alleged-development of the character since, and not giving attention to Laurie now as to what and how that state of mind is bubbling-up again.

Basically, the flashback opening the episode was a shorthand for what Laurie's character should have been shown to have gone through this season, and it serves as a signal to the viewer how to 'read' Laurie in this episode due to the little attention her character has received and should have had.
This shorthand short-changes the character and the viewer. And it wasn't even a flashback where present Laurie recalls something. Laurie's scenes with Norah took greater meaning precisely because the flashback was shown to us but it's not something the character is actively aware or cognizant of.
 
T

ThLunarian

Member
Fenderputty said:
Dat phone call at the end with her Children did not make it a good note to go out on. It was a reminder that she's leaving people behind and that her possible death was wholly selfish.

Like I get she was trying to fill her life with things to make it worthwhile, but she was looking in the wrong places. Her Kids were there the whole time.



That doesn't make me feel sympathy. It makes me feel like she's selfish.
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Characters can do things that make you think less of them, and still have compelling stories. I wasn't saying it's a good note to go out on as a moral judgment of her decisions, I was saying it's a good end to her character arc
 
E

EverythingShiny

Member
ThLunarian said:
The world had changed into something that no longer made any sense to Laurie. She didn't know how to function in it. You could see this in the opening scene, soon after the departure. She had no idea what to tell her patient. Her impulse to kill herself has been there since that scene, but she kept trying to do things to recontextualize her world so that it might make sense again. Join the GR. Help people get out of the GR once she realized they were a bunch of looneys. Try and help people grieve. Be a rational mind to defuse all the irrational insanity going on around her.

Ultimately none of it worked. After all that, the world didn't make any more sense to her than it had at the beginning, and in fact had only grown more foreign and incomprehensible (the craziness with the 7 year anniversary).

She reached a point where she couldn't take it anymore, so she just let go and gave up.
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I know that this post is from a few days ago, but I just caught up with last week's episode and this is exactly what I thought, too. You just worded it way better than I ever could.

This episode really destroyed me emotionally. I was a wreck pretty much the whole way through, but Laurie's scene with Nora by the water made me cry pretty hard, same with the scene where Laurie's talking to Jill on the phone.

This was by far one of my favorite episodes. Judging by some of the reactions it's been fairly divisive.
 
S

stenbumling

Unconfirmed Member
I will not survive the end of this show. The last episode better end with a twist that there are 10 more seasons coming up.

giphy.gif
 
Corpsepyre

Corpsepyre

Banned
T Dollarz said:
Man... This show... It's in serious conversation among the GOATs for me. Gotta see how these last two episodes go before I make any more declarations about its status, but I have faith the ending will be nailed.
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Yeah, the ending is all I am looking forward to before I recommend it to my friends. Could very well go to dogshit for all I know given what happened to Lost. I've quite liked the show so far, even with the heavy-handed Christian symbolism throughout, which I think it could have done without.
 
B

Brooklyn_Moods

Neo Member
1st season song, so awesome!

I would have thought that they'd use it for the final episode but I guess not.
Makes me wonder what the last episode intro song will be
 
J

JDMC13

Member
You know sometimes I disagreed when people said there was nothing like this on television. I was wrong. I was very wrong.
 
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