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DreamersxDisease's Replies
[quote]The finale episode was brought to you by Snickers, so I am taking that as a clue that Gloria does end up at the fair eating a fried Snickers bar with her son.[/quote]
Haha! I didn't even notice....I'll take that reading!
I agree that this season was quite philosophical and it ruminated a good deal on what's real and what's not and whose power can usurp whose and how much they can wield that over others, etc. But I still don't feel like that abrupt ending cuts it even with all that in consideration. It didn't come off feeling weighted to me, it came off feeling feigned.
I can appreciate what they were going for, but I don't think the execution quite worked and I believe Hawley and Co. are better than the tactic they used here. In a season all about story, they decided not to give us one of the most important parts, an ending!
I found it disappointing too. I thought a lot of their endings were cop outs and unsatisfying. I don't need to necessarily [i]like[/i] their conclusions, but as a viewer, I'd like to feel contented with them and I didn't here.
Nikki dying in a quick shoot out with a cop was just, like, "what?" I get that life is random and not everyone goes out in a blaze or whatever, and maybe that was their point, but after building that character up all season and giving her such an arc...for her to go that way just felt a little careless. It was compelling up until the cop came.
Mr. Wrench killing Emmitt didn't feel any better. I understand he did it to fulfill Nikki's quest, but five years later? Mirroring the way that other Stussy died in a subplot that didn't include him? After we had only seen him and Nikki together a few times (I know, I know they went through an ordeal with one another, I do get if someone uses that in their defense, solid enough)? I just felt like there wasn't enough, I don't know, emotional depth to justify that scene. It felt like it was sort of tacked on as a way to get Emmitt out of the way to then move onto Varga.
Speaking of...that cut to black in suspense was just such a downer. I don't need it to tell me bad guys win no matter what or good guys prevail, but that sort of ambiguity or tactic needs to feel earned and I don't think it did. In fact, I think that's what all this comes down to. It didn't feel, to me, that this was an ending that was inevitable or garnered through full enough story telling. It all just felt short changed slightly in a way where they didn't quite know where to go or what to do with it at that point.
The end with Varga and Burgle, that sort of thing can work and I don't always detest it, but it didn't work here, in my opinion. That can either come across as a real dramatic and thematic force or it can feel lazy and/or contrived and, sadly, I think it dipped into the latter rather than the former.
I think Chuck is definitely dead. They had the suicide prevention hotline come up at the end for people and like someone else said, they sounded pretty definitive about it on Talking Saul afterwards. I agree that it might not be the last we see of him though.
I think it makes sense he got to the point of suicide. He pretty much lost everything he had built and was fighting for. He got pushed out of his own company and severed ties with Jimmy and his reputation as a lawyer was sinking. He is someone who lived off of his accomplishments and hoarding that over people to make himself feel better and more important. Absent any of that, he probably felt like he had nothing, not to mention his mental illness always creeping in. Left on his own, with no seeming purpose it took over and put him into an even worse place than before. I had theorized he would do something like this after the court episode because it ended with Chuck looking up at the buzzing, "NO EXIT," sign. I think that was their way of foreshadowing this.
I agree about Gus and Nacho. Gus totally knows he is up to something with those pills. That was great symmetry having Gus be the one to save Hector since Hector is the one who kills him later. I thought that was a pretty neat thing to do.
I'm always glad to see Kim okay, haha, cause we know she probably won't be at some point in the future. It was nice to see her finally let her hair down (literally too). I think she's just hit an overworked wall and realized she had almost no life outside of that and it was eating her alive. She deserves some time off!
All in all, I think the finale was a good one!
I do love Nicholson's performance in this, but I wouldn't disagree with someone calling it over the top. I think a lot of thrillers or horrors suffer from this though just because of the nature of the genre, but...it works here all the same.
Jack was always an asshole from the start, so maybe making him like that from the get go made it harder for the audience to discern where he ended and the hotel's influence began? Maybe they figured that was the only way to truly telegraph Jack's madness to an audience that wasn't as trained in these stories as we are now? It's a film that really relies on the actors performances as there isn't much else going on, explicitly, so in order to get the tone they wanted they had to demonstrate that the most through the family, namely, Jack since he was the most affected.
Ya know, I'm saying this isn't a film that has a lot of gags, jump scares, monsters, etc. The threat itself is subtle so the characters had not to be in order to give us a contrast that unnerved us. I suppose, that's the best way I could put it cause other than that I'm not sure what motivated them to have them play them this way. I'd be more than curious to hear Nicholson's thoughts on his approach to Jack, but I doubt we'd get that since he's a fairly private guy.
You're right, I was just thinking, "ya know, Paula's not that much healthier than she is mentally," so it's more like codependency than enabling. They, especially, seem to feed off one another's neuroses and issues. It's kinda sad at times really, but it was neat to see them take her in a different direction just when you think she's finally gonna have an epiphany and try to change herself for the better....nope!
Robert is her married professor that she had an affair with. I'm guessing, considering her age at the time, that maybe that was her first really serious relationship....as an adult anyways.
And by catch on, you mean with me or the general public? Cause I think it's caught on with the latter, it's buzzed about a lot! Didn't Bloom even get an award for it? That's practically unheard of for a CW show, so I'd say it's going gangbusters! Hell, the only reason I'd know about it since I tend to stay away from the CW is from word of mouth.
I have finished S2 and I do think the show improved. There are still parts of it that bother me, like everyone by now knows Rebecca has mental health issues and yet....they still enable her? Like Paula getting in on her intent of revenge just makes me shake my head. I like Paula and think she got a better story line this time around, but that still is just so bad. Her best friend almost just jumped off a freakin cliff and that's how she responds?! Not, "maybe we should get you some help, " or, "maybe we should talk this all out first?" I don't know, I still don't get that.
But that, would you call it a twist? With Robert and her having burned down his house and already been institutionalized before was very well done and I think certainly did (as the theme song used to say) add some nuance to the show and her character. I was surprised, despite the issues they've skirted around before, that the show went that dark. It's way better than most shows on network these days, and I look forward to checking out S3!
Yeah, I was surprised to see he and Mr. Wednesday were behind Laura's accident. So, does that mean Mr. Wednesday had his eyes set on Shadow for a while?
You're right, the Brits do much shorter seasons for some shows, but when they do that the concession they give viewers for taking years to do so is that the episodes are longer, pretty much every episode is a film. I don't think that is an ideal model all the time, I guess it just depends on the material and the schedule of those involved. I think AG has too much content to do that, there's just too much to cram in!
And no worries about ranting! Clearly I am not immune to that myself 😉
Using Browning was an interesting choice, indeed.....even if it served to kind of muddy up the point of what they were getting at seeing as people have interpreted it different ways.
I also don't think I needed to be told Mad Sweeney wasn't all bad (as I'm sure many didn't either), I already had figured that so maybe I just wish they had moved past that and onto something more compelling like his origin story. One of the best things about TV these days is that its characters are much more layered and nuanced therefore deserving of something more than just a simple examination of whether they're wholly good or bad, but....maybe that's just the TV dork in me, haha.
As for who should be the focus, while we started out with Shadow who obviously leads the pack, I think as it goes on it has and is going to become more so an ensemble really where everyone gets their own spotlights and attention throughout. Considering they're already racking up a lot of characters, I wouldn't be surprised to have many episodes where Shadow and his story line isn't present, except for the fact that they all intertwine in some way.
It seems more and more common that first seasons are doing shorter than even 10 episodes now, which feels like a bit too short. I'm thankful we've scaled back on the atrocious 22+ episode model, but 10-13 always feels like a good, rounded number of episodes to tell a fully explored story, so I wouldn't have minded see them do that either, but oh well. Let's see what these last two episodes bring!
You could be right. I watched the first 3 week to week, but the rest I binged so maybe there is some validity to that. Given that a lot of show runners say they're making, "10 hour movies," opposed to a season of TV I wouldn't find it all that surprising that a lot of them view better as a whole.
I think AG has begun to have more of a narrative format than just these weird, kind of abstract scenes that loosely seem to be tied together so I was able to get into it a bit more, but...I do think they dropped the ball with the first couple and that's not a great thing to do when you're right out of the gate!
I feel ya on this mostly, but I do think after like EP4 or 5 it got better. I wasn't feeling it and had stopped watching after EP3, but decided yesterday to catch back up to see if I was missing anything. I still don't think it's as great as some say or as I thought it would be, but it got a bit more compelling in my opinion. Enough that I plan on watching till season's end since that's soon anyways.
I'm not fond of the actor they got for Shadow, but I think this may be one of his first major acting gigs so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and they have surrounded him, mostly, with a group of great and experienced actors so it doesn't hurt too much. I just think the story was all over the place, couldn't find itself, and was too opaque at first even for a show that's already based on a weird premise as it is. I don't know, we'll see how this season wraps up....
I suppose it could be seen as an expansion of that theme, "Coming to America," that works as a reading. I just wish it would've had more to do with him than her....not that it was devoid of any characterization of him, but seemed like a missed opportunity there.
I suppose his whole thing about how there was no magic anymore tells you how he ended up the way he did sort of. After following some believers to the New World, slowly the belief in him eroded there and he was left to find another way to live. I wonder, aside from Essie and Laura perhaps being related, if she was the last one around there to really have faith in him.
I was a bit disappointed in that Mad Sweeney is my favorite so I thought an episode about him would, ya know, be more about him. Maybe I'm a bit daft, but what was the point of telling Essie's story? What did that reinforce in the character of Sweeney or what led him to where he is?
Was having Emily Browning used for Essie for fun? Or was it to show that she as Laura and Mad Sweeney are somehow already connected from past lives? I didn't think it was a bad episode or anything, but I'm trying to put the dots together here. Enlighten me people, haha!
I don't think he'd kill him, but he could've gone to the cops (if he thought they were trustworthy and not biased enough cause of John's profession) or he could've gone and told Beth...is that her name? That's dumb I don't remember, haha and some other of Danny's friends and they might have taken more action.
Or would he forgive? Eh. I don't think if he'd forgive John and their family, he did get fairly close to Jane so it's not all doom and gloom there for him, but...I think he'd want nothing to do with them afterwards. [i]Unless[/i] he felt like he could get something from them. I don't know what that would be? He could extort or blackmail them, but Sally already wanted to give part of her inheritance to him and as we heard the property of the Inn itself would soon be worthless so I'm not sure what else is really there for him.
I would like to think he'd hear the truth and finally be able to move on, maybe even leave FL altogether and go to school like he had once proposed content enough that they finally cared and respected him enough to no longer lie. That's the happiest outcome of it really, but I'm not sure. I don't think he'd kill cause that's just murder begetting murder and I think he's learned how to not keep being like them so maybe he had enough wisdom to realize the best thing is to take that knowledge with him and walk away.
I think we think about selfishness in relation to lying differently. I think it's always the best option (notice I didn't use the word, "good") to tell someone you've cheated on them...not to alleviate your own stress, but so they can know to then asses what they would like to do. It's not cool to keep something that big to yourself, especially when it affects others. They deserve to know the whole truth because it's their relationship too and they have the right to know if someone has gotten disinterested, out of love, or unfaithful in whatever regard to them.
John's confessing has implications far reaching outside of himself and directly concerning Nolan since it was his father and all. Lies permeate to everyone once they're operating at this high of a level.
I think they all [i]tried[/i] to have good relationships with one another, but I don't believe they really did once Sarah was gone. The events of that kinda just ruined their familial bond and everything since then has just been for show or out of desperation. This doesn't mean they didn't care about one another, but I think they ultimately cared more about their family name and to appear together when they weren't really.
All in all I am of the belief that honesty is the best policy. Not that lying doesn't help some times, but again, these weren't just little white lies they were lies that had grown into monsters and were actively hurting and destroying people's lives. Often times, the lie/cover up is worse than the crime in the end. Murdering Danny was one awful thing, but to keeping towering lie on top of lie on top of lie to bury that only makes it worse....it had gotten so bad already, and John was at his wits end enough, that I'd imagine stopping that was the only course of action at that point in time. John could kill Danny, but he couldn't kill the truth, and he finally came to that realization I think.
You were wondering if John unburdening himself would be seen as selfish. I think telling lies is the more selfish thing because it's all about self-preservation or preserving a reputation. If John did tell Nolan he killed Danny it not only helps John, but it also helps everyone else potentially.
John gets to confess, sure, but Nolan gets a definitive answer to his father's fate. It's an ugly truth, but it is what happened, and no one can change that now, but...at least Nolan knows what's really up and can start to move on from it. Like I've also said though telling the truth does the family the bigger service of breaking the cycle of living off of lies. Any families that deal with cases of abuse, addiction, or any sort of severe dysfunction has their members come to a cross roads of whether they're going to perpetuate that cycle or break off from it to hopefully start something healthier not only for them, but future generations.
It's also the last good thing he could do for Danny after, ya know, being the one to murder him. Let Danny's truth and real death be known, let that be apart of the (cautionary) story, and his memory get its rest....sorry for the repetition!
Wow, interesting. Thanks for the link!
Five seasons? Really? Honestly, I never would've thought that. I always thought it was meant for 1 season and based off of its popularity got some more. Hm, interesting. I think they had some writing and pacing problems and that kinda of always made it come across as them stretching out plot, but I don't know...I really am surprised they intended to make a much longer running show.
Did you read that in an article? Did they mention what they had in mind for the other seasons?
I'm still only a little over halfway done with this season, but I don't think it's stunningly [i]horrible[/i] like some fans have thought. Of course, I've yet to see its conclusion so am reserving full judgment till then, but....it still feels like a show that had to desperately squeeze out more from a story that should've just stopped at S1 and been a miniseries.
S1 was just so fantastic and so I don't think further seasons ever had a chance to compete with that. It felt so full and complete on its own that, even if the other seasons were really good, they still would've felt off or tacked on, I think. The later seasons aren't the worst TV I've ever seen, but they do feel a lot like filler.
But....Kevin Jr. didn't die.
And he didn't know it was for nothing, he truly believed he had the answer to end this.
That it ended up being pointless or not what he thought was sort of the point, that's how I saw it anyways.
I think the reason it doesn't matter to me whether Nora was lying or not is because the bones of the story are basically the same regardless. She went to see her kids, she decided against it, and came back to where she belonged. Either way you look at it those are the foundations of her experience, therefore it brought her to this same moment in time with Kevin before her and her finally in a place to be able to fully love him and live a life not so tethered by this displaced feeling.
They both had elaborate stories for one another this episode, and the stories we tell ourselves, even if they're lies, still come from some kernel of truth....usually a truth we're trying to hide or run from. They told themselves and each other what they had to to be able to put the past behind them and go on to live the life they feel they're meant to have together. That's good enough for me.