Season 3 episode 7 discussion.
Go on!
shareI liked it.
shareMe too.
And it was [spoiler]great to see Patti again[/spoiler].
MovieChat Forums > The Leftovers (2014) Discussion > Season 3 episode 7 discussion.
Wow! Another bizarre episode with Kevin facing himself to determine which Kevin will win out and rule.
It appeared to me the afterlife was nuked so I doubt Kevin ever retreats to that place again since he destroyed it. Therefore, I believe Kevin is now committed to live his life on Earth in peace with himself and I'm thinking he will look to hook up with Nora again and accept her for who she is and not run away from her just because she is having a hard time coping with the loss of her family.
Lindelof is an amazing writer. Nothing will outdo Lost for me, so I compare this show to Lost all the time, and of course, this one loses out, but I am starting to see the value of this season and the conclusion bit by bit as it unfolds. I believe we were told up front this show is not about the DEPARTED but rather about the people LEFT BEHIND, so it has been true to that. Unfortunately, I think there will be many disappointed people when this is all over because they still want answers regarding the DEPARTED. I don't think you will get them.
I'm thinking the season finale might have somewhat of a happy ending with both kevin and Nora's lives able now to finally get on with living. Although I'm not sure what had to happen for Nora to finally resolve herself to find peace much like Kevin has found. We haven't been shown Nora's path after she separated from Laurie. Was she blasted with radiation? I guess we will find out. I'm pretty sure Laurie is dead; I know Matt is dying, but he seems at peace with it; I. Not sure how John's life will be reconciled though.
Crazy and unpredictable as usual.
After the stupid posts under this heading consisting of
discuss
i liked it
me too
why would you bother to put your reply here instead of writing your own post?
Mykle, Kewl Kat and Keybored are clearly trolls, why encourage them. What
kind of idiot tells other people to discuss, but has nothing to say themselves.
Losers.
At least my post had something to do with The Leftovers, unlike yours.
Some of us post short and long posts depending on several reasons. If I have time or more to say then I post more, but as the site is still new, sometimes I make short posts just to make it look busy.
So do you have anything to add about The Leftovers episode or do you just want to derail the thread and insult people?
You first, prove what you say!
shareWhy would you bother to contribute such a hostile post? The Universe (or Multiverse?) is filled with mystery, I guess. I suppose your response is fitting.
shareBeing a reasonable logical person I resent some person who has nothing to contribute to a discussion being the one to call for a discussion, and then some other equally vapid person posting to contribute nothing as well. Think about it but that requires using your brain for something other than doorstop -- I am not being hostile, I am complaining in an attempt to civilize and make useful two people who currently offer nothing, that is called constructive criticism.
shareAre you a Trump supporter? You have that irrational anger that is usually associated with one.
shareYou know, you just can't win, but you cannot see it, and you would
never look for why. Look at the motivation for you to call me a Trump
supporter? That's just your own psychological need to project stuff
out from you, rather than to take the time to take in real perceptions
of the world and think about them. You thinking process is shit if you
think you can do that. All you express is that I hurt your feelings and
you are trying to find some way to hook me into your pathetic reality.
First, I don't care what you think of me politically, because I already
know your thinking process is unsound, but second, is a kind of
concern for you because you waste your time an energy. You do not
hold that in any higher regard?
But I do agree with you that Trump supporters are driving by their
emotions and anger, and misery and unhappiness. If you think you are
sensing that from me, I don't feel from the way you that you express it
that you care about me ... so what is it, if you can understand it, what
drives you to do that?
To answer your question, and disappoint you I guess, no, I am not a
Trump supporter in any way. I think Trump appeals to shallow thinkers
which is what I think this show does too - but as to any reason for an
intersection between the two, I would never presume to know or try
to insult someone based on that possibility. Why do that?
That is, there are shallow thinkers who get something from hearing and
resonating with Donald Trump, but that doesn't mean that all shallow
thinkers automatically are in tune with Trump. You for instance, I don't
see you are a Trump supporter, but you are coming off to me in this
conversation at least as a shallow thinker. But not even all the people
who watch this show would all be shallow thinkers. There is, or was
something interesting about this show, and Lost, and that would make
an interesting discussion to take that apart, that is, what is the formula
Lindelof uses.
OK, just asking.
shareI'm not a troll. I'm simply starting a discussion thread like it's done on many shows to avoid multiple posts with spoilers for others. Get a grip.
shareI think Nora probably sent Matt through the machine because he doesn't have long to live and can test it for her. We know Nora is alive years later so presumably she is still in this 'universe', (unless she goes through and is in a newly created universe,which Kevin then will have to enter to find her).
shareGood point. Matt is dying so what does he have to lose? However, what satisfaction does Nora get from this restless itch of hers if her brother goes through and not her?
shareMaybe because she still isn't sure what to believe, and perhaps she doesn't want to face the consequences of explaining to her children and husband that at the moment they disappeared, she was wishing that they would.
shareHow would she know if the machine is successful?
That is an experiment with no result to measure?
She wouldn't. But if it worked he could pass on her message(s) to them.
shareBut there is no verified way to do that. Sounds like some
major sibling rivialry when you are willing to kill your brother
on the off chance that he can pass a message to your from the
great beyond ... but of course that is par for the logic and plot
of this pretty silly series.
This is such an intense show! I loved this as a continuation of 'International Assassin.' I don't even know where to begin, but seeing Kevin confront himself like that in that sort of set up was crazy. It shows you just how high stakes he had become for himself and his affect on others.
The whole key being inside himself, not only inside himself, but near his heart is just so full of symbolism. It ended on a great note with Kevin Sr. asking, [spoiler] what next?[/spoiler]. I think the moment the characters on this show reach peace is the moment they stop trying to save the world. That seems to be consistent across the board in my eyes. Finally, it seems Kevin has reached that place as well. He's severed his ties with that afterlife place and seems okay to just wait and see what happens. I suppose we don't know the aftermath of the flood in other places, but it seems to have just come and gone without too much damage for our main characters.
I think all this is a statement on how much importance we put into seemingly chaotic or random things. We're so designed to make a purpose or pattern out of everything that we go to extreme lengths to make sense of it or prevent it and yet it still comes and a lot of the time it's not as bad as we had imagined or it could be what saves us. It's a nice slice of examining the entropy of life and how humans seeks to navigate/rationalize that.
I can't believe it's over next week, here we go!
Nice post.
I see this show now trying to give a life lesson on dealing with unfortunate circumstances that cross your path. Most of these people crumbled under that weight, but as we have seen, Matt and Kevin are coming out of it much stronger and wiser and now ready to live their short life to the fullest and quit having pity parties or breakdowns or maybe even trying to explain things beyond their control or knowledge.
Of course Matt doesn't have much time left but even he now can relax and quit pretending to be someone he is not or a fake. Kevin now realizes he fucked up with Nora so I'm thinking he will be looking to right that wrong somehow.
Right on....I especially like the last part of your post there because it highlights another lesson from the show. I think, we're now seeing them focus on the more personal, internal, and in their immediate vicinity kind of problems instead of obsessing about the big picture. Matt with his illness and Kevin with his relationship.
It's one of those things where it's best to put your energy into things you can change than the out of reach things. That those personal things are what matter most and are what can get you through the harder and unfortunate circumstances.
Great post, Dreamers! I was a bit lost during this episode (though I enjoyed it a lot), so you've put a lot of it in perspective. I guess we weren't ever going to see a biblical flood, and it wasn't about that in any case.
shareI guess we weren't ever going to see a biblical flood, and it wasn't about that in any case.
Right! It's sort of like a magic trick. Distracting us with the flood in one hand while showing us what was really going on underneath in the other. I think the flood, however real it was, became a symbol of their last ditch effort to get control of whatever the hell is happening in their world. "If we can stop this, we can stop it all," kinda of thing. Perhaps it was a bit of their white whale in that sense. share
I agree. Plus, if you're going to distract yourself from all the personal problems you're having, because you just can't deal right now, a flood will work just as well as anything. The goal of stopping it pushed them to realise what's really wrong (Matt with his illness, Kevin with Nora, ect.).
shareYup, great way to put it. Impending disaster forces you to reassess your life and bring out what's really the most important. I think for Kevin, it just showed that all this would-be Messiah stuff doesn't matter half as much as patching things up with Nora....that outside forces will do what they will, but only you can fix the most intimate things in your own life.
It's easier to focus on something huge like a flood, not so easy to focus on your own screw ups.
One of the best episodes of the show. Kevin is back to the other side, and we got to see many of the deceased characters again. First Kevin meets the dog killer guy, then Evie who got it backwards and thinks that her family was killed by a missile, Meg is also there, and finally Patti who's always a pleasure to watch. Her interactions with Kevin are among the best scenes of the series for me. We didn't get to see David Burton a.k.a. God, but Kevin hears his voice through the earpiece, which is a truly biblical reference. And finally, Christopher Sunday who laughs off the idea that a song can stop the flood. So much for Kevin Sr.'s idea.
No Laurie in the afterlife though. Does it mean she's not dead? Hopefully, we'll find out in the next episode.
Kevin also meets his twin, and the other Kevin offers to sacrifice himself. Was this the sacrifice we've all been waiting for? Sure seems so cause this act stopped the flood. And now the world is saved, but Kevin has yet to save himself, cause he realized that his life has no meaning without Nora. So, when Kevin's father asks "what now?", for Kevin the answer is simple. He has to go after Nora. I'm not sure it'll work though, cause we've seen the scene from the future and Kevin is not in it.
Good catch on Laurie not being there in the afterlife. I think you may be right based on that observation. Laurie probably changed her mind after all and I'm expecting to see both her and Nora in the finale.
100% agree- Party,and Kevin's dialog was totally awesome! Classic!
Patti and Kevin have a great on screen chemistry.
shareDidn't the flood still happen? I was under the impression it came and went and yet they still remain revealing that it was never about the flood after all...and Kevin Sr. had hyped it up to have more importance than it did. Did I miss something?
I assumed that's why he asked, "what now," cause the thing he had devoted himself to turned out to not be what he thought or expected. It easily could read the other way around though, in the way you're saying....so I guess I misread it.
I expected a biblical kind of flood where it's supposed to rain for 40 days and 40 nights, and some act stopped this from happening. In this scenario, words "what now?" mean "what's next now that the flood didn't happen and the world is saved?" That's how I interpreted it (mostly based on that scene from the future where we see Nora, and we see that the world still exists)
But your interpretation is also valid. It could be that Kevin Sr. was wrong when he expected that the flood will wipe out the humanity. In this scenario, their struggle is not over and something else will destroy the world. Words "what now?" in this case mean "what now that I was wrong about the flood?"
We are all guessing here. I don't exactly have a great guessing ratio and I'm often wrong... lol. We'll see how things turn out in the last episode.
Hey, we're all just as right as each other really! Your take on it makes sense as well....I just saw it as the flood wasn't as big as they thought because it would be good in a story telling kind of way. It subverts expectations and also becomes a symbol for their journey (as I sort of explained above just now).
There was water saturated on the ground that we saw when Kevin left the makeshift church at the end so I took that as evidence, and Kevin Sr. did say it was coming down hard, yeah? So, I suppose I just assumed! I guess now we just wait to see what's next, indeed....
I believe one can make a strong argument saying the flood was stopped when Kevin nuked the afterlife.
We know the flood was in process when Sr woke up his son because the pond was gone due to the heavy rains and flooding and then of course Sr goes on top of the roof to get a birds eye view. So we know the flood was real. I don't think it was a coincidence that after the nukes were dropped, Jr returns to the real world, and now the flood has abated.
I agree though - Jr came back from the afterlife a changed man. He now was going to live his life in this world and make the most of whatever he has left and not worry about circumstances beyond his control. He nuked it so it would no longer be an option for him. I'm sure his first thing on his mind (Now what?) is to find Nora and patch that up.
Yeah, I suppose we're basically saying the same thing give or take the semantics of the flood. The outcome is the same regardless of how it went down with the flood, because the bottom line is...it was never all that much about the flood, but rather what it facilitated within the characters.
Could I say, "flood," anymore times?! Lol
At first I though he was going to name Laurie. But I'm glad it was Patti. Their interactions are always great.
This might be a stupid question, but didn't all the people we see in the afterlife die by someone else's hand, in a manner of speaking? Would Laurie be there, if she killed herself?
I don't want her to be dead, but on the other hand I think her character was given a good send off. So I'd be fine with them not bringing her back for the finaly.
Patti killed herself (in that cabin in the woods, with a piece of broken glass) and yet she is in the afterlife. So, I don't think this is the criteria. It's possible that Laurie wasn't important in the chain of events in this episode and that's why she wasn't in it, or maybe she isn't dead at all. Whichever the case is, I'm with you on not bringing her back for the finale cause her story has run its course and she was given a good send off.
shareI forgot Patti killed herself. In that case, I agree with the possibilities you mention. And I think having her back in this episode would diminish her send off a bit.
shareI believe only dead people were in the afterlife. I think it is telling Laurie wasn't there. (She ain't dead.)
shareI think the sole criteria was just DEAD people. Manner or method irrelevant.
share