In terms of Laurie in hotel world - I suspect we may see her, but I think it'd be weird if she played any kind of major role (the Virgil role for example) for a couple of reasons - but mainly I think it'd feel awkward to give her that kind of sendoff in the real world only to have her come back the very next week and share multiple scenes with Kevin as his guide. It would cheapen the last episode a bit, imo.

Also it's been made clear she's never been on that side of the fence when it comes to all the weird ****, she's more the logical non-believer who has shooed off any of that sort of talk when it's come up, would be weird for her to then do something similar to Virgil.

i need god damn coles' notes for this show.

inexplicably loved it though.

Please explain to me wtf is going on.

What do we do now?

Get on with our lives and pretend this show hasn't wasted like 30 hours of it

My goal in life is that just once I'll be in a situation where I get to say, "Give us the room."

It's not asking for much but in a post-truth world where every Sunday night I eagerly download a shallow show that I know is going to end in an unsatisfying way, made by people who have done this exact same thing before, hoping for very little seems like the way to go.

I don't think Kevin ever made a single choice. It was never clear who his demons were. There was no battle between good and evil. Did evil appear in the episode? Like Lost, this show is ending with a thud.

PATTY always delivers at least

Patti saying Kevin called her out of retirement when he mentioned her among other things presumably confirms this ep, ghost of Patti, and purgatory hotel were all just Kevin's delusions. Maybe the whole series is.

I had a huge write up that I lost (no pun intended) :

Anyway, grade A, as ever.

Fyp

got a Spy vs Spy vibe from that one





think i need to see it again to organize my thoughts

but Kevin's internal struggle has definitely been there the whole time, he's just spent the entire series avoiding acknowledging it

though seeing as how big this Kevin + Nora = 4 eva thing is supposed to be in series, i feel like they were really hurt by the order of 8 eps for S3 instead of 10. could have really used some extra time to build that up more. feel like i'm only feelin' it at about 60% of what they want me to be here.

Season started as one of the best bits of TV I'd seen in a while. Every episode was gripping.

Not sure what I just watched on the last one. Feces.

Just curious as to how many people expect a definitive answer as to what happened to the departed?

I highly doubt there will be one, and I think those who watched the series expecting one, missed the entire point of the series. The series is called "The Leftovers" for a reason. It is about the people left behind and how they deal with this completely inexplicable tragedy, not about explaining the mysteries of the spiritual world. Seems like about half the posts ITT are angry b/c they still don't know wtf happened to the departed.

The fact that they gave us our last Matt-centric episode and concluded it by him watching "God" being eaten by a lion (how's that for biblical irony) and all he has to say is "That's the guy I've been talking about." Should be proof enough we aren't going to have the mysteries of the universe explained to us in the last hour of the series.

The last episode even ended w/ the 2nd biggest believer in God/the supernatural (Kevin Sr.) asking "what's next?" after the wold didn't end as he predicted. This is 1 of the few series that has been successful despite raising more questions than it will ever answer.

Getting such a LOST vibe since season 2. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing really, but something tells me that next week, the haters gonna hate.

What is he internally struggling with?

Not trolling. I don't think it has ever been explained despite Justin Theroux's excellent acting. Is it just something like whether he wants to live or die? Ridiculous. Is it just something like whether he should stay with Nora or not? Who cares (apart from the fact that they are both significant and competing divine beings for random reasons).

It's about how a few insane people deal with it.

Oh I thought it was like 99% assumed we weren't going to find out what happened to the departed. For 3 seasons they built up the tension around all these poor people who have no idea what happened. Obviously that leads up to all of us getting a taste of the same exact feeling in the finale. You should all be totally prepared for that.

What pisses me off is they had such an easy walk-up to epic in this season finale, and they're blowing it right now by being TOO artsy. They should have stuck with what made the show great.

#stilltiltedbyE7

Has there been a single person itt who has expressed expectations of finding out what happened to the departures?

You're not really adding any insight by pointing out that we're not going to find out.

The difference between this and LOST is that despite LOST being **** as a destination, the ride was still worth it.

Getting harder and harder to make that same argument for this show.

I'll just give my two cents.

I think it was spelled out pretty directly in the past episode, particularly during the novel reading at the end, that he's been a coward (and that he now sees himself as having been one). It's not as developed in s1 (the show was feeling itself out a lot in the early going) but the party during the flashback episode where he asks Kevin Sr something like "is this it, is this all there is?" He doesn't want another kid, he doesn't want a dog, he doesn't even like the house they live in. He's always got one foot out the door. Then he cheats on his wife, tells the person he cheats with that he's not a good man, then the Departure happens and he kind of unravels from there.

One thing I thought was weird from Laurie's episode was how glowingly Kevin spoke about the other world - big smile on his face, talking about how real it was and how alive he felt. I thought at the time, "a hotel where you go through fairly anguishing trials and tribulations?" Hardly paradise, and not really a place someone should be all that stoked to go back to, especially with the risk of spending eternity there.

But this episode brought into focus that whether or not Kevin actually felt bliss in his other world, it was the escape from reality and the sense of self-importance that he'd been chasing (was he visiting this place briefly everytime he did the plastic bag ritual? - seems possible). If his inner demon was cowardice, it makes sense that he'd want to keep reliving a dream where he's a fearless assassin. It also kind of puts new context on the s2 arc, where he's trying to slay Patti, who is really just a personification of his own struggles with committing to a family and a home. The GR's whole thing is "there is no family". If he can destroy Patti, can he destroy that "I don't want a family" conflict within himself? Turns out no, because after Patti is gone, we get the s3 arc, which is his split with Nora, and then the showdown with himself.

One other interesting thing to note is that Patti clearly represents something very different in s3 than she did in s2. She's helping him this time around to destroy his lone wolf fantasy land and reconnect with his loved one, when past versions of Patti were basically determined to set him adrift from everyone.

But the other difference between this and LOST is that LOST gave a lot more insinuation that the mysteries and mythology mattered. The Leftovers has made no such promises, and just in case the show's mission statement was in any way unclear, their s2 credits song was "Let the Mystery Be". The show is a meditation on grief, and its backdrop is more of a thought experiment on large scale grief (the book was originally written as a response to 9/11) not the launching point for a sci-fi mystery - and I think that's been pretty obvious since the very first handful of episodes. Personally, I loved LOST and I love The Leftovers - but I can at least understand the criticism of LOST that people felt duped. For this show, I can't imagine why or when people thought it would become the sci-fi mystery thing.

If the show isn't your cup of tea, that's fine, but if you were holding on with any expectation that Damon Lindelof would turn into the mystery answer man, given what you know about the previous 140 episodes of television he's done, that's your problem, not his. And it's a weird show to "hate watch".

Ya, I can kinda see that. Just off the top of my head, s3 does feel like it's been more of Nora season where s2 was more slanted towards Kevin. So in terms of the Kevin/Nora thing not getting a full arc in s3, it feels more like that's true on the side of Kevin. Like there is a beat or two missing between "he's happy with Nora again after the events of s2" to "he wants out ASAP".

Agree, Season 2 ended with him back home and (apparently) happy with Nora. Season 3 opened with them seemingly OK if a little strained, then all of a sudden they are breaking up in Australia. It did seem as if almost all the problems they had as a couple, happened off camera.

Regarding the ending, I'd really like to think it all adds up to more than "Kevin and Nora are damaged people who need to learn to open their hearts". (I mean assassin Kevin even had an actual key, in his heart.)

The departure is clearly a metaphor for random, unspeakable tragedy. The show is about how people deal with that. Do they give up, soldier on, kill themselves, or invent some sort of religion/story to try and explain it? All of that is more interesting imo than, "can Kevin stop being afraid and let Nora love him?", which seems pretty trite considering the stakes this show has played at for 3 seasons.

But isn't the bolded part sort of just another possible entry into your above series of questions? It's just applied to characters we know, and not this world in general.

And it's not just on Kevin's side, it's definitely reciprocal. And those first parts of your question apply to Nora's story. She's been steadfast against all the snake oil salesmen of the post-Departure world (until now). But on the other hand, she clearly has the conflict of 'give up or soldier on?' And now she's about to surrender to something that was literally her job to discredit. So all that stuff you mentioned has been explored (and will be explored further in the finale, I suspect).

ya kinda where i'm at with it, but i guess it's not too bad if framed with the choice between acknowledging & changing vs ignoring & going mad/dying, rather than he & Nora being the great love story of our time or whatever. that should be more of a footnote, based on what has been presented.

still need to re-watch the last ep tho...