Britneys Scrunchie

I think the episodes would work better if they focused on one person’s story at a time instead of all nine at once + Masha and the workers. Everything feels fragmented, and there seems to be little discernible story arc within the actual episode. Contrast that with Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, where each episode was kind of a standalone story unto itself. The characters seemed well-drawn at first, but I really don’t care much about them. Although I do find Carmel oddly endearing in her bewilderment. Her interaction with Lars felt like the only real high point in today’s episode. I want to like Delilah and Yao, but it seems almost too much about them has been revealed and there is no longer any mystery about them. They seem as broken as the guests. The show is visually beautiful, glossy, well-edited, and beautifully scored, and yet…I wish I liked the series more than I do.

She sent the four of them there to make their stand against evil. It was not made explicit, but taking a stand against Flagg is what Glenn, Larry and Ralph/Ray were doing when they allowed themselves to be captured and purposely avoided fighting back when they were held captive. It was better shown in the book - by allowing themselves to be martyred, Larry and Ralph triggered the backlash against Flagg as the New Vegas citizens started questioning why the two needed to be executed in such a violent manner. IIRC, Mother Abigail only sanctioned one group going to Vegas - she was not happy about the first group being sent there. But the first group did set the stage for some level of success - Dayna choosing to kill herself rattled people, and Tom’s escape allowed for Stu to be saved. Not sure if anything good came out of the judge’s death. Other than the elimination of Bobby Terry.

Huh, this is not the reaction I expected. I’m in my 50s and well aware of what a remote is. I did not, however, watch the Dick Van Dyke show, but I thought remotes were not in wide use at the time that show aired. And did Van Dyke break the fourth wall? That’s what it seemed like Vision was doing, and given the scene flashed to a control room, it appeared to me more like he was using a device to communicate with someone in there. The device did not remind me of a remote...it actually reminded me of what Fury used to call to Captain Marvel. So I asked.

Delurking to say I’ve enjoyed reading all the posts, and agree with most on the unusual choice of a non-linear timeline. There was a rumor the series was retooled to avoid focusing on Captain Tripps out of sensitivity to the COVID pandemic, and I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This article says otherwise (I hope I inserted the link correctly). Apparently the show runners thought the decision to remove 1/3 of the book was the right one. I know Stephen King’s son was involved in this, but I’m still very surprised. The first third of the book wasn’t just about the elimination of most of the world’s population, it was about the breakdown of society and the associated fear and isolation. That was a huge factor in the importance of the Flagg/Mother Abigail dreams - they were the source of hope for the terrified survivors.

What was that little box Vision was clicking at the end?

I agree, my first thought was that it was really Scott when I watched it, and I’m also hoping it was not a careless miss on the part of the writers. One thing that was purposely left out of S2 is how Hap came into contact with Steve, French, and Jessie, and what led to them becoming part of Hap’s brain garden. I was actually more surprised that the floaters were them than I was about the floating plants. Since Prairie didn’t exist in their world, how did they all come to travel from Michigan to San Francisco and come under Hap’s influence? I guess it’s possible that was really Steve in the ambulance, it just seems a stretch to me. Also I was starting to wonder if the detective was really OA’s brother since Steve seems even more protective of her.

Delurking to say I have more questions than I can list here, but particularly about the final scene in E8 in the ambulance. Scott runs after the ambulance after OA’s fall, this time he catches it, and when he looks at Jason Isaacs, he calls him Hap. To my knowledge, Scott and the Crestwood group never actually saw Hap’s face, they only heard stories. Is that correct? If so, Scott would not recognize Hap unless there was someone else inside him. In that case, I can think of three scenarios, none of which really align with the multiple world-buildings we’ve seen so far: - OA moved into Scott’s body when she left the Nina world, and so she recognized Hap in actor-Jason’s body. If this is the case, if actor-Brit dies, OA lives on. - Homer moved into Scott’s body when he left the Nina world, and recognizes Hap in actor-Jason’s body. If this is the case, if actor-Brit dies with OA inside her, she must leave this world to find a new dimension. - Scott has somehow traveled off-screen, and has awareness of what Hap looks like, and is thus able to identify Hap in actor-Jason’s body. This just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m inclined to think it’s the first one since that would line up with S1 where it ends with OA’s face as she recognizes someone. On another note, it occurred to me I t’s possible OA is not female (or male), but an asexual spirit who we meet when she just happens to be in a female body. edited for clarity

Very compelling for a first episode. I wasn’t expecting the scars. The editing of this is phenomenal - so many quick cuts, which I usually dislike, yet they took me back in time seamlessly. Looking forward to the next episode.

That’s what I concluded as well. It’s just that every character got closed out, even poor, self-loathing Edith. Irma, however, was left hanging. She spoke to the investigator, re-iterated that she would never speak of her time on the rock (which now I think she remembers, just won’t give away due to the pact), and escorts the gentleman out the door. There is no real conclusion for her, she is just living in this weird stasis. I thought everyone else’s narratives were well-explained except for Irma. And I thought that was out of sync, particularly given how much screen time she had.

Sorry for the serial post, but I’m am confused with Irma, and feel she might have been a loose end. Miranda, Marion, and the teacher all had cause to want to leave this time period. Irma, however, did not. She seemed perfectly happy with the role of women at that time, and her pain was generated specifically from being rejected by her parents. She didn’t need to leave the present the way the other three did. She seemed to fall neatly in love with her savior, accept her upcoming wife role, and chose to focus on her new husband instead of her parents’ abandonment. After Michael rejected her, though, there seems to be no closure to her story arc. Maybe I missed something?

I did not care much for the first episode, but I’m glad I hung in there. Some will probably call this heresy, but the series seemed to get The Handmaid’s Tale treatment - filling in the characters’ backstories, strong messaging of marginalization of women, and it was all wrapped up in stunningly beautiful cinematography. It seemed to get better as it went along, and what I initially thought was some incoherent storytelling was neatly wrapped up. After the sixth episode, I returned to the first to rewatch some scenes, and I then realized the first episode was actually the weakest of the six. I’m wondering if people watched the first, got turned off, and perhaps did not give the rest a chance? Having never seen Natalie Dormer in anything but GOT, I thought she was terribly miscast at first, but I was wrong. By the end, she was the most well-developed character of them all. I’d been curious about Appleyard’s background from the novel and movie, and this backstory was perfect. I thought Marion, half white/half aborigine, was also an excellent add - she was brilliant and beautiful, and obviously cared for by her ashamed white politician father. He didn’t want the public to know of her existence, yet gave her a proper finishing school education and sent her “boxes of books” to feed her mind. The look in her eyes when she was told she would not get the husband (thus the life) she deserved was heart-breaking. I’m still not certain of her sexuality since the women were so isolated with hormones raging and the love between her and her teacher seemed more of an affair of the mind. I’m surprised so few people liked it on this board. I had this odd sense of thinking that the series could have easily been told in four episodes, yet feeling in the end that I wanted even more. Although I will always hold a place in my heart for Peter Weir’s movie, this version stayed with me for days after I watched it. I did not find it unforgettable.

I’m rewatching the episode, and noticed Teddy does not seem to be part of the killing spree. He is with Dolores, but hasn’t shot at anyone and was just an observer at the tree hanging. That, plus Maeve’s responding “no” when asked if she was responsible for this, got me wondering about who is responsible for the carnage. What we saw in last night’s episode seemed to have three sources: 1. Dolores successfully achieving consciousness by following the maze, and getting revenge. I don’t recall her being responsible for getting any other hosts to turn rogue in S1 finale, though...? In last night’s epi, she now seemed to be leading the charge for other hosts to kill the party guests, but how did she get connected with them when she seemed to be a lone wolf? 2. Maeve successfully achieving consciousness by accessing her dreams (I think due to the upgrade?), and allowing herself to be killed enough times that she became sentient and built an army to get herself out. I thought she said she could get the army out of cold storage, so I guessed the deaths of the party guests by the cold storage army was a way to help find her daughter and get out of Delos. But then she said she was like-minded with whomever did it, but it wasn’t her...? 3. Ford’s new narrative, which we saw the beginning of (Dolores and Teddy on the beach), but we don’t know how Ford intended it to end. So do we know if there are truly three independent players here? Or is there evidence that Dolores and Maeve are part of Ford’s narrative? It didn’t seem Dolores was, given Ford’s last conversation with her towards the end of S1. And given how protective Ford was about his hosts, I find it hard to believe he would allow a host to gain consciousness and escape into a world where she could be taken apart and studied. So while Maeve will kill if she has to, her primary motivation for killing seems to be self-preservation, so it no longer makes sense the hosts she pulled from cold storage would go out of their way to kill the guests. And Dolores’ primary motivation seems to be revenge, but we never saw her take action to create a host army. Would it then be just coincidental that Ford planned a bloody coup at the same time two of his hosts also decided to take action? Sorry for the long post, just trying to make sense of it all. ETA forgot to add my original question: Was Teddy’s programming not changed like the others? If so, why was he left out?