S01.E04: B.J. And The A.C.

[GaT]

If they stalked me, I'd call the police and file a report or a restraining order. My ex-roommate sent me a threatening email and the cops paid him a personal visit and told him to knock it off. You know, like people would act.

Except in this case, the police chief's wife is one of "them"

 

[ganesh]

So? The chief arrested a bunch of them already. Plus, a restraining order is granted by a judge. The police are legally bound to enforce it. 

 

People are following you around routinely and you don't call the police? 

[seamusk]

So? The chief arrested a bunch of them already. Plus, a restraining order is granted by a judge. The police are legally bound to enforce it. 

 

People are following you around routinely and you don't call the police? 

I'm not sure they are breaking any laws though.  I mean, they aren't so much following them as standing outsides their homes and places of business and such.  Which I think would be considered a form of protest.  I don't think they've presented themselves as a threat either.  Though a local judge could interpret things how they see fit to some extent and could, in theory, argue they've crossed a line at some point.  It gets a bit tricky and probably would be fought out in the courts.  Which I would actually find pretty interesting.

[ganesh]

The two GRs were following Liv Tyler around. They were at her house, then the restaurant where the bf got up and asked them to leave "or he'd call the police" [his words], then they were back at the house where LT yelled at them. That's a clear example of stalking. Just because they were in the street, or in the parking lot of the restaurant doesn't really mean much. They are where LT was. They're looking directly at her. Why even threaten to call the police? Just do it. 

 

If people are staring into my house and following me around, I don't think I'm the only person who would.

 

This again is yet another example of the show being sloppy. Even if they didn't call the police, no one has? It certainly could have happened. The chief acted like his little plan to arrest them at the school dance (really, a dance at the high school; there's no community center) seemed like it was the first time arresting anyone in the GR.   

 

It gets a bit tricky and probably would be fought out in the courts.  Which I would actually find pretty interesting.

 

Which means we won't see it because it's becoming clear that TPTBs haven't thought this through at all. If the GR is stalking here, then they're doing it elsewhere. It's obvious that the townsfolk don't like them. No one's been shot at? No one's been arrested? 

 

Even if you're only showing a slice of this world, you have to establish the world to slice in the first place. 

Edited July 25, 2014 by ganesh

[seamusk]

The two GRs were following Liv Tyler around. They were at her house, then the restaurant where the bf got up and asked them to leave "or he'd call the police" [his words], then they were back at the house where LT yelled at them. That's a clear example of stalking. Just because they were in the street, or in the parking lot of the restaurant doesn't really mean much. They are where LT was. They're looking directly at her. Why even threaten to call the police? Just do it. 

 

Yeah, I forgot they followed her to the restaurant.  It does seem they took it to the stalking level there.  Though if they are just standing outside like they were at the church with the pastor, I don't see an issue.  

I generally agree that the show runners have really taken too narrow a view on this world.  There should be more depth to the issues that they are looking at.  I think that the recent episodes like this one where they are focusing in more on a particular theme help a lot more to get some depth out of what's happening.  I imagine we'll see more of them.  I do think, as I've said before, that they really screwed up the pilot.  Tried to go too broad and cover everyone and everything instead of focusing on a few key things happening in a few key places at a time.  Not every plot needs to be in the pilot.  They could have established this world better so that this episode with the dolls and such had more context.

[izabella]

And I thought that the brochure was brilliant, even if I do think that the cult is based on so much ridiculous selfishness.

 

The brochure was great.  Yeah, you live, you die or disappear at any moment, nothing matters. 

 

Still, if nothing matters, then why does the GR care about recruiting members?  Why does that matter?

[stillshimpy]

All right, so I've read all the opinions here and I'm a week behind everyone -- I had some surgery and the very last thing I wanted to do was watch this show while actively in pain, because ....yeah, I don't even think I need to explain that one.  I also don't hit myself in the head with hammers, oddly enough.  

 

All along I've been the person arguing, and I still believe it to be true, that this event is not comparable to any that we've experienced.  Yes, people disappear in real life ,but not into thin air, in front of others.  Have covered all possible math previously, I'm just not that het up over everyone being impacted, but I am starting to have a large problem with how they are impacted.  

 

Even though this event does not line up with any major religion's "bodily ascension" doctrine, that doesn't mean that people wouldn't suddenly develop an extreme faith in a higher power.  The Bulls-eye Heads and the GR, Wayne's Excuse to Molest Teen Girls Club, notwithstanding, there would be perfectly normal people who would suddenly believe in God/gods/beings unseen in a good way.  They'd do it wearing pants.  Pastor This Wasn't the Rapture notwithstanding too, there would be normal sorts who would go all "The Lord works in mysterious ways! Hallelujah!  Let us gladden our hearts and raise our voices in song"  and, dammit, they'd wear pants while doing it.  For what it is worth, I'm pretty sure in Islam that Mohammed actually was supposed to bodily ascend in the manner that Christ also did after the whole "rose from the dead" so there is another major religion that believes bodily ascension can be granted to the most holy.  

 

There would be plenty of people of Faith who would just likely say, "Wow, so our religious books were wrong, but there you go...proof of God/gods/unseen beings" and rather than "what's it all for" would naturally have "Rejoice!" as their reaction.  

 

So even I have joined the "Okay show, it would be okay to glimpse that set and perhaps you could let them be sane and wearing pants"  because I'm personally not that jazzed to see a flaccid penis and if want to see an erect one, I'm sure (this being the internet) I'm never more than about two clicks away from a veritable herd of the damned things. 

 

But I did enjoy this episode.  I do think the show needs to swiftly start moving towards what the hell the GR believes, and frankly, that no one was shot in the face with nothing short of a bazooka,, during that photo raiding party, requires more suspension of disbelief than the actual premise.  That's right, Show, I can roll with "2% of everyone just freaking vanished?  All righty then.  Tell me more!"  but a posse of cult members walking around in houses throughout the town is impossible to believe in for me. 

 

Yes, I know, we saw Liv Tyler's mad house-breaking skills.  Did all of the home alarms ascend too, because I know I've got one that is tied to motion detectors and makes a sound that would convince almost anyone that the end was truly nigh.  I plan on dying of fear as preventative measure if the damned thing ever squawks in the dead of night, because that's how heinous it is.  Like a lot of those alarm systems?  Tied to an armed response system.   

 

So yup...should have been more carnage attached to that jerktastic raiding party.  This story still has me, but it has a pacing problem and whereas I do believe this event would fuck up the global psyche, I do not believe it would all manifest as despair, or cult-driven insanity.  Also, Meg's intended needs to show the hell up and allow for some mega-exposition of what the hell she could be thinking and why anyone would join those bastards.  

[shapeshifter]

Glad you're back in full form, @stillshimpy . With pants! LOL

Just thought of another popular Rapture belief: "That the dead in Christ shall arise from their graves"

Pastor Matt should be using Google Earth views of undisturbed graveyards to make his point, shouldn't he?

Heck, given that Mapleton seems to have only Christian churches, he could just go around photographing local cemeteries and recording interviews with local undertakers to post on YouTube.

Also just realized I love the word, "undertaker."

[ganesh]

Yes, people disappear in real life ,but not into thin air, in front of others.

 

I'm sure some people have vanished right in front of other people, but I don't think we've had a first hand account on the show, nor do we know exactly what happened because we didn't even see it. The baby disappeared off screen.

 

This is a huge problem I can't get past because it's so ludicrous. "It's been three years and we don't know anything." Not one single person looked at any video feeds anywhere? "All we know is that the people who vanished seemed to be reacting to something they heard." Something like that. What would that solve, even though it doesn't explain much? It means that there are some people who are actually acting like a lot of people. Trying to find answers. Even if they don't find them, it's the process of it. 

 

In TPTBs attempt to bend over backwards to NOT say anything about this event, what I'm seeing on the screen strains credulity. 

[izabella]

There would be plenty of people of Faith who would just likely say, "Wow, so our religious books were wrong, but there you go...proof of God/gods/unseen beings" and rather than "what's it all for" would naturally have "Rejoice!" as their reaction.

 

I agree that these groups would exist, and also believe there would be people who would react with, "Hey, whoa, let's live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment because you never know..." 

 

As to why they haven't shown anybody to be happy about someone disappearing, they did show that woman who didn't want her husband's dog back.  She didn't have anything nice to say about her husband, and seemed pretty satisfied that he was gone, albeit in a crabby way.  There was also the guy on the news broadcast who said his brother-in-law was a total jerk, so presumably, he's happy that he's not around anymore.

[stillshimpy]

Thank you, shapeshifter, it always brightens my day to see your screenname.  May the Pants be with you ;) 

 

 

This is a huge problem I can't get past because it's so ludicrous. "It's been three years and we don't know anything." Not one single person looked at any video feeds anywhere?

I think part of the reason it was set three years afterward is to establish that they did all of that, and still don't have any answers. Presumably someone vanishing (or whatever happened) was caught on tape and we're to take it that they couldn't figure out anything from that. Hence Nora's bizarre, far-reaching, scattered questionnaire desperately trying to compile some commonality.

Normally exposition sucks and I'm no fan of large exposition dumps. I also know that people don't generally sit around telling each other what they already know, but there's a middle ground between resorting to a narrator and leaving everything to our imagination. It would be nice to be filled in a bit more on all of that. Radio talk shows are usually a good way of some exposition, have the morning team blathering about it.

Here's what I've come up with for the GR and it is based on next to nothing. I thought they were called the Ghost Remnant, by the way, which I thought was a better name than Guilty Remnant, so it's basically already shot down. These are all blind guesses: They think asking questions about what happened is not only pointless, it's preventing something from happening. Possibly the return of the vanished. I think they might be trying to gather enough people to represent the number of people who were lost, and part of the reason they insist on all sacrifice of the markers of identity is they think they represent the ones taken, and only when they have enough people will people be returned.

I've got to think they are actually trying to accomplish something, because people getting together to elaborately have gang apathy makes no sense to me. They have to think they are doing something with what they are up to...whatever they are up to. We saw them try to recruit Tom at the bus stop.

I'm trying so hard to be intrigued by them, but mostly they are just angering me.

The teen story line is a bit wearing, as far as I'm concerned. A lot of teens, not all obviously and not even most, but a lot of teens have that "woe, my life, my pain, my anger, I'm so detached...and angry...and prone to dramatics..." thing going regardless. Spend some more time with the adults rather than exploring the group that would likely be acting a lot like that anyway (with fewer "choke me for fun!" party games, I would hope).

That said, I genuinely appreciated the daughter's hesitation to burn that goofy doll, because it showed that part of all of this is an affectation for her. It is a contrivance, like the angst of a lot of teens can be and she just wants her mom back on a lot of levels.

Also I liked that I understood where Amy Brenneman's character was going at the end before she got there. I'd just like a very solid clue as to why she is doing this to herself, and frankly the GR seem like such jerks that they need something (pretty much anything) to help me understand why she would be hurting her family that much, when it is clearly hurting her too.

They clearly stuck Meg into this picture, as some sort of Novice preparing to take final vows and to let someone in the group speak. It would be nice if she said some things that enlightened me as to why she's there.

Lastly, I think there would absolutely be groups of people who would decide that since it's all temporary and we don't understand (etc. etc. etc) who would Live for the Day, and without being heedless of everyone's feelings, or law breaking. Just more "Fuck it! Ice cream sundaes, picnics and games. I'm staying home and playing with the kids. This is all so temporary, I need to cherish it. After dinner we'll head over to that volunteer group refurbishing houses and pitch in. Who needs a new car via overtime? I know what matters now and my Joie de Vivre cannot be contained now that I understand that. Every. Second. Counts!"

They presumably fled that town en masse somewhere around the halfway mark of the first year, because they sure aren't showing up here.

[ganesh]

I think part of the reason it was set three years afterward is to establish that they did all of that, and still don't have any answers.

 

That's my problem. I just don't buy it. Major investigations/academic studies *might* be just in their final phases by now. Given the overwhelming volume of data to mine, it's ridiculous to think that literally nothing has turned up. Even if people were taken at random, there's a lot of statistical analysis you need to do to prove that. And it's not necessarily that they have to find something, but that you still have to prove "nothing" with the same tools. 

 

The show is actually contradicting itself. First you [show] say 'no one knows anything'. Then you show Nora as part of an effort gathering data. It's disingenuous to say you know nothing. You know nothing at this point because you're still in the process of collecting data. 

 

It may be that they looked at video and found nothing. That's a really huge fanwank since they're asking us to basically handwave the concept upon which the show is based. 

 

They already did an episode centered on the pastor. They could easily have done one with Nora to flesh the world out, and then move on. 

 

They presumably fled that town en masse somewhere around the halfway mark of the first year, because they sure aren't showing up here.

 

I'm mystified at how we're all coming up with pretty obvious things, "why aren't there more people living in the moment?" "Is there more crime? I would have thought the chief would have said something" that just aren't being covered. What exactly do TPTBs think is interesting? 

[BooBear]

Just caught up with this. Another depressing episode. I am staring to think the reason that the 14th people were chosen because they all brought joy to the world and the leftovers are all people who being the world down into depressing despair.  No one wants a downer.

 

Liked Nora and Kevin's chat.

 

Interesting that Kevin wasn't Tommy's dad. I thought from the start that Amy Brennaman was too old to be Kevin's wife but seems like their marrage was a little outside the norm.

[txhorns79]

I'm not sure they are breaking any laws though.  I mean, they aren't so much following them as standing outsides their homes and places of business and such.  Which I think would be considered a form of protest.

 

I think what they are doing would be harassment.  They aren't protesting.  They are targeting people for recruitment into their cult.  If I follow someone around, and they ask me to stop and/or otherwise leave them alone, I can end up in legal trouble if I ignore that request.     

 

 

Interesting that Kevin wasn't Tommy's dad. I thought from the start that Amy Brennaman was too old to be Kevin's wife but seems like their marrage was a little outside the norm.

 

I don't know how old they are supposed to be on the show, but in real life, Amy Brenneman is 50, and Justin Theroux is 42.  I don't think the age difference is so much that it would make her too old to realistically be his wife. 

Edited July 27, 2014 by txhorns79

[ganesh]

If I follow someone around, and they ask me to stop and/or otherwise leave them alone, I can end up in legal trouble if I ignore that request.

 

It's too bad there isn't a character on the show in law enforcement who might be able to provide insight from this perspective so we'd have an idea of how this is being handled. 

[Dewey Decimate]

I was reminded of this show today when I remembered I was NOT recording it. Gave up on this ep (and the series) during the hospital ultrasound scene. I don't really like the c-word, but all I could think to myself was "The mayor is a c. The GR leader is a c. The teenage daughter and her friend are cs. The pregnant Asian girl is a c, AND worse - she's an atrocious actress." That was it. I have better things to do than watch a show that sits on my DVR for almost the whole week.

 

And I say this as a big LOST fan, even the final eps. With that show, I didn't mind the sometimes delayed world-building and question-answering (and new-question-creating), because I was intrigued by the mysteries, and got very involved with the characters. None of that here, and not even some random Greek guy's dingleberries can keep me watching.

[ganesh]

I don't think Lost did that bad with the world-building tbh. Granted, they pretty much wiped out the earlier seasons by the end, but I think the pilot itself holds up. 

 

It's fine to be posing questions as a showrunner in your first few episodes. The people on Lost seemed to be behaving like people would in the beginning of the show. Later on, eh. But here, after 4 episodes, there's more "why are they doing this? Acting like that?"

 

You don't really *need* to know exactly what the smoke monster was, but you knew it fed on malevolence. No one has a clue wtf the GR is or does or why people aren't reacting to them in normal ways. 

[Constantinople]

The twins are the best part of this show right now.

Their almost screwed-up getaway after dropping off the baby Jesus was greatly amusing. 

 

I find the daughter and her friend insufferable. Well actually the daughter is more insufferable than the friend.

Jill is getting a little tiresome, and since Aimee only exists to be Jill's sidekick, Aimee is becoming less interesting by association.

Bored teenagers stealing the baby Jesus doll is realistic, but it's still kind of boring to watch.

As soon as the sheriff said he wasn't going to be running around looking for some doll, I knew he would be running around looking for some doll. Oh, and really smart to have the Chief of police in uniform going to the toy store around Christmas time to buy the exact same doll that went missing in the nativity scene. Brilliant.

What I find odd is why anyone really cares about "solving" the case.

I don't think most people would care if the case was "solved" (it's not as if it's some work of art worth thousands of dollars). I suspect most people would figure some teenagers stole it and tossed it out. Most of the people who care about whether there's a baby Jesus doll will be satisfied if it's replaced, provided it doesn't keep going missing. After all, Father Jamison didn't appear to care who stole the baby Jesus doll. The Chief probably could have told people at the store he was buying a replacement doll.

 

I thought maybe the episode title was a play on tv show 'BJ and the Bear' -- so who was the truck driver and who was the orangutan ?

That's why came to mind for me as well, though I couldn't figure out Bear became AC.

There's also BJ from M*A*S*H, but I don't recall any characters from that show with the initials AC.

 

 

I'll add that not only did the entire citizenry not turn into a bunch of self-nihilistic downers after 9/11, they pulled together as a supportive group & became stronger, the exact opposite of the people on this show. I get that people are living with the unknown here, but people were living with the unknown after 9/11 too. Nobody knew if it would happen again, or if it did, where it would happen so people were really on edge for a long time. They still didn't act like the people on this show.

I think 9/11 is different because there are explicable causes for 9/11.

If, on the other hand, the Twin Towers and everyone in them had instantly vanished with no scientific explanation whatsoever, I think people would still be pretty freaked out 3 years later.

[izabella]

What I find odd is why anyone really cares about "solving" the case.

I don't think most people would care if the case was "solved" (it's not as if it's some work of art worth thousands of dollars).

 

I don't think many people actually did care.  When the Chief showed up at the dance with the doll, no one seemed to care.  There certainly wasn't a big round of cheering and clapping when he told them he had it and was returning it to the creche.  The crowd was all, "yeah, whatevs."

Oh, and I thought it was interesting that the baby Jesus that the Reverend put in the creche looked like it could have been the original baby Jesus that came with the creche, like it was part of the set.  Maybe he had stolen the original one years back, lol, and that's why they were using a doll.

[Constantinople]

When the GR broke into people's houses, I was reminded of the carpet cleaning cult in Seinfeld. Then I thought I wouldn't mind if they took photos of loved ones provided they did a little light house cleaning.

[ganesh]

Their almost screwed-up getaway after dropping off the baby Jesus was greatly amusing.

 

This show is seriously bereft of any bleak/gallows humor.

[Milburn Stone]

Ironically, it seems that 2% is also the percentage of people who think this show is absolutely smashing, is in full control of its effects, has just the right amount of gallows humor (some of Justin Theroux's line readings are priceless), and knows exactly where it's going at all times even if we don't. I'm in the 2%.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Milburn Stone

[Danny Franks]

I don't think many people actually did care.  When the Chief showed up at the dance with the doll, no one seemed to care.  There certainly wasn't a big round of cheering and clapping when he told them he had it and was returning it to the creche.  The crowd was all, "yeah, whatevs."

 

That's what I got from it as well. Kevin is so bamboozled by everything that's happening to him that he believes Aimee when she says the whole town is upset about the doll (he never thinks to actually ask anyone or see if complaints have been made), so makes it his mission to get it back, and to give himself just one mark in the 'win' column. But really, no one gives a shit and Matt just has a replacement anyway. Talk about futility!

 

I did like Aimee trying to talk Jill down when Jill was in full 'fuck you, dad' mode and about to set the doll on fire. This is why I hope Aimee reappears in season 2, because she gave off the impression of being wild and crazy and never giving a fuck, but underneath that, she seemed to care. Little moments like these, or when she's eating the jelly beans from Nora's car until Jill points out they were probably bought for Nora's kids.

 

Ironically, it seems that 2% is also the percentage of people who think this show is absolutely smashing, is in full control of its effects, has just the right amount of gallows humor (some of Justin Theroux's line readings are priceless), and knows exactly where it's going at all times even if we don't. I'm in the 2%.

 

 

 

That's where I find humour in it as well. I'm not generally one for watching sitcoms, and usually find well written dramas to be far wittier and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. Not many moments of the latter in this show, but there is definitely some dark humour, and the odd smile raised by the dialogue and delivery. The bits with Kevin and the twins in this episode are probably as close as we got to outright comedy. First with him scaring the crap out of them, and piling in on the twin jokes with, "which of you is the smart one?" and then their bungled, inept escape after 'anonymously' returning the doll.

 

But the humour was actually built into the concept of this episode. Cop spends all day working on a case that absolutely no one cares about, going around threatening people and then presenting his success at a town meeting.

[shapeshifter]

Ironically, it seems that 2% is also the percentage of people who think this show is absolutely smashing, is in full control of its effects, has just the right amount of gallows humor (some of Justin Theroux's line readings are priceless), and knows exactly where it's going at all times even if we don't. I'm in the 2%.

I will never be part of the economic 1%, but, hey, cool, I'm part of this 2%!

[pingpongaffair]

I cannot believe the GR took everyone's pictures! I'm watching Season 1 Episode 4 right now and I just cannot believe they would do that! Can you imagine losing a loved one, someone you cherished very much, only to have people steal every picture of them? Although, realistically, the people they stole the pictures from probably have other pictures in albums and in their wallets and on their computers and phones. But still! Those are priceless family heirlooms! Horrendous!