S01.E06: Guest

[ganesh]

I think that would about fit if this were to really happen, because no one would get to run around saying, "We were right!"

 

Fundamentalists here would, I bet. 

 

The show really dropped the ball by not showing all different sorts of people. Nora should really be the main pov since it's her job to interact with so many people, so we'd have a better idea. I'm not religious at all, but it's natural that religious people would try to put this in some context. To just not have that pov on the show is disingenuous. Pretty much every question that we've all asked here isn't being addressed on the show. 

[Shermie]

Not all Christians believe in the Rapture either. They might believe in heaven and hell and that Jesus will come back some day, but not necessarily in the "Rapture" concept that is popularly described.

 

That said, I just noticed something:

- 140,000,000 people disappeared

- it happened on 10/14

- the Bible says 144,000 are chosen or whatever (depends on interpretation)

 

So to get all Lost-y, look! Oooooo, numbers!

[stillshimpy]

Not all Christians believe in the Rapture either. They might believe in heaven and hell and that Jesus will come back some day, but not necessarily in the "Rapture" concept that is popularly described.

 

Seriously.  I was raised in the Episcopal church and took comparative religion classes (leading to agnosticism) , as well as continuing the interest well into adulthood and I'd never actually heard the term until I was in my mid-twenties and saw a bumper-sticker that said "If the Rapture comes, somebody grab my steering wheel!" It was only after that that I asked someone and it was described to me.* I'm no great theologian, but it wasn't even really a popular concept until the rise of Evangelical Christians in recent history.  Even then, it's kind of fringe belief for (primarily) literal interpretation churches (which is odd in that it's not really a scriptural thing precisely and open to interpretation). Second-coming? Sure.  Specifically the term "Rapture"? Not a part of every Christian-experience, actually.  

 

So yeah, I wish they didn't have Pastor Not the Rapture saying the specific word "Rapture", because there's an awful lot of Christians who would have said, "The what now...?"  

 

I get why the show wanted to make sure that religion was addressed on some level, but I admit, it got a little too Christian-centered for me with the "Somebody stole the Baby Jesus!" things, followed by a lot of nonsense with the doll just because it took Matt's story from one character to an implication for a lot of the town.  

 

* at which point I sort of wished I'd flipped off the driver, because what an obnoxious bumper sticker

Edited August 7, 2014 by stillshimpy

[shapeshifter]

My money's still on wormholes to alternate universe(s), but I won't be too terribly disappointed if we never catch a glimpse of someone holding forth on that theory.

[Benedictine]

I am enjoying the series very much, yet have to admit it is not clear to me as to why!

 

Essentially (and I hope I am using the right wording here), this is how I picture society would be after such an event - a slow break-down of what holds us together, the politeness that we feign being shattered, and a growing desperation that cannot be resolved with candlelight vigils, statues, memorials, conferences, and protests with papal costumes. Everyone thinks they are coping, but an inevitable global freak-out is coming sooner or later.  

 

The Leftovers is amazing, despite its minor flaws in plot.  

Edited August 7, 2014 by Benedictine

[stillshimpy]

I think that would about fit if this were to really happen, because no one would get to run around saying, "We were right!"

Fundamentalists here would, I bet.

 

Actually, they'd be the least likely to ganesh, because they believe that only the saved, the true-believers will be taken in the (actual, Christian connotation) Rapture.  So they'd be the ones most likely to be thrown into Chaos.  That obnoxious bumper sticker I just outlined was worded in the way it was because that person believed themselves to be saved.  

 

So if a Fundamentalist was hanging around afterward, then what they were specifically led to believe had just been disproven and they were among the "Left Behind"  ...plus, trust me on this, the Pope being taken would really, really fuck with Fundamentalist Christian beliefs.  There's an entire book series entitled Left Behind that would be problematic for them too.

They'd be officially amongst those "Left Behind" and ...yeah...they're unlikely to crow about that since it would mean they were judged as not-yet-saved and about to experience seven (pretty sure it's seven) years of really, really crappy stuff that apparently isn't happening either. I mean, unless the show version of Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christianity is different from the real-world, but within the show? They Evangelicals would not be well pleased or comforted.

Edited August 7, 2014 by stillshimpy

[iMonrey]

RE: Question 121, is there no choice for "I don't know?" Because that's what my answer would be. I also wonder if how the respondents answer these questions determines whether or not they get the death benefits (or, "departed benefits," as the case may be). Do they get rejection letters, saying based on how they answered these questions, they don't qualify? 

 

 

So in short, again, it seems like these bits of information weren't really thought through. I know it's paradoxical, but I don't really care what TPTBs say off screen. Unless it's shown or said in an episode, it's amounts to speculation for me.

 

It's also a convenient way for the writers to cover their asses after the fact. All too often I see "the writers explain this in the Podcast." That's all very well and good, but the fact is, if the writers forgot something, or contradicted themselves, or made a mistake, it's really easy for them to go "Oh, this is what we meant by that" after the episode has aired and the viewers start pointing out errors or omissions. 

[Latverian Diplomat]

Since we could read part of #121 ("Do you believe......?" ) My initial thought on what Question 121 was "Do you believe in God?"

 

Obviously, I was wrong.

Don't be too hard on yourself. They played with the framing and focus to lead you down this garden path, and I was right there with you.

 

FWIW, this question was a bit strange because it was about the interviewee, and not the departed. As we've seen, there is not a 1:1 correspondence there (e.g., the parents being interviewed about their son, or the fact that Nora went through the interview three times). So the interview doesn't really seem to be structured to profile the immediate family leftovers in a valid and statistically useful way.

 

Also, it seems fairly irrelevant to the ostensible purpose of the survey. This survey is looking for a pattern in the departed. A different survey, about the mental and emotional health of the leftover family members, might very well ask these sorts of questions. But Nora wouldn't have to complete a survey on the state of the leftover family members three times.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Latverian Diplomat

[ganesh]

Not all Christians believe in the Rapture either. They might believe in heaven and hell and that Jesus will come back some day, but not necessarily in the "Rapture" concept that is popularly described.

 

I'm no great theologian, but it wasn't even really a popular concept until the rise of Evangelical Christians in recent history.

 

I don't think it's even in the bible. They say the people are chosen, but not raptured away iirc. Off the top of my head I think the "rapture" in the context we are discussing it, came from one of the Great Awakenings in the 1830s.

 

My money's still on wormholes to alternate universe(s), but I won't be too terribly disappointed if we never catch a glimpse of someone holding forth on that theory.

 

I don't see why this isn't as valid a theory as anything else. It actually makes more sense to me that it's an alternative universe experiment gone wrong. Like in alternative CERN, they spun up the cyclotron and all of a sudden 140000000 people popped up out of nowhere. 

 

Essentially (and I hope I am using the right wording here), this is how I picture society would be after such an event

 

Everyone's interpretation of the show is equally valid, but I honestly am not seeing much of how I think people would act after such an event. 

 

That obnoxious bumper sticker I just outlined was worded in the way it was because that person believed themselves to be saved. 

 

That's a fair criticism. I suppose the evangelicals are so obnoxious that they think they're the ones who will go. I do think they'd try to rationalize it somehow though. 

 

It's also a convenient way for the writers to cover their asses after the fact. All too often I see "the writers explain this in the Podcast." That's all very well and good, but the fact is, if the writers forgot something, or contradicted themselves, or made a mistake, it's really easy for them to go "Oh, this is what we meant by that" after the episode has aired and the viewers start pointing out errors or omissions.

 

cf. Stargate Universe for one. I know tv isn't easy, but there's no excuse for doing a half-assed job. If you're using social media as a crutch, then you're not doing a good job.

[Latverian Diplomat]

cf. Stargate Universe for one. I know tv isn't easy, but there's no excuse for doing a half-assed job. If you're using social media as a crutch, then you're not doing a good job.

I get what you are saying, and I don't mean to defend that particular example, but it's worth noting that social media has made the shared scrutiny of all media a much more prevalent and powerful force than it ever was before. So, you can hardly expect creators to stay out of that arena if something blows up there.

 

As an example, the Dharma Initiative logo on the shark in Lost was put in as a gag, or Easter egg, that they figured only a few people would notice. But these days, it only takes a few people, pointing it out and putting stills up online, and it becomes a major story point. Was it a mistake to add that gimmick? Probably. But 20 years earlier, it would have been a safe, even respectable thing to do.

[ganesh]

Yes, I can. Make the show, and get the hell out of the way. Don't tell me that something happened off-screen because you didn't fully think through a particular plot point or concept. Say what you want about the ending of the Sopranos, but the creator said, "Everything I've wanted to say is up on the screen and I don't need to saying anything else." There was no "this is what I meant by the end. This is why I chose that song." iirc. 

 

 

As an example, the Dharma Initiative logo on the shark in Lost was put in as a gag, or Easter egg, that they figured only a few people would notice.

Then they were short-sighted and should have known better. People have been obsessing over details on niche shows for a long time. Now, it's just easier to communicate this. And they damn well knew *something* like that *might* happen because they put in a half second cut of Maxwell's equations on the wall in the hatch, and the same thing happened. There's nothing wrong with that, but stfu and let the show be the show. You're not the show, TPTBs. The fact that a show doesn't have a bible nowadays is ridiculous because that's how you catch these things. 

 

You don't really see this happening on good or even decent shows. TPTBs use this tactic in this way as a crutch because they aren't doing a good enough job. Here, they're using it to do the world building because their execution on the show is sloppy and poor. Why are they telling us that about 100 people vanished? Why couldn't that be worked into the pilot in the scene where the chief, mayor, et al., are talking about the memorial gathering? 

 

"I don't think we should have the memorial." "Well, we've lost more people than most towns. 100 of them. The people need to do something." "Well, the GR are going to be there and it's going to be messy." "Fine. You're the chief of police. Figure it out." I mean, give me a break. It's not that hard to do. 

 

And I don't mean the actors talking about their scenes or something. Like, in this episode if the actor playing Nora said, "I think Nora would have blown off the conference and gone to Miami with the chief if he said yes. I think she needed to really decompress so I'm glad there was the scene later where she got drunk and high and made out with the doll. I'm glad they are actually going on a date and I'm excited to see where Nora goes from all this." Ok, nbd. What the actor does or doesn't say, doesn't affect what I'm watching. I like that they've given thought to what their character is doing. You can't use social media as an appendix to your show, however. 

Edited August 7, 2014 by ganesh

[Sims Addict]

Yes, I can. Make the show, and get the hell out of the way. Don't tell me that something happened off-screen because you didn't fully think through a particular plot point or concept.

 

I agree with you and am going to go against the general tone of this thread and say that I really didn't like this last episode. I am starting to lose interest in the show. I think it's beyond time for them to incorporate meaningful flashbacks now. We have learned, in piecemeal fashion, that the GR is a worldwide faction that just came into existence within the past few months (not right after the event). So, why three months ago and not three years before, right after the event? What made Amy Brenneman's character join them? Was it a buildup of existential tension? Were they always unhappy? Why did the chief cheat? Too many questions left unanswered and I'm not sure I want to stick around for it. Not to mention, having a character-centric episode is fine if it advances the plot. Sure, I know more about Nora (and Wayne to an extent), but the goings on of the town are still in motion, right? Why can't there be some integration?

[shapeshifter]

This could very well be the first show that has viewers complaining: Where's the flashbacks? I wanna see some frickin' flashbacks, and I want to see them yesterday!!

Heh.

I don't think it's even in the bible. They say the people are chosen, but not raptured away iirc.

Having observed a church split many years ago over whether the "tribulation" (read my lips: "apocalypse") would come post or pre-rapture, I was familiar with the oft-quoted verses used, and with my good friend Google, quickly found 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:

16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.…

But, yeah, none of the original Greek, AFAIK, would be translated by the exact word, "rapture." FWIW, I always figured if there was a rapture and an apocalypse, they'd overlap.

I watched the the behind the scenes video on the show, and I think it answered some questions that keep coming up in the forum....

Regarding the Guilty Remnant...

and they want to provoke as much aggression and hatred as possible.

Given that many cult-like groups unwittingly annoy (Hari Krishnas in airports, Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on your door at inopportune times, etc.) I think it's kind of brilliant to create a fictional cult that deliberately seeks to annoy people. Edited August 8, 2014 by shapeshifter

[ganesh]

That's pretty sharp. It doesn't, however, say that people will vanish, no?

 

I don't have a problem with flashbacks. I love Highlander. I didn't mind the flashbacks on Lost either. It's all the other crap. 

 

For the concept of this show, it's just weird that we don't get anything pre-10/14 from at least the chief, pastor, or Nora. I don't think every single episode needs Lost-style flashbacks. But they're not telling us much about post-10/14, and next to nothing about pre-10/14. Where's the frame of reference? Where's the context?

[izabella]

This could very well be the first show that has viewers complaining: Where's the flashbacks? I wanna see some frickin' flashbacks, and I want to see them yesterday!!

 

It's because there is no plot.  There's no plot movement toward much of anything.  Going backward would at least be movement! 

 

Anyway, this seems to be more of a "slice of life" production.  We're dropped in without context and we see the moments in their lives unfold from there, but we're not given an arc, really.  Sure, Nora has made progress with her grief, Laurie and Chief are getting a divorce, the pastor lost his church, the GR lost a member by stoning and gained a new member by stalking.  Oh, and the Chief may or may not be having hallucinations of deer, which could be a problem.   And there's Wayne hugging people.  But is this taking us anywhere?  It all feels disjointed and disconnected somehow, just fragments of a story. 

 

It's funny that conferences are exactly the same in this world as they are now, name badges and after parties.  It was great to see people laughing and carrying on for a change on this grim show.

[stillshimpy]

That's pretty sharp. It doesn't, however, say that people will vanish, no?

 

It doesn't , but I think there are multiple interpretations of that passage.  Some interpret it to believe that people will rise bodily in the air (and there is sort of a scary implication about what that means for the dead that will rise, I suppose) , because that's how the thing with Jesus is interpreted (the whole "stuck his hand in the wound in Jesus's side" deal meaning that it was a flesh and blood resurrection).  I was raised in a church that taught the bible was basically allegorical and not to be interpreted literally, so to sum that up:  Holy hell, was I ever freaked out when I found out how many literal interpretation churches there are.  Just seems like two opposing views that can never meet, let alone be talking about the same thing, but I digress here.  

So anyway, there are several reasons that it would be really difficult to interpret what happened as the Christian "Rapture" , one of which is, that's not all that happens, that's the start of something that contains some pretty hard to miss stuff.  Plus, there would be the rise of the anti-Christ, etc. etc. etc.  Again, to go for the shorter version?  Missing too many events for anyone to mistake it for the Rapture as it is generally interpreted.  That's part of the reason Pastor Matt sort of confused me with his "This was not the Rapture!" stuff, simply because it would be a rare person who would think it was that particular event.   There are just too many specifics missing -- including that entire "Well, did you hear a big booming sky voice? Was anyone else marked?  Say, noticed an uptick in cannibalism these past few years?  How're the seas looking?" -- for most people to think it was related to the biblical passage.  

 

It would be very difficult to attach what happened to the biblical version of a semi-similar event.  I did think the episode did something interesting, because I've been assuming that it would be really difficult for people to figure out an explanation, even within their own minds, that wouldn't involve some kind of unseen force (and frankly, I've just sort of guessed that atheists would take it as proof of alien life rather than a divine presence, which wouldn't be unreasonable).  The Nora impersonator, who resembled Nora just enough in terms of hair color and build to be able to try and pull that off on those always-fuzzy security feeds, started ranting about the thing that wouldn't have occurred to me: governmental and political conspiracy.  That was a "palm, meet forehead" moment for me.  Of course there would be crazed theorists.  Nice touch by the show, seeing as there are wackadoodle conspiracy theories for almost everything that happens out of anyone else's sight, so it makes sense that there would be "Space Rays from Russian satellites, undetectable by the human eye!"  Monster Are Coming on Maple Street theorists.  

 

It's because there is no plot.  There's no plot movement toward much of anything.  Going backward would at least be movement!

 

I kind of agree, and sort of disagree at the same time.  There is a plot, and part of what has people howling for flashbacks is that it's extremely difficult to gauge how someone is reacting to a momentous event if we never see them beforehand to have that contrast.  Has Nora always been this sort of intense, forceful, outspoken woman?  Was she secretly miserable in her marriage and wracked with guilt rather than being heartbroken?  There's almost no way for us to know.  

 

The alternative to flashbacks would have been spending the pilot getting to know everyone on October 13th and having the 14th be at the end of the episode.  For instance, it's really hard to feel for the Chief or his daughter, when I have no idea if he was already a little prone to being unspooled on the 13th, or if his daughter was Peppy McCheerleader or was always the "I'm feeling very Emo" teen queen.  

 

Some of the impact of this drama should lie in the contrast, the change brought about.  People do things like watch home movies, etc.  so there are alternative to flashbacks.  Even if it feels like a lazy writer's device, it's sort of necessary to impart emotional resonance.  

 

Also, there's something else.  As briefly as I can here, there are societal attitudes towards grief that evolve and change as time goes by.  During the Victorian age there was a structure around mourning (what you wore, where you were allowed to go) that pretty much allowed for outward mourning that would not be a brief process.  It was a structure , basically.  People had a template for what to do with their sadness.   Then things like the First World War made the scene, followed by the Spanish Flu and the structures around mourning were altered, because essentially you can't have huge percentages of the world's population having excessive rituals around grieving for years after a death when almost everyone would have at least a peripheral reason to grieve, if not deeply, then at least conceptually.  

 

So that's also something I think is supposed to be playing a part here, but without a few handy line-drops, dialogue-shout-outs it's nearly impossible to tell.  I think that three years later people would still be this screwed up, in part, because they had experienced such a weird loss that processing it would be very challenging, but to add to that would be the pressure to sort of get the hell on with life.  Stuff has to get done to keep the world humming along.  

 

When the show Mad Men started the character of Betty had recently lost her mother and was essentially imploding from the pressure to repress her grief.  The pendulum had swung so far into the "stiff upper lip that stuff would you?  Anything else is just downright unseemly.  Ew."  territory (and Mad Men exaggerates without apology too) that people kept treating her like some kind of emotional leper for wanting to talk about missing her mother.  

 

There would sort of reasonably be that kind of vibe, not just in the U.S. (and almost any culture has a ritual around burial, loss and mourning), that a disrupted and global emotional process would be screwing a lot of people up hard-friggin'-core.  It would just change the fabric of a lot of things, like the expectation of safety that a lot of Westerners have.  I remember having a long discussion with a woman from South Africa about how Americans just sort of blithely walk around and file through metal detectors and just assume that carnival rides have been safety tested, etc.  That we have a more secure expectation of safety in almost all circumstances than a lot of the world (and her point was that we then become kind of a pain when traveling to unsafe areas for the first time..specifically the American students who went to pick figs near the border of Iran, like it didn't occur to them that was the King Kong of bad ideas).  

 

Point being that in this episode the safety precautions for the conference Nora attended were sort of laughably lax.  I wondered if what that was meant to imply was a societal sea-change in the expectation of insured safety following this global-mind-screw of an event   That would make some sense to me.  The thing is, that kind of thing needs to be hinted at for it to move beyond the "oh come on, no way..." whereas it would make sense on a lot of levels, it just looks unreal unless someone mentions it.  

 

Exposition is always so freaking tricky, but they need to tell us some of the rules of this greatly changed world for them to have meaning.  That includes who Nora was on October 13th or whether the Chief was always semi-morose (yet perfectly toned).  

[ganesh]

It's not a problem for a show to drop you in the middle of the world and take it from there. Farscape basically did that. But the GR has been pretty central, and we know next to nothing about it. We don't know why Liv Tyler is there or how they choose people to follow around. Laurie is a pretty important character and we kind of need to know something about how things were before in order to gauge why she's so devoted now.

 

If they don't want to flashback, they need to do better. If she's with the chief with the divorce papers, he can say "things weren't that bad. I made on mistake." She found out about the affair and used that to bail. nbd. You can't show one half-empty church as some type of comment on religion when we don't know if that was actually a popular church to begin with. The town itself just might not be that religious. 

 

You can allude to things, which is different than talking cryptically. This is why it would have been better for Nora to be the focus. The dogs aren't an allusion to something, because when you reason it out, it falls apart. 

[stillshimpy]

It's not a problem for a show to drop you in the middle of the world and take it from there. Farscape basically did that.

 

True, but they also had a fish-out-of-water protagonist in the form of John Crichton, which helped speed the exposition along, since things were constantly being explained to him.  Like Moya was, what the Peacekeepers were.  FarScape did do that, but they also built in a story element that would allow for a reasonable amount of exposition. Chrichton asked a lot of the same questions aloud that the audience would.  

 

But the GR has been pretty central, and we know next to nothing about it.

 

Agreed, and they've taken a complete pass on using Meg's entrance into the GR as a tool to provide some background about it.  Even if that background is "No one freaking knows what the hell...." All she needed was a questioning family member getting busy with the demanding-to-know. 

[ganesh]

This sums it up for me: the chief is sitting across from Liv Tyler at the pledge house and doesn't ask her anything remotely useful. 

 

No one is that stupid irl. Therefore, TPTB are deliberately not providing answers/world building at times where they should. They just don't know the show world. 

[iMonrey]

 

TPTBs use this tactic in this way as a crutch because they aren't doing a good enough job. Here, they're using it to do the world building because their execution on the show is sloppy and poor. Why are they telling us that about 100 people vanished? Why couldn't that be worked into the pilot in the scene where the chief, mayor, et al., are talking about the memorial gathering?

 

It seems pretty clear to me that the writers aren't interested in the world building aspect of the show. This is purely a character study show, and that's all they're really interested in. Maybe they have interns who've sat down and outlined specifics for this world, which is what they refer to in extra media, but that's not what they're interested in writing about.  It's all "this week, we find out what makes so-and-so tick!" Which is why I've said, the show reeks of Lost. Lure in an audience with a tantalizing premise, then keep them hooked with a bunch of bizarre and mysterious elements, but spend all the episodes following the minutia of someone's psyche. It isn't a show about a world in which thousands have vanished without explanation, it's a show about Kevin, Laurie, Meg, Nora, etc. 

 

And to me, it's frightfully pretentious, because as you've said, there's no context. The show pretends to be highbrow but character study without context self indulgent on the writers' part. 

[ganesh]

I don't think you can have a character study either unless you put these characters in a fully realized world so you can understand their motivations and actions. You can do both on a show, it's not an either or. The Sopranos was basically a character study of Tony Soprano, but they did put him in a clear world. Even Lost provided context before it went off the rails. 

 

I've said plenty of times, the amount of world building you need to do depends on how much you need the viewers to buy-in to the show concept. 

 

The show pretends to be highbrow but character study without context self indulgent on the writers' part.

 

It's not overly demanding stuff either. The state of the chief's marriage shouldn't be that hard to lay out. What was the pastor like? Was the daughter always that awful. Everything is just halfway.

[lawless]

Just wanted to add that I thought that Nora was paying prostitutes to shoot her, because she's playing with the idea of suicide -- seeing a way she might do it, and seeing if she still wants to keep on keeping on after all. 

 

Also, I think the Guilty Remnant people are kind of a murder-suicide cult.  Like the Pastor said, they are already dead inside. Indeed, their philosophy seems to be that since the Disappearance, life it meaningless, family is meaningless, everything is meaningless, and people should just quit.  But they're not content to just withdraw from life themselves, they actively try to get other people to join them -- but to know end.  They don't seem to believe in any type of salvation, they don't seem to have any explanation for what happened, they don't seem interested in seeking an explanation or a connection to anything spiritual or a higher truth -- they just to believe solely in the pointlessness and hopelessness of life, and want everyone else to do likewise.  I really hate them, and I think they are working up to violence.  The mock grenade was scary, the creeping through people's houses to steal their photos was scary, and Laurie's angry whistling at the Preacher was scary. 

[Maximum Taco]

That's pretty sharp. It doesn't, however, say that people will vanish, no?

 

Translations are difficult. But you could point to 2 Corinthians 12:2-4

 

2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.

3 And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—

4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

 

 

The same verb (translated here as "was caught up") is used as in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17

 

15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

 

 

You could easily argue that "whether in body or out of body" sends a message that souls that are taken to paradise are taken either whole (and thus would vanish, as their bodies would vanish with them) or are taken without their bodies (in which case perhaps their bodies would just vanish, and their souls would ascend)

 

But obviously as with all translated texts it could be interpreted differently too.

[ganesh]

Dancing the semantics of biblical texts is off rhythm at best. This show isn't interested in nuance to be sure.

[Sofie Fatale]

I actually like the fact that not everything is being spoon fed to us. I think we're a smart audience and can figure some things out with out a character having to say it. For instance I don't need a flashback of a church packed to the rafters to realize that pastor Matt's church has suffered a loss of members. Seeing six people sitting in the background, and the fact that he was doing pretty much everything himself to keep the church running definitely clued me in. If I wanted to watch something dumbed down like Under The Dome I would.

The series just started and the answers will come.

[shapeshifter]

Just wanted to add that I thought that Nora was paying prostitutes to shoot her, because she's playing with the idea of suicide -- seeing a way she might do it, and seeing if she still wants to keep on keeping on after all. 

I thought that at first, but then decided it was just as likely that the experience of spontaneously reviving gave her hope that her family could come back.

But then I read somewhere that the bullet proof vest would have a bullet hole in it, which made me wonder if eventually, if she did it enough times, if the bullet would go all the way through and kill her.

But she was very convincing to the prostitute (and me) that she would not be killed if the bullet went to the area she pointed to. I did want the prostitute to say something like, "Okay. For $3,000 I'll do it. BUT GET YOUR FRICKIN HANDS OUT OF THE WAY!" Of course, on this show they don't say "frickin," do they? ;)

I actually like the fact that not everything is being spoon fed to us. I think we're a smart audience and can figure some things out with out a character having to say it. For instance I don't need a flashback of a church packed to the rafters to realize that pastor Matt's church has suffered a loss of members. Seeing six people sitting in the background, and the fact that he was doing pretty much everything himself to keep the church running definitely clued me in. If I wanted to watch something dumbed down like Under The Dome I would.

The series just started and the answers will come.

I agree, except Under the Dome is probably a bad example of a show that gives answers, LOL. I'm still hate watching it and every week the characters switch sides and motives.

[stillshimpy]

The series just started and the answers will come.

 

The season is more than halfway through though.  I don't think the changes in faith need to be explained or to have any exposition.  That stuff is self-explanatory, I think.  Although oddly that is one of the few areas that has offered any exposition when Matt declared it was not the rapture...and that people other than the good/saved were taken.  They're leaving enough to the imagination there to be intriguing (the stuff about thinking he is surviving the trials of Job from the extras) and it all hangs together in a way that makes sense.  

 

The Guilty Remnant doesn't though, and it has been a very big focus of the series thus far.  So there are areas that would be unique to this premise that need some fleshing out and when you ask an audience -- for a pay channel series, no less -- to wait until a season is half over to answer anything about one of the main story focuses, the pay off needs to be very good.  

 

It might be.  I still think that Gladys was murdered by the Guilty Remnant (nothing said by the murderers seems to have been a clue), but I can't make a guess as to why they did that, because I know very little about the GR.  The GR are unique to this premise and this fictional world, we've been following multiple characters in it.  I'd like to understand why anyone would join them and what they are meant to be accomplishing and I'd have liked for that information to be contained within the show.  

 

You know, I watch a ton of science-fiction and whenever there is something that is peculiar to a world within a show (be it clones, time travel, alternate realities, warring clans, what have you) , that story fleshes that out rather rapidly so that the audience doesn't actually waste time with a lot of unnecessary "What in the world is going on here???"  

 

The Guilty Remnant just needed a line to explain what they are. The Chief filling in a new officer would have worked, it would have taken three lines to get rid of the time wasting "What in the world do these people think they are doing?"  So having given that a pass, I hope they are going to reveal something really intriguing about them.  Something that makes me say, "Whoa, okay.  Seven weeks of waiting was worth that!"  

 

We'll see.  

 

 

 

If I wanted to watch something dumbed down like Under The Dome I would.

 

I don't agree that fleshing out the narrative with background information about groups unknown and separate from our world would have been dumbed down, or cut up into simplistic pieces for people who aren't interested in thinking about what they watch.  Very clearly I've given this a lot of thought, and I have to admit the GR doesn't make a ton of sense to me as a movement.  In fact, it's baffling as can be.  

 

Funnily enough we're having this discussion in the episode thread for an episode that really worked for me, contained enough exposition without going "See Spot. See Spot run" on the situation.  So clearly they do better in some episodes than in others.  The GR is about the biggest element of this show and they are a little too mysterious for my tastes.  

 

Matt having a crisis of faith didn't need exposition, although that was provided, yet the GR just drifts around in a cloud of smoke...and yet is a primary focus of this overly muddied narrative, in my opinion.  Clearly not in yours, and that's cool, but in mine they are trying to be intriguing and instead keep hitting annoyingly vague with them. 

Edited August 10, 2014 by stillshimpy

[ganesh]

For instance I don't need a flashback of a church packed to the rafters to realize that pastor Matt's church has suffered a loss of members.

 

There's no context provided by the show from which one could extrapolate. Saying the church suffered a loss of members is a guess, which could very well be correct, but it's not based on anything the show has shown or said. I'm not cutting them any slack on this because they've failed to provide any context for anything on the show. The pastor could have just been a looney guy pre 10/14. The church scene could have been on a Tuesday afternoon, when only a few people attended. It's likely that attendance declined because he's always talking about not the rapture because that's the simplest answer.

 

I can say that Laurie joined the GR because her marriage was in the tank anyway so she used 10/14 as an excuse. It's a reasonable guess but it's still a guess because we have no context for their marriage. 

 

I don't like being spoon fed either, but there's no established world here and people are behaving just in unlikely ways. Inferring things is fine, but they want to have it both ways. The viewer shouldn't be expected to do the work of filling things in. 

 

 

The season is more than halfway through though.

I think it's fair to expect that by E5, E6 of any show that you've established the world well enough, and you know what the show is about. 

 

The GR are unique to this premise and this fictional world, we've been following multiple characters in it.  I'd like to understand why anyone would join them and what they are meant to be accomplishing and I'd have liked for that information to be contained within the show.

 

Everything about the GR points to TPTBs not having the answers or just throwing something at the screen thinking we'll figure it out ourselves. There have been several times when a direct question could have been asked, and would be, by people who are acting like people, but just isn't. This is the most telling tactic on any show that indicates there's not a plan in place, or that TPTBs don't know the world they're operating in. 

 

There was a mass B&E in this city and the main character, who is the chief of police, hasn't done anything about it. Any judge would issue a search warrant for the GR house and he could go in there and find the stolen stuff. 

[Shermie]

I actually like the fact that not everything is being spoon fed to us.

 

I don't need to be spoon fed, but I feel like I haven't even been invited into the kitchen.

 

If I wanted to watch something dumbed down like Under The Dome I would.

 

 

Except both shows suffer from the same thing - going off on weird tangents that make no sense and don't give the viewers any explanations.

 

The series just started and the answers will come.

 

The season has shown 7 out of 10 episodes - almost 3/4 of it and, based on comments here from many patient and intelligent people, it hasn't provided nearly enough answers. It's just frustrating and will lose viewers if they feel like they're not getting anything back. There won't be much of a series if there are no viewers. 

 

The constant Lost comparisons are a case in point - Lost's first season was fantastic and created a base of fans who were willing to stick with it to the end, regardless, because they felt invested in the characters that had been created so well in season one. Season two was also good and kept the viewers in. (And frankly, although it did fly off in too many random tangerines in the end, I liked the ending.)

[izabella]

The thing with Lost is they started with ordinary people and a plane crash on a seemingly deserted and remote island, so the context was easy to understand.  Then they focused on the character development (maybe too much), as we saw more and more of the weird stuff happening to them.  We learned about their world along with the characters as they learned about it.

 

Here, they've dropped us into a world where all the weird stuff has already happened, and this is the aftermath plus character development.  It's hard to do aftermath if your focus is on character development but you don't know the, er, beforemath.  These characters already know their world before the Departure, and immediately thereafter, and for the following 3 years, but we do not.

Edited August 12, 2014 by izabella

[ganesh]

In this case beforemath = context + world. There isn't much of either at all. I can't think of more than 3 or 4 things that are, "ok, I know this because the show told me or showed me."

 

It's not like they don't know what they're doing because they clearly went out of their way to establish that this isn't the rapture very clearly. Other than that, there's been a lot of vague things thrown around with the typical cryptic dialogue. The main character is a *cop*. He asks questions, you answer. 

 

It's also very hard to get a feel for anything because none of the people are behaving in human ways. Yes, it's an unprecedented event (OR IS IT *eyeroll*) but if people aren't really behaving in remotely believable ways, what is there to ground the show?

 

It really might have been better to set the show closer to the event, where so much being unknown and people behaving off the chain are more palatable. By this time, 3 years, you've got a functioning government agency dedicated solely to the event. That kind of indicates things have settled into a level of normality. The kids are still going to school, casinos are open. I haven't seen much in the way of lawlessness except violence against the GR and the GR B&E.

 

Even when Nora went to NYC, the hotel was a normal hotel, there were taxis, etc. There's no calibration to the whole thing.