S03.E10: Oblivion

[femmefan1946]

On 6/25/2022 at 9:58 AM, Asha124 said:

The show is set in AU 2019 with no smartphones or any current technology

And the alternate universe also explains why so many of the cars had right side steering. Though where they found them all in Canada beats me.

17 hours ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

Pogo stalled those plans by giving the Sparrows the drugs to keep Reginald from enacting that mission.

But the Sparrows are still horrible people who apparently are running a protection racket on the city. Remember all those signs in the early episodes and the scene of a Sparrow eating food in the pharmacy?

[GaT]

I just realized they never explained how Christopher came to be. Between that & Alison, I'm really not loving this show.

[Stardancer Supreme]

On 7/2/2022 at 5:09 AM, femmefan1946 said:

But the Sparrows are still horrible people who apparently are running a protection racket on the city. Remember all those signs in the early episodes and the scene of a Sparrow eating food in the pharmacy?

I never said that the Sparrows were great people; maybe Marcus, Sloan and Fei were the best of the lot, because Jayme, Ben, and Alphonso were jerks of the highest order and Christopher was a mystery. At the time they were with Pogo, that was probably the best they could be as a team.

[FishyJoe]

What's the purpose of the Commission if they don't have any clue about Hargreaves or any of the things he was doing? Am I not remembering something?

[tennisgurl]

That season was as wild as expected, I have a million questions about the shows lore that has been raised, what is actually happening now, and where we go from here, but I do know one thing for sure. Reginald is such an unbelievable prick. I hope that next season, instead of the siblings having to save the world from their latest fuck up, they dedicate the season to taking their useless asshole of a father down. As of now, he finally gets his dead wife back, he's more powerful than ever, he's got it made. What a dick.

I guess this was Allison's deal with Reginald, she gets Ray and Claire back in this new timeline, and while she did end up stopping Reggie from killing her siblings and the remaining Sparrows, things are definitely going to be tense when she reunites with everyone. I hope that Allison faces some real consequences and doesn't just get everything she wanted, I am guessing that this new family isn't as perfect as she thinks its going to be. I don't hate Allison or anything, she made some pretty solid points about why she was so pissed off and was sick of being the one who had it together, but that was still some messed up stuff she pulled. 

I overall thought this was a good season, but like with most of this show, I'm frustrated by its tendency to not use interesting concepts to their full potential. I was really interested in exploring this new alternate universe, get to know the Sparrow Academy and see where the Hargreeves would be if their moms didn't sell them to Reginald, but there are no alternate selves because of plot reasons and most of the Sparrows were killed off quickly or not used very well, so we don't really know much about their dynamics. The show has this habit of coming up with an idea for the season, and then losing it as it gets distracted by random hijinks, like its bored and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. I hope that next season we can get wackiness as well as a more consistent plot. 

Edited July 7, 2022 by tennisgurl

[Paloma]

On 6/26/2022 at 1:01 PM, phoenics said:

The contrast of the sweet, nice white girl vs the angry black woman really bothered me a LOT.  On the one hand I was glad to see Allison allowed to be angry - but it was clearly done to destroy her character so Sloane would appear so much better even though there was nothing to her character except "like Luthor". 

I hadn't thought of it that way before, but I'm glad you shared that perspective, and I totally agree. The writers needed to get out of the Luther/Allison romantic plot (or more accurately, Luther's undying love for Allison), but the way they decided to do it perpetuated racist stereotypes. 

At least Allison got her happy ending.

[Mr. R0b0t]

I came here with numerous thoughts, but most people summed them up very succinctly. However, I feel compelled to say the show is not good and the actors deserve better.  

Edited July 10, 2022 by Mr. R0b0t

[Paloma]

This is probably a very unpopular opinion, and to (hopefully) avoid being attacked I want to preface it by saying that I have a transgender family member as well as a family member who, while not trans, decided to change his first name as an adult. Although it was good that the show did not make a huge deal about Vanya changing to Viktor and that everyone accepted it quickly, I think it was unrealistic that nobody who grew up with Vanya and/or experienced the events of the last 2 seasons with her had even a momentary hesitation or stumbling over the name or the pronoun. With my non-trans family member who decided to change his name as an adult, it took at least a year or two for me and other relatives to automatically use that name rather than the name we knew him by for 20-30 years. With my trans family member, the transition began in early childhood and so was easier for most relatives to get used to quickly, but there were still moments when people slipped and used the wrong pronoun or name (not to the child's face, but when talking about the child with the parents or other relatives).

Even though most things that happen in the show are by definition unrealistic, the interactions between the siblings have always felt realistic and have been what I've most liked about the show. They have often had emotional conversations (positive or negative) about important things in their lives. So the casual way they all reacted to this change took me out of the story. 

[Quark]

I liked this season overall (probably my favourite so far), but the last few episodes did drag.

Was great seeing Death from Supernatural!

Klaus was an absolute hoot.

Victor is as dour as ever.

My theory about this show - I'm sure Reggie mentioned either this episode or the penultimate one that he had seen worlds end. I'm assuming he therefore resets the world when something doesn't go quite to plan. His kids are essentially his guinea pigs to help "save" the world from apocalyptic events.

[Snow Fairy]

Is there a possibility that Allison is in the different timeline? And that's why she wasn't in the elevator when they returned

I assume Commission Five knew what will happen if they do everything in the Hotel Oblivion, hence the "don't save the world" instruction to young Five?

Maybe next season will wrap this story up

[blackwing]

Just finished the season.  I am utterly confused and this show has made me feel stupid, in a way that the first Mission Impossible movie did back in the days before internet and I couldn't instantly read a summary and explanation.  I came here to read some thoughts and I'm a bit mollified to see that more than a few are just as confused! 😀

So it seems to me that in the end, Hargreeves made a deal with Allison where she pushes the button and resets the universe.  A universe in which Hargreeves' wife is still alive, and so are Allison's husband and daughter.  But now none of them have any powers.  Part of what makes this show for me is the powers, so I hope the powers come back.

On 6/26/2022 at 12:01 PM, phoenics said:

Allison had to suck it up for two full seasons - she was almost killed by Viktor, lost her daughter and then her husband and got stuck in the Civil Rights era and subjected to the worst kind of racism and injustice - that's not nothing - and the fam just wanted her to suck her trauma up and deal.  Every other character gets to make horrible decisions except Allison.  She was 1000% percent correct when she railed at Viktor for everything he did. 1000% correct.  Allison was a JUSTIFIED angry black woman this season and I was 1000% here for it (except for the comparison part I mentioned before).  I'm so sick of black women characters especially not being allowed to be angry - justifiably angry - for how they've been treated or what they've been put through.

Did she go too far?  Yep, but pretty much all of them have in the past.  I also don't think it's fair to blame Allison for rumoring Viktor when they were both children and Allison didn't know what she was doing.  Then when SHE tried to apologize to Viktor, he cut her throat.  So NAH - Viktor and the fam can suck it up just like all of Allison's so-called family wanted HER to suck it up.

I see a lot of Allison hate on this thread, and I'm with you.  I like Allison, she was always one of my favourite characters.  I'm not thrilled about the direction her character turned this season, but I can understand her.

I'm thoroughly bored with Viktor.  I don't care about Sissy or Harlan or his moping about them.  I don't mind the transformation of Vanya into Viktor to accomodate the actor's own transition.  But I find it interesting that after knowing him as Vanya for almost 30 years, that not one of the siblings would accidentally still call or refer to him as Vanya.  Especially in the hours/day after being told about it.  

On 6/30/2022 at 9:55 AM, iMonrey said:

I don't understand how there could be two versions of the same Ben because the Ben they brought back with them on the elevator is Sparrow Ben, so why is there another Sparrow Ben on a train? Are there other versions of all of them?

I'm afraid they've made this story overly complicated, I didn't have to go looking for YouTube videos to explain Seasons 1 and 2. 

On 7/2/2022 at 5:45 PM, GaT said:

I just realized they never explained how Christopher came to be. 

I agree that this season's story is too complicated.  Every episode had stuff happening that I didn't understand, and I had to go on the internet to understand it.  The Christopher thing is completely odd.  Zero explanation.  One of the Sparrow siblings is a sentient metal cube.  What?!  Is it an android?  An alien?  A metal box that a human consciousness got put into?

On 7/3/2022 at 5:31 PM, Stardancer Supreme said:

I never said that the Sparrows were great people; maybe Marcus, Sloan and Fei were the best of the lot, because Jayme, Ben, and Alphonso were jerks of the highest order and Christopher was a mystery. At the time they were with Pogo, that was probably the best they could be as a team.

Agree that I like Marcus, Sloan and Fei the most.  I hated that Marcus disappeared so quickly.  And I wanted to learn more about Fei.  I liked her bird powers and that she was the voice of reason and the only person that would stand up to Ben after Marcus disappeared.  I didn't care one way or another for the instaromance between Sloan and Luther, but I'm glad Luther was happy at some point, and I liked her powers.

I don't understand why the "Reset World" kept Ben but not Sloan.  Is it because the Sparrows don't exist in Reset World?  But the writers already said that the Ben in the world is Sparrow Ben.  I hate Sparrow Ben, bring back nice Umbrella Ben.

[silverstream]

I wish they hadn't had the vote (and, to a lesser degree, the wedding day) in the previous episodes. So much of this finale fell flat for me because every other time somebody expressed fear or anger about someone dying/being hurt, all I could think of was that they were Team "whelp, guess I'll lie down and die", so why be upset if that's what they wanted anyway? Not really sure what killing Luther accomplished, either - if he hadn't died, am I supposed to think they'd have just sat still and let themselves be disintegrated rather than go through the passage?

On a different note, I'm not sure the world we see in the end is actually a real world at all rather than some sort of simulation. I don't think Allison got a bonafide HEA either, considering the 'Ray' and 'Claire' here are highly unlikely to be original flavour Ray and Claire (and if they somehow are, she'll have a whole lot of explanations and childhood trauma to manage since this is not the world either of them are used to).

I'm also not sure what the deal Allison made with Reginald actually entailed - she seemed genuine about not being involved in Luther and Klaus' deaths, and I can't remember her doing anything that qualified as particularly helping Reginald. Maybe we'll learn more about it next season?