S01.E10: The Cantor’s Husband

[Guest]

Quote

For Sam, an unexpected decision shows progress towards his goals, but Dr. Strauss demands even more.

Release Date: October 25, 2002

[Guest]

Well, that happened. 

[Glade]

I gave up many episodes ago but figured I should try to watch the ending...and then I ff'd and I just don't care.  Of course, the most obvious ending is him getting killed, and I guess trying to be real with these people was good but wasn't going to go anywhere.  I hated this drab, ugly, boring series, and think it's sad that this was what these amazing writers chose to do after The Americans.  And it's a shame that Domhnall Gleeson had to cover up his lovely ginger hair color for this role. 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Glade

[AntFTW]

Umm… I’m trying to think of what other way it could have ended but I can’t.

I can see no other way this could have ended that would have made sense.

I think the show had a good start but started to drag out. Probably could have been done in 6 or 8 episodes.

[gesundheit]

Yeah, that just felt anticlimactic. All that, just so he could send a nice letter to his adult children? And it's not very meaningful that Sam has shackled himself when obviously his mother is totally willing to free him at any time. Oh well! Some good episodes and a hell of a gripping start. Obviously not a happy ending kind of series, but still just kind of... there.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, AntFTW said:

Umm… I’m trying to think of what other way it could have ended but I can’t.

I can see no other way this could have ended that would have made sense.

I think the show had a good start but started to drag out. Probably could have been done in 6 or 8 episodes.

I was mostly expecting that. Although I do think they should have had the mother at least attempt to intervene. My main problem is how they handled it and the choices for the ending. We see Sam unravel over 10 episodes, killing people getting closer and closer to him, nearly killing his own father and then leaving a body and evidence to be found. His mother goes from knowing it happens, to hearing it happen, to watching it happen but still does nothing.

Even if the doctor dying was inevitable it the series should have led to something more than Sam chaining himself up. Sam being arrested or his mother finally turning on him would have been a better ending. 

I also hated the timing of the cut away into Alan’s mind when he was threatening the mother. That created confusion and just left me annoyed for the rest of the episode. 

[SunnyBeBe]

I’m disappointed.  I can think of at least 5 better alternate endings.  I don’t like the one they chose.  I actually regret watching it. Sad endings are one thing, but this just wasn’t satisfying at all.  Sort of obscene, imo.  
 

Allowing this killer to escape justice is just infuriating.  Ugh….

[WaltersHair]

Now I know why they didn't put this on the main channel. Pitchforks and crowds with flaming torches  all over the internet.

I can't say I loved it, but I didn't hate it either. It was entertaining for what it was. I learned more about being Jewish than I ever did when I went to Israel on a secular trip.

There's a hole that's distracting me. If Sam decided not to return to work, that's two people missing from the inspection service. Wouldn't he be caught eventually? DNA from his desk? It wouldn't help Alan, of course, but there is some secondary relief for the audience if his killer was caught. And that mother too.

[AntFTW]

14 minutes ago, Dani said:

His mother goes from knowing it happens, to hearing it happen, to watching it happen but still does nothing.

His mother enables Sam's deranged behavior. I spend the entire season not knowing whether she wants her son to get better or get caught. I can't tell if she's taking no action and is an enabler because she's scared of Sam or scared for him.

[SunnyBeBe]

11 minutes ago, AntFTW said:

His mother enables Sam's deranged behavior. I spend the entire season not knowing whether she wants her son to get better or get caught. I can't tell if she's taking no action and is an enabler because she's scared of Sam or scared for him.

In light of their ending…..my preference now is that mom falls down the stairs, fractures her hip and can’t move.  Sam can’t get to her or the phone…..so they both suffer until they eventually die in the basement.  Too bad they left that out.  Lol

[Madding crowd]

I hated this ending. I’m not invested in Ezra at all and the show ended up with ‘therapy’ of a sort with Sam and Ezra but nothing for Alan. I wanted to get to know Alan more but we only saw his religious connections and nothing more. Did he have friends, hobbies, interests in travel? Did the police look for him at all? Even little things like asking if he could have a shower or a book to read would have made it seem realistic to me. In the end it seemed pointless.

[Nellise]

The letter didn't have the impact I think the writers wanted. We got to see Soshana cry for longer than she'd been shown in the whole series previously. She was supposedly very close with Alan and we saw nothing about her while we wasted a bunch of time on Ezra.

Sam's ending is completely meaningless because his mother has no interest in keeping him a captive like he did with Alan.

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, AntFTW said:

His mother enables Sam's deranged behavior. I spend the entire season not knowing whether she wants her son to get better or get caught. I can't tell if she's taking no action and is an enabler because she's scared of Sam or scared for him.

Absolutely and I think my problem is that that question still hasn’t been answered. From a story standpoint the show (and Alan) did not focus on the mother enough. Early on Alan’s therapist tells him he’s going to have to point out how her actions enabled the abuse but they wait to the last minute to have that conversation. 

9 minutes ago, Nellise said:

The letter didn't have the impact I think the writers wanted. We got to see Soshana cry for longer than she'd been shown in the whole series previously. She was supposedly very close with Alan and we saw nothing about her while we wasted a bunch of time on Ezra.

I agree. All that wasted time that could have been used to develop the women beyond simple props. 

[gesundheit]

17 minutes ago, Nellise said:

The letter didn't have the impact I think the writers wanted. We got to see Soshana cry for longer than she'd been shown in the whole series previously. She was supposedly very close with Alan and we saw nothing about her while we wasted a bunch of time on Ezra.

This was definitely not a show interested in the perspectives of its female characters. Which could be fine, it wasn't about them, but at the same time you can't hang your ending so heavily on Shoshana and Candace if the work on them hasn't been done.

Edited to add: Dani's post that went up right above mine while I was still posting describes this far better, so... What she said!

Edited October 25, 2022 by gesundheit

[SunnyBeBe]

So, perhaps mom is finally being punished for enabling her murderous son all these years. She’ll spend the rest of her life emptying his bedside toilet! 😝

[Maurina]

3 hours ago, WaltersHair said:

There's a hole that's distracting me. If Sam decided not to return to work, that's two people missing from the inspection service. Wouldn't he be caught eventually? DNA from his desk? It wouldn't help Alan, of course, but there is some secondary relief for the audience if his killer was caught.

THANK YOU.  That's exactly what I was thinking. Also: All this time I'm sure the police were combing over the names of all his patients. And then one of the patients just... disappears? Not too long after his doctor disappears?

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Maurina said:

THANK YOU.  That's exactly what I was thinking. Also: All this time I'm sure the police were combing over the names of all his patients. And then one of the patients just... disappears? Not too long after his doctor disappears?

I agree about the lack of any police presence particularly after his boss was killed. it would bother me less if they didn’t bring up forensics and the police at other parts. Sam did give a fake name when he first started seeing Alan so it wouldn’t be that direct of a connection. 

[zentropa]

So his dad didn't report the attempted murder? OK then.

[Pallida]

I have a conundrum now. I've been watching week-to-week, and while I expected Alan to die and figured there was no other option, this ending was quite unsatisfactory. My brother recommended the show to my parents after only watching two episodes, and while they'll be done with it tonight, my brother still has a bunch of episodes to go. Do I tell him the ending sucks? Do I let him decide on his own?

I wish Alan had told the mom that she was not protecting her son now when he told her about not protecting him when he was being abused. She's delusional thinking she's finally protecting him, rather than recognizing she's enabling him.

[peeayebee]

8 hours ago, AntFTW said:

Umm… I’m trying to think of what other way it could have ended but I can’t.

I can see no other way this could have ended that would have made sense.

I imagined that Alan would get away somehow, that he'd be successful in attacking/killing/subduing Sam, or that he'd get out of the shackles maybe by metal fatigue. *shrug* But I really didn't expect Sam to kill him. However, I agree that this is the only ending that makes sense, otherwise it would have been too unrealistic. 

I kept waiting for Alan to gasp back to life.

7 hours ago, gesundheit said:

And it's not very meaningful that Sam has shackled himself when obviously his mother is totally willing to free him at any time.

I don't think his mother would ever free him, unless Sam told her to. But I think Sam is willing to live the rest of his life chained in the basement. 

So, how's about that philosophy of Candace's, mother of a serial killer: Have a beer and relax.

5 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I’m disappointed.  I can think of at least 5 better alternate endings.

I'd like to hear them.

I'm curious about the title of the ep, The Cantor's Wife. When I googled I got a lot of results for Eddie Cantor's wife. :D I did find a song, but I didn't listen to it.

[sistermagpie]

So Sam's punishment in the end is that he'll just never shower again.

J/k. That'll lat last a few hours until he just needs to go to the bathroom, then needs to go to work, and within a few days he'll be back at work because he needs to support them both. There's no actual reason for him to be chained up except when he has an impulse to kill someone.

Which tbf, must be be the idea. If he wanted to really stop he'd turn himself in. The ending was just him acting the way he'd been throughout the series so oh well. Hope he cancels the appointment with the other therapist. Mom will keep doing what she's doing. Alan's family won't be trying to find out who did it. 

Too bad Alan didn't think to swallow anything this time to be found in his corpse.

[AntFTW]

18 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

So Sam's punishment in the end is that he'll just never shower again.

Might be a good time to invest in a hose.

[SoWindsor]

Very unhappy with this ending! There’s so much bad news in the world that this ending was just so sad and depressing. Especially the fake out that he survived only to see that no he actually was killed.

I was hoping that Sam‘s father would report what happened to the police and that would lead to freeing Alan. I actually think that would’ve been a better ending because it’s ironic that Sam’s “progress” with not killing his father led to his arrest. I wish I didn’t watch this series because the ending was just awful. 

[SHD]

7 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

In light of their ending…..my preference now is that mom falls down the stairs, fractures her hip and can’t move.  Sam can’t get to her or the phone…..so they both suffer until they eventually die in the basement.  Too bad they left that out.  Lol

There’s the feel good ending everyone was looking for! LOL

I didn’t dislike this as much as most people here, I guess. I felt like it was mostly an acting showcase for Carell. 
 

I kind of liked the fake-out ending, where I thought they’d flash-forwarded to after his release, mending his relationship with his son, only to find that it was his last dying vision.

I thought the letter part was anticlimactic. I would’ve been fine if the ending shot was the dead eyes of Carell after he got tossed in the grave.

[peeayebee]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

So Sam's punishment in the end is that he'll just never shower again.

And the mom's punishment as well.

[SunnyBeBe]

1 hour ago, peeayebee said:

I imagined that Alan would get away somehow, that he'd be successful in attacking/killing/subduing Sam, or that he'd get out of the shackles maybe by metal fatigue. *shrug* But I really didn't expect Sam to kill him. However, I agree that this is the only ending that makes sense, otherwise it would have been too unrealistic. 

I kept waiting for Alan to gasp back to life.

I don't think his mother would ever free him, unless Sam told her to. But I think Sam is willing to live the rest of his life chained in the basement. 

So, how's about that philosophy of Candace's, mother of a serial killer: Have a beer and relax.

I'd like to hear them.

I'm curious about the title of the ep, The Cantor's Wife. When I googled I got a lot of results for Eddie Cantor's wife. :D I did find a song, but I didn't listen to it.

I thought the episode title was the Cantor’s Husband, which would be Alan, since his deceased wife was a Cantor, known as a leader of song or music in the Jewish faith.  
 

I did comment to a family member today about the series and I said, check it out, but I wish I hadn’t have seen it.  It’s just too dark for me right now.  I didn’t need that ending.  The good guys should win more.  
 

Oh, for those interested in leaning about Judaism, there’s a movie on Netflix called Disobedience.  It’s about a young woman, who is estranged from her family, who returns to her Rabbi father’s funeral in London. She returns to stay with some close old friends and they all learn from each other about their faith, tradition, relationships, etc.  The wig Ezra’s wife wore looks just like the one worn by the wife in this movie.  Unbelievable.   
 

Some alternate endings that I think would have worked are: 

-A gas leak brings city inspectors to the house who walk by the window and Alan is able to yell for help. They rescue him, when Sam is not home and mom is asleep.  
 

-Sam has a car wreck and dies.  Mom falls apart and let’s Alan go.

-There is a house fire and mom lets Alan go rather than letting him burn to death. 

-The police or FBI got footage from a camera that showed all of Alan’s patients arriving and leaving. They check their driver license photos at dmv and see Sam’s doesn’t match.  They see he didn’t file insurance.  They find out his identity by back tracking surveillance videos and following his route to his work or home.  They discover from land records the house has a basement.  They create a ruse to get invited inside when he’s not home and discover Alan.  
 

-Alan ask Sam to let him listen to the Kenny Chesney music.  He feigns a love for it too.  He convinces Sam to take him to a Chesney concert as it could be life changing for both of them. Even though he is tethered to Sam, he pushes Sam in the path  of a speeding car, which kills Sam, and injures him, but he survives.  
 

And, my very favorite alternate ending:
 

-As Alan is praying for rescue…..an earthquake hits and the chain he is tethered to breaks!  He runs into the street where he sees a police car and gets rescued.  Meanwhile, Sam was inspecting a deli and the earthquake dismantles a large meat cleaver that plummets down onto his neck,  instantly decapitating Sam.  
 

Hulu should know, there’s plenty more available!  Lol
 

 
 

 

[Elizzikra]

Quote

Umm… I’m trying to think of what other way it could have ended but I can’t.

I give them credit for killing Allan. I figured that had to happen and I feel badly that he died. I didn't really anticipate Sam shackling himself in the basement (so to a degree, the therapy DID work) but like others here, it's an empty gesture since Sam totally controls Mom. When we saw Sam alone in the tidied up basement at the end, I was hoping that Mom would have called police and Sam would have been arrested. Then Mom would finally have taken responsibility for the outcomes of her failure to protect Sam and also protected Sam from the future harm it does him (and his victims) to continue to kill. 

Quote

Sam’s “progress” with not killing his father led to his arrest.

He didn't kill his biological father but Charlie (? - Allan's dead therapist) made the point that Sam now thought of Allan as a surrogate father. So in that sense, Sam did kill his "father" (therapy DIDN'T work)?

Also, I'm bewildered by the presence of Chava at the end - when Allan sees her bald - a victim of breast cancer? Auschwitz? Who is Chava (is this Ezra's wife)? Did I completely miss something huge or if not, why does such a tertiary character get a few seconds of real estate in the episode and in Allan's final moments? 

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, SHD said:

There’s the feel good ending everyone was looking for! LOL

I didn’t dislike this as much as most people here, I guess. I felt like it was mostly an acting showcase for Carell. 

Yup, me too. And he was certainly good.

1 hour ago, SHD said:

I kind of liked the fake-out ending, where I thought they’d flash-forwarded to after his release, mending his relationship with his son, only to find that it was his last dying vision.

I thought the letter part was anticlimactic. I would’ve been fine if the ending shot was the dead eyes of Carell after he got tossed in the grave.

I didn't read that ending as a fake-out because wasn't his wife alive in it? Or was that his son's wife and I just forgot what Alan's wife looked like? It was just so obviously too perfect to be real and TV shows do that so often now, I almost expected it. I thought his wife was in the fantasy, so he was dead.

I admit, I didn't get much from the letter either. I thought it would have been stronger to just have the weird letter from Sam trying to be nice but just sounding creepy--story of his life. (Particularly the "I hear you Jews like to have a body...")

[Faceplant]

7 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

So, perhaps mom is finally being punished for enabling her murderous son all these years. She’ll spend the rest of her life emptying his bedside toilet! 😝

I guess that's something given the amount of time this show focused on how long he urinated. 

Quote

34 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

-As Alan is praying for rescue…..an earthquake hits and the chain he is tethered to breaks!  He runs into the street where he sees a police car and gets rescued.  Meanwhile, Sam was inspecting a deli and the earthquake dismantles a large meat cleaver that plummets down onto his neck,  instantly decapitating Sam.  
 

Hulu should know, there’s plenty more available!  Lol
 

You are clearly too talented to work for Hulu! All of these alternate endings are so much better. 

[MissL]

Well I got nothing except when Sam’s dad opened the door I said out loud “It’s the Last Starfighter! You can’t kill the last starfighter Sam!”

That was rough. I wanted Steve to get out of there. I don’t think Sam will stay locked up because mom has no will power.

I did cry though. 

[BetyBee]

When Alan talked about how he needed his freedom to work on his relationship with his son and then Sam came in with a sofa and a mini-fridge, I was afraid he was going to kidnap Ezra and bring him to the basement - so they could work on their issues! I'm glad they didn't go there. Instead they had this lousy ending planned. I'm disappointed and I regret watching this series. The acting was good, but the story dragged to its bitter end. 

[Guest]

The fuck was that flaming heap of garbage my eyes had to witness? 

Why in the hell didn't Sam's father call the police? Why didn't anyone? And the final resolution was to have Ezra in therapy?! 

[chaifan]

I guess I'm at a table for one here, but I enjoyed the show and thought the ending was well done.  With all the high tech, flashy, fast paced shows, this was refreshing.  Depressing, but refreshing.  And I liked that they doled it out week by week, instead of dumping it all at once.

Alan dying was the only truly realistic ending for the show.  I'm glad they didn't go for the cheap, feel good move, and have Candice save Alan in the end, or some implausible save through a kid looking for their lost puppy or whatever.  For a while, I thought he was going to go on a hunger strike (two meals left untouched), or that he would commit suicide with the sharpened tube, slitting his own wrists.  But then, the letter...

2 hours ago, SHD said:

I thought the letter part was anticlimactic. I would’ve been fine if the ending shot was the dead eyes of Carell after he got tossed in the grave.

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

I admit, I didn't get much from the letter either.

I see this totally different.  The letter was a suicide note.  He didn't commit suicide by hunger strike or slitting his wrists.  This was suicide by serial killer.  Alan knew he couldn't kill Candice.  That was never going to happen.  But threatening to kill her would get Sam to kill him.  Alan wrote the letter because he knew he was going to die that afternoon. 

I'm more meh with Sam putting the chain on himself.  It felt largely symbolic, as his mother doesn't have the spine to keep him chained if he begs her to release him.  I also think the police would eventually focus in on Sam, even if we never saw that going on.  Two people connected to him by work were murdered.  If Sam suddenly quit his job, or just never showed up again, I think that would cause enough suspicion to have someone look into him.  Maybe they tie him to Alan, too, maybe not. 

One change I would have made, though, would have been a final shot of Alan tucking a note into the fold of his pants, or shoe, or some place to be found with his body.  Or Ezra referring to him doing such at his therapy session.  I would have liked to have known that even if Alan couldn't save himself, he took action that would have saved others.  (Like he tried with the note with the restaurant guy.)

Steve Carell really made this show work for me.  I've never been a huge fan of him in comedy roles.  I loved Dan in Real Life, though, and I thought he was great in this.  I'm bummed more people didn't like it. 

[SunnyBeBe]

I knew that Carell was an awesome dramatic actor after seeing him in some other projects like The Morning Show (series on Appletv). The series has its issues, but Carell is spectacular.  

[Faceplant]

1 hour ago, MissL said:

Well I got nothing except when Sam’s dad opened the door I said out loud “It’s the Last Starfighter! You can’t kill the last starfighter Sam!”

I was trying to place who that actor was, so thank you! Sam's dad had about as much personality as his son. He hadn't seen him in however long and he barely speaks to him while making him the saddest sandwich ever. Last week, I thought Sam would show up at his house and his dad would have a new family. 

Sam's mom was the worst until the very end. When she said I can't (I cannot!) in regard to turning Sam in, that was not true. Yes, you can. It's like those people that say they could never be a foster parent. You don't want to and that's fine, but don't act like you can't actually do it. 

[Milburn Stone]

30 minutes ago, chaifan said:

I guess I'm at a table for one here...

At minimum you're at a table for two.

I could not be LESS disappointed in this show.

[peeayebee]

2 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I thought the episode title was the Cantor’s Husband, which would be Alan, since his deceased wife was a Cantor, known as a leader of song or music in the Jewish faith.  

Doh! You're absolutely right. No wonder all the search results I got were for Eddie Cantor's wife.

1 hour ago, Elizzikra said:

I give them credit for killing Allan. I figured that had to happen and I feel badly that he died. I didn't really anticipate Sam shackling himself in the basement (so to a degree, the therapy DID work) but like others here, it's an empty gesture since Sam totally controls Mom.

I don't see Sam as having control over his mom. I don't think she's scared of him. Candace is doing what she wants to do. I think she feels guilty for not doing something to stop her husband from abusing Sam, so since she didn't protect him then, she will protect him now, by not turning him into the police.

Quote

Also, I'm bewildered by the presence of Chava at the end - when Allan sees her bald - a victim of breast cancer? Auschwitz? Who is Chava (is this Ezra's wife)? Did I completely miss something huge or if not, why does such a tertiary character get a few seconds of real estate in the episode and in Allan's final moments?

 I thought the woman in that dream was Beth.

I don't think that just because we didn't see the police investigate Alan's disappearance or Sam's boss's murder or any of the other crimes committed by Sam, that this means the police didn't or are not investigating. The show was more character-driven rather than plot-driven. The investigations and other occurrences outside the basement were irrelevant to the story the writers wanted to tell.

[sistermagpie]

38 minutes ago, chaifan said:

I guess I'm at a table for one here, but I enjoyed the show and thought the ending was well done.  With all the high tech, flashy, fast paced shows, this was refreshing.  Depressing, but refreshing.  And I liked that they doled it out week by week, instead of dumping it all at once.

Alan dying was the only truly realistic ending for the show.  I'm glad they didn't go for the cheap, feel good move, and have Candice save Alan in the end, or some implausible save through a kid looking for their lost puppy or whatever.  For a while, I thought he was going to go on a hunger strike (two meals left untouched), or that he would commit suicide with the sharpened tube, slitting his own wrists.  But then, the letter...

I agree. I was pleasantly surprised that they ended it with his death, since really no other ending was realistic unless Sam turned himself in, and everything in his character (and his mother's) said that he wouldn't do that. Him chaining himself up--temporarily--seemed like every other half measure he'd made. Both he and his mother would continue going as they had until outside forces changed things, just like what happened with the dad, it seems.

38 minutes ago, chaifan said:

I see this totally different.  The letter was a suicide note.  He didn't commit suicide by hunger strike or slitting his wrists.  This was suicide by serial killer.  Alan knew he couldn't kill Candice.  That was never going to happen.  But threatening to kill her would get Sam to kill him.  Alan wrote the letter because he knew he was going to die that afternoon. 

That's how I read it too. I just didn't feel much about having his kids read it and hearing what was in it. I felt much more in response to Sam's letter about telling them where the body was. That said it for me. It was nice for them that they got some closure--though of course for Ezra it will always be one-sided since Alan got to say the things he wanted to say and Ezra didn't.

38 minutes ago, chaifan said:

One change I would have made, though, would have been a final shot of Alan tucking a note into the fold of his pants, or shoe, or some place to be found with his body.  Or Ezra referring to him doing such at his therapy session.  I would have liked to have known that even if Alan couldn't save himself, he took action that would have saved others.  (Like he tried with the note with the restaurant guy.)

Yes, I was surprised he didn't try that just in case. I suppose it would be hard to swallow a paper and have it still be there for the coronor to find, but it would have been worth a shot, since Sam almost fell for it the first time. Iirc, he was going to leave the body out until he got spooked by something.

[Cinnabon]

46 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

At minimum you're at a table for two.

I could not be LESS disappointed in this show.

Table for 3!

[Maurina]

7 hours ago, Dani said:

Sam did give a fake name when he first started seeing Alan so it wouldn’t be that direct of a connection. 

A good point - but unless he managed to create a pretty good traceable back story for his fake identity, this still doesn't work. The police would at least try to interview each patient (even if the patients declined to be interviewed). They wouldn't find the fake him, which would undoubtable piqued the interest of anyone investigating the Dr's disappearance. They would have tried even harder to figure out who the person with a fake identity was.

I mean I get that I'm being SUPER picky and a bit pedantic, but this show is solidly grounded in reality (right down to foot cream), yet these gaping holes in the plot exist.

[SHD]

1 hour ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I knew that Carell was an awesome dramatic actor after seeing him in some other projects like The Morning Show (series on Appletv). The series has its issues, but Carell is spectacular.  

Yes! I know he’s had an Oscar nom but still feel like he’s underrated.

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

I was pleasantly surprised that they ended it with his death, since really no other ending was realistic unless Sam turned himself in, and everything in his character (and his mother's) said that he wouldn't do that.

I disagree that no other ending was realistic since Sam was progressively killing people closer to him and left one of his victims alive. I thought the show introduced real world forensics aspects without the inevitable follow through. Like Sam being interviewed by the police following his boss’s murder. If they had kept it contained and just glossed over how Sam had gotten away with everything it wouldn’t bother me. 

3 minutes ago, Maurina said:

A good point - but unless he managed to create a pretty good traceable back story for his fake identity, this still doesn't work. The police would at least try to interview each patient (even if the patients declined to be interviewed). They wouldn't find the fake him, which would undoubtable piqued the interest of anyone investigating the Dr's disappearance. They would have tried even harder to figure out who the person with a fake identity was.

I think you have more faith in how the police would handle a missing person case with no obvious foul play than me. I also doubt the fake identity would need to be that detailed. The therapist isn’t going to have a lot of useful information for them to trace. 

I do have issues with Sam getting away with most of the other stuff the show introduced but him not being a suspect in Alan’s disappearance doesn’t bother me. 

I guess I’ll just head cannon that the investigators on the boss’s investigation got suspicious when an employee stopped coming to work causing them to talk to investigate Leading them to connect his dad, Elias and possibly evidence from Alan’s body resulting in them searching the house and finding a chained Sam. 

1 hour ago, Faceplant said:

Sam's mom was the worst until the very end. When she said I can't (I cannot!) in regard to turning Sam in, that was not true. Yes, you can. It's like those people that say they could never be a foster parent. You don't want to and that's fine, but don't act like you can't actually do it. 

I wish we had seen Alan push her in the way he pushed himself in his conversations with his therapist. By this episode Alan was through walking an eggshells and just wanted it to end so it was a mistake to not push her on her culpability. Like that whole thing about how if Sam killed Mary in would be Alan’s fault. 

[sistermagpie]

Just now, Dani said:

I disagree that no other ending was realistic since Sam was progressively killing people closer to him and left one of his victims alive. I thought the show introduced real world forensics aspects without the inevitable follow through. Like Sam being interviewed by the police following his boss’s murder. If they had kept it contained and just glossed over how Sam had gotten away with everything it wouldn’t bother me. 

True, I shouldn't have said no other ending. Sam getting caught would be totally realistic and definitely seemed like a possibility. I was more thinking of what was possibility when they weren't going that way, especially in this ep where people suddenly showing up at the last minute would seem contrived in ways that them just showing up or Sam not coming home because he's being questioned about his boss's disappearance and winds up getting caught would not.

[Elizzikra]

Quote

 I thought the woman in that dream was Beth.

I thought so too but I'm pretty sure he called her "Chava."

Quote

Why in the hell didn't Sam's father call the police? 

I hoped he would but figured that he thought he had it coming since he beat Sam on the regular throughout his childhood.

Quote

making him the saddest sandwich ever. 

I don't want to overanalyze a sandwich, but I thought it looked pretty good. It was a good sized sandwich, with some chips. More than I would be able to whip up with no notice. It was one of those details that I thought might go somewhere but didn't - like maybe Sam's foodie tendencies came from a dad who enjoyed a good meal? Kind of like the cups of Dunkin' coffee that Sam would finish, put the lid in the cup and then go for a lengthy pee. Come to think of it, we saw him pee at Dad's too. Why so much peeing throughout the series???

[30 Helens]

1 hour ago, Cinnabon said:

Table for 3!

Make it 4.

I slow binged this series over the course of about 6 days, and never checked the comments before tonight. I’m glad I didn’t, because I’m sad to see the overall response. Maybe it just depended on what you were expecting?

I expected a character-driven, psychological study, and that’s exactly what I got. A therapy session with heightened stakes. If you were expecting a more traditional cat-and-mouse thriller with procedural investigations and surprise twists, I can see how this might be disappointing.

But I didn’t find the episodes lacking in suspense. From the claustrophobic environment to the desperate scratch-scratch-scratch of an aluminum tube to the random insanity of a ping pong game between prisoner and captor, I found plenty of tension in the smallest details. And the conversations doubled down on that.

Therapy is about helping the patient, and while Alan certainly wanted to help prevent more violence, his sessions were designed to help himself. To choose just the right words that would manipulate Sam into setting him free so that Alan could actually end the violence. The way he verbally led Sam to certain conclusions, pivoting when necessary, and all the while suppressing any panic or despair he was feeling, was not only suspenseful, it was like watching a master class in acting. I have long been a huge fan of Steve Carrell, and I was blown away by his performance here. It was simultaneously subtle and powerful.

I also thought Sam was expertly portrayed. Far from the two-dimensional psycho killer we normally see on TV, he is both eager and stubborn, defensive and reactive. He is capable of empathy yet can shut it off like a switch. I never knew when he was going to snap, and it had me riveted.

I also found the secondary characters to be extraordinarily well defined, considering how little time the spent on screen. By the time Mary exited that lunch, I felt I knew her very well. Same with the brief peek into Sam’s dad’s life. And his mom was especially chilling. We’ve seen the enabling serial killer moms who dote on their boys, smothering them with excessive and often inappropriate attention, but Candice was something else. Who just cracks open a beer and relaxes while their child is out killing? Someone who has learned to deal with horror by refusing to acknowledge it.

I thought the scripts did the thriller aspect very well, with an ending that was, although inevitable, also surprising and sad. But the real meat of the story was in what it had to say about human interactions: about the impact of our choices and the ways we shield ourselves from truth. Can we ever convince someone else to change, or do we just accept them as they are?

I think Alan realized that he could never change Sam, and so he did what he could to at least control his own fate. But in the process, he gained a deeper understanding of himself and his family, and still found a way to impact their lives in a positive way. I’d say his self-therapy was pretty successful.

Well done to everyone involved.

[chaifan]

8 hours ago, Maurina said:

I mean I get that I'm being SUPER picky and a bit pedantic, but this show is solidly grounded in reality (right down to foot cream), yet these gaping holes in the plot exist.

I'll disagree here.  I don't think the lack of a police investigation plot line is a "plot hole", it purposely just wasn't part of the show.  It's just not what the show was about.  Yeah, we're all curious about it, but there was obviously a conscious decision by the writers to not go there.

5 hours ago, 30 Helens said:

I expected a character-driven, psychological study, and that’s exactly what I got. A therapy session with heightened stakes. If you were expecting a more traditional cat-and-mouse thriller with procedural investigations and surprise twists, I can see how this might be disappointing.

Yes, this.  Exactly.  Very well said.  (I love your whole post, 30 Helens.)

8 hours ago, Dani said:

I wish we had seen Alan push her in the way he pushed himself in his conversations with his therapist. By this episode Alan was through walking an eggshells and just wanted it to end so it was a mistake to not push her on her culpability.

I think Alan's last conversation with Candice was purposely very superficial.  His goal at that moment wasn't to counsel Candice, it was to spur an emotion so he could offer her the kleenex box (something we had seen him do before) so he could get close enough to grab her.  He had to have already been holding the sharpened tube, so he was going into that conversation with a plan.  (See my above comment re: suicide by serial killer.)  If he pushed her too much, she could have walked out. 

[sadie]

Super unsatisfying end. I knew Alan was going to die, made sense, I’m okay with that. What would have been realistic and satisfying would be: Alan finally gets thru to mom, mom watches Sam kill Alan and can no longer ignore the horror she is allowing into the world. After Sam dumps Alan’s body he comes home, is in the basement and the police show up. The mom has FINALLY accepted she is partly responsible for Sams issues but also knows he has to finally be stopped. The Patient all along was HER, NOT SAM. 
 

The series was very much rooted in reality, we knew Alan wasn’t going to pop up when we thought he was dead and over power Sam, this wasn’t a slasher film. But then they veered so far off reality with the mom that it lost me. Unless we accept she is absolutely so evil and so devoid of normal human reactions that I can’t accept the whole “nope, nothing to see here, just gonna pop a beer and wait for my son to murder another person, oh well what’s a mum to do?”. That was what infuriated me, I thought serial killer v. Therapist was very well done, great acting, but wow huge miss on the end for me. 

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, chaifan said:

I don't think the lack of a police investigation plot line is a "plot hole", it purposely just wasn't part of the show.  It's just not what the show was about.  Yeah, we're all curious about it, but there was obviously a conscious decision by the writers to not go there.

This.

Coverage of the police investigation would have been--well, if not cliché, then certainly conventional. It would have been the almost unconscious default. Avoiding it therefore required an act of will for the writing team. They decided at the outset that this would not be that show.

Obviously that made it a show not for everybody. They were brave enough to do it anyway. To make the show they wanted, for the audience that wanted it too.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Milburn Stone

[peeayebee]

13 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

I just didn't feel much about having his kids read it and hearing what was in it. I felt much more in response to Sam's letter about telling them where the body was. That said it for me. It was nice for them that they got some closure--though of course for Ezra it will always be one-sided since Alan got to say the things he wanted to say and Ezra didn't.

I think hearing Alan's final thoughts was important for viewers, or at least for THIS viewer. It was shocking and very sad to see Sam kill him. If we hadn't heard what Alan wrote in the letter, I know I would have felt deprived. I wouldn't have wanted the lasting image of Alan to be his dead eyes. We knew that he had changed while being kept prisoner, that he had reassessed how he treated Ezra, and the letter was the only way he could make amends. I was glad to have heard it.

11 hours ago, Elizzikra said:

I thought so too but I'm pretty sure he called her "Chava."

I just rewatched that part. I'm certain the woman is Beth. Alan doesn't say anything, but we hear a woman say, "Alan?" with CC showing "Chava: Alan?" which bleeds over from the following scene, Alan's dream, of him with his family.

[30 Helens]

1 hour ago, peeayebee said:

I'm certain the woman is Beth. Alan doesn't say anything, but we hear a woman say, "Alan?" with CC showing "Chava: Alan?" which bleeds over from the following scene, Alan's dream, of him with his family.

The woman is definitely Beth. I’m not sure why she is “Chava” here, but in Hebrew the name means “life”.  Make of that what you will.