Speculation WITHOUT Spoilers

[shapeshifter]

This is a spoiler free zone to discuss Season 2 possibilities.

It just occurred to me that since this is a supernatural/scifi show, TPTB might be tempted to make Li'l Wayne--Christine and Wayne's baby girl, who Nora seems to believe is the answer to her wish for family returned--a rapidly aging child.

Writers, if they try to make you do this: Just Say No.

Show them V, V2, The 4400, Stargate SG1's last seasons, and, more recently, Falling Skies, and point out that it is the kiss of death plot to a show.

I would be okay with them advancing the time a year, or possibly two, but no 20 year-old baby should be walking around Justin Theroux.

Fellow fans of the show: Note that there is also an All Episodes Thread and a The Leftovers and the Media thread.

Edited September 14, 2014 by shapeshifter

[Danny Franks]

Oh god, no rapidly aging children, please. In fact, no supernatural nonsense at all. The kid is special for the reason we saw it being special. It gave someone hope and purpose when they felt they had none. I much prefer to see Wayne as less Holy and more Ambiguous. His 'miracles' can be explained away and there is no firm evidence that he was either gifted or a charlatan. Keep it that way.

 

I think the Garveys will still be separated, and Laurie will leave town with Tom. I think her GR faith was broken by the fact that she couldn't completely let go of everything that mattered, when she spoke to get Kevin to save Jill. So I see them going off somewhere and trying to fix one another. It makes sense, given that they've both been suckered into cults, and they've both had these epiphanies that the cult will not give them everything they're looking for. Sadly, I don't anticipate that storyline holding my attention, because Laurie is a dick and Tom is a bit boring.

 

I want to see Kevin and Jill finding a more normal, healthier relationship together, and Jill apologising to Aimee, because she needs a friend as much as she needs a dad. And honestly, I think Aimee was a pretty good friend to her, all things considered. I'm not sure where Nora fits in, because her finding the baby may have given her something to hope for, but does it change everything she'd decided regarding leaving Kevin and Mapleton to try and find a new life?

 

I guess Meg will become the new Guiltiest Remnant, and rule over her people with a rod of iron and a sharpie of black. It'll be... not interesting, but necessary... to see how the GR recover, and perhaps learn a bit more about how they're organised. Sadly, I think it's inevitable that things will get 'bigger' in the second season, and shady background figures will start to emerge.

 

The wilder cards, I suppose, are Kevin Sr, Matt and Dean. No idea what will happen with any of them. But Matt certainly looked devastated by what happened in the finale, with the people he knew he was supposed to help going way too far and inciting the town against them. Not enough to lose his faith, but perhaps enough that he'll be even more strident and unsympathetic to people.

[editorgrrl]

What I don't want to happen in season 2:

Lil Wayne gives magic hugs, but Holy Wayne's other baby is evil.

The show loses its focus on those left behind, and tries to explain why the others left.

Speculation:

Meg will assume leadership of the Guilty Remnant.

Matt's wife Mary (played by The West Wing's Janel Moloney) will wake.

Aimee and the twins will be back.

Tom &/or Laurie will attempt to contact Tom's bio dad (played by Scott William Winters).

The National Geographic is a MacGuffin.

Kevin will have more hallucinations & blackouts.

There will be flashbacks.

Edited September 15, 2014 by editorgrrl

[shapeshifter]

I would be fine with the GR being gone. If it picks up a year later, the feds could have swooped in in the aftermath of the fire bombing and taken them away to be burned in ovens (ick. shiver) like we saw in that earlier episode. Laurie and Meg would have escaped.

[Hava]

I have a feeling that next season or in subsequent seasons some of the departed may come back or there will be another departure. 

[Oshtur]

Well they pretty much told us why the people disappeared, and with what we know about Wayne the next step would be at least the risk of another worldwide event, with Kevin Sr voices being at least part of forces trying to influence it at the very least.

 

So I think:

 

Someone in the show is going to figure out what the first disappearance actually was, and why trying to figure out who left is asking the wrong question.

The show will narrow down to The milieu of Kevin, his family and Wayne's kid and with maybe near disaster happening with the one we know and then a frantic attempt to prevent something worse happening because of the one we don't.

Trying to explore why Wayne could do what he did with hints of the 'big picture' that allowed it.

[ottoDbusdriver]

The second season is a complete and unpredictable crapshoot at this point.

[shapeshifter]

Well they pretty much told us why the people disappeared...

Are you referring to the implication that the leftover people wished each of the disappeared to go away? Or...?

[Oshtur]

Are you referring to the implication that the leftover people wished each of the disappeared to go away? Or...?

Yes, or more to the point that a single wish, maybe by one person, suddenly was granted to everyone on the planet of similar mind at that precise moment.  And since we know Wayne could grant wishes 1) was the first because of Wayne? 2) Where all the wishes he granted like this, e.g. did everyone wishing for their family back on the planet at that moment get their them back too?

 

And of course - do the kids have the same ability with the same risk?

[editorgrrl]

I hope this piece of speculation comes to pass. It would hopefully be a ratings boon for The Leftovers—though not even Doctor Who could help BBC America's Intruders:

It has been rumored that True Detective is going to be premiering in the summer of next year.… What this means is that on Sunday nights we could have The Leftovers move up to the 9pm ET slot and lead into True Detective in the 10pm ET slot.

Edited November 28, 2014 by editorgrrl

[ganesh]

I thought Wayne was dead? I must be misremembering.

 

I'm not a fan of time jumps usually, but in this case, if they jumped ahead a year and the GR just disintegrated, I'd be fine with that. This concept was probably the worst executed thing I've ever seen on tv. 

 

The only thing I can think of that wasn't addressed in S1, or wrapped up, was the National Geographic.

 

As much as I think the show had a way way way high opinion of itself, I think explaining the disappearance would be a huge creative mistake. If the National Geographic plot is to indicate that something like this has happened before; i.e., will it happen again? That's not a bad idea because you can show how different people react to that. But explaining it would really fall flat, especially since the whole point of S1 was to deliberately *not* shed any light on it. Which is fine, but I think it was handled poorly. So, in short, stay away from all that. 

[editorgrrl]

I thought Wayne was dead? I must be misremembering.

The only thing I can think of that wasn't addressed in S1, or wrapped up, was the National Geographic.

Yes, Holy Wayne is dead.

But there're plenty more dangling threads:

What's the deal with the deer, the dogs, and Dean?

Is Kevin Sr. crazy? Is Kevin?

Who put Kevin's shirts in the woods?

Where are Aimee & the twins?

Who were those women in the car who approached Kevin?

[Danny Franks]

^ To add to that:

 

How will Kevin and Jill adapt to their seeming breakthrough?

What will Laurie and Tom do now, adrift in the world?

Will Nora keep the baby?

How will the town put itself back together after everything that happened in the finale?

What will happen to the GR moving forward, and is Meg their new leader?

Will Matt's wife ever recover, and will Matt find new purpose after being so obviously shaken by the way the town disintegrated into violence?

[ganesh]

I think the show would be better if Nora was the focus because we actually saw a lot of the world [not enough for me] when she was. 

[ToastnBacon]

With two episodes in a row featuring the Pixies song, "Where is my mind" I am beginning to think about Jack and Tyler Durden from the movie "Fight Club."

Are we being given a hint that most of what we are seeing is playing out in the mind of one character?

Probably not, but it is obvious that many of our characters are suffering from psychosis to one degree or another.

Our narrators aren't very reliable, that much I'm sure of.

Although I don't think that is the case, I do love the idea that all the action is multiple personalities in one sick person's mind.

I'd love the series finale to end with a zoom out from a tight shot of green hospital Jello to reveal Glen Scott muttering to himself.

[bilgistic]

I was behind on the show and watched four episodes this weekend. I've scanned the boards but don't think I've seen this anywhere: the people in Miracle/Jarden keep saying they are the 9,261 (I think), and are chosen. It's been suggested by the DSD and research doctor on the show that Nora's presence prompted the girls' disappearance. I'm thinking their arrival caused it. Four came in, three departed. Then the man stole Matt's and his wife's armbands to get in, but only the boy made it; the dad died in the accident. Up one, but then Matt left. We're even (if they let the boy stay in town). Now Mary's pregnant--up one...

[shapeshifter]

I was behind on the show and watched four episodes this weekend. I've scanned the boards but don't think I've seen this anywhere: the people in Miracle/Jarden keep saying they are the 9,261 (I think), and are chosen. It's been suggested by the DSD and research doctor on the show that Nora's presence prompted the girls' disappearance. I'm thinking their arrival caused it. Four came in, three departed. Then the man stole Matt's and his wife's armbands to get in, but only the boy made it; the dad died in the accident. Up one, but then Matt left. We're even (if they let the boy stay in town). Now Mary's pregnant--up one...

Interesting theory, but it seems a bit too simplistic. If it does turn out to be what the writers intended, maybe since Lily was born after the event, she doesn't count in the equation.

[Pallas]

I'm beginning to think that Nora did use the device...and it worked. Almost. At first I thought that she and the rest of the people who exposed themselves to LADR entered a different slipstream, and one by one, all ended up the sole human residents of the same new world. They never re-united with the Departed, nor have proof that the Departed survived: they are alone with each other. When Nora found him, Mark Linn-Baker wished he'd stayed in Mexico. 

The nun was an older version of someone in the LADR testimonials, perhaps the woman who says "Amen" at the end of her speech: we saw her twice. The doves were coming from our world into theirs, but without creating a device of their own, the people of Nora's world could make no reply. 

Of course that doesn't explain the existing infrastructure in future-Nora's world -- road, farm, clothes, bike -- nor what is clearly a centuries-old Christian church. So my revised spec is that Nora did use the device, and this world is Nora's limbo, based on her childhood. The nun is Episcopalian. The Jamison burial plot Nora mentions in "The Most Powerful Man" is right there in the churchyard. The doves are reflections of the balloon-doves we saw released in Mapleton on Memorial Day in the pilot -- when we first met Nora -- and the pigeons the Millerite pastor tended in the opening of this season. (That holds true, no matter what.) Their messages are, more or less, karaoke. Or little romance novels. People in Nora's limbo write their messages of love, release their doves and see what happens.

They close their eyes and make a wish. Like Tommy did on his birthday this season, though not before trying to offer the wish to Nora, who refused it. Like Kevin did with Holy Wayne in a truckstop restroom. Like Nora did when Wayne asked her, "Do you want to feel this way?" People in Nora's purgatory, but not Nora. Because our Nora still believes that the Departure took everything, and that she deserves nothing less. Which she expresses by refusing to do anything "stupid" like accepting compassion and grace. Not yet accepting that what we deserve isn't our destiny in this life, or perhaps, any other.

I know Wayne told Nora that she deserved to feel hope. Once back in uniform, Kevin told hotel-barfly David Burton that he, Chief Kevin, deserved to live. But Wayne's benediction on Nora didn't really take, and Kevin's declaration proved to be whistling (karaoke) in a graveyard. Believing that we get what we deserve is just one more belief. I think the show's position is Kevin's when Little Patti tells him that he should push her into the well, because she deserves it. "That's not true," Kevin says ardently.

And who deserves forgiveness? Either everyone -- as Michael says -- or no one. Who deserves love? Can we want to be part of this world, even if we're not its Most Powerful Man? Can we love one another, even if it's stupid?