S01.E01: Alive In Tucson / S01.E02: The Elephant In The Room

[peeayebee]

The toilet stuff really bothered me, for multiple reasons. A) ew. B) I get once the water pressure stopped being a functional thing, he'd stop trying to use the actual toilet, but seriously, I don't get why they both were shown to continue attempting to use...whatever previously water-holding ceramic vessel they could find. Pool. Fountain. Why didn't they dig a very deep hole. Or once they established there were still pristine, not looted stores, including HARDWARE stores...like seriously, I know they're not the easiest things to find, but they have everywhere to themselves, could've tried to obtain a composting toilet. Or maybe they'll save that for a later episode's mini-triumph.

Phil just wanted to do everything you're not supposed to do. I don't think it would have been in character for him to dig a hole for pooping or look for something in the hardware store. Carol wanted to continue acting civilized, so she suggested finding a way to make the water work. Whether or not that's feasible for two people to do doesn't matter. She was just saying what a civilized person would do, instead of turning a pool into a toilet. But then she just fell apart and gave up, following Phil's who-cares attitude by making a fountain toilet.

[nottopbravo]

 

and even less happy that Kristen Schaal is in it,

 

For some strange reason, I was thinking Kate Micucci for the role.

[theatremouse]

Phil just wanted to do everything you're not supposed to do. I don't think it would have been in character for him to dig a hole for pooping or look for something in the hardware store. Carol wanted to continue acting civilized, so she suggested finding a way to make the water work. Whether or not that's feasible for two people to do doesn't matter. She was just saying what a civilized person would do, instead of turning a pool into a toilet. But then she just fell apart and gave up, following Phil's who-cares attitude by making a fountain toilet.

Intellectually, I understand that, but at the same time, even Phil not wanting to follow any rules...just...his sense of smell still works. So...after maybe a day of initially having the knee-jerk reaction... I just want him to still have a modicum of common sense.

[Shermie]

I thought the smell would be gross too, but then I figured they've become nose blind (thanks, Febreze). I mean, people lived for thousands of years without plumbing or deodorant or basic sanitation and they obviously just become accustomed to it. That said, these two were used to sanitation, so you'd think they would want to bury their waste. Even Phil.

Add me to the "why pick the desert?" list. Sure, a southern state for warmth, but something with water and maybe the ability to grow stuff. Of course, they might decide to move there in a future ep for that reason, Carol seems practical.

"Some people pronounce it 'tomahto'. That's how I say it."

"Of course you do."

Snerk.

I don't normally like Kristen Schaal in large doses, but I think she's perfect for this. I love how the show has presented the question, "Which is the crazy one?" They're like Pinky and the Brain - one is a genius, the other's insane.

[teebax]

I say this as a Tucsonan who adopted it as my hometown after going to college here: if I were the last person on earth and could live in any house in any town, Tucson wouldn't even crack my top 100.

It's not even close to being the worst place in the world, but it would make no sense to live here post-apocolypse. My A/C was down for two days last summer and I was a combination of suicidal and homicidal! And it's not just that it's hot in the summer; the desert gets cold in the winter. My freaking pipes burst a couple of years ago during a cold snap. This isn't that perfect weather you get in places like San Diego or LA.

Anyway, I tried the show and didn't care for either episode. I'm not a Kristin Schaal fan but I do like Will Forte. I'll probably try one more week, but I doubt this will last much longer than that on my dvr..

[Maude]

I really, really enjoyed this. The actors were superb (I have always liked Schaal since the near-perfect "Flight of the Conchords" so when she came on I actually jumped up and down with happiness). I am so glad they went for a far more realistic version of what the last two people on earth would be like: crazed after two solitary years, their baggage and neuroticism carrying over, with very different and largely unattractive ways to psychologically deal with the disaster.

Forte and Schaal characters are closer, I think, to what we normal schlubs would be like: neither looks like a model, neither is especially super-intelligent, neither is an angel or a superhero or the devil.

Hopefully, the show will gather a following. It is so odd it might not get wider interest; it might have been better suited on a channel like FX.

Anyway, excellent premise and excellent execution. Most interesting and original show on TV.

[Beach Party]

I was watching for signs of other life forms, but didn't see any animals.  That food market should've been over run with rodents and animals eating those Twinkies first.  Guess the virus wiped out all creatures.  That would not be good for human's long term future.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Beach Party

[zxy556575]

The big omissions didn't bother me because, TV show. But I did get annoyed at some of the smaller ones.

 

1. Why didn't Phil just move to a new house when the first one got up to his ankles in garbage? Or, you know, throw out the garbage. Even if before the virus he was the laziest slob who ever lived, the guy ended up with a lot of time on his hands. Get a water catchment system going for the toilet, at least. And wash yourself! His greasy face was getting to me.

 

2. Where's the gas coming from to drive an RV around the entire country?

 

3. The heat in Tucson. I know humanity used to be just fine without A/C, but my quibble is that Phil wasn't shown to be even slightly bothered by it. Are we supposed to believe the only scenes we saw of him were all in the winter? And since he does have an endless supply of gas from somewhere, go stay in the RV and run the A/C there.

 

4. He had a generator so he could have done more than watch DVDs. The thought of all that warm/hot beer and soda was making me gag-ish. I'd have hooked up a mini fridge at least.

 

Yes. It's a comedy, not a remake of Swiss Family Robinson. But Phil's utter stupidity was unfunny to me.

[TeeVeeStevie]

Looks like the virus evaporated every body, flesh, bone, blood, hair, nails etc. Also, no stopped vehicles at all in the traffic lanes? Seems like Phil's road trip should've been an obstacle course of cars.

People wouldn't have all died suddenly at the exact same moment wherever they happened to be and then vanished into thin air. They would have died over an extended period of time and been buried or cremated by the still-living. Only the bodies of the last to die would still be out in the open, but they wouldn't be in cars or anywhere in public. They'd be in hospital beds or beds at home, and decomposed by the time we enter the story.
  Edited March 3, 2015 by MarkHB
Double post

[Mrs OldManBalls]

I also had a really big laugh at him going outside and shouting TOMATO.

 

I was thinking "I don't think this show is for me" just as he started yelling "IT"S TOMATO!" and then? It had me. 

[peeayebee]

People wouldn't have all died suddenly at the exact same moment wherever they happened to be and then vanished into thin air. They would have died over an extended period of time and been buried or cremated by the still-living. Only the bodies of the last to die would still be out in the open, but they wouldn't be in cars or anywhere in public. They'd be in hospital beds or beds at home, and decomposed by the time we enter the story.

I love that the creators said in an interview that the bodies were just off-camera.

[theatremouse]

I was pondering this last night, because now apparently what I do is think about how I'd react in this situation (which is odd because I don't feel so very invested in this show, but it's still making me think, so, good?) but for all the reasons Tucson is a terrible idea (yes I know it's where he's from, but why write it that way without a reason...which I'm hoping will be coming) there is a LOT of sun. Presumably, you could easily find this too in, say, Southern California, which has more easily accessible water, but he didn't go there. Still, we saw him with a generator right? And we saw him choose a big McMansion. A good reason to stick with Tucson may be a plethora of houses with full on solar setups. That gets rid of one issue and keeps 'em with electricity.

So we saw him spray paint Tucson everywhere, and we saw him go back to his actual apartment, and only then he seemed to sort of have a moment of: why am I bothering? And then he went and found himself the huge house. So clearly, originally, he was just going to go home. So from that sense, I get why he hadn't yet decided to go somewhere that isn't a desert. But now that he is in the desert, they can make use of it somewhat.

I am wondering if he stayed in that one house that whole time or if at some point over the, wasn't it a year before Carol showed (road trip was a year after the virus, then he went home, and now it's been a second year), he might have sort of "used up" various houses in the neighborhood? Because they'd all have water at first, I think. At least whatever's in the pipes already and the hot water heater, assuming not everyone were tankless. So he could make that work for a while. But perhaps in an effort to save fuel, didn't want to go ALL over the city. I'm also assuming at least for a while, if there's really absolutely nobody, they could do a similar thing where gas stations are still there. So he might have had some way to get gas, and be the only one doing it, for a while. He also could've been siphoning gas from the parked cars, since we did see some. And since stores seemed to be in tact and not looted or animal eaten, he could've used cooking oil, which I think works? So with lots of stuff seemings lying around for the taking, and only one (or apparently two) people doing the taking, I think I haven't yet crossed over into necessary full on suspension of disbelief there. Yet. Definitely emphasis on the "yet".

[MarkHB]

Yes, siphoning gas is comparatively easy, plus it looked like he upgraded the RV at least once during his trip so the new one may have had its own full tank. He could have been cooking with a gas grill (lots of propane around I'm sure) but I don't think we ever saw that.  But the show is concentrating on the contrast between their reactions, so I'm not going to dwell on the mechanics of it all.

 

I was, however, waiting for him to say that the reason he didn't want to marry Carol was because he wasn't ready to really let go of his prior family.

[Beach Party]

Maybe others see Phil's spray painted highway signs across the country saying "Alive in Tucson" but would rather stay put:  They might not want to risk a trip to Tucson or get ambushed and enslaved there.   Maybe they are so elated to be left alone, like the Twilight Zone episode with the man who survived the atomic blast and finally had the time to read all day.

[DrLar]

That was the first Twilight Zone episode if I'm not mistaken, I saw it and found tons of similarities, at least Phill doesn't need glasses! but then again there's a lot of resources around, he could raid a lense factory and have unlimited supply of glasses.

 

Like some movies (I clearly recall The Matrix series) humans are just like virus, they consume everything, then move on to the next "host" to consume more, so Phil should move soon when the house is unlivable, choose another mansion, do the same, rinse and repeat until all the good houses of the city are a dump and move on to the next city, probably will take several lifetimes to do.

[henripootel]

Arizona is an odd choice to live come the apocolypse.

Tucson, absolutely, but you might want to live in proximity to Hoover Dam.  I seem to recall from the 'After People' shows that Hoover dam might hum right along for years, possibly more, putting out power before something screwed up and their backup systems couldn't cope.  Worth a shot, especially considering ...

Speaking of cars, it's a good thing Phil was able to find enough working gas stations.

This has come up in the Walking Dead forums but gas goes bad, pretty quickly.  Couple of months down the line, most of the gas you'll find stored in car gas tanks and whatnot is already going bad, and will eventually foul your car.  Year or two and you won't get far.  Diesel will do better but and (I understand) diesel engines are a bit more forgiving of bad gas, but you're still looking at a year or two even if you take steps to preserve it.  You'd be better off spending your time finding solar arrays and plugging Teslas into them, like a string of them just in case.  That won't last forever but it might keep you mobile for a bit longer than fossil fuels.

 

Somebody mentioned Red Dwarf upstream - hadn't thought of that.  I like Forte and his character does resemble Dave Lister some, but I think I liked the tone of RD better than this.  It also had a nice ensemble cast and some brilliant writing, even with a seasonal budget that was probably less than the catering for this one.  Kinda wonder how this show is gonna sustain with just two people bickering.  

[WickedTuna]

When Carol was complaining about how her to-MAH-toes were dying from lack of water, all I could wonder was why they decided to settle in the DESERT of all places. The lack of A/C must have been terrible, even in that nice house with the giant backyard toilet.

I was wondering how the hell the tomahto plants got so big with no water. But then I had given up paying close attention after about 15 minutes so I think I probably missed alot of explanations.

Is Kate Mecucci from Raising Hope and The Big Bang? Oh God no. Her movements and expressions are so annoying. But that's just me.

[morgankobi]

"Some people pronounce it 'tomahto'. That's how I say it."

"Of course you do."

Snerk.

 

All I could think at that moment was, "no, it's just you who says that. There are no 'some people' left!"

[molshoop]

 

That was the only time I laughed in the whole hour.

 

  That's one more time than I laughed.  I don't find either character to be funny or interesting,

[scrambled eggs]

 

By "idea of the show" do you mean the title? Because for half a second I thought "oh, another human" and then I realized the title was still accurate and they hung a lantern on it because he's the last man on earth, and he found the (as far as we know currently) last woman on earth.

 

The title, yes. Even though he's still (AFAWK) the last "man" on earth, I was hoping he'd still be the only living person for a while longer. It felt like a cop out for Phil to meet another person so soon, in terms of episode number if not the actual time elapsed.

[peeayebee]

I like that Carol appeared so quickly. We got a lot of Phil by himself doing all sorts of wacky things. I think many people by that point were wondering how the show was going to sustain the storyline for the season or series. And then… here's another person.

 

The title leads us to believe the show is about the last person on Earth and how he copes with being all alone, whereas title is actually literal, and the show is about how the last man on Earth coexists with the last(?) woman on Earth.

[nottopbravo]

I'm surprised Phil didn't miss what I would miss if I were him.  Fresh food.  Even if he had the option of frozen "anything", if it was in any type of freezer it would have rotted in a few months. 

Edited March 6, 2015 by nottopbravo

[justcris]

I loved this so much more than I thought I would! It's definitely my kind of weird. I realize it will probably get cancelled pretty soon, but I'm really going to enjoy it while it lasts.

[peeayebee]

Don't say that, justcris! I love this too, It's unique, hilarious, even touching, and has two great comedic actors in it. It's gotten critical raves. I thought the premiere got good numbers. I think Fox will stick with this for a while.

[DittyDotDot]

Late to the party as always. Interesting and quirky show. I'll probably stick around and see if it develops into something, right now it has that new showitis to it, but I do see some great potential.

 

I was wondering how the hell the tomahto plants got so big with no water. But then I had given up paying close attention after about 15 minutes so I think I probably missed alot of explanations.

 

She could've been watering them by hand, I lived in a cabin with no running water for a couple years and watered my garden by collecting rain water and bucketing it. It's a pain in the ass, but it worked. Although, I didn't live in the desert, so there is also that. I was more flummoxed that she grew tomatoes in lickity-split time. Maybe they were magic seeds or something (or maybe time was passing faster than I thought), but it usually takes approximately 3 months to grow tomatoes from seed before they produce anything. However, the mechanics of it all isn't what the show seems to be about, so I wasn't too bothered by it all.

[theatremouse]

I sort of assumed she already had the tomato plants, from wherever she was before she followed Phil's signs to go to AZ. So however she'd been watering them, she had been doing for some time. And she only finally planted them in the ground instead of pots once she'd gotten there and intended to stick around and be humans.

[Portia]

The one thing I couldn't handwave was grammar snob Carol telling Phil that he could "lay" with her.

[peeayebee]

It sounded biblical to me, so I excuse it.

[justcris]

peeayebee I was not expecting such good ratings! I hope they can keep it up, finally there's a new show that I thoroughly enjoy! And it might not get cancelled right away! 

[Portia]

The one thing I couldn't handwave was grammar snob Carol telling Phil that he could "lay" with her.

  

It sounded biblical to me, so I excuse it.

I agree that the King James usage seemed right for Carol. I just thought she should know when to use "lie" and when to use "lay." Then again, as someone mentioned upthread, she may not be as good at grammar as she thinks she is!

[Fishy]

I liked it better WITHOUT the last woman..... UGH

[Meraji]

I wasn't going to watch this, but caught part of it on a reshowing, then watched it on demand. I liked it a lot better than I did when my boyfriend was telling me the plot earlier in the week.  I kept interrupting him with: where were the bodies? What do you mean his bathroom gets filled with plastic containers? Why doesn't he just live in a place that has water right next to it? And so forth.

 

When I watched it I enjoyed it. But what's funny to me is I didn't have as much problem with the lack of bodies, lack of animals, untouched grocery store shelves and no cars on the road as I did with the fact that the date on his wall calendar was 2021.

[Jodithgrace]

Well, you know, he just ordered that online. :)

[possibilities]

Heh about the calendar. Though, I make my own sometimes. Maybe he hooked up his generator to a printer somewhere, like at the library, and rigged one from a template... okay, I'm reaching.

 

I watched this show as a sort of fantasy wish-fulfillment. Thinking about having the whole world available to me with no noise or traffic or pesky humans or limits or demands from outside myself... I know it's not true, but I imagine I'd spend quite a bit of time just exploring everything. It would make the world seem large, like I was a small child in a gigantic dollhouse, walking around. I don't want it to just be another "odd couple" with a side order of roughing it. I hope they do eventually do some traveling, at least around the city. It kind of depressed me that destroying things is the only thing Phil thought of doing for fun (burn, explode, run over) in all his time alone. But I get it that having survived the death of your species might give someone some issues, and it's not the same as just being voluntarily plunked down into an imaginary world without limits. So I think it is interesting that they're exploring the crazy and sad aspects of being a lone survivor, and then of being paired up with one and only one option, as ill-suited an option as possible. So, I'll stick around a while to see how it all turns out, and whether it's just an odd couple remake or if they will give it more than that. It has a lot of potential, but I am a little wary about what direction they may be going with it.

[Kel Varnsen]

I liked it. A lot of the stuff that happened didn't make a lot of sense but a lot of that can be written off to the fact that Phil is kind of a stupid person. I mean why else would you live in the desert if you have no power? Why else would you crap in your pool instead of the 1000's of unused toilets in the city? Why would you cris-cross the US (and only stay in the US) rather than doing some logical travel pattern? Why wouldn't you move to a new house when your old one got too dirty? Why would you kill yourself by driving your car into a rock with a big target on it (when there are probably 100's of empty gun stores and pharmacies)? But it works because Phil is stupid. 

 

The rest of the stuff, like where are the bodies and how stuff still works I just forget about because it is a comedy.

 

Some of the stuff Phil was doing was hilarious. I loved him blowing up cars, and the bowling. The fact that he had been alone for literally years and yet he still was terrible at playing pool was hilarious.

 

Forgot to mention, the Jenga gag and how long the set up was, was awesome.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Kel Varnsen

[enrikeitor]

Why did he choose Tucson? Wasn't there another better place on earth? 

[DittyDotDot]

Wasn't that where he lived before everyone disappeared? After he traveled around the country, he returned to a small humble apartment and said he was home again. Then he decided to move into one of the "nice" neighborhoods. I don't think there was a lot of thought put into it; it was just his home.

[Kel Varnsen]

Wasn't that where he lived before everyone disappeared? After he traveled around the country, he returned to a small humble apartment and said he was home again. Then he decided to move into one of the "nice" neighborhoods. I don't think there was a lot of thought put into it; it was just his home.

Plus I thought it was pretty clear that Phil is not very smart.

[DittyDotDot]

Plus I thought it was pretty clear that Phil is not very smart.

 

Well, yes, there's that too.

[possibilities]

It would make a lot of sense if they were using solar power. But since there hasn't even been a hint of that suggestion, I agree it was just inertia.

[Shermie]

A few people have posted that Phil had been alone "for years", but I thought it had only been a year since the virus.

[theatremouse]

It was one year since the virus when he started his "go to every state" trip, and another year when he got back to Arizona having found no one in the 48 states he went to. So basically two years. Unless we're meant to interpret "since the virus" meaning when it first appeared, took some time to kill everyone, etc. But the way it played to me at least read like this was a sudden and swift disaster killing every one. So I took the "one year since the virus" to mean, one year since he knew he was the only one left where he was and explicitly set out on a quest to find anyone else anywhere. So we don't have an exact timeline, but it's definitely more than a year of no human contact and probably closer to, if not slightly more than 2 years of no contact before Carol showed up, depending on if "since the virus" means "first known outbreak" vs "last known survivors who aren't Phil."

We don't know exactly how long it was for Carol. I don't think she said, and the captions on time passage we got were in relation to Phil.

[Kel Varnsen]

Wasn't there a title card that said it was 5 months between watching Cast Away and having all his ball friends?

[DittyDotDot]

Also, didn't Phil say he hadn't talked to another person for 2 years when he first encountered Carol?

[dcalley]

Terence Trent D'Arby joke (three names for his ball friends)!