S01.E10: Cycle

[Chaos Theory]

Between this show and The Whispers, I can't decide which is worse. At least the other show has a few more episodes to redeem itself.

I see the problem. You don't like The Whispers while I find it some of the creepiest cheese I have seen in a long time. Then again shows like Wayward Pines and The Whispers hit my sweet spot. Not going to win any awards but not so truly horrible that all they are good for his hate watching. (Which i never understood and don't condone).

[Accidental Martyr]

Amy said all the adults were frozen. I take that to mean all the people in WP at the end are new. Group C. They don't know anything about what is outside.

Group B people are either dead (from the HY revolution) or refrozen.

Do they expect these people to be cool with living in a town run by a bunch of teenagers?

[tom87]

I tuned in to see Megan the annoying blond lady die a horrible death and nothing.

 

Meh is may overall reaction to the entire series.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Do they expect these people to be cool with living in a town run by a bunch of teenagers?

 

Especially a bunch of teenagers with access to heavy weapons, and a smug sense of superiority.

 

I tuned in to see Megan the annoying blond lady die a horrible death and nothing.

 

The Abbies are supposed to have a highly acute sense of smell and hearing -- they should have tracked her wherever she went in the tunnels and killed her. I very much doubt hypnoteacher pulled a Chris Pratt from Jurassic World on the Abbies when they caught up to her -- and hypnoteacher is most certainly no Hypnotoad.  All glory to the  Hypnotoad.

 

[Dowel Jones]

After thinking about it, I took the presence of the effigies and the wording on the monument ("visionary") to mean that group C had more information about the real world than the previous groups.  That, and the design of the police uniforms to more closely resemble the Black Shirts motif might mean that the current administration is much more ruthless in its approach.

[SlackerInc]

As the Abbies start to kill and munch their way through all the townsfolk who didn't get their asses to Lot 33, a car explodes.  Why exactly ?  Are we supposed to conclude that the one guy who fired a flare gun straight up into the air that somehow the flare landed in the gas tank of the car ?  When in reality, the flare should have just bounced off the roof of the car ?

[snip]

Ethan blows up the pipe bombs and kills all the Abbies in the elevator shaft.  And for some reason, there is lots of debris falling down from above and as Ben screams "Dad" at the wreckage below, something clonks him on the head and knocks him out.

 

It's a really good question about that exploding car.  That is ridiculous if it's supposed to be the flare...but then what else could it be?

 

The falling debris I do buy.  It was blown upward in the shaft, past the doorway, and got him on the way back down.

 

I have joined just to respond here. That was one of the best endings to a tv show I've ever seen. And I'm a fan of the books, which has a twist but is completely different to the show (no spoilers if no-one knows obv). Seriously, you didn't like that ending?? It was great, looking back all the clues were set up at it makes sense but i still didn't see it coming. Generally thought the show was 50/50 bad/great, but I loved, LOVED the ending.

 

I did think it was a good ending and expected more people to say it redeemed the show at least somewhat.

 

I don't know that there were clues all along--we only met this First Class last week. (Yet, I get the school brainwashing was since episode 3-ish.) That being said, I did enjoy the finale. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I even liked the twist ending with Ben stuck in Wayward Pines: Now Under More Psychotic Control. But I feel like they should have had one more episode in there showing what happened. 

 

It's tough.  I do feel like they had to rush too much, but OTOH if they added an episode showing how the 1st Gen took control, that would take away the shock of the reveal when Ben woke up.  So I'm torn on that one.

 

One thing that occurred to me was that Kate was sorely tempted to finish the leader of the 1st Gen when he was taunting her in the jail, but then decided against it...and as a result, doomed the town to fascist youth control (because apparently, he was the only one who could open the "ark"--which is kind of a bad design, but whatev).

 

When was the entire facility built and who built it?

 

In the FOX web series Gone, they actually introduce us to one of the construction workers who built it, as well as a scientist who "stays behind" as a caretaker after others go into stasis.

 

I loved it when Ethan yells out, "Get to the underground bunker on 1st and Main.  It's underneath an old shed in the vacant lot."  And everyone scatters in four directions. 

[snip]

And, finally:  Terry Gilliam did that ending so much better in Brazil.  I think it was Gilliam, anyway.

 

LOL, I didn't catch that people were scattering in all directions to go the same place.  Maybe they were getting their cars?  (Strange that we never saw anyone driving during the whole attack, except Ethan.)

 

And yes: that was Gilliam.  One of the all-time great masterpieces of cinema, that.  There's no question this isn't even remotely comparable, but I never expected it to be.

Edited July 24, 2015 by SlackerInc

[Accidental Martyr]

From Pilcher's conversation with Pam, my understanding is that what happened to Group A is what was happening to these guys.  He set the abbies loose on them.  In that case, why didn't hypnoteacher know that Pilcher wasn't going to save them?  Why didn't she get the fuck to the inside of the mountain because she knew what was coming?

If Pilcher did the same thing to Group A where were the Abbies during the flashback where we saw him walking around the town by himself with all the destruction, dead bodies, etc.?

[alias1]

Regarding the recap - I didn't get that Meagan survived at all...

The banging on the door turned into growling and next thing we know, the hallway is overrun with abbies. I figured they ate her on their way down the corridor. Was I supposed to think otherwise? She wasn't with the group of first-genners back at the school. Gunshot-wound-guy opened the secret bunker and lead his acolytes into the promised land. He's the one who spoke of the Ark and Pilcher's plan throughout the last couple of episodes. Meagan assumed Pilcher would save her; Jason, on the other hand, knew this was the "the flood" and what to do and where to go. I think Meagan's gone. RIP psycho-schoolmarm.

I agree that Megan couldn't have survived.  But at first I did think the "people" breaking down the bunker hatch were the Hitler Youth and that Megan had been expecting them, but when they started growling like animals I figured it was the Abbies.  And there wasn't any other way for the Abbies to get to the elevator except through the bunker, right?  So I think Megan is toast. But since we didn't see it, who knows, maybe the Hitler Youth were right behind the Abbies and took care of whatever was left of them and then stormed their way up the elevator shaft to take over Wayward Pines.

 

Thank you to the person who gave the description of Wayward.  I never made that connection. 

Very clever.

 

Edited July 24, 2015 by SierraMist

[Accidental Martyr]

Wayward - difficult to control or predict because of unusual or perverse behavior.

You'd think evil genius Pilcher would have some self-awareness about things, since he did name the town.  Presumably.

 

I thought there was already a town called Wayward Pines before Pilcher built his version. Didn't the clerk at the convenience store give Theresa directions to Wayward Pines?

[Actionmage]

I wanted to belatedly thank Alex Zeidel for watching this with us! I enjoyed his recaps, even when I wasn't happy with an episode.

 

 

I understand that Plitcher was a controlled freak

 

While the above may be a typo, it is still truth! Thanks for the laugh!

[SoothingDave]

You're right, there was a town with that name. Or a highway sign, anyway. Maybe Pilcher built it from scratch. Maybe he just used an existing town.

Either way, it is a huge shout out from the author to anyone with a dictionary.

[starri]

I did think it was a good ending and expected more people to say it redeemed the show at least somewhat.

I'm okay with a dark ending.  I'm less okay with a stupid ending.  This was the stupid cap on a show that was a big heaping pile of stupid.

 

Do you imagine that one day Carla Gugino turned to Matt Dillon and was like "You know, this is just ridiculous.  Let's just light the sets on fire and call it a day."

[KaveDweller]

After thinking about it, I took the presence of the effigies and the wording on the monument ("visionary") to mean that group C had more information about the real world than the previous groups.  That, and the design of the police uniforms to more closely resemble the Black Shirts motif might mean that the current administration is much more ruthless in its approach.

 

I got that sense too.  Because having effigies like that is not something you would see in any regular American town now.  They have to symbolize that people are no longer pretending to be in 2015.

[Free]

I'm okay with a dark ending.  I'm less okay with a stupid ending.  This was the stupid cap on a show that was a big heaping pile of stupid.

 

Do you imagine that one day Carla Gugino turned to Matt Dillon and was like "You know, this is just ridiculous.  Let's just light the sets on fire and call it a day."

 

Exactly, I'm fine with dark endings, I would've been fine if the abbies wiped everyone out tbh.  It's what we're left with that's problematic especially if there was a possible 2nd season around this.  It doesn't help that they've lost the good actors that made the show bearable and we got stuck with these boring, uninteresting, annoying characters.

[legaleagle53]

I just finished watching the episode.  So they won the battle but lost the war, did they?  Whatever, show.

 

Aw, whom am I kidding?  I know perfectly well that if this show does somehow get renewed, I'll be watching.  

[Texasmom1970]

So I guess on the off chance that it might be renewed Matt Dillon demanded his character gets killed. I bet he said because there is no way I am coming back for this crap no matter how badly I need a gig!

[jhlipton]

When Pilcher was arguing with Pam about starting with a clean slate "Option C", I think I remember him saying that the Abbies would eventually leave the area during their annual migration and then they could turn the power back on and restart.  The safety bunker that the Nazi kids had waiting for them may have had more supplies than we were shown and maybe some way for them to override control of the mountain bunker .

Who would work min the sweatshops of the mountain bunker. These kids are all chiefs -- none of them would deign to manual labor

 

 

From Pilcher's conversation with Pam, my understanding is that what happened to Group A is what was happening to these guys.  He set the abbies loose on them.

We were flat out told "everything on screen is true". We saw people running and fighting, We saw a family that strangled itself. If Pilcher said he let the Abbies loose, he's lying.

 

 

In the very beginning of the show, when they did a panoramic view of the town - did it look to anyone else like the second wave of Abbies were carrying torches? I could have sworn I saw lights in the forest. Plus, really, just how did they tag all the Abbies?

I thought it was a new "reckoning" victim, not an effigy. But I guess he did look like Ethan, so you may be right.

 

I thought I saw a second wall, as well.

 

The only way it makes sense that the Hitler Youth could take over the mountain adults was if they did it IMMEDIATELY, while the adults were exhausted, stressed, hungry,disorganized and their numbers were now severly limited because they hadn't begun waking up any more Wayward Pinesicles. Without Ethan, the chances of them mounting an effective resistance were slimmer and some of the trained guards were now ineffective because of the dissent in their ranks. Only one of them seemed to be on the WP'ians side, so somehow our residents managed to disarm or restrain the others. The problem is that the HY didn't KNOW Ethan got 'sploded by his abbie killing elevator bomb or anything else about what was going on up there ... unless there were cameras in the mountain that transmitted to the bunker.. so Pilcher and his zealots could Skype.

 

The adults can also watch the kids, but the kids can't watch the adults. Who has the element of surprise? Also, Kate has damn good reason to watch (and guide) them.

 

The assumption would be that they have been training for this day since they were thawed. The day came. They spent a few months in that bunker waiting for the abbies to leave and for the 'adults' to repair the wall; they trained and planned. The 'adults', believing everyone else had died and having nothing else to fear now, put their weapons away and began their lives anew - without rules and guards and surveillance.

 

It would be very easy for a group of well-trained, well-armed, brainwashed first-genners to pull off a surprise attack. They'd be the only ones with weapons; they have no problem killing people. And without surveillance, no one would see them coming. Voila! No flashbacks required.

No flashback required, but all this occurred off-screen at best -- in you own ret-con at worst. They could have spared some time to show this.

 

So, are there now First Gen people who are staffing the mountain control center and no longer come to WP?   Why would they sign up for that?  Why would anyone sign up for that?  No fresh air, no daylight, no granite countertops in the lovely homes they are spying on all day long...

Yes, who decides who goes to the mountain and who stays behind? Who gets the fake jobs and who gets the real ones? The kids have frozen all the volunteers, so guess, what, you do it yourself or you do without.

The "arc" had a lot of supplies -- maybe enough for a couple of months at best.

[queenanne]

Amy said all the adults were frozen. I take that to mean all the people in WP at the end are new. Group C. They don't know anything about what is outside.

Group B people are either dead (from the HY revolution) or refrozen.

 

If “the adults are all frozen”, I’d call the frozen adults in question, “Group C, and remnants of Group B”.  Unless the First Gen were supposed to be unfrozen Group C, which I didn’t get from the story.  I state this because from the bird’s eye view of a fortysomething, all the people roaming around in Ben’s World looked frightfully, appallingly young. I didn’t see anyone that would have been considered an older “adult”, which suggests no one unfroze “Group C”.

 

As for the rest, I vote that Creepy Teacher didn’t think she DESERVED the Ark, thus she didn’t run to the Ark.

 

It seems like whenever someone had to veer away from the books they didn’t know what to do.  I’m ashamed for him if they’re going to tell us that M. Night conceptualized that stuff. 

 

Firstly it doesn’t look like anyone ever committed to Ben and Amy as a real couple, yet they didn’t ‘not-commit’ to it either, which has me confused when they’re acting like “A Love Story We Are Supposed to Root For”, as opposed to “Secret Members of a Clinical, Utterly Creepy When It’s Teens Being Discussed, and Not At All Romantic Breeding Initiative”, the latter of which makes me not give a damn about Amy (and, frankly, the Amy actress makes Ben’s portrayer seem like Melissa Leo in the acting department).  Beverly makes no sense.  Turncoat Heroine Pam makes no sense, except as a reward for Melissa Leo’s status as a trooper and MVP.  I like the idea posted by the people who think this is not the first time they tried integrating Ethan which thus explains Beverly, but explain it to us, geez.  This creative team seems to suffer from severe “Since we have read the books, we will assume the entire audience has, and thus will understand all the backstory from it exists by osmosis, without us stating or using it”. 

 

Secondly, in order to tell the story with Hitler-Haired Youth taking over in a manner that is both good and convincing, we need HHY to have been an actual present character in conflict with Ben in earlier episodes, indicating that he will be a player in the future.  “We’re the First Gen.” *jabs thumb at chest and throws chin high in air*, in Episode 9, won’t cut it.  I was all with Arlene “well… bully for you??”  I thought we were just meandering around with Amy and Ben’s facsimile of a sham of a love story.  “Antagonist who appears from out of nowhere, almost literally, in the eleventh hour, and not only that, but becomes the Ultimate Antagonist, undefeatable”, is universally-acknowledged horrible writing, done only for a "Gotcha!".

 

Thirdly, the plotting and setup where she has to pretend to be a successfully brainwashed zombie, hamstrung Kate like nobody’s business, allowing her to leak or show no particular FBI-related skillz other than being declared “resistance leader”, until she picked up a gun.  Seriously, she might have been any human being with any skillset.  The flashbacks were a step in the right direction but too little, too late – from time to time I forgot she even existed, which is sad because after Melissa Leo, Carla G. turned in the best acting performances of the show.

[SlackerInc]

Who would work min the sweatshops of the mountain bunker. These kids are all chiefs -- none of them would deign to manual labor

[snip]

I thought I saw a second wall, as well.

 

How can you be sure the kids are "all chiefs"?  Weren't there quite a few that seemed to just follow their leader around and not say boo?

 

I thought for a moment that was a second wall, but then I decided that was actually the wall, and I had just erroneously thought initially that the treeline around the town was the wall.

Edited July 25, 2015 by SlackerInc

[janie jones]

If Pilcher did the same thing to Group A where were the Abbies during the flashback where we saw him walking around the town by himself with all the destruction, dead bodies, etc.?

Oh, good point.  But I also wouldn't put it past these people to just leave out the bodies in the flashback not to give the ending away.  And it doesn't mean that the families didn't kill themselves because they knew the abbies were coming.

 

I thought there was already a town called Wayward Pines before Pilcher built his version. Didn't the clerk at the convenience store give Theresa directions to Wayward Pines?

Yeah, and there were those two kids buying gumballs or whatever.

 

In the very beginning of the show, when they did a panoramic view of the town - did it look to anyone else like the second wave of Abbies were carrying torches? I could have sworn I saw lights in the forest. Plus, really, just how did they tag all the Abbies?

I saw those too!  I thought it was hinting at some twist that there were people living out there, but no.  My husband suggested it was fireflies, but I'm 99% certain fireflies don't live in the mountain forests of Idaho, though I suppose their range could have changed in the last 2000 years.  Or maybe the writers don't know where fireflies live and they were supposed to be fireflies.  Or the CGI people were like, "Oooh, let's put lights in the forest!  It will be pretty!"  And tagging the Abbies - do you mean, how do they have red lights indicating where all the abbies were?  My husband suggested that you could just see them in the satellite image and they made each white dot red, but the use/existence of a 2000-year-old satellite aside, they're in the forest.  You couldn't see them from above. 

 

Speaking of the Abbies, someone upthread mentioned rabid and that's when I realized what is wrong with the abbies as apex predators. They don't act at all like predators. Predation requires a certian level of stealth at least at some point, especially when prey is scarce, and even when it's abundant. The Abbies just ran amok attacking and killing everything in sight, even when it was far more than they needed for food. Unless all the attacking was done by males and then they take leftovers back to an enormous hidden herd of females and youngsters, the level of carnage was far beyond what made any sense in the natural world.

I couldn't understand why they were all so hungry all the time, and my husband suggested they were hunting for sport.  Okay, I guess?  But if they're hunting for sport is it worth it to them to bust through windows and elevators and climb up elevator shafts to do so?

 

"Mankind's" destruction of the environment as an explantion of what happened... I'm thinking that was all a big lie too (like "Group A all went nuts and committed suicide") and Pilcher actually instigated a nucleur holocaust so he could re-boot humanity as it's supreme leader. He had his minions and hostages all frozen already, and all his stores of supplies laid in. He could make up whatever story he wanted to tell them when they woke up. I think HE destroyed mankind and the environment. Maybe he was shocked when he woke up to learn that some humans survived and mutated.

But isn't his destruction of mankind spiel how he got followers?  I think the volunteers were already told that story before they got frozen. This doesn't mean he didn't instigate some type of holocaust, but the state of the world wasn't a surprise to the newly awoken volunteers.  (Although, yeah, they might have discovered the abbies when they first came out of the bunkers.  In that case, good thing they stockpiled the supplies to build that wall, just in case.)

 

The falling debris I do buy.  It was blown upward in the shaft, past the doorway, and got him on the way back down.

Didn't it hit him in the forehead as it flew up while he was looking down?

 

As for the rest, I vote that Creepy Teacher didn’t think she DESERVED the Ark, thus she didn’t run to the Ark.

I had a similar thought, but I thought of it more like the ark didn't BELONG to her.  You don't go into your roommate's room and grab a sweatshirt if you're cold because it isn't yours.  You get your own sweatshirt.  Of course if a normal person is freezing to death they might steal their roommate's sweatshirt, but I don't think she's a normal person.

[starri]

How can you be sure the kids are "all chiefs"?  Weren't there quite a few that seemed to just follow their leader around and not say boo?

Because the kids had been brainwashed into thinking that they were personally chosen as humanity's last hope. No one is going to take on surveillance duty when when their only job is to lead what's left of humanity into the future.

[SlackerInc]

We've been calling them "Hitler Youth".  Well, Hitler was very inspiring at the Nuremburg rally and so on, and flattered his followers as being part of a "master race".  But many of them were still helping fulfill their "Aryan destiny" with menial jobs.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Wayward Pines Covers Its Bases, Delivers An Unsatisfactory Season AND Series Finale / Who knew we couldn't trust M. Night Shyamalan?

[TheRabbi]

I found the first half of the series rather captivating, if you embrace it as B-level sci-fi.  But these last 3 or 4 episodes I just thought were rather awful.  Once the mystery about the town was answered, it felt more like a bad soap, and the finale just a bad action movie (though Ethan sacrificing himself was nice).  And then that ending, which has been shit on enough in here already that I don't feel the need to pile on.  So overall I'm disappointed in the direction this went in after a promising start.

[Fable]

I feel cheated.  I think the story would have been better served if they hadn't introduced all of the mysterious elements in the first few episodes.  I could possibly buy the concept of a mad scientist and his crazy plans for saving mankind (though to be fair, I probably wouldn't have watched since sci-fi is not really my genre), but the show runners or the author of the books, whoever is responsible for this cluster-fuck, were intentionally misleading by trying to add an aspect of intrigue that was completely unnecessary to this story.  I could have even forgiven that if they had tried to at least wrap up and explain some of the weirdness, but they didn't even give us that, and instead just jumped head first into the futuristic stuff and never looked back.  What a hot mess this show turned out to be!

[SoothingDave]

I hadn't considered that there were enough First Generation to both populate the town and run all the behind the scenes stuff. So assumed they had to unfreeze Group C. I could be wrong. There could also be enough volunteers and guards that were loyal "Pilcherists"

I think the abbies on the screen were picked up by surveillance via heat and not because they were tagged. Like infrared scanning. A human-sized warm-blooded being would be easy to pick up. Like cops do from a helicopter when hunting for a fugitive.

[Milburn Stone]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Wayward Pines Covers Its Bases, Delivers An Unsatisfactory Season AND Series Finale / Who knew we couldn't trust M. Night Shyamalan?

 

Hey, everybody who liked the episode, go to the recap and cast your vote thumbs up, so we can win!  :)

[Tabasco Cat]

Hey, everybody who liked the episode, go to the recap and cast your vote thumbs up, so we can win!  :)

 

What are we supposed to be winning? For what it's worth I enjoyed Alex's recaps all season long until this last one. He mailed it in. Which is all the show deserved, but I thought it was lackluster. So I will politely decline to give a thumbs-up to anything.

[Milburn Stone]

For the record, the thumbs-up thumbs-down is for the episode, not the recap. (It is assumed that the recaps are always exemplary.)  :)

 

At the risk of being reductionist concerning the views of the vast majority who loathed the episode, it seems to me that some people didn't like how it ended because it was a downer. (Alex wishes it ended with Kate and Theresa and hopefulness.) But even though it was a downer, it was a plausible and valid ending. (If you accept the premises laid out, like that the Hitler Youth had overwhelming weapons and supplies, etc., and don't get too hung up on plot holes.) I don't need to feel good to feel satisfied. 

Edited July 25, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[Free]

At the risk of being reductionist concerning the views of the vast majority who loathed the episode, it seems to me that some people didn't like how it ended because it was a downer. (Alex wishes it ended with Kate and Theresa and hopefulness.) But even though it was a downer, it was a plausible and valid ending. (If you accept the premises laid out, like that the Hitler Youth had overwhelming weapons and supplies, etc., and don't get too hung up on plot holes.) I don't need to feel good to feel satisfied.

 

My problem was what we were left with at the end: uninteresting, annoying characters (some of whom were only just introduced in the last 2 eps).

 

As for downer endings, I would've preferred the abbies wiping everyone out to being stuck with Ben and the Pilcher Youth.

[KaveDweller]

At the risk of being reductionist concerning the views of the vast majority who loathed the episode, it seems to me that some people didn't like how it ended because it was a downer. (Alex wishes it ended with Kate and Theresa and hopefulness.) But even though it was a downer, it was a plausible and valid ending. (If you accept the premises laid out, like that the Hitler Youth had overwhelming weapons and supplies, etc., and don't get too hung up on plot holes.) I don't need to feel good to feel satisfied. 

 

I didn't have an issue with it being a downer, I have an issue with the fact that it seemed to come out of nowhere and I don't think it seems plausible for the Hitler Youth to have taken over.  If they had spent time setting up that group of characters and their motivation earlier, or if we had seen the takeover play out, I would have liked it better.  It felt like they just wanted to come up with something shocking without working out the details.

[theatremouse]

I have more of a problem buying that the dude who was shot in the gut and just sitting around a jail cell for hours, then straight to a bunker, survived than I do buying the youth staged some sort of a coup later. I also took issue with only 3 years 4 months passing and Amy is a nurse. I thought she was supposed to be something like a high school sophomore or junior when this began. So not only is that super fast to get through nursing school; it's super fast to finish high school. Unless we're supposed to be thinking once hypnoteacher finishes the initial "can you handle the truth" lecture they don't complete what would resemble actual high school but go directly into some sort of advanced training for their future expected positions. Should've been a bigger timejump, but I'm assuming the Amy actress just plain wouldn't have been believable as older so they didn't. Otherwise it was a puzzling choice.

Edited July 26, 2015 by theatremouse

[Morrigan2575]

For the record, the thumbs-up thumbs-down is for the episode, not the recap. (It is assumed that the recaps are always exemplary.) :)

At the risk of being reductionist concerning the views of the vast majority who loathed the episode, it seems to me that some people didn't like how it ended because it was a downer. (Alex wishes it ended with Kate and Theresa and hopefulness.) But even though it was a downer, it was a plausible and valid ending. (If you accept the premises laid out, like that the Hitler Youth had overwhelming weapons and supplies, etc., and don't get too hung up on plot holes.) I don't need to feel good to feel satisfied.

My problem isn't that it ended on a downer, it's that the final clip is totally out of sync with the previous Kate/Pam scene. If they wanted to do dark and logical then flash forward 3 years and have Pam and/or Kate in the Pilcher role. If you want to show that humanity is always doomed to fail because of our nature then have the heroes turn into villains. This could have easily turned into a "road to hell" storyline.

The First Generation managing to out last the Abbies and take over both the town and the mountain in 3 years requires too many logic jumps and hand waving to be satisfactory, IMO.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Morrigan2575

[plurie]

I hated the ending. Not because it was "dark," but because it was stupid. If the Hitler Youth froze all the "adults," ther's no one in town with more than a high school education. Who trained Amy to be a nurse? What are they going to do without doctors, engineers, teachers, etc.? If you want to rebuild society, and keep things running in the Mountain (and, therefore, in WP), you need trained personnel. Not a bunch of high school grads and teenagers with no adultvsupervision!

[Neurochick]

My problem was I didn't care about the first generation. To me they looked like a bunch of people who got rejected from a CW show.

[jhlipton]

I think the abbies on the screen were picked up by surveillance via heat and not because they were tagged. Like infrared scanning. A human-sized warm-blooded being would be easy to pick up. Like cops do from a helicopter when hunting for a fugitive.

 

What surveillance? They have never shown aerial footage like this (nor did they mention the "migration"!), so is the helicopter up? Do they have drones? There was nothing in the previous episodes to show this.

 

But even though it was a downer, it was a plausible and valid ending. ... don't get too hung up on plot holes.

It was plausible except for the parts that weren't!  I'm glad you enjoyed the show (and the finale), but most of us did not.

[janie jones]

 What surveillance? They have never shown aerial footage like this (nor did they mention the "migration"!), so is the helicopter up? Do they have drones? There was nothing in the previous episodes to show this.

I thought they showed Pilcher watching the abbies running toward town on his monitor at his desk.

[DEM]

I thought they showed Pilcher watching the abbies running toward town on his monitor at his desk.

 

Yes, but the point is that one needs equipment to be able to see 'glowing warm bodies'. The bodies either need to be tagged or there needs to be overhead surveillance equipment.

[Accidental Martyr]

I have more of a problem buying that the dude who was shot in the gut and just sitting around a jail cell for hours, then straight to a bunker survived than I do buying the youth staged some sort of a coup later.

Maybe gunshot wounds sometimes magically go away after a day or two like on "Under The Dome." ;)

[janie jones]

Yes, but the point is that one needs equipment to be able to see 'glowing warm bodies'. The bodies either need to be tagged or there needs to be overhead surveillance equipment.

I agree.  Whether that's what happened on the show, and whether it is humanly possible are two different issues.  My interpretation of the post I quoted was that the original poster was saying that they weren't monitoring the abbies, and I was saying that they showed Pilcher doing just that.  I never said I thought that made any sense. Edited July 26, 2015 by janie jones

[dlr]

I didn't get that Meagan survived at all...

The banging on the door turned into growling and next thing we know, the hallway is overrun with abbies. I figured they ate her on their way down the corridor. Was I supposed to think otherwise?

Even though they deny another season, I took it as leaving an opening for her to come back again. Without showing her die explicitly, they could show her ducking into one of the doors down there. I think there were two or three points in the show where Ethan asked where the other doors went to.

 

How do the the abbies know the fence was down?

I think that the lights along the top went off. If this were a regular occurrence (not saying it was), an animal would eventually learn what it meant.

 

I thought they showed Pilcher watching the abbies running toward town on his monitor at his desk.

 

Yep, now he has IR surveillance blimps/satellites/drones that no one noticed before too!

 

BUT, I am out for anymore of this, there are just too many things that make no sense or are completely implausible. 

Edited July 26, 2015 by dlr

[Centaur]

Pam was seriously psychotic for 3/4 of the season. She was salivating at the thought of the next reckoning. She wanted to be sheriff so she could do some reckoning herself. Within a few days she became a fluffy care bear.

[gameoff]

Just finished the episode and haven't read through the comments yet.

 

 I went from kind of annoyed thinking that the whole thing was a figment of Ben's coma and then slightly okay with that because then at least Ethan would still be alive --not that he was the greatest character ever, but I did like him sometimes -- to back to annoyed when it was revealed the First Generation was running things with an iron fist.  As far as I know this was a one-shot show but the 'ending' leaves room for more.  I think it should've ended on the shot of the monitor with Pam and Kate talking by the containment units.

 

Overall, I don't know how I feel about this show yet.  I think I wanted the whole thing to be a big experiment in the present time, not really in the future.  

 

Oh, and go Pam for taking down her brother!  

[MiseryIndex]

I have joined just to respond here. That was one of the best endings to a tv show I've ever seen. And I'm a fan of the books, which has a twist but is completely different to the show (no spoilers if no-one knows obv). Seriously, you didn't like that ending?? It was great, looking back all the clues were set up at it makes sense but i still didn't see it coming. Generally thought the show was 50/50 bad/great, but I loved, LOVED the ending.

But they didn't even mention the first generation ring wearing leader people until the next to last episode. It seemed out of nowhere. And they basically win in the end. It's unsatisfying.

Yes, but the point is that one needs equipment to be able to see 'glowing warm bodies'. The bodies either need to be tagged or there needs to be overhead surveillance equipment.

The amount of technology he brought to the future that he didn't even known would need is absurd. He has so much survalence equipment not knowing he would use it to spy on his own people.

My biggest issue is the power but water and food sources are also something that never gets mentioned. And all it takes I'd one short conversation to offer some kind of explanation. I feel we were owed that.

[SlackerInc]

I feel cheated.  I think the story would have been better served if they hadn't introduced all of the mysterious elements in the first few episodes.  I could possibly buy the concept of a mad scientist and his crazy plans for saving mankind (though to be fair, I probably wouldn't have watched since sci-fi is not really my genre), but the show runners or the author of the books, whoever is responsible for this cluster-fuck, were intentionally misleading by trying to add an aspect of intrigue that was completely unnecessary to this story.

 

I do like sci-fi, but I think this is a fair criticism.  I have complained that the early episodes involved a lot of misdirection that didn't add up to anything; you raise another aspect of the same problem: tricking non-sci-fi fans into watching a sci-fi show.

 

I have more of a problem buying that the dude who was shot in the gut and just sitting around a jail cell for hours, then straight to a bunker survived than I do buying the youth staged some sort of a coup later.

 

Good point.  I thought it was cold-blooded of Ethan not to seek medical attention for him; but you're right, without any apparent medical staff in the bunker that is a stretch.

 

My problem isn't that it ended on a downer, it's that the final clip is totally out of sync with the previous Kate/Pam scene.

 

It was jarring, for sure.  I go back and forth: I defend it because it was so shocking and yet (I believe) defensible in terms of plausibility (especially by the standard of plausibility within this show).  But you're right that it retroactively makes that earlier scene seem rather pointless, so the whole thing ends up with a bit of a lumpy dramatic structure.

 

Yes, but the point is that one needs equipment to be able to see 'glowing warm bodies'. The bodies either need to be tagged or there needs to be overhead surveillance equipment.

 

What about IR sensors mounted in trees?

 

Pam was seriously psychotic for 3/4 of the season. She was salivating at the thought of the next reckoning. She wanted to be sheriff so she could do some reckoning herself. Within a few days she became a fluffy care bear.

 

This was absolutely one of the biggest problems I had.  I haven't read the books, but in his review of the finale Dan Fienberg said Pam in the books was consistent all the way through to the character we saw in the early going: "In the books, Pam is vicious, vengeful and virtually unkillable. She's Nurse Ratched meets The Terminator. She's exactly what Leo was playing with such relish in the first five episodes".  So the blame for this radical shift is all on the TV writers and showrunners.

 

It's funny: though I disagree with a lot of the specific criticisms of the show, there are many others that I can't dispute...and yet, in the end, I still found it a pretty enjoyable, entertaining watch.  ::shrug::

[Free]

But they didn't even mention the first generation ring wearing leader people until the next to last episode. It seemed out of nowhere. And they basically win in the end. It's unsatisfying.

 

Exactly, the plot twist relies on characters that haven't done much in the long run or were only introduced in the last 2 episodes, which feels cheap considering it should've been a culmination of a build up throughout the 10 episodes.  What do we get: the Pilcher Youth in the tail end of the season, Ben (who spent 9 episodes going along with everything with no resistance whatsoever until the finale), and everything else basically gone for this plot twist to happen.

[KaleyFirefly]

Wow, I had low expectations but this ending just sucked. I agree with the previous posters' comments: it was out of nowhere, unsatisfying on many levels, and made no sense. I don't know how it ended in the books but I hope it was better than this. One of the worst TV show endings I've seen in a long time.

[janie jones]

I do like sci-fi, but I think this is a fair criticism.  I have complained that the early episodes involved a lot of misdirection that didn't add up to anything; you raise another aspect of the same problem: tricking non-sci-fi fans into watching a sci-fi show.

 

It's funny: though I disagree with a lot of the specific criticisms of the show, there are many others that I can't dispute...and yet, in the end, I still found it a pretty enjoyable, entertaining watch.  ::shrug::

I think these are both interesting comments.  My husband is a sci-fi fan, and I (in general) am not, and although he agreed with all the complaints I had, he didn't really find the show as off-putting as I did.  And if I had realized that this was a sci-fi show, I probably wouldn't have watched in the first place.  I was expecting a mystery show or some sort of The Lottery type situation.

[SoothingDave]

Someone questioned upthread if the abbies were "tagged" and that was how they were being tracked.

I was just pointing out that it could be simply heat sensors and not that Pilcher had bagged and tagged (and possibly created/controlled) every abbie.

[candall]

I've seen the final. WTF? I want those 10 hours of my life back. 12 hours. I want 12 hours. I want interest.

I've seen the first two episodes--which I call "100% questions, 0% answers"--and I have the last eight on DVR.  But this very post has inspired me to delete the whole magilla.

 

Too late for you, but you saved others.  [iMDb emoticon saluting with the frothy beer mug]