S01.E08: Saviour Day

[ApathyMonger]

With seven days to go until the predicted end of the world, Jamie seriously underestimates Ariel's intelligence when the pair come face to face in uncertain circumstances. Scotty, Gaines and the team anxiously wait to see if they have done enough to save the world, while Sr Celine is forced to make a major decision about her future, and there are huge consequences when Fr Jude makes a daring stand against the Vatican hierarchy.

 

Getting close to the end.

[ApathyMonger]

Well that ending was dark as hell. I figured something like that was coming as Lowe has another series (and it was sort of foreshadowed a few weeks ago when he talked the guy down from the tower), but still.

 

Also one of the funnier episodes in a while, which is odd considering the main storyline involved the kidnapping of a little girl.

[tessaray]

Well, that was depressing.  Especially since vomit was the most fun thing in the episode...

 

You know, I get that the rest of the world thinks the US is awful when it comes to prisoners and military tribunals but executing someone in such a short period of time?  That just takes me out of the story.  (Like most of the rest of the story set in the US.  And Savior is not spelled Saviour here. That's bugged me since they first showed it.)

 

Now if they'd hustled Rhonda onto a cargo plane headed to Guantanamo, sure.  

[Ceindreadh]

What gets me is that surely Scotty has gained enough brownie points with the president at this point to get a pardon for Rhonda.

Poor Celine, no wonder she was so upset in the bunker.

And poor Gaines at the end, but I'm happy to see that he made it to the bunker in Slough.

Speaking of which, who do we know so far ends up in the bunker?

We've seen Rhonda, Spike, Scotty, Gaines, Celine, Frankie, Dave, an unknown person in a crate, the batty old lady who had the bunker built and her doctor.

Have we seen Layla in the bunker yet?

[Helena Dax]

Omg,  poor Jude! I  liked him a  lot and his reaction to the convent's  party had been hilarious....  and those awful priests killed him!!!!

 

This show is awesome,  I don't understand why it isn't a hit. That final moment  when Gaines started to cry broke  my  heart, although I think they should have been honest  with everyone. It was a very stupid lie,  considering you can't hide the bloody asteroid.  It's still there, coming to Earth, and anyone can make some numbers and find out the truth. 

[formerlyfreedom]

Originally aired in the UK on 18 November 2015; airing in the US on Thursday, March 17, 2016. If you enter before viewing, you MAY be spoiled!

[Browncoat]

I did not see that ending with Jude and Celine coming at.all.

 

I normally detest vomit jokes, but in this case, yay, vomit!  But Ariel's still out there somewhere.  Poor Dave.

[llongori]

Oh my God!  They killed Jude.  You bastards!!

 

Holy crap!  Jude!  NO!!  I loved Rob in this role more than any I've seen in recent years.  I didn't think they'd end up happily together, but WOW!

[possibilities]

I hated the romance between Celine and Jude, but even I was horrified by his death.

 

I do think, though, that he should have known they would not allow him to just hang around with the inside knowledge he had. He should have tried to wait just outside the convent door, or in some other designated safer place, not where he was basically a sitting duck for malfeasance.

 

Also, if the Pope was not part of the plot to create a false messiah, wouldn't it have made sense to try to get a message to the Pope? I hope he mailed those kinds of letters before he delivered his message to Celine. If not, I have to say, that makes my aversion to the romance even stronger. It kind of proves it's not real, but is a distraction from other issues.

 

Maybe his faith is strong enough that he thinks God will intervene and take care of the situation, but I was raised with the idea that God doesn't get us off the hook for doing all we can to take care of business. So to me, if he didn't do something with his knowledge, and just wanted to run off into the fog of romance with Celine, it looks like he was given the opportunity to forestall a major crime and he just turned away. What if he was meant to be a messenger? It's as likely that God put him in that position as a way to stop the Anti-Christ, right? I'm not even Catholic, but within the theology of the Church, isn't the warning of the Apocalypse an opportunity for people to repent before the final judgment? And giving false hope means interfering with God's offer of an opportunity to repent? So, Jude refusing his responsibility to expose what he saw as being the Anti-Christ, is actually a very big mistake.

 

I don't know if the show meant for us to analyze it from the theological perspective, and I might be getting it wrong since (again) I'm not Catholic (or even any other sort of Christian). It seems like the movie trope would that Celine and Jude had true love and we should root for them, and think Jude dying was just one big romantic tragedy. But eh. It's too easy, too cliche. Even aside from teh religious questions, when Jude claimed that cult marriage was real, I was even more convinced he was in a state of selfish delusion, because that's a total retcon even from just his internal character point of view.

 

I liked that they explained a mundane reason why Giraffe Girl recognized Jaime as her father. She watched his videos! I had not realized he was posting them on the web. I had thought it was just his personal diary.

 

Felt terrible for Dave with his eye still bandaged. It wasn't just a bruise, then. So terrible.

[lucindabelle]

So glad I came here I thought he hanged himself because he'd lost his faith and I was confused. But why would the priests hang him now that the world is saved?

[Big Mother]

With Rob Lowe going on The Grinder, I guess they had to write him off. Oddly enough, I'm catching u on parks n Rec, and between that, the grinder, and YMATA, I have Rob Lowe overload on my screen. I think the YMATA role is my favorite.

[possibilities]

The in-show reason I think they killed him to keep him from revealing their plan. Of course, out of show, it would be to get Lowe out of his contract, but in-show I took it as a hush up.

[sjohnson]

Jude's "suicide" is apocalypse humor, in spades. 

 

Rhonda's rediscovery of her love for Scotty was too, in a different way.

[iMonrey]

I was kind of hoping Ariel would blow up - like maybe Jamie managed to plant the bomb on him while he was hugging him. But nope, he just managed to run away. Kind of a let-down.

 

Personally I've found the whole Jude and Celine plot tedious from the start and wish they'd cut the whole thing out of the show and focused on the other characters who have more interesting stories. Sure that was a shocking ending for Jude, but on the other hand it annoyed me how Celine walked in and just stood there in shock without doing anything. For all she knows Jude is still alive and she should have immediately scrambled to cut him down. 

[ASpring1900]

With Rob Lowe going on The Grinder, I guess they had to write him off. Oddly enough, I'm catching u on parks n Rec, and between that, the grinder, and YMATA, I have Rob Lowe overload on my screen. I think the YMATA role is my favorite.

 

Jenna Fischer guested on this week's The Grinder as Dean's fiancee in a flashback, and I was SO happy to see the two on the same show... though they have not interacted at all on YMATA!

 

Could someone explain it to me like I'm Leanne's kids what happened to Jude? I must have missed something. He seemed ready to start his life with Celine. The priesthood killed him as a cover up because he wasn't on board with their fake Messiah? 

 

I really, really enjoy this show. It gets better every week. It is one of the few shows I really look forward to watching.

[AuntiePam]

 

Could someone explain it to me like I'm Leanne's kids what happened to Jude? I must have missed something. He seemed ready to start his life with Celine. The priesthood killed him as a cover up because he wasn't on board with their fake Messiah? 

 

 

Apparently so.  I'm glad I came here because I'd forgotten about the little nod from the tribunal.  Suicide made no sense -- Jude was so happy.  

 

What I don't get is why the tribunal is so concerned with finding a messiah.  That's some real tunnel vision right there.  The world is ending -- there will be no church, no one to point and yell "You're fakes!"  Do they have some altruistic reason for producing a messiah?  Do they think Catholics will be happier about dying if they think the messiah has come?   

[rcc]

As a Catholic and painfully aware of the shenanigans the church has perpetrated over the years I knew watching those hypocrites that Jude was going to be punished for not playing along.

 

This show is very controversial in so many ways. The phony president and the government cover-up another example. Two more episodes to go. Then the end of it since NBC wants big ratings and the bottom line always wins.

[lucindabelle]

hah, funny that it didn't even occur to me to mind the government cover up. I feel like that shit happens and even if it doesn't it happens a lot in movies. The fake suicide just made no sense to me though, not if the world is safe.

[BusyOctober]

I liked Rob Lowe in this and I was shocked at how his character ended up! Thank goodness I can still see him on "The Grinder". He's so great in that show.

I've liked this series so far, but I'm curious how/if it will continue for a 2nd season. Would we just see life inside the US bunker vs. the U.K. bunker?

If there is another season, I'm hoping Megan Malally's character doesn't survive. I like the actress but can't stand the accent or the faux teeth. I FF'd through most of her scenes.

[rhys]

I must be really dense. I didn't understand the government lie at all. Is the asteroid off course or not?

[AuntiePam]

I must be really dense. I didn't understand the government lie at all. Is the asteroid off course or not?

 

The asteroid is not off course.  I suppose the rationale for the lie is to prevent a total societal breakdown, let us all die thinking everything's okay.

 

What I want to know -- sorta -- is if the people who know the truth are going to be executed.  It sure looked like it.  That's harsh.

 

I also want to know how they managed to string Jude up so quickly, and without any sign of a struggle.  Did they drug him first?

[BW Manilowe]

With Rob Lowe going on The Grinder, I guess they had to write him off. Oddly enough, I'm catching u on parks n Rec, and between that, the grinder, and YMATA, I have Rob Lowe overload on my screen. I think the YMATA role is my favorite.

Have you seen him in anything earlier than Parks and Recreation? Just curious.

[sjohnson]

One of the most interesting things about the Sundance series The Honourable Woman was the scene which showed how a suicide can be faked. It involved several people suddenly attacking the person, holding them flat against a door off its hinges. The greater numbers prevented the victim from successfully struggling, while being held rigid against the door allowed the victim to be raised up. The HBO series The Wire showed another variation on the faked suicide, with the murder of D'Angelo Barkley in prison.

 

But I'm not sure that either method can be relied upon to leave no evidence. It wouldn't take much for a victim, even one struggling against four or five assailants, to scratch one, leaving evidence under the fingernails in conditions hard for the murderers to clean up. I suspect that the real advantage for people faking suicide is the desire of the police to close cases easily. Accusing the dead of murdering themselves has the advantage that it does not require a full trial, nor does the accused defend themselves. 

[TheRabbi]

I found this to be a fantastic episode. I also had to come here because I thought Jude hung himself and was utterly confused.

I hope they address how no one from the savior team is going to be available for comment. Do none of them have families? Certainly they would be wanted for media interviews. One tweet wouldn't cut it.

[Big Mother]

Have you seen him in anything earlier than Parks and Recreation? Just curious.

No, I didnt. I hadnt heard of him before i watched Parks N Rec.

 

This episode was much darker than the previous ones. Why did the team who failed at Operation savior have to be killed? Why ddi Jude have to be killed? It looked like suicide for sure, but only context makes me believe he was killed. Still, it's a stretch.

 

I was also dumbfounded by the bomb-in-the-giraffe plot - Jamie couldve tossed it far, far away and he wouldnt be harmed when it was detonated.

[whiporee]

 

Do they think Catholics will be happier about dying if they think the messiah has come?

 

Oh course they would. It's what the bible says, and that was Jude's complaint -- that the Church would be acting as the anti-Christ and presenting a false messiah. But the Church's position was that the faithful would die believing they had not been lied to, that God had kept his promise. Once the world ended, God would figure it all out. 

 

I'm not Catholic, but my wife and kids are, and I'm pretty drenched in Catholicism these days (two boys just took First Communion, daughter is getting confirmed this year and my wife is taking bible classes), and I can tell you that one of the key components for the faithful is that THE CHURCH IS NEVER WRONG. So if the rock were to hit and the world were to end without Revelations being confirmed, a large portion of their congregation would feel utterly and totally lost and despondent, and feel as though one of the foundations of their lives had been a lie. I really did see the council's point as clearly as I saw Jude's -- when they are all dead, God will have a solution, but why deny the 1.2 billion faithful the chance to die with their beliefs intact. 

 

I also saw Jude's point, of course. 

 

As for his murder, they couldn't allow him to live after hearing their plan, even after believing Saviour worked. It, too, would rock the foundations of the church, and they  couldn't tolerate that.

 

Along those lines, though, i was bummed that Jude and Celine made love. I've come across a lot of priests and nuns, and the vast majority of them take their vows more seriously than they take anything else. While I could see the fireworks as a sign from God, I also thought the decision had a level of casualness that 99.9 percent of the clergy would find distasteful. Celine is rocking beautiful, and even more so in that sundress, but forsaking those vows would be a much bigger deal than the show portrayed it to be.

 

I'm a little biased on this subject, because I've spent four years writing a novel about a rock headed for earth (currently agented and being submitted to editors, which is a new definition of hell). The math of Saviour was wrong, both in the amount of time it took to come together and the idea of the explosion -- no one has enough lifting power to leave orbit with a bomb big enough to affect a rock that size in space -- and it takes a long, long time to put a rocket together, even working overtime.  But in terms of the overall stuff, they're doing a decent job for an asteroid movie. If they only bought MY book though .... 

[Moose135]

I hope they address how no one from the savior team is going to be available for comment. Do none of them have families? Certainly they would be wanted for media interviews. One tweet wouldn't cut it.

 

It's only a couple of days until the asteroid hits, right?  They could easily cover by saying the team is remaining to monitor it as it passed Earth, they only need a few days and then it won't matter.

[amaranta]

Well, that was depressing.  As soon as Jude disagreed I knew he was a goner but I was hoping I'd be wrong.  I'm uncertain how I felt about the romantic angle but I did like the search part of Celine and Jude's story.

 

I wonder if it's possible that Jude himself is the Second Coming?  Or at the very least, she stops crying, checks him and find he's not dead.  But we never did see him in the bunker.  Boo.

 

With Rob Lowe going on The Grinder, I guess they had to write him off. Oddly enough, I'm catching u on parks n Rec, and between that, the grinder, and YMATA, I have Rob Lowe overload on my screen. I think the YMATA role is my favorite.

 

 

If you have Netflix I highly recommend watching Lowe (and the rest of a remarkable cast) in The West Wing.  Though I too loved him in Parks.

 

I'll keep watching because I want to see how this ends.  And how Rhonda gets out and down to the bunker.  I'm betting on Scotty.

[Big Mother]

Wow, I had totally not realized he'd been one of the main characters on The West Wing. I tried that show but found it a bit tedious and heavy. I like light comedies more; this show I only got hooked on bc of its cast and bc it's on Hulu....

[Moose135]

When Jamie and Layla return to the boat and find the gift-wrapped box, I said "What's in the box???"  Then Jamie asked if she had seen the movie Seven and I literally laughed out loud!

[BW Manilowe]

Wow, I had totally not realized he'd been one of the main characters on The West Wing. I tried that show but found it a bit tedious and heavy. I like light comedies more; this show I only got hooked on bc of its cast and bc it's on Hulu....

Rob Lowe's been around, in various TV shows & TV movies, theatrical movies, & stage plays (at least on London's West End; I don't think he's done Broadway yet), since the mid-1970's, when he was a teenager. I'm surprised he never crossed your radar until YMATA. Especially since he's done notable projects, besides The West Wing, such as the movie version of S.E. Hinton's Young Adult novel (& staple of Middle School/High School English classes in many places, if not all over), The Outsiders, among others. He's also the author of 2 The New York Times Bestsellers-Listed Autobiographies/Memoirs, Stories I Only Tell My Friends & Love Life.

I'm sorry you found The West Wing "a bit tedious and heavy". Maybe it was the political setting that did that for you though. It really is considered a television classic by many, & well worth watching. It lasted 7 seasons, but Rob was only on through the end of the 4th as a regular. His character (Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn) was, however, referred to a few times in the remaining 3 seasons, & he did return as the character for 2 guest appearances in the last few episodes of the series.

His younger brother is actor/director Chad Lowe. His former sister-in-law is 2-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank.

Here's a link to his Wikipedia page:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Lowe

If you go through his Filmography, you might recognize some of his other works.

Edited March 21, 2016 by BW Manilowe

[Big Mother]

Ok, full disclosure, I do not watch TV or movies (very conservative religious community). With Hulu and such, I started watching some TV series online, so I haven't watched much that dates back to before 2005 or so. So my first exposure to Rob Lowe was Parks n Rec. I did try the West Wing several times but as I said, it's a show with a political setting, it's an hour-long, somehow it just didn't reel me in. I like light, half hour sitcoms rather. 

[RustbeltWriter]

Wow, a week to go and the people are still getting shafted by the corrupt powers that be. What's really funny is that the government's news that the asteroid has been moved off course really makes the church's lie harder on them. If they announce the second coming after the government announces their lie the church leaders would be shaking in their cassocks. For all they know they actually have to produce a Christ figure.