S02.E08: International Assassin

[formerlyfreedom]

In the wake of Kevin’s desperate decision to vanquish Patti, questions and answers emerge as the world adjusts to the repercussions of what comes next.

 

 

[revbfc]

To Kevin Finnerty, & beyond!

Edited November 23, 2015 by revbfc

[BreeBrit]

And just like LOST. I'm out, I'm sad because i liked them both the first season

[ToastnBacon]

Meh, kind of a waste of an episode, it was so very very Losty.

I guess the island chose Kevin.

Oh, I'm sure the ladies enjoyed seeing Kevin come out of the bathtub.

[Tim Thomason]

Okay. I guess this was a bye week for The Leftovers. It's too bad that Kevin doesn't have a more active imagination (I think "international assassins" do more than hang out in hotel rooms).

 

No, seriously, I get that this was an emotional melodrama that will hopefully effect Kevin for the rest of the series. And there is the fact that he was just Lazarused, which I guess we'll have to deal with in the next episode (or maybe the one after that, if Michael and Kevin decide to spend next week sitting around a campfire, or if they switch over to tell us what Dean's been up to).

 

I'll tune in next week, on the sole basis of previous episodes. In the meantime, I'm going to try to finish my Jessica Jones, a more realistic series for a change.

[revbfc]

And just like LOST. I'm out, I'm sad because i liked them both the first season

But there are only two episodes left. Let's finish the long fruitless slog together (in spirit at least). Edited November 23, 2015 by revbfc

[Mindymoo]

I knew this episode would be polarizing, but not that much! I loved every second of it.

[toomuchtv47]

I did too Mindy McIndy.  I thought it was fantastic.  Television gets so boring with everyone using the same formula but this show just says screw it.

 

International Assassin got me cause when Kevin looked through the closet, there wasn't much to choose from.  A robe of some kind, GR duds, the suit and his old Mapleton police jacket.  I would have picked the suit too.

 

I've still got to process but it's a thumbs up from me for sure.

[FanOfTheFans]

I liked the episode. At first I was like where the heck are they going with this but then it started to gel and I was engrossed. I am enjoying JT's acting. The first fight scene was intense.

I do dread the inevitable blame with the missing neighbor girl and subsequent fallout which I speculate is coming soon. I mean the guy gets no peace. I just want Kevin to have a little peace.

[izabella]

So Kevin was buried like the bird, and Michael was standing watch for three days? 

 

I am hoping Patti is dead-dead now. 

[PotterOtherP]

I just got back from the James Bond movie. This was way better.

 

The problem with LOST was that we were led to believe there would be rational explanations, and there were characters on the show who supposedly knew what was happening and weren't talking. This is different, so it's just a matter of whether or not you enjoy this kind of spiritual weirdness.

[Cardie]

The one show on television where you haven't a clue what they'll do next. I'll take some weirdness just for the surprises. The long shot where Kevin finally just shoves child-Patti into the well in the middle of her "Would it be better if" litany was priceless. And his ease in blasting everyone to smithereens because he knew they were all dead. (Did the balloons for Mary mean that she's already halfway gone?)

 

Cool to see that the locals (at least the dead ones) are aware of the story of the indigenous woman and that the well is in honor of her orphaned baby.

[TheodoraK]

i couldn't finish watching this. i stopped at the point where he sees his father in the fucked up tv. i almost never stop watching a tv show. i'm an addict. i have not hated anything this much since the end of Lost. is this all damon lindeloff???? has to be. i'm out. and i'm furious. i have no interest in this shit. i'm interested in the main characters and what they are doing in Miracle and what laurie is doing and where the freak Nora is....

 

can someone please tell me what happens in the rest of this crapfest? i am so angry and disappointed. i actually liked this show.

[stillshimpy]

After a week of far too much gritty reality in the actual world, I needed this bizarre, surrealist film festival of an episode.  I loved it.  I had no idea what would happen next and I adored that the man who shot himself last week, was doing so to help, to make amends.  To atone. ]

 

This show is just never going to be a straight drama.  It's not science-fiction either.   It's some sort of metaphysical fantasy in which they make no bones about it: They aren't out to answer questions and explain things.  We're in the same boat as the characters, constantly reeling around from the "What just happened?" of it all.  

 

Holy Wayne in the loo was one example of that.  "Wait, what?  Holy crap, this is awesomely bizarre."  

 

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the Concierge swatted that poor bird like a bug.  That oddly moved me more than anything having to do with Patty's multiple demises.  Patty was a truly awful person.  The Guilty Remnant is a truly terrible, sinister cult.  Still, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her at the bottom of that well.  Calling out for help from a person who has every reason, and perhaps every right to hate her....and of course Kevin climbed into the well and listened to her first.  

 

Sure, the entire episode was a hodgepodge of strange and bewildering, but it also made such strange sense (to me).  Kevin reached for the most anonymous of the outfits.  The least defining.  That he was then "an international assassin" cracked me up.  This really was the stuff of surrealism.   Truly dream-like.   

 

Scott Glenn via the god's tongue of TV channels?  Yup, loved it.  Loved that it was suggested that he was just in a different dimension, in the same room.   

 

This was a strange acid-trip of an episode, but Justin Thearoux made me care about Kevin's fate and the fact that he could mow down the GR jackasses without a qualm and I cared about both adult and child Patty.  That genuinely surprised me.  I dislike Patty's character so very much, but I felt honest pity for her when she finally revealed why the damn GR doesn't talk:  Because in her one bid for freedom, she discovered the frightening power of silence from another person.  The distance that creates.  That we tend to reach out to one another, even when we're adversaries.  It's part of being human.  

 

That she then taught an entire cult to use that power, to really lean into the "it doesn't matter, none of it matters, the world ended" stuff through silence because she couldn't leave her jackass of a husband, even when she'd found her way out.  It didn't matter.  That made Patty poignant to me, despite the scatological details about her repulsive husband (I mean, if ever there was a guy you could dump...you'd think it would be him).  

[TheodoraK]

okay, i read the other posts. i'm going to finish watching. if it pays off with the bird box and the indigenous woman, then i can bear it. and michael.

[shapeshifter]

I knew this episode would be polarizing, but not that much! I loved every second of it.

And, as is usual in life, from where I sit, I'm not seeing things from either end of the continuum: I liked some of it and was bored by other parts. The best part, IMO, was showing the character we have grown to hate as a child. People struggle to forgive, even when they believe in forgiveness; I guess they just need to see the person who hurt them as a child. IDK. When I was a child, kids were sometimes pretty cruel.

i almost never stop watching a tv show. i'm an addict.

I stop if there's too much gratuitous violence. The torture of Kevin almost did it for me, but it didn't go very far or long. The NPR reviewer called Man in the High Castle the best thing on this season, but it had too much torture, I guess to be true to the Nazi way. But I am still wondering if MITHC is really better than The Leftovers, Fargo, or even Manhattan. Maybe I'll watch it later if I have time.

Oh, I'm sure the ladies enjoyed seeing Kevin come out of the bathtub.

Actually, the way he put on the towel was more, er, ah, whatever.

Theroux must've been lifting weights prior to that scene. It's funny how Don Johnson in the 1980s Miami Vice pilot was just as attractive without the muscles.

Edited November 23, 2015 by shapeshifter

[Cosmocrush]

So Kevin was buried like the bird, and Michael was standing watch for three days? 

Oohhh.   Thank you.  I feel like I was in some horrible dream.  For a minute it reminded me of the episodes Tony Soprano was in Purgatory. 

 

I was so anxious [and confused] for the first 30 minutes or so and then I just went with it.  The music, the sounds, the scenario, all of it was super anxiety producing.   But one thing that did help was JT in that beautifully cut suit.   Wow.    

 

Maybe it helps that I never saw a single episode of Lost, maybe this show is just that well done but even though I was wondering what the hell was happening I was hooked.    What a ride!   I rarely say this but I think this show would have made an amazing novel; I wouldn't have to wait a week between chapters and maybe I could find the themes better, I don't know. 

Edited November 23, 2015 by Cosmocrush

[spaceghostess]

I had such a love/hate relationship with season one of this show, but this season has really grabbed me. I quit Lost a third of the way through because it felt rudderless. This is different, maybe because my expectations are different? I don't expect everything (or many things) on The Leftovers to be tied up in a neat little bow. I do hope for emotional payoffs, even if they're tiny ones, with the characters to whom I've become attached--and, for the most part, I haven't been disappointed. This episode is a good example: maybe I should've felt bullshitted by the surrealism of it all, but I didn't, because (a) it's fun not to know what the hell will happen next and (b) because Kevin's journey actually went somewhere.

 

Watching Kevin try to complete his mission--from sorting out the conflicting advice from Virgil and his dad to dealing with Patti's various incarnations--was compelling, moving television. I appreciate the fact that the show made Kevin--and us--face the abuse and loneliness that shaped Patti into the monster she became. Having to end her three times brought Kevin deeper and deeper into her pain, until the final act felt more like a mercy killing than the vanquishing of an enemy. I thought AD and JT acted the hell out of their last scene together.

 

Other things that worked for me this ep.:

--An early scene in the hotel room featured one of JT's expressions from his eyebrow acting contest with Stephen Colbert!

--Loved Pop Garvey's "visit". His room looked like Aboriginal party central--way more fun than Kevin's side of the screen. And his campfire kept setting off the fire alarm--heeee!

--Mary. I was thrilled to see her up and around and signing for gifts. Is this where she "lives" in her semi-comatose state? And who sent the balloons?

--The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi's Nabucco. Not sure why they chose it, but I liked how they used it.

 

ETA: opera stuff

Edited November 23, 2015 by spaceghostess

[Cosmocrush]

--Loved Pop Garvey's "visit". His room looked like Aboriginal party central--way more fun than Kevin's side of the screen. And his campfire kept setting off the fire alarm--heeee!

 

Oh geeze, I missed that connection too.  I guess I'm going to have to pour a(nother) drink and have a rewatch tomorrow night. 

[spaceghostess]

Answering my own pondering re: Slaves'Chorus: Perhaps that song of yearning for Jerusalem parallels the destination souls stuck in Kevin's Purgatory/Limbo/Wherever hope to reach? Or . . . the music person just thought it sounded cool.

Oh geeze, I missed that connection too.  I guess I'm going to have to pour a(nother) drink and have a rewatch tomorrow night. 

You're an intrepid soul. As much as I liked this one, it kind of shattered me. Don't think I'll be doing a re-watch anytime soon (even with liquid courage).

Edited November 23, 2015 by spaceghostess

[TheodoraK]

i'm glad i read the comments. that was compelling. the end part. and if this means that Patty is gone gone gone, then i would have watched 2 hours of that stuff. ann dowd is in everything these days. she's such a great actress. i can't even look at her anymore. she was so hateful in this role.

[loki567]

Good lord, that was terrible. I don't want to be overly-dramatic and all, "I am DONE with this show," but it really did freak me out what The Leftovers could evolve into a season from now. The episode really disappeared up into its own ass in a way I don't think the show's done before. Hell, Lost at its worst wasn't even that bad, I'm one of the people who didn't mind the Jack's tattoos episode. But this was awful and a few more episodes like that, I will stop wasting my time. 

[Trick Question]

Just when you thought poor Janel Moloney would actually get something to do in an episode....nope!  She and Liv Tyler must get together at the wrap party and perform a karaoke duet of "Money For Nothing."

[txhorns79]

Just when you thought poor Janel Moloney would actually get something to do in an episode....nope!  She and Liv Tyler must get together at the wrap party and perform a karaoke duet of "Money For Nothing."

 

I do sometimes wonder how much Janel Moloney is getting paid per episode to essentially sit in a chair and look blank.  That's nothing against the actress, it just seems like kind of a waste to cast her to mostly do nothing.  

 

I'm very mixed on this episode.  I feel like they don't really have enough episodes per season to justify these kind of flights of fancy.  I can appreciate a show taking risks, and I like what the Leftovers has done this season, but not really this.   

[guiltyremnant]

You know, I feel like I am the only one who likes Patti. I feel like she has always shown a bit of a soft spot for Kevin, and actually maybe allowing herself to get close to someone. I just saw her as a bitter and loveless woman because of the way she was always treated, either by her father or by Dale. She always thought of herself as nothing even as a small child, which probably lead her to kill herself the first time. I admit, I was sad to see her go. She was funny once she was limboing in purgatory, stuck to Kevin. I do wonder what the man on the bridge whispered to Kevin.

[BooBear]

I knew this episode would be polarizing, but not that much! I loved every second of it.

Me too. I think I laughed for the first 20 minutes because it was so wild. I kind of had the feeling that someone who wrote this has been stuck in a hotel before because I have and that was shockingly realistic.  Though to my knowledge I wasn't dead. It did start to drag after Kevin killed adult Patti but had me back when Patti told Kevin her game show story but then, he just kills her. Talk about a roller coaster.  That was so effective and touching becaue I agree that Patti I think does have some affection for Kevin and I think Kevin really has come to feel bad for Patti (thus her appearing as a child) and I felt like you could see that Kevin was making peace with his feelings about Patti as opposed to frantically trying to get rid of her -- which he has been doing for a while.

 

I was happy to see Gladys -- though did she have a different accent?

 

I also liked it because, frankly, it fits within the real world. Patti could have been 100% in Kevin's head and he just did compressed therapy in his coma. Some can say it was the bird thing that caused him to come back to life or, more likekly, he just wasn't dead when buried.

 

Was the guy on the bridge the crazy austrailian that claimed he came back to life? (mentioned in the first episodes) I would like to know what he said to Kevin.

 

Over all I think the writing has been so much better this year. Last year I felt people were walking around upset and I couldn't quite get what they were upset about no matter how many times they told me, but this year, they seem to have fixed this problem and are showing me rather than telling me.  That hour goes by quickly. I will miss Ann Dowd but I think it is time to lay Patti to rest.

[Save Yourself]

Did Lindelof pay Don Henley for ripping off 'Hotel California'?

[WearyTraveler]

I liked it!

 

I like how crazy this show is.  I never know what's going to happen next and the surprises are well done, they don't feel like the writers are doing surprises just to get that gotcha moment, they feel earned.

 

Also, being shallow for a second, JT is a fine looking man.

[Milburn Stone]

Cool to see that the locals (at least the dead ones) are aware of the story of the indigenous woman and that the well is in honor of her orphaned baby.

 

Not the fault of the episode, but totally on me, was the fact that I dozed off for certain moments during it. So I totally missed the part about the locals being aware of the story of the indigenous woman. Where/how was that disclosed?

[Milburn Stone]

I dislike Patty's character so very much, but I felt honest pity for her when she finally revealed why the damn GR doesn't talk:  Because in her one bid for freedom, she discovered the frightening power of silence from another person.).  

 

Oh no. I missed this part too. What was the one bid for freedom, and who was the other person with the frightening power of silence?

[BooBear]

Not the fault of the episode, but totally on me, was the fact that I dozed off for certain moments during it. So I totally missed the part about the locals being aware of the story of the indigenous woman. Where/how was that disclosed?

 I thought it was when Kevin and little Patti were driving to the well, Little Patti was reading from the pamplet concerning the well. At one point Little Patti couldn't pronounce indigenous.

Not the fault of the episode, but totally on me, was the fact that I dozed off for certain moments during it. So I totally missed the part about the locals being aware of the story of the indigenous woman. Where/how was that disclosed?

 I thought it was when Kevin and little Patti were driving to the well, Little Patti was reading from the pamplet concerning the well. At one point Little Patti couldn't pronounce indigenous.

[pennben]

So, I guess we now know whether Kevin would kill baby Hitler.  Who knew that this could be timely!

 

I joke, but there was something powerful about him having to kill her as a young child, and he along with us saw her peeled back to her initial layers of pain that led to what she became after layer and layer piled on and she, as she herself said, was too afraid to walk away from everything that was destroying her. None of this dismisses all the horrible things she did when was older. 

 

There's lots to noodle with here and elsewhere on the show.  I'm just glad we've been told to expect no answers to mysteries here.  Sort of like life.

Edited November 23, 2015 by pennben

[txhorns79]

There's lots to noodle with here and elsewhere on the show.  I'm just glad we've been told to expect no answers to mysteries here.  Sort of like life.

 

I thought they had said they wouldn't explain why the Departure happened.  Did they mean they won't explain any of the mysteries they have set up, like why the girls disappeared at the quarry?  

[revbfc]

I really liked this in spite of it being a rip-off of the Sopranos episode "Join the Club."

Kevin's confrontation with Patti being a journey of compassion was the best thing this show has ever done. I hate-watch this show, but not last night.

[pennben]

I thought they had said they wouldn't explain why the Departure happened.  Did they mean they won't explain any of the mysteries they have set up, like why the girls disappeared at the quarry?  

 

Fair point.  I just took the point from last year to mean not to expect answers at all, that's not what the show is about.  We might get some along the way, including those set up this year, but that is not where my expectation is for the show.

Edited November 23, 2015 by pennben

[ToastnBacon]

The reason that I think this was a waste of an episode is that it didn't advance the plot forward.

We knew Kevin and Patti would do battle. We knew that Kevin would probably win.

About the only thing we learned was that Kevin will be saddled with another burden from killing Patti.

He will be different, probably he'll have afterworldly insight, or streaks of gray hair.

Like a poster upthread mentioned, it was a bye week for the plot.

There were enjoyable moments in the episode, but I think they could have done Kevin vs Patti in 30 minutes.

Anyway, I'm sticking with the show for the rest of the season.

I knew the show was going to be "Losty" going into it last season, so I can't rag on it too much.

I'm just disappointed in how Lost it got last night. That was too much Lost and too long of a battle.

Edited November 23, 2015 by ToastnBacon

[stillshimpy]

Well I just really dig a good exploration of the underworld. Kevin tromping through the bizarre afterlife, having to go deeper and deeper into it in order to rid himself of his unwanted Persephone, Queen of his personal living hell.
 

Oh no. I missed this part too. What was the one bid for freedom, and who was the other person with the frightening power of silence?

Oh dear. Well, Milburn Stone, you really are going to need to rewatch to understand even the explanation, but everything you missed happened in Kevin's afterlife/purgatory/limbo. Kevin's dad, via the world's wackiest walkie-talkie (I was dying laughing at the aboriginals in the background putting out the fire on the bed) , told Kevin he had to take Patti to the Well. This was the point of the "Get Well" card that Kevin's father had delivered to him.

Nicely matched by Mary's congratulatory balloon bouquet, by the way. Kevin gets advice on how to get the hell out of there from his father, Mary gets a balloon bouquet to celebrate her impending bundle of....child she will likely never meet in anything other than an afterlife...but I digress (seriously, Milburn, I'm willing to try here, but your real answer is "you likely want to try watching again").

So are you with me? The blank Get Well card was actually Kevin's father instructing him to Get to the Well in ....Jarden. Virgil, as the lost soul -- having partaken of the (water) of the dead and now forever damned to remain (hello Persephone myth being tied to Jarden) only this time it's in the water, not the seeds -- directs Kevin to the brochures for local attraction.

There's a brochure for the Well (that doesn't exist in the living plain, as far as we know) there. When Kevin gets to the abandoned, depths-of-fiery hell Jarden, he meets the man on the bridge....who offers tries to hang him (hold on for more fucked up references), so very, very The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge .  Kevin opts to press on, despite being told he will be changed forever (and it is implied not in a good way) if he kills Patti in that well.  

 

Kevin presses on to the well.  

 

The terrible power of silence is (would you like an Advil yet?) when Patty went on Jeopardy and defeated the reigning champion (this is suggested to be real) because she wanted to get enough money to leave her horrid husband.  She's confident, but in the Green room she's disturbed that the reigning champion says nothing to her, nothing like wishing her luck.  No small talk.  He acts like she's not even there.  Patti tells Kevin that there is a power to silence and she begins to cry, as she reveals that she won...kept winning, got more than the necessary money to leave her horrid husband, but was still defeated, it is implied by the unnerving silence that makes Patti question her own worth, yet again, even as she makes her bid to be free of her own tormenter. 

 

ETA:  I completely understand people finding this episode frustrating.  Talk about non-linear storytelling, but I do like mythical explorations and I really liked that instead of pomegranate seeds, what will seal a person to the underworld's of Jarden's garden is that water...the stuff we saw the missing girl quaffing, by the way...in Jarden.   However here's something:  

 

We knew Kevin and Patti would do battle. We knew that Kevin would probably win.

 

Merciful Zeus and vengeful Hera, I do not have the same level of being assured that I know what will happen.   I didn't expect Nora to leave Kevin, just flat like that.  I didn't expect Kevin to be buried like the damned bird.  I certainly didn't expect to see Regina King's birds  forever plaguing the lobby of the hotel.    

 

It really isn't that I know where this story is headed: will Kevin likely triumph? I don't know.  He's a primarily good man, but there were terrible echoes in what Patti was saying: she said her husband said she was fat and lazy, couldn't be happy....(that one FREAKED me out because that was Kevin's answer to his dad, back before everyone went Poof, he didn't know why he couldn't be happy, even though he had everything).  

 

But I liked that they were true mirror images, everything reversed:  Patti decided that people disappearing was PROOF that there was no point to loving anyone, you could lose them at any time and my husband said, as I thought and it clearly occurred to Kevin "But that's always true, all the time, that's why it is so important to connect with and love people"....without bitterness about it eventually ending, as all things do.  

 

They confronted the exact same question and each took away solid proof for themselves, that was completely opposite.  

 

Loved it. 

Edited November 23, 2015 by stillshimpy

[ToastnBacon]

Oh, I am really hating this season's theme song, despite its very wise advice to "let the mystery be."

The nasal twangy singing makes me angry for an unknown reason.

Scratch that, I know why it pisses me off.

It is an annoying sound and I don't like wise folksy spiritual hippies.

Of all the people Kevin killed last night, I wish one of them had been that theme song.

At least we were ridden of Patti's imitation Texas twang.

[Milburn Stone]

(seriously, Milburn, I'm willing to try here, but your real answer is "you likely want to try watching again").

 

Thanks, stillshimpy. (Thanks also to BooBear.) Your post made me realize just how much of this episode I was asleep for--because I recognize practically none of what you wrote about! You know that subjective sensation of waking up from nodding off and being convinced that it was for about fifteen seconds and everything is OK? That's how I felt--but this morning I realize it must have been something more like forty-five minutes! I will rewatch.

 

Maybe I was doing battle in my own underworld.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Milburn Stone

[stillshimpy]

Okay, on the subject of that theme song, which I agree the rendition in the credits is so twangy, it's insanely distracting.  So it's probably time to let David Byrne and Natalie Merchant chime in with their rendition. 

 

Which was something I looked up on Youtube after I finally bothered to look up the lyrics to the song two weeks ago.  Some say you're going to come back in a garden, eh? 

 

ETA:

 

You know that subjective sensation when you realize you've nodded off but are convinced that it was for about fifteen seconds? That's how I felt--but this morning I realize it must have been something more like forty-five minutes! I will rewatch.

 

I know that feeling well and truly felt for you on this one.  It's always a little disorienting to have that "I drifted off, but only for a moment" feeling , but when dealing with an episode that is designed to be dreamlike, it's got to be particularly prevalent. 

 

But here are a couple of things to watch for:  The water theme.  Remember back in the pilot the girls collecting water to "sell" (sort of) to the tourists, but we also know that it's just different for you if you live in Jarden/Miracle.  Birds buried there can come back.   We saw the missing girl sneaking sips from the water, presumably trying to cure her epilepsy (and perhaps also answering where she was going during her seizures...remember Erika?  "Come back, baby, come back" ).   

 

In this episode much is made about drinking the water being the thing that will consign you to that particular section of hell specifically by drinking the water.   Like the anti-baptism (awesome!) and that the day the girls disappeared the well/lake/body of water was sucked down into the Earth.  

The mid-grade hotel as hell is, I thought, delightfully funny...and I agree with the poster upthread who thought it was delightfully spot on for that experience....I felt like I had been in that hotel about a dozen times in the last two years alone, complete with the "holy hell, this is what you consider a local attraction?" pamphlets....I drive to Colorado via I70...through Kansas a lot (soon to switch to California to Colorado....so I'm really looking forward to Utah in that "kill me now" way, I won't count on any hotel bars, I guess).   Part of what makes surrealism bearable to watch as a storytelling device is to ground things in a known reality and just make them truly fucked up.  So that was fun too. 

 

The birds in the lobby....do they equal Regina King's many sacrifices to the gods, asking for her daughter to be returned....and what does it mean the Virgil killed one of them dead?  <---- Virgil.  Who was there to atone for whatever he had done to John and Erika.  

 

ETA:  In keeping with the surrealist film festival of a discussion, I feel moved to add: I am not a truck driver :-)  I go back to Colorado to visit my grown son and friends very regularly, since I'm essentially from there (for all intents and purposes) and I hate DIA....which always has a million birds in it and reminds me of hell.  Oh God, those trains and the merry, merry "take your jolly trolly to the seemingly ever moving concourse/baggage claim/face-it-there-is-no-escape.   

Edited November 23, 2015 by stillshimpy

[revbfc]

Oh, I am really hating this season's theme song, despite its very wise advice to "let the mystery be."

The nasal twangy singing makes me angry for an unknown reason.

Scratch that, I know why it pisses me off.

It is an annoying sound and I don't like wise folksy spiritual hippies.

Of all the people Kevin killed last night, I wish one of them had been that theme song.

At least we were ridden of Patti's imitation Texas twang.

I dislike it because it seems to mock the viewers who have valid questions about just what in hell is going on in this show.

[stillshimpy]

I dislike it because it seems to mock the viewers who have valid questions about just what in hell is going on in this show

 

Guys, for real, read the lyrics.  They left a verse out that is pretty jaw-dropping.   Remember Erika talking about the "Jarden of Eden" (obviously Garden).  

 

I don't think they're mocking people with it.  I think they changed the theme song and trojan horsed something in it.  I kept wondering why they used a song where the singer commands attention over the lyrics because of her vocal style.  

Edited November 23, 2015 by stillshimpy

[numbnut]

I'm just disappointed in how Lost it got last night. That was too much Lost and too long of a battle.

 

ITA. If Lindelof wants to write a Bourne-type assassin movie or another Alias show or Lost reboot, he should write a Bourne-type assassin movie or launch another Alias show or Lost reboot. I'd love to see Theroux in a spy movie. I just don't want that spy movie randomly shoehorned into an established show. While everything in the episode can be explained, it was too Lost-y and off-book for me.

Edited November 23, 2015 by numbnut

[ToastnBacon]

I dislike it because it seems to mock the viewers who have valid questions about just what in hell is going on in this show.

Part of me wants to agree with you, but "The Island" won't let me do that.

Sorry Rev, but your questions are not valid.

You need to "let the plot be" and just enjoy the excellent characters, tense scenes, great acting, and subtle cultural references.

[FanOfTheFans]

After Kevin shot the people in the hotel room I expected them to jump back up. How do already dead people stay gone? They were drinking the water as I recall, well except for fake Patti.

[ToastnBacon]

Guys, for real, read the lyrics.  They left a verse out that is pretty jaw-dropping.   Remember Erika talking about the "Jarden of Eden" (obviously Garden).  

 

I don't think they're mocking people with it.  I think they changed the theme song and trojan horsed something in it.  I kept wondering why they used a song where the singer commands attention over the lyrics because of her vocal style.

You mean when our bodies decompose and breakdown on a molecular level?

Sure, and then our atoms are eventually absorbed into the soil to form new molecules and end up as nutrients for carrots and snow peas.

Solent Green is people, and so are all those locally-grown high priced hippie-friendly veggies.

Seriously, I didn't catch an omitted verse from the Iris Dement version and the David Byrene-Natalie Merchant version.

I agree with you, that the viewers are not being mocked.

The only message I get is don't try to figure out all that God crap and the mystery of the plot.

Just enjoy life and this show on a simpler level.

[stillshimpy]

After Kevin shot the people in the hotel room I expected them to jump back up. How do already dead people stay gone? They were drinking the water as I recall, well except for fake Patti.

 

Well, I don't think it's quite that literal, but I also don't think that hotel is anyone's last stop, you know?  Hotels seldom are.  They are where you stay on your way to somewhere else.   

 

 

 

Seriously, I didn't catch an omitted verse from the Iris Dement version and the David Byrene-Natalie Merchant version.

 

That's interesting, because it's actually precisely what Patti and Kevin discussed last night.  I may just be plain-old wrong (the opposite of right!) which happens to me more than I care to admit (except, I do tend to admit it an awful lot so....perhaps look for me in this space two weeks ago, discussing my level of wrongness.  Again. Some more. )

 

 Yes, everything is comprised of matter, etc.  This story doesn't seem to be interested in science to any letter of the law.  I actually don't think it's all that interested in religion either but rather that -- in the universe of the show -- there is an unseen force.  

 

Anyway, I read the lyrics two weeks ago and watched last night with increasing delight.  It's pretty clear that I think the girls are coming back at the end of the season though, at least one of them.  The one Virgil sacrificed himself for and he killed one of Regina's "give her back to me" birds, that was trapped in there with him.   I think he did know not to drink the water.   I could just be wrong, but I think that Jarden will see a few arrivals.  

 

Kevin literally emerged from the dirt, so no I don't think anyone is being converted to literal peas and carrots, but I do think someone is coming back who isn't named Kevin.  Someone very loved.   

 

I'm genuinely sorry other people aren't having as much fun with this story as I am, but I get it.  There's no right or wrong way to receive a story and if it's not working for some, that's completely valid and understandable as an experience.  

 

My husband and I actually had kind of long talk about how the guys from Lost were finally in their element.  Freed from last year's source material they had a chance to take the elements from that (which appeared to just be a novel written as response to the Left Behind series, but I wouldn't know , as I only read a synopsis) and ABC's "doesn't matter about quality, number and eyeballs on the screen are all that count" commercial, network television that demands more for the sake of more, without an eye towards quality.   HBO being subscription dependent makes those "you have to have 20 episodes a years and act breaks designed for slotting in commercials" constrictions a thing of their past.  

 

I'm kind of psyched to see what they do with it.  I don't think Lost ended up sucking and making no sense because the writers were bad.  I think it ended up senseless and bizarre because ABC held them prisoner to a commercial success and only after the numbers fell off a cliff did they consent to let them wrap it up.   Success on network TV is such a double-edged sword, as people like Sorkin and Amy Sherman-Pallidino know, networks can and do just hand the reins over to someone else to finish a story.  So talk about being trapped in purgatory.   You can get out at the end of a contract, but the baby you've been raising might be handed over to the foster parents from hell. 

 

And again, I may just be wrong and they really do suck and two weeks from now I'll just hurl shit at the TV (soft things, I have nice TVs) and curse the very names of Lindeoff and Cuse (again, some more) with an added emphatic gesture or two. 

Edited November 23, 2015 by stillshimpy

[ToastnBacon]

Well, I don't think it's quite that literal, but I also don't think that hotel is anyone's last stop, you know?  Hotels seldom are.  They are where you stay on your way to somewhere else.

Purgatory comes to mind, it's in my favorite song too.

[NASAL TWANG] But I've heard that I'm on the road to Purgatory

And I don't like the sound of that [/NASAL TWANG]

[canter]

At one point when Kevin was walking down the hotel hallway, he passed a police officer with a bag over his head being led in the opposite direction. Was that a Mapleton PD uniform? I'm wondering if that was an alternate reality being played out, where Kevin had chosen his police uniform to wear instead of the assassin suit.

[stillshimpy]

[NASAL TWANG] But I've heard that I'm on the road to Purgatory

And I don't like the sound of that [/NASAL TWANG]

 

Next line, twang implied: 

I believe in love and I live my life accordingly.....which is exactly what Kevin and Patti discussed at the bottom of that well.  Or rather, Patti completely discounted love as meaningful and worthwhile, proving that none of it meant anything.  

 

Then Kevin drowned her and set himself free (and my delight comes in because...he was so clearly in purgatory and even had to descend another level or more to get out) to return to his loved ones. 

 

ETA: and in an off topic migration (to which I am prone) can I just add how bummed I was that I moved out of Colorado the same year they finally legalized pot and into a state with the most draconian pot laws around?   My son's a grown man these days, so I'm off-duty more often than I used to be...and there are a couple of things I think would be complete howlers to rewatch stoned.  Like this:  

 

At one point when Kevin was walking down the hotel hallway, he passed a police officer with a bag over his head being led in the opposite direction. Was that a Mapleton PD uniform? I'm wondering if that was an alternate reality being played out, where Kevin had chosen his police uniform to wear instead of the assassin suit.

 

Even last night with a perfectly moderate and civilized amount of sake in my system I thought, "What the hell?  How high  was everyone in the writer's room when they said "okay guys, we have to create purgatory in a Radisson.....yeah, we totally need weed.  Smokable. Edible.  Maybe by the bushel"....and I'm thinking they went with the bushel for some of that stuff.  

 

The tie in to the last time Kevin saw Holy Wayne was practically broadcast from the moment Virgil outlined "Yes, exactly like the godfather" "the gun will be in the bathroom" and I still didn't see it coming.  

Edited November 23, 2015 by stillshimpy