ferjy August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 28 minutes ago, Schmolioot said: I saw on Reddit that the girl who played Mae answered a fan on Twitter who asked what the writing meant and she said that it was to show her growing fascination with and interest in Camille. And how in the world are we supposed to infer that from that scene? (Not irritated with you, but with the writers.) They're writing for themselves, not for the viewers. I prefer Moxie Cat's rendition of the situation. Edited August 28, 2018 by ferjy 14 Link to comment
Schmolioot August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 5 minutes ago, ferjy said: And how in the world are we supposed to infer that from that scene? (Not irritated with you, but with the writers.) The writers are writing for themselves, not for the viewers. I prefer Moxie Cat's rendition of the situation. Oh there’s no way you could’ve inferred it and it’s completely stupid. Just a terrible job all around by the creative team. Not the actors. They can only work with what they’re given but Noxon, Flynn And Valle showed their asses with this finale. I just still can’t believe that we’re expected to swallow that Amma (and Kelsey/Jodes for that matter) who showed absolutely zero predilection for violence the entire series suddenly turned into the Incredible Hulk 7 Link to comment
kicksave August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) I liked this series. I had read the book a few years back so I remember some of the storyline. What I liked was the dreaminess of the film. It really was exquisite. The slow, Southern summer you could feel...the sultry summer day with the fans and and the veranda at Adora's home...the principle photography was beautiful. Patricia Clarkson was outstanding as Adora. The young actress who played Amma was also quite good. The ending would have been so much better if it wasn't lost in the credits...that was unfortunate and I would imagine that many people, including myself, missed it because we just fast forwarded at the end. It wasn't until this afternoon when I was reading some recaps of the finale that I saw what I had missed. I think that was not a wise decision on the part of the director to bury the ending like that. Amma...quite the little psychopath. Edited August 28, 2018 by kicksave 14 Link to comment
Popular Post Slovenly Muse August 28, 2018 Popular Post Share August 28, 2018 Well, count me in the minority, because I loved it all the way through the ending! It seemed like the perfect encapsulation of what the show had been doing leading up to that point! Camille and Alan had an important commonality: Listening to music as a form of escapism, to avoid acknowledging and dealing with the reality that was in front of them. Alan ignored Adora's slow murder of her children (although, knowing what we now know about Amma, his decision to stop her leaving the house seems a bit less blatantly evil - who knows what he was avoiding knowing). Camille ignored and denied what had happened to her sister, even though part of her surely knew. She wouldn't submit to her mother's "care" as a child, she must have known it was bad for her, and Marian did, and so Camille blames herself for her sister's death. (And Adora takes every opportunity to blame her for it.) And the whole town of Wind Gap does the same thing. They hold a festival every year to lionize a young girl who was raped and tortured and still stayed true to her husband. They remember their dead girls the way they WANT to, rather than the way they are ("Purple was Natalie's favourite colour. Well, actually it was black, but that seemed too morbid."). They profess to care, but when tragedy strikes, they would rather gossip and ostracize the two people who are hurting the most, than actually look around and see things they don't want to see. They see Amma and her friends as harmless, because they believe young girls can only be harmless, victims, "good girls." No one wanted to think that gentle, fragile, delicate Adora could be capable of violence, so they looked for easier answers, no matter how cruel. To me, this was never a "mystery," but rather a psychological horror series. By the midpoint, I was half-sure we'd never find out who the killer is. It's almost beside the point. No progress was made on the case because no one WANTED to know the truth. They all just worked together to deny and bury it, and point fingers wherever it was easiest, and THAT'S where the real story lay. Camille faced the truth. She conquered her death wish. She allowed herself to be poisoned by Adora as penance for letting her sister die, and to try and save Amma. She finally received her mother's love, and then she fought for her own life at the end and emerged transformed. I loved that Curry came to save her, because it shows that unlike anyone else in her family, Camille DOES have someone who knows what real love is, and is willing to show up when everyone else rejects her. I also loved the quick reveal that Amma is the killer. It's further commentary on what we don't want to notice. All the clues WERE there, we just didn't want to see them. The way troubling behaviour in boys is often shrugged off as "boys being boys," Flynn is showing off the way troubling behaviour in girls is similarly ignored as "just acting out" because it CAN'T be anything real. The reveal reminds us that, like the residents of Wind Gap, we're STILL looking for easy answers and not fully confronting our assumptions about what girls are capable of. And the instant we get that uncomfortable information ("Don't tell Mama"), it's BOOM right into Zeppelin, right into Camille's escape from reality, the easy denial that anything is wrong, punctuated by the kinds of distressing flashes of reality that are likely going through Camillle's and Alan's minds all the time as they are trying to escape their worries through their headphones. The series in a nutshell. 31 minutes ago, Moxie Cat said: IRT Mae's hand, it looked like normal reminders a kid might write on her hand in pen. I could make out Call Mom and Text A (Amma?). I don't think they were meant to be weird for Mae, but just serve as a reminder to Camille that as normal as that dinner was, her background and issues will always be in her head. I saw Amma noticing Camille noticing it, and I believe this is Amma repeating old patterns. Mae wants to be a journalist like Camille, she writes on herself like Camille, and Amma sees this as Mae muscling in on Camille's affection, the way Natalie and Anne were muscling in on Adora's. 11 minutes ago, Mothra said: so *now* we're supposed to go "oh, yeah, the ivory floor--I wondered what was up with that." It's pretty clever to equate elephant teeth with murdered girls' teeth but cheese on crackers this pisses me off. It's funny - I loved this! Because this episode made the explicit psychological/mystical link between the dollhouse and the real house, I now can't picture Adora and the rest of the family walking around on that big ivory floor without imagining it made of the teeth of Amma's victims. A family haunted by the remnants of its own crimes, hidden in plain sight. As for the physics of the murders, I don't have a problem with that. They said Adora would have likely needed an accomplice to pull those teeth. Amma had at least two, and access to tools and equipment at the slaughterhouse to boot. I loved this series from start to finish, and while I usually prefer the book version to the screen version of any given story, I just can't work up any desire to read the novel, because I really think over-explaining things would ruin it for me. I just want to bask in the strange and awful alchemy of the series. Man, that was good. 32 Link to comment
Mothra August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 52 minutes ago, Slovenly Muse said: By the midpoint, I was half-sure we'd never find out who the killer is. It's almost beside the point. No progress was made on the case because no one WANTED to know the truth. They all just worked together to deny and bury it, and point fingers wherever it was easiest, and THAT'S where the real story lay. I would have been happier if the murder mystery had remained unsolved. I loved the atmosphere of this series, the dreamlike skating, skating, skating, the use of music--and your point about Alan and Camille's both escaping into music is a good one, I think--but I think it's a mistake to suggest that anyone in this forum ignored *anything* about this series! It's true that everyone in town *kind of* knew what was going on (maybe not that Amma was a murderer, but certainly about the cheerleader rapes and that something funny was going on with Adora and her daughters)--and there was *so much* going on! and chose to ignore it, but that's what made this forum a joy for me; we dug into everything. The material was rich with detail, and we examined them until our brains fried. I decided early on that I wasn't going to be too concerned about practicalities like how was Camille able to function when she drank so much, but really the dollhouse ivory floor has really disappointed me. There is no tool in any slaughterhouse on earth (unless there is a slaughterhouse for hummingbirds) fine enough to saw children's teeth into tiles for a dollhouse floor. 5 Link to comment
Slovenly Muse August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 2 minutes ago, Mothra said: I think it's a mistake to suggest that anyone in this forum ignored *anything* about this series! It's true that everyone in town *kind of* knew what was going on (maybe not that Amma was a murderer, but certainly about the cheerleader rapes and that something funny was going on with Adora and her daughters)--and there was *so much* going on! and chose to ignore it, but that's what made this forum a joy for me; we dug into everything. The material was rich with detail, and we examined them until our brains fried Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that the *forum* maintained wilful ignorance! I only meant the townspeople. I know there was complaining on the forum that a few episodes "wasted time" and did nothing to further the mystery, and my point was that the characters themselves worked against solving the mystery (the purpose of the story was examining the community's reaction to the murders, not the actual investigation (or, actually, it was about a woman's relationship with her family - the murders were just an extension of that, an inciting incident)), and therefore marketing it as a "mystery" was probably a poor choice for HBO. 9 minutes ago, Mothra said: There is no tool in any slaughterhouse on earth (unless there is a slaughterhouse for hummingbirds) fine enough to saw children's teeth into tiles for a dollhouse floor. Really? I'd have thought a regular file would have done it. Removing them would be the challenge, but once they're out, they're just bones. They could probably even be sanded into shape. Not that I want to pull one of my own and find out! 2 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 6 hours ago, Schmolioot said: True, but Tonya Harding was an adult who clearly knew what she was doing. That’s not clear with Amma. While she might not be legally insane, as she seems to understand right from wrong given that she tries to hide the crimes, her upbringing is certainly a mitigating factor for me. All the more galling that Camille didn’t seem to have her in any kind of professional therapy. I mentioned this in another thread but Amma just doesn’t understand that love/attention/affection is not transactional and can’t run out. This is just how she was taught by Adora. In her mind Camille, or Adora for that matter, only have so much love to go around and that any that she is not getting she’s lost. It’s a zero sum game to her. This is partly why not being given any real understanding as to her “triggers” was frustrating. We don’t really know what Ann or Natalie did that made her think she was losing some of Adora’s love and attention that was finite. Same kind of thing with Camille. The new friend didn’t really do anything but Amma wants all of Camille’s love and any attention she pays this other girl has been lost to Amma. Camille’s answer about just wanting Amma to be happy and that she didn’t care if she was a writer or whatever obviously wasn’t enough for Amma. She even went back to her creepy, incesty well for a moment there. Amma's a bottomless pit of need. I dont think its that she thinks love cant run out; I think it's her greed of wanting all of the attention. She's a sociopath. Rat poison doesnt just affect one part of your brain and make you a psychopath. I;d like to see see Gillian Flynn intensive research on that, if so. It would affect your neurological system as a whole. Not just damage your ability to care about others. She has not care about others, at all. Even Camille. Thats' why at the sudden ending, it implied to me that Camille was in the most vulnerable spot, being taken off guard and horrified, while Amma standing over her, cheerful and saucy with her, "Dont tell momma,' delivery. Surely Amma knew that Camille would find out. I think she would've killed Camille in a heartbeat if Camille was a real threat to her. She didnt go get Richard, either, when Camille told her to, even though she knew Camille was poisoned so badly that she might die. Children can be sociopaths. Sociopathy runs in that family down the maternal line. Amma's angry and joyous while killing those girls. She goes full feral there. She tortures and mutilates them. She plays god over them (even dressing like one), strangling them, which would have been slow. She takes body parts as souvenirs. That's not someone who's been poisoned and conditioned to be in a symbiotic relationship. That's a psychopath. Edited August 28, 2018 by Buttless 9 Link to comment
ferjy August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 34 minutes ago, Slovenly Muse said: Really? I'd have thought a regular file would have done it. Removing them would be the challenge, but once they're out, they're just bones. They could probably even be sanded into shape. Not that I want to pull one of my own and find out! Ah c'mon, take one for the team! The whole thing is so morbid. Strangling, positioning, pulling teeth, filing teeth. I think I was still playing with dolls at that age. (And no teeth in my dollhouse!) 4 Link to comment
stacyasp August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 2 hours ago, ferjy said: And how in the world are we supposed to infer that from that scene? (Not irritated with you, but with the writers.) They're writing for themselves, not for the viewers. I prefer Moxie Cat's rendition of the situation. I thought it said Camille on her hand 1 Link to comment
Emily Thrace August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 13 hours ago, 100Proof said: Looks like Camille faked feeling sick when she got up from the table. Probably because she was gonna get kicked out in the morning so that gave an excuse for her to stay on I actually thought she was trying to protect Amma by deflecting Adora's attention away from her. 6 Link to comment
ferjy August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 20 minutes ago, stacyasp said: I thought it said Camille on her hand I think you quoted the wrong person. :-) Edited August 28, 2018 by ferjy wrong smiley Link to comment
Penman61 August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (Via Twitter.) OK, now I'm scared out of my wits: 16 Link to comment
100Proof August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 25 minutes ago, Emily Thrace said: I actually thought she was trying to protect Amma by deflecting Adora's attention away from her. Same difference really. Point was Cam was gonna stick around. Plus I'm not sure how diverting Adora's attention from Amma at that moment was gonna help her any. Not like Adora was gonna go after attending to Cam, "oh maaaay, I could've sworn I had another child around here somewhere who I was also poisoning. I do declare... who could that be now? Oh well, never you mind. Silly me, I've forgotten all about it!" Edited August 28, 2018 by 100Proof 1 Link to comment
jeansheridan August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 3 hours ago, Slovenly Muse said: To me, this was never a "mystery," but rather a psychological horror series You make an excellent case. Had the show been billed as a horror show I wouldn't have watched. And what a depressing horror show too. It is more Psycho than Stephen King. But I guess it hits all the horror tropes. Creepy mansion, blood, mutilation, being hunted in the woods, ghosts, nowhere is safe. But with none of the fun other than the Calhoun Day ep. Horror doesn't usually depress me. I am glad the show is over. Edited August 28, 2018 by jeansheridan 3 Link to comment
Emily Thrace August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 36 minutes ago, Buttless said: Children can be sociopaths. Sociopathy runs in that family down the maternal line. Amma's angry and joyous while killing those girls. She goes full feral there. She tortures and mutilates them. She plays god over them (even dressing like one), strangling them, which would have been slow. She takes body parts as souvenirs. That's not someone who's been poisoned and conditioned to be in a symbiotic relationship. That's a psychopath. Children actually are not generally diagnosed as sociopaths. The human brain doesn't really set until around age 26 and so the DSM strongly discourages diagnosis before that point. Its generally thought that because thier minds are still malleable with enough treatment they can be somewhat normalised. Amma would be considered a child exhibiting psychopathic traits and given lots of therapy. Its also worth noting that Amma new to hide what she did which means she knew what she did was wrong. Most sociopaths don't really understand that. They usually think everyone would run around strangling people they're just to stupid or scared to do it. Sociopathy also isn't really inheritable. Its more like diabetes you can inherit certain traits that make it more likely to get but its not guaranteed. Environment plays a bigger role in the development of a sociopath which Amma has in spades. There's actually some research that suggests sociopathy and psychopathy are what happens when kids experience PTSD and trauma from an early age for an extended period of time. 5 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 23 hours ago, Slovenly Muse said: Well, count me in the minority, because I loved it all the way through the ending! It seemed like the perfect encapsulation of what the show had been doing leading up to that point! Camille and Alan had an important commonality: Listening to music as a form of escapism, to avoid acknowledging and dealing with the reality that was in front of them. Alan ignored Adora's slow murder of her children (although, knowing what we now know about Amma, his decision to stop her leaving the house seems a bit less blatantly evil - who knows what he was avoiding knowing). Camille ignored and denied what had happened to her sister, even though part of her surely knew. She wouldn't submit to her mother's "care" as a child, she must have known it was bad for her, and Marian did, and so Camille blames herself for her sister's death. (And Adora takes every opportunity to blame her for it.) And the whole town of Wind Gap does the same thing. They hold a festival every year to lionize a young girl who was raped and tortured and still stayed true to her husband. They remember their dead girls the way they WANT to, rather than the way they are ("Purple was Natalie's favourite colour. Well, actually it was black, but that seemed too morbid."). They profess to care, but when tragedy strikes, they would rather gossip and ostracize the two people who are hurting the most, than actually look around and see things they don't want to see. They see Amma and her friends as harmless, because they believe young girls can only be harmless, victims, "good girls." No one wanted to think that gentle, fragile, delicate Adora could be capable of violence, so they looked for easier answers, no matter how cruel. To me, this was never a "mystery," but rather a psychological horror series. By the midpoint, I was half-sure we'd never find out who the killer is. It's almost beside the point. No progress was made on the case because no one WANTED to know the truth. They all just worked together to deny and bury it, and point fingers wherever it was easiest, and THAT'S where the real story lay. Camille faced the truth. She conquered her death wish. She allowed herself to be poisoned by Adora as penance for letting her sister die, and to try and save Amma. She finally received her mother's love, and then she fought for her own life at the end and emerged transformed. I loved that Curry came to save her, because it shows that unlike anyone else in her family, Camille DOES have someone who knows what real love is, and is willing to show up when everyone else rejects her. I also loved the quick reveal that Amma is the killer. It's further commentary on what we don't want to notice. All the clues WERE there, we just didn't want to see them. The way troubling behaviour in boys is often shrugged off as "boys being boys," Flynn is showing off the way troubling behaviour in girls is similarly ignored as "just acting out" because it CAN'T be anything real. The reveal reminds us that, like the residents of Wind Gap, we're STILL looking for easy answers and not fully confronting our assumptions about what girls are capable of. And the instant we get that uncomfortable information ("Don't tell Mama"), it's BOOM right into Zeppelin, right into Camille's escape from reality, the easy denial that anything is wrong, punctuated by the kinds of distressing flashes of reality that are likely going through Camillle's and Alan's minds all the time as they are trying to escape their worries through their headphones. The series in a nutshell. I saw Amma noticing Camille noticing it, and I believe this is Amma repeating old patterns. Mae wants to be a journalist like Camille, she writes on herself like Camille, and Amma sees this as Mae muscling in on Camille's affection, the way Natalie and Anne were muscling in on Adora's. It's funny - I loved this! Because this episode made the explicit psychological/mystical link between the dollhouse and the real house, I now can't picture Adora and the rest of the family walking around on that big ivory floor without imagining it made of the teeth of Amma's victims. A family haunted by the remnants of its own crimes, hidden in plain sight. As for the physics of the murders, I don't have a problem with that. They said Adora would have likely needed an accomplice to pull those teeth. Amma had at least two, and access to tools and equipment at the slaughterhouse to boot. I loved this series from start to finish, and while I usually prefer the book version to the screen version of any given story, I just can't work up any desire to read the novel, because I really think over-explaining things would ruin it for me. I just want to bask in the strange and awful alchemy of the series. Man, that was good. I liked a lot of what you mentioned, too, And overall. Im glad I watched it. My problems with it go deeper than the surface, though. Not taking anything away from you loving it (no one can do that, or would want to), but anyone can write an outline of a story and what they want the points taken from it, to be. Writing the thing out and making it coherent and cohesive is the problem. I was reading some reviews and they sort of become the author's own story of what they want it to be, by filling in so many blank spaces or badly attached bridges. It becomes less about the makers of the show and the show itself, and more about them getting off on their own review. So in a real way, they also didnt see what was right in front of them (show theme irony), and are reviewing what they made it out to be. I also find the notion of female or teenager violence not novel. It's pretty well-documented that the female of the species can be even more deadly than the male, as they say. And teenagers are frequently violent because they dont have such a strong gasp on mortality, or impulse control, sometimes. There's nothing new in any of this. What they did, was construct a device to purposely mislead you. And then spring it on you, at the very end. That's not the same thing as underestimating how violent girls and women can be. That's not coming to a natural conclusion, because youre being manipulated by the creators in a very artificial way. People seem to be angry about being strung along, and then slapped in the face. I think most people who hung in there had built up a sympathy for Camille. The way they ended it, was pretty insulting. Im talking in the tone of that ending, personally. That to me was an indication of how contemptuous the makers found their audience. I didnt pick up the book until a couple of days ahead of the finale, but even I could tell that Adora and Amma were sociopaths. It was that heavyhanded, through the dialogue, behavior and symbolism shoved in there. I mean, there is one slowed down shot in episode 6 IIRC, where Amma is *literally* moving like a bird of prey. That imagery/metaphor in film is as old as Psycho , at the least. There was nothing subtle about it. But if you went by where they wanted to lead you, youd have to consider some men as either perpetrating it or helping as accomplices. They also heavily implied that they'd possibly changed the ending. I hadnt read Flynn before, but I did know enough about her to know she wrote about and said she was fascinated with female predatory behavior. Since she also adapted her book, I knew she wasnt going to be less than arrogant and was going to keep her book as it was. But watching a show is all about suspending disbelief to some extent. And in mysteries, you theorize and guess, based on what you are fed. And Camille's problems are very real. We were sucked into believing this was even attempting to be real based on those problems, based on the reality too, that we know from our own lives that all sorts of people can be violent. That people wear masks. That people blame victims. That people are lazy; so lazy they wont confront the 'evil' in their midst. In the end though? We got fed a drama, only to have it jump cut to a comedic horror story. And it flushed away feeling you might've had for Camille. Kicking into that particular Led Zepplin song had nothing to do with Camille, if you read what the director Vallee had to say. It doesnt stand in to signal to us that Camille zones out to Led Zepplin. It was specifically chosen because the author liked the lyrics. That Amma wanted alll the "love." Which I think is a translation issue with him from French to English, or just something dumb he said to explain Amma, who is not about love, in any way. 22 hours ago, Mothra said: I would have been happier if the murder mystery had remained unsolved. I loved the atmosphere of this series, the dreamlike skating, skating, skating, the use of music--and your point about Alan and Camille's both escaping into music is a good one, I think--but I think it's a mistake to suggest that anyone in this forum ignored *anything* about this series! It's true that everyone in town *kind of* knew what was going on (maybe not that Amma was a murderer, but certainly about the cheerleader rapes and that something funny was going on with Adora and her daughters)--and there was *so much* going on! and chose to ignore it, but that's what made this forum a joy for me; we dug into everything. The material was rich with detail, and we examined them until our brains fried. I decided early on that I wasn't going to be too concerned about practicalities like how was Camille able to function when she drank so much, but really the dollhouse ivory floor has really disappointed me. There is no tool in any slaughterhouse on earth (unless there is a slaughterhouse for hummingbirds) fine enough to saw children's teeth into tiles for a dollhouse floor. There's a difference between knowledge and gossip.The town runs on gossip. But only a few intimates would know Adora enough to figure out she was poisoning Marian, and its never explained satisfactorily, what they knew , how they knew and when they knew. "Aunt" Jackie was once Aurora's good friend. In her little convo with Camllle, she talks about knowing that Marian was being poisoned, But theres no way Adora told her. Adora wouldnt even be straight with Camille as she had incapacitated her and was killing her. So how did Jackie know? If Adoa had said that her child had an congenital illness, why would Jackie have questioned her? She never explains that, so we dont know that, either. What if Marian had had a little known disease that kept her sick through her youth? The gossip in the town would have been the same, and framed an innocent woman (if Adora had not had MBP). So how much of that wicked town, other than the sheriff also maybe, would have thought any of that was real compared to gossip they wanted o be true? Like you , I didnt concern myself with practicalities, other than the follow through on the big things we are told. The rape in the woods. They showed that domino spider and that kid smiling and taking off his jacket so many time, its stuck in my head, but I still dont fully understand wtf was up that. Or dragging Mr Lacy into it, who was made to seem sinister in how he related to Amma, in particular. Whether or not we like how he came to his conclusion that he did something wrong in his youth, Mr Lacy at least seems to be seriously remorseful with Camille. But then there's the question of, is this town so wicked and these boys so fucked up that they gangraped a cheerleader after every game? Which would mean he was in a gangrape of his own wife at least once in their youth. And wtf?? In light of the cheesy ending, is Wind Gap really a 7th circle of hell? Or is Camille, as has been said, and unreliable narrator, a liar and an exaggerator? It's seems that Camille has some bad feelings about that incident in the woods, and seems to resent those boys/men. But she's still nice to them when she returns to Wind Gap; still puts on an air of being sweet and sassy to them. So when she says she feels like a bad person when shes in Wind Gap, Im inclined to believe she is ascribing that to herself based on her own (confused maybe) behavior, and not those assholes in the forest. Sorry to belabor this point, but they firmly planted in our heads (with reoccuring imagery almost alone) the idea that , WTF really went on there? And I think the authors truly do want us to believe it was consensual. That this is another little bit of feminist-not-feminst Flynn likes to play. 'Why are you being sexist while claiming to save me from sexism?' But we all know ,if even just through the anecdotal experience of having been 14 years old, that it couldnt have been anything but rape. I like the idea of a dollhouse floor made up of teeth to resemble ivory. But like almost everything in this story, if you think past the shallow response of being told this, it falls apart. The ovory floor was the prized possessions of the Crenlins and that home . Thats the first place you would look to in that dool house, wondering how they matched that to the real one. Adora, Amma, Camille would have all seen that floor. Amma's shown buffing it. So maybe Amma took the floor out and put in the cache of teeth whole she was living with Camille. But w arent even given a shadow of a hint of that. We are instead supposed to think, How did the dollhouse floor go unnoticed. And why are there so many molars... 21 hours ago, stacyasp said: I thought it said Camille on her hand I thought i read CALL MOM. Also: I really liked hearing her drive that old Volvo. Didnt like the music, but the sounds of that partivular car, I could listen to all night and fall asleep to. That and the rollerskating om concrete. 21 hours ago, Emily Thrace said: I actually thought she was trying to protect Amma by deflecting Adora's attention away from her. I thought at first Adora want to incapacitate Camille until the next day when she would leave, because she was a bad influence on Amma, and she didnt want them conspiring. She didnt want Amma to go off to St Louis with Camille. So, i did believe Camille's milk was poisoned. Aslo because Adora wasnt surprised that Camille was so sick all of a sudden, nor Alan, for that matter. Edited August 28, 2018 by Buttless 2 Link to comment
bijoux August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 1 hour ago, Penman61 said: (Via Twitter.) OK, now I'm scared out of my wits: Shit. Now, that is a gut punch. I can’t believe they didn’t mention that in any of the interviews. 3 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 5 hours ago, Emily Thrace said: Children actually are not generally diagnosed as sociopaths. The human brain doesn't really set until around age 26 and so the DSM strongly discourages diagnosis before that point. Its generally thought that because thier minds are still malleable with enough treatment they can be somewhat normalised. Amma would be considered a child exhibiting psychopathic traits and given lots of therapy. Its also worth noting that Amma new to hide what she did which means she knew what she did was wrong. Most sociopaths don't really understand that. They usually think everyone would run around strangling people they're just to stupid or scared to do it. Sociopathy also isn't really inheritable. Its more like diabetes you can inherit certain traits that make it more likely to get but its not guaranteed. Environment plays a bigger role in the development of a sociopath which Amma has in spades. There's actually some research that suggests sociopathy and psychopathy are what happens when kids experience PTSD and trauma from an early age for an extended period of time. Yes, youre correct; they dont formally diagnose them. And the term they use to describe them is antisocial personality disorder traits. This is political, imo, because they just have theories and no proof of any cure for real psychopathy (a weighted word they wont use anymore). Im a layman, and am discussing this in layman's term. There is a history of murdering children going back to Pomeroy and back further who we'd look at and call sociopaths/psychopaths. Nurture is not edging over nature though. Bioresearch in psychopathy is showing a strong in psychopaths they are studying. Whether born with a brain abnormality, brain interference through chemical or physical accident, and yes, though inherited clusters of disorders. Because Joya, Adora and Amma all showed strong strains of sociopathy, the last two murderous, I think most people would conclude that they passed on some genes that environment possibly triggered into a mix that tipped them into the personality disorder. I mean, this is fiction. It usually takes a helluva LOT more than the wrong or no kind of nuturing to make a person who would kill for pleasure or profit. And the fact is, tons of children undergo horrible abandonment, neglect and abuse , and dont become sociopaths, let alone murdering sociopaths. Sociopaths arent mentally deficient in intelligence. They know that society deems it wrong in so many ways. Internally, they might think theres nothing wrong with it, and that victims deserve what they get too. Like you say, Amma knew to hide her behavior. My bigger problem of this story is how rat poison is being used as the physical reason why she's a psychopath. Edited August 28, 2018 by Buttless Link to comment
bannana August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 15 hours ago, peach said: Not often, but look up the Slenderman case. There's a documentary about it on HBO. 12 year old girls lured a "friend" into the woods and stabbed her to please a fictional character. Yes, and this tragic story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Reena_Virk 1 Link to comment
IDreamofJoaquin August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 I also liked this all the way through (agreeing with the one other person who did). I thought the ending was absolutely creepy and I liked 'In The Evening' being played and then 'Come Down'. I always found it better to put the closed captioning on with the song selections as a lot of the lyrics fit into the episode. Eliza Scanlen scared me the whole series but she was especially fucked up and raw in her emotion during the last episode. I actually liked the ending mixed with the credits. However, I don't think we should have to rely on a messageboard, book epilogue reference and articles online to explain the how's and what's of everything and we did need to with the last episode. There was no explanation to anything and it's not a movie like Inception or Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene that has an ambiguous ending, they just shoved too much of it in at the end and didn't give good insight to anything else. I feel mainstream entertainment has us rely too heavily on sharing with people through social media to find the easter eggs and hidden clues. It seems to have started with 'Lost' and has only increased since then. I find it frustrating to invest and fully pay attention to a show but then miss half of these clues I would have never figured out on my own. The comments about Gillian Flynn being a hack were spot on. Her other books are page turners but this was just a V.C. Andrews novel. I mean we constantly referenced V.C. Andrews throughout each episode during our discussions here. I'll miss you all!! See you on other boards. 18 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 3 hours ago, IDreamofJoaquin said: I also liked this all the way through (agreeing with the one other person who did). I thought the ending was absolutely creepy and I liked 'In The Evening' being played and then 'Come Down'. I always found it better to put the closed captioning on with the song selections as a lot of the lyrics fit into the episode. Eliza Scanlen scared me the whole series but she was especially fucked up and raw in her emotion during the last episode. I actually liked the ending mixed with the credits. However, I don't think we should have to rely on a messageboard, book epilogue reference and articles online to explain the how's and what's of everything and we did need to with the last episode. There was no explanation to anything and it's not a movie like Inception or Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene that has an ambiguous ending, they just shoved too much of it in at the end and didn't give good insight to anything else. I feel mainstream entertainment has us rely too heavily on sharing with people through social media to find the easter eggs and hidden clues. It seems to have started with 'Lost' and has only increased since then. I find it frustrating to invest and fully pay attention to a show but then miss half of these clues I would have never figured out on my own. The comments about Gillian Flynn being a hack were spot on. Her other books are page turners but this was just a V.C. Andrews novel. I mean we constantly referenced V.C. Andrews throughout each episode during our discussions here. I'll miss you all!! See you on other boards. They dont seem to realize that not having a complete project, unto itself, where you feel satisfied at the end of it somehow, makes their work lesser. who's going to remember these easter eggs in 15, 20 years time? Who's going to want to watch this over, with them forgotten? Like you said, you shouldnt have to do homework to find out wth was going on. Things I really liked from this last episode: John's interrogation. He seemed so believable as a confused innocent kid. The monologue was good. Except for the last line when he goes , You can pin this on me, "but youd be very wrong." i just dont feel youd say that. Youd say the usual: I didnt do it. Or, Youre leaving the murderer still out there!, or etc... You can say a variation on those things, and try to make them new. If the alternative is you telling the cops, "youd be very wrong," well. that sounds kind of weak. Kind of like them being wrong is the deal. Cops are wrong all the time, and if it tidies up their case with a big fat bow on it, they dont seem to care much, until the next bad thing happens. Camille, after she slips down under the water in the bath, thinks of John caressing her scars, and kissing her back, and that is the thing that forces her up out of the water. That tiny bit of love translated to love of self for Camille; enough for her to rally save her own life. Nope! It was the doorbell. Adora at the dinner table getting the eye-message from Camille that she's a murderer. Her face changed so subtlety into something scary, and then easily back again to her usual delusional mask of motherly concern for Amma. Also Adora in the bathroom, where she becomes increasingly perturbed and angry at Camille, and resorts to flicking water in Camille's eyes; sticking her fingernail in between her lips, and pulling her hair. That was so passive-aggressive, and creepily believable from someone like Adora, when the mask slips. Just like the baby biting. I did sort of like it when her editor came through the door. He looked so concerned, and I think I just felt relief at the fact he was a normal person who just came busting into the most fucked up town we'd all been hanging out in too long, Wind Gap. Edited August 28, 2018 by Buttless 9 Link to comment
Schmolioot August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 4 hours ago, Buttless said: Yes; youre correct; they dont formally diagnose them. And the term they use to describe them is antisocial personality disorder traits. This is political, imo, because they just have theories and no proof of any cure for real psychopathy (a weighted word they wont use anymore). Im a layman, and am discussing this in layman's term. There is a history of murdering children going back to Pomeroy and back further who we'd look at and call sociopaths/psychopaths. Nurture is not edging over nature though. Bioresearch in psychopathy is showing a strong in psychopaths they are studying. Whether born with a brain abnormality, brain interference through chemical or physical accident, and yes, though inherited clusters of disorders. Because Joya, Adora and Amma all showed strong strains of sociopathy, the last two murderous, I think most people would conclude that they passed on some genes that environment possibly triggered into a mix that tipped them into the personality disorder. I mean, this is fiction. It usually takes more than nuture to make a person who would kill for pleasure or profit. Sociopaths arent mentally deficient in intelligence. They know that society deems it wrong in so many ways. Internally, they might think theres nothing wrong with it, and that victims deserve what they get too. Like you say, Amma knew to hide her behavior. My bigger problem of this story is how rat poison is being used as the physical reason why she's a psychopath. Locking up children for years is a uniquely American thing and one of the many, many serious issues in our criminal justice system that needs reform. Amma deserves to be punished. I don’t think anyone is denying that. But she is also is young enough, and there are enough mitigating factors for me at least, that I do believe that she should get a chance at rehabilitation and given a second chance at some point in adulthood. She doesn’t kill, or even show violent tendencies, randomly. She has a very specific problem right now. Perhaps there is a therapy/medication combo that can help this. Maybe just being away and having less contact with Adora and Camille will help. I don’t know. I’m just not willing to condemn a 15 year old girl (or however old she is) to life in prison where there are these many mitigating factors 1 Link to comment
Chaos Theory August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 9 hours ago, Schmolioot said: Oh there’s no way you could’ve inferred it and it’s completely stupid. Just a terrible job all around by the creative team. Not the actors. They can only work with what they’re given but Noxon, Flynn And Valle showed their asses with this finale. I just still can’t believe that we’re expected to swallow that Amma (and Kelsey/Jodes for that matter) who showed absolutely zero predilection for violence the entire series suddenly turned into the Incredible Hulk Maybe not outright violence but she has shown a proclivity for childish rage and jealousy not to mention bullying behavior even against her own sister. 7 Link to comment
Beezella August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 8 hours ago, Mothra said: There is no tool in any slaughterhouse on earth (unless there is a slaughterhouse for hummingbirds) fine enough to saw children's teeth into tiles for a dollhouse floor. I think they were pushed in whole. The incisors were laid sideways for the border, and the molars pushed in chewing side up. Really, there are all kinds of ivory substitutes that would have worked much better, and tiles made specifically for doll houses. 8 Link to comment
nachomama August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 I was so disappointed in the ending, and sadly had to defend it to my friend. (not the ending just that she was stuck watching with me and she couldn't figure out why I had watched up until the final episode) I explained all the Camilly/Adora/Marian backstory. She immediately called Amma as the murderer, she immediately figured out Amma had been stashing teeth in the dollhouse. I didn't see that right away. As much as Gayla cleaned that floor and Amma always zoomed right to the dollhouse I can't believe she wasn't calling the police! She thought it was stupid to show the murders in the final credits. And once caught like that Amma is just meek and says "don't tell mama?" She wasn't gonna fly into a rage and choke out Camille? Then like the dopes that we are, we headed straight into watching "3 Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri" which further pissed us off! 4 hours ago, Buttless said: Yes, youre correct; they dont formally diagnose them. And the term they use to describe them is antisocial personality disorder traits. This is political, imo, because they just have theories and no proof of any cure for real psychopathy (a weighted word they wont use anymore). Im a layman, and am discussing this in layman's term. They might not like to diagnose them but my niece was sent to counseling and the "informal" diagnosis was that she was a sociopath and in hindsight they nailed it. I absolutely never saw it because like a good sociopath she always made you feel you are on the "inside" I fell for all the charm, I never witnessed her changing her personality traits for every different person she encountered. I believed that only I understood her and then one day everything fell apart and I realized how stupid I was. She's never killed anyone but she's been in all kinds of trouble since she was 14 throughout this series I could see how easily she could have done any of these things. When people dismissed Amma as the potential killer saying she wouldn't have the brute strength I mentally checked if my niece coulda done that. She was not even 5 feet tall, tiny, tiny thing and she was scarier than anyone I've ever met. 3 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Schmolioot said: Locking up children for years is a uniquely American thing and one of the many, many serious issues in our criminal justice system that needs reform. Amma deserves to be punished. I don’t think anyone is denying that. But she is also is young enough, and there are enough mitigating factors for me at least, that I do believe that she should get a chance at rehabilitation and given a second chance at some point in adulthood. She doesn’t kill, or even show violent tendencies, randomly. She has a very specific problem right now. Perhaps there is a therapy/medication combo that can help this. Maybe just being away and having less contact with Adora and Camille will help. I don’t know. I’m just not willing to condemn a 15 year old girl (or however old she is) to life in prison where there are these many mitigating factors Then how about she lives next to you and your daughter's home when she gets out at 18 :D There is no cure for that kind of violent sociopathic behavior. Therapy makes them smarter at working the system and getting more victims. These are among the very few people in society who you could say are "broken" enough to not be allowed to be free around other people. They are lethally dangerous, and you can see when juveniles who have committed violent acts were released from jail or psych ward internment to go on and rack up more bloody victims. Antisocial personality disorders are nothing to fuck around with. Ive yet to see evidence that anyone's been helped while a teenager, and no one just grows out of them. When youre talking about an Amma, she's coldbloodedly killed, kidnapped and tortured and mutilated 3 young girls. That is beyond the pale of the judicial system and the psychiatric system. That is special circumstances ,regardless of her poisoning or abuse. She was of sound mind when she committed all these acts: "Dont tell moma." That's another thing that is so ridiculous. That there are five -FIVE- little girls in this tiny town who are stone cold sociopaths. Amma killed cats with Ann and Natalie. Natalie was a menace to society, lol You want this kid living next to you or anyone else? She kills cats. Bites body parts off. Slams her sharpened pencil into other girls eyes at the slightest provocation. Hey, John? It wasnt the town. It was Natalie. Prison is no place for people who need help for addictions, or mental health issues and some personality disorders. Age is not a factor here. Amma is in THE most dangerous offender category. If people think they can change these types, they are allowed to try it, while they are incarcerated in some type of facility. Edited August 28, 2018 by Buttless 9 Link to comment
Mothra August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 8 hours ago, Slovenly Muse said: Really? I'd have thought a regular file would have done it. Removing them would be the challenge, but once they're out, they're just bones. They could probably even be sanded into shape. Not that I want to pull one of my own and find out! Basing my opinion on 7th grade health class: (I don't know why images always post twice for me) Anyhoo, as you can see, the actual "ivory"--the enamel--makes up very little of the tooth's actual substance. You'd need a hummingbird-dismembering saw, imo, to get that thin layer off--and to do it 64 times! Beyond the patience of any 12-year-old I've ever known. I wish I'd made a footnote of that illustration. Damn. Another missed opportunity. Link to comment
Schmolioot August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 57 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said: Maybe not outright violence but she has shown a proclivity for childish rage and jealousy not to mention bullying behavior even against her own sister. She put a lollipop in her sisters hair. It was he act of a petulant 5 year old. It didn’t scream “murderer” to me at the time 1 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 25 minutes ago, Mothra said: Basing my opinion on 7th grade health class: (I don't know why images always post twice for me) Anyhoo, as you can see, the actual "ivory"--the enamel--makes up very little of the tooth's actual substance. You'd need a hummingbird-dismembering saw, imo, to get that thin layer off--and to do it 64 times! Beyond the patience of any 12-year-old I've ever known. I wish I'd made a footnote of that illustration. Damn. Another missed opportunity. Are you into bird taxidermy? 1 Link to comment
TattleTeeny August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) Quote we're asked to believe that Amma was able to get hold of a jigsaw fine enough to *saw* children's teeth into flat tiles that would look like the ivory on the floor. Two girls equals 64 teeth if they have them all, and I doubt that you could get more than one usable slice out of each tooth, so with *no* mistakes you'd have 64 tiles of varying widths (because the ones from molars would be bigger than the slivers you could get from incisors) and I'm sure that would make a very fine ivory floor in a dollhouse. Such horseshit. It's making me laugh that you're so passionate about this--haha, I really can relate. But (and my goal is so not to poke holes or whatever), I'm guessing that sanding was probably the method used, with the teeth's roots embedded in something soft and claylike? I don't know, of course (because why would we get to solidly know anything with this show?), but that's how my former art-school-student self would do it (oy, yikes). Also, it's no less implausible "my" way, so what difference does it even make? Quote And don't talk to me about fillings! This is my very favorite part of your post! Edited August 28, 2018 by TattleTeeny 6 Link to comment
Schmolioot August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 14 minutes ago, Buttless said: Then how about she lives next to you and your daughter's home when she gets out at 18 :D There is no cure for that kind of violent sociopathic behavior. Therapy makes them smarter at working the system and getting more victims. These are among the very few people in society who you could say are "broken" enough to not be allowed to be free around other people. They are lethally dangerous, and you can see when juveniles who have committed violent acts were released from jail or psych ward internment to go on and rack up more bloody victims. Antisocial personality disorders are nothing to fuck around with. Ive yet to see evidence that anyone's been helped while a teenager, and no one just grows out of them. When youre talking about an Amma, she's coldbloodedly killed, kidnapped and tortured and mutilated 3 young girls. That is beyond the pale of the judicial system and the psychiatric system. That is special circumstances ,regardless of her poisoning or abuse. She was of sound mind when she committed all these acts: "Dont tell moma." That's another thing that is so ridiculous. That there are five -FIVE- little girls in this tiny town who are stone cold sociopaths. Amma killed cats with Ann and Natalie. Natalie was a menace to society, lol You want this kid living next to you or anyone else? She kills cats. Bites body parts off. Slams her sharpened pencil into other girls eyes at the slightest provocation. Hey, John? It wasnt the town. It was Natalie. Prison is no place for people who need help for addictions, or mental health issues and some personality disorders. Age is not a factor here. Amma is in THE most dangerous offender category. If people think they can change these types, they are allowed to try it, while they are incarcerated in some type of facility. I never said that Amma shouldn’t be incarcerated. She obviously should. And so should Kelsey and Jodes, who as far as I know have none of the mitigating factors that Amma has. Whats their excuse? Peer pressure? As for the cat stuff, I didn’t read the book and the show never mentioned it so I’ll take your word for it. As for wanting to live next door to Amma, no I wouldn’t. But I might live next door to one now. I have no idea. All I know is that the show (I can’t speak to the book) did not show me any evidence that Amma is violent or dangerous to people outside of this specific trigger surrounding Adora and Camille. Whether that can be treated or not I don’t know. Perhaps she’ll need to spend the rest of her life in a mental hospital. But I stand by my opinion that kids her age, particularly given the mitigating factors, should at least be given the chance to get better and prove that they can live a productive life without being a danger to themselves or others. 2 Link to comment
Mothra August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 6 hours ago, Buttless said: There's a difference between knowledge and gossip.The town runs on gossip. But only a few intimates would know Adora enough to figure out she was poisoning Marian, and its never explained satisfactorily, what they knew , how they knew and when they knew. "Aunt" Jackie was once Aurora's good friend. In her little convo with Camllle, she talks about knowing that Marian was being poisoned, But theres no way Adora told her. Adora wouldnt even be straight with Camille as she had incapacitated her and was killing her. So how did Jackie know? If Adoa had said that her child had an congenital illness, why would Jackie have questioned her? She never explains that, so we dont know that, either. What if Marian had had a little known disease that kept her sick through her youth? The gossip in the town would have been the same, and framed an innocent woman (if Adora had not had MBP). So how much of that wicked town, other than the sheriff also maybe, would have thought any of that was real compared to gossip they wanted o be true? I don't have much trouble believing that the town "knew" about Marian, and particularly that Jackie *knew* about Marian. Jackie and Adora were old friends (she tells Camille, "I wish you'd known Adora before Marian"--which, of course, as the older sister, Camille did), and I think Jackie was around Marian enough to know there wasn't much wrong with her--the flashbacks we saw of Marian, right up till the seizure, show a child much like Amma and Camille herself, running and playing, looking healthy as all get out. If Marian had been diagnosed with some rare, deadly disease, Adora would have been in hog heaven! I bet that's the dream of ever MBP mother--not to have to pretend to be the tirelessly caring, put-upon gallant nurse-angel of her child. Adora would have trumpeted that all over town. 6 hours ago, Buttless said: Sorry to belabor this point, but they firmly planted in our heads (with reoccuring imagery almost alone) the idea that , WTF really went on there? And I think the authors truly do want us to believe it was consensual. That this is another little bit of feminist-not-feminst Flynn likes to play. 'Why are you being sexist while claiming to save me from sexism?' But we all know ,if even just through the anecdotal experience of having been 14 years old, that it couldnt have been anything but rape. Yeah. The equivocal handling of the rape(s) was jarring to me, too. I believe they happened, but it's hard for me to imagine that in a small town word of the rapes wouldn't have eventually reached adult ears. Maybe adults knew about it, and sighed and shrugged their shoulders. A town that celebrates the heroism of a young woman raped to the point of losing her baby--and with an annual barbecue, no less!--I guess can't be expected to get all that het up over football players doing what football players do <---sarcasm, of course. The fact that Camille pretended nothing had happened in her encounters with the men later in life kind of rang true to me. She was comfortable in her role of acting like nothing had happened; when Mr. Lacey tried to apologize, forcing her to face the fact that something *had* happened, she ran like a rabbit. I have no evidence for this, but I believe it's quite common for rape victims to behave this way, to shut off the fact of the sexual assault as a way of carrying on with life. Plus, there's always the factor of rape victims feeling like they must have done something to warrant the rape. OTOH, what dramatic purpose did the rape really fulfill, other than explaining Camille's cutting? And what dramatic purpose did the cutting have? I think you could have left those two things out and still had the same story--Camille could have checked herself into rehab because of her alcohoism. 8 minutes ago, Buttless said: Are you into bird taxidermy? My secret is out! I have a hummingbird feeder right outside the window where I sit to eat breakfast and read the paper. We have a ridiculous number of hummingbirds this year, and I guess the little buggers are on my mind. Do you know about ortolans?* *skating perilously close to total off-topicism 1 Link to comment
slf August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 I don't think it's meant literally that rat poison made Amma the way she is. "A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort." I mean, obviously, the actual act of being spoon-fed rat poison is abusive and being subjected to abuse will have an effect. But it's more about her relationship with her mother overall. Munchausen by Proxy isn't just about attention, it creates a dependency the abuser feeds off of. In the case of Adora and Amma, their relationship was mutually codependent. Adora needed to be needed, Amma needs attention. This dynamic, and all the myriad ways it manifested, was the single greatest factor that informed Amma's psychology. 9 Link to comment
Mothra August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) Okay, backing off my objections to the teeth used as ivory tile in the dollhouse. She could have cut off the roots and sanded down the crowns* till they were flat on top, then embedded the teeth in Pla-Doh or something. That assumes a certain thickness to the floors in the dollhouse, but I can accept that. The question that raises, though, is did Adora know? She worked so closely with Amma on the dollhouse, she must have known. And that would explain why Adora was so eager to frame John Keene--or anyone else--as the murderer. *Of the molars, that is. If she has 64 teeth total, with no fillings, and only--what 16? of them are molars, I don't see how she was able to tile the floor. Well, duh--that's why she needed Mae's teeth. ETA Okay, I'm wrong about that, too--lay the flatter teeth flat. Thanks to all who straightened me out about the teeth. It was bracing. Edited August 28, 2018 by Mothra read before you post, Mothra 2 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 26 minutes ago, Schmolioot said: I never said that Amma shouldn’t be incarcerated. She obviously should. And so should Kelsey and Jodes, who as far as I know have none of the mitigating factors that Amma has. Whats their excuse? Peer pressure? As for the cat stuff, I didn’t read the book and the show never mentioned it so I’ll take your word for it. As for wanting to live next door to Amma, no I wouldn’t. But I might live next door to one now. I have no idea. All I know is that the show (I can’t speak to the book) did not show me any evidence that Amma is violent or dangerous to people outside of this specific trigger surrounding Adora and Camille. Whether that can be treated or not I don’t know. Perhaps she’ll need to spend the rest of her life in a mental hospital. But I stand by my opinion that kids her age, particularly given the mitigating factors, should at least be given the chance to get better and prove that they can live a productive life without being a danger to themselves or others. You mentioned the US's incarceration of children, so I went there. Although it's fictional, Amma hits every major point of sociopathy, and she's done extremely disturbing and violent things. Im A-OK with the US system locking these kids up for life, when there is no cure to this disorder. There is no mistaking that she is solidly in the worst of the worst APD clusters. Knowing what we know, as televison viewers, ha. The thing is, her problem isnt just related to her mom or Camille. The traits she displays are classic APD, and if her mom and Camille arent there, she'll find another person to use. And because she has these trait, we go back to the fact that there is no therapy to treat them. She's not going to get more self-aware, or grow a conscience, or see her therapist as anything more than a chump. She may have irreparable brain damage, also. Altho she's shown to be healthy as a horse when not being actively poisoned. You could live next to a child molester. Or a person who has some sociopathic traits. You probably do. But statistically you will not be living next to a serial killer of little girls who tortured held and mutilated them, like Amma. 5 Link to comment
Schmolioot August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Buttless said: You mentioned the US's incarceration of children, so I went there. Although it's fictional, Amma hits every major point of sociopathy, and she's done extremely disturbing and violent things. Im A-OK with the US system locking these kids up for life, when there is no cure to this disorder. There is no mistaking that she is solidly in the worst of the worst APD clusters. Knowing what we know, as televison viewers, ha. The thing is, her problem isnt just related to her mom or Camille. The traits she displays are classic APD, and if her mom and Camille arent there, she'll find another person to use. And because she has these trait, we go back to the fact that there is no therapy to treat them. She's not going to get more self-aware, or grow a conscience, or see her therapist as anything more than a chump. She may have irreparable brain damage, also. Altho she's shown to be healthy as a horse when not being actively poisoned. You could live next to a child molester. Or a person who has some sociopathic traits. You probably do. But statistically you will not be living next to a serial killer of little girls who tortured held and mutilated them, like Amma. Perhaps you’re right. Whether Amma’s condition can be treated is something I don’t know. I’ll take your word on it since you seem to have some knowledge on the subject. That being said, she’s still young enough that somebody should be given the chance to try and help her. She is going to live another 70 years or so presuming the poisoning has not done some kind of irreparable harm. Rather than just throwing her in a hole for that time (which costs a lot of money) it’s worth trying to help her. That’s really my point. Here’s an interesting reddit thread on this exact topic. Lots of book spoilers (and given what is quoted book Amma seems a lot worse than tv Amma) I don’t know how to link the thread but anybody that cares can easily find it lol Edited August 28, 2018 by Schmolioot Link to comment
Popcorn August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 Add me to the side of those arguing for mitigating factors on Amma's part. A child's worldview is shaped primarily by experiences/interactions in her family, with caretakers. Amma's understanding of love, relating to others, etc, has been warped from the start-- Adora really cannot love her (in the sense that most of us think of love)-- she relates to her (Amma) narcissistically as a staging subject for Adora's performance of "motherhood." And Adora's version of mothering involves a super twisted torture/caretaking scenario. Alan-- I don't even know what to say, but I imagine that it was as clear to Amma as it was to the viewers that Alan was aware of and basically signed off on what Adora was doing to Amma. Which to Amma would mean perhaps that this kind of treatment is what she deserves, or is what love is. It's true that girls are more likely to act in (ie Camille's self-harm) rather than acting out (violence toward others) but Amma as the killer is plausible, plot-wise, for me anyway, especially taking into account the needs of fiction and drama and all that. 3 Link to comment
nachomama August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) Mae is the friend at the end? She hadn't killed her yet right? Sweet moses if she did...I get that she was setting up her old pattern. I didn't know I needed to freeze frame every gd scene to be able to catch stuff like this?!!! I knew I wasn't catching all the words but this is whole frikkin murders I'm missing because they just skip over em so fast. Edited August 28, 2018 by nachomama 3 Link to comment
Schmolioot August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 I think part of my sympathy for Amma comes from Eliza Scanlon’s performance. She was great and despite the bad things that Amma did (prior the stupid reveal) I still kind of liked her and felt for her. So definitely sign me up for a Scanlon led Amma show where she’s a Hannibal Lechter or Dexter type anti-hero 1 Link to comment
TattleTeeny August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) You know, for as long as I can remember, I have read, watched, and researched countless nonfiction works of true crime, yet still to this day I have trouble not fixating on or feeling distractedly upset by animal harm--even in just that one little (fictional, no less!) mention above, and even though I (think I) am prepared for it and know fully well that it's all part of the "deal" when this is one's interest. Ugh. Edited August 28, 2018 by TattleTeeny 1 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 34 minutes ago, Schmolioot said: Perhaps you’re right. Whether Amma’s condition can be treated is something I don’t know. I’ll take your word on it since you seem to have some knowledge on the subject. That being said, she’s still young enough that somebody should be given the chance to try and help her. She is going to live another 70 years or so presuming the poisoning has not done some kind of irreparable harm. Rather than just throwing her in a hole for that time (which costs a lot of money) it’s worth trying to help her. That’s really my point. Here’s an interesting reddit thread on this exact topic. Lots of book spoilers (and given what is quoted book Amma seems a lot worse than tv Amma) I don’t know how to link the thread but anybody that cares can easily find it lol There are other difficult personality disorders that have a not so great reputation with some in the psychiatric community, but gains in treatment have been made. And they have started seriously studying the physical part of the disorder, not just environmental/nuture. So hopefully they can learn more about it, and try more treatments. Professionals who did only environmental/psychological research on sociopathic people (usually in prison for their crimes) had a high burn-out rate. I've read a few account of theirs, and it is a pretty awful prospect to work with them, because they arent selfaware, and have very little conscience. Even the ones whove learned to be charming, cannot hold onto that mask for more than a few hours. When you talk to criminal psychiatrists, they point out that window in an infants life, where if they do not get nurturing care and attention, they believe their minds can be set to sociopathy from that point. And that the adult sociopathic behavior is based on an infants mind. If sociopathy can be set that young, it makes me think theyll make very little headway trying to treat it. That it is just part of the human condition, maybe. Anyway, science is changing every day. And scientific theories. So who knows? Children shouldnt be thrown away. But you also have to balance extreme cases with caution and control. 5 Link to comment
Mothra August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 33 minutes ago, Schmolioot said: That being said, she’s still young enough that somebody should be given the chance to try and help her. She is going to live another 70 years or so presuming the poisoning has not done some kind of irreparable harm. Rather than just throwing her in a hole for that time (which costs a lot of money) it’s worth trying to help her. That’s really my point. There's a wonderful book called "Cries Unheard" by Gitta Sereny, a true story about a little girl named Mary Bell, a child murderer, who was redeemed by the care of one of her prison-keepers. Until I read this book, I would not have thought a child like Amma could ever be treated successfully enough that she would be able to live a normal life. For people interested in true crime, this is a must-read. 4 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 40 minutes ago, Schmolioot said: I think part of my sympathy for Amma comes from Eliza Scanlon’s performance. She was great and despite the bad things that Amma did (prior the stupid reveal) I still kind of liked her and felt for her. So definitely sign me up for a Scanlon led Amma show where she’s a Hannibal Lechter or Dexter type anti-hero Eeh, I found her and the sheriff sort of routine characters. I think a lot of actors could have pulled those parts off. Neither of them added anything new or better to those kinds of roles, imo. 16 minutes ago, Mothra said: There's a wonderful book called "Cries Unheard" by Gitta Sereny, a true story about a little girl named Mary Bell, a child murderer, who was redeemed by the care of one of her prison-keepers. Until I read this book, I would not have thought a child like Amma could ever be treated successfully enough that she would be able to live a normal life. For people interested in true crime, this is a must-read. I know about Mary Bell. How can you conclude she was redeemed? And what did the prison employee do to redeem her? 1 Link to comment
stacyasp August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 9 hours ago, ferjy said: I think you quoted the wrong person. :-) I did lol Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) 56 minutes ago, TattleTeeny said: You know, for as long as I can remember, I have read, watched, and researched countless nonfiction works of true crime, yet still to this day I have trouble not fixating on or feeling distractedly upset by animal harm--even in just that one little (fictional, no less!) mention above, and even though I (think I) am prepared for it and know fully well that it's all part of the "deal" when this is one's interest. Ugh. Yeah ; me too. murder and rape are in the province of humans, who dont need to murder or rape, but who choose to. Animals are innocents. 58 minutes ago, nachomama said: Mae is the friend at the end? She hadn't killed her yet right? Sweet moses if she did...I get that she was setting up her old pattern. I didn't know I needed to freeze frame every gd scene to be able to catch stuff like this?!!! I knew I wasn't catching all the words but this is whole frikkin murders I'm missing because they just skip over em so fast. Yes; she's killing her in those fast edits in the credits. Edited August 28, 2018 by Buttless 1 Link to comment
TattleTeeny August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 And it's hard to get the images/thoughts to leave my head once they're there, man. But that's a whole other issue I have! Link to comment
Dakisela August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 On 8/27/2018 at 10:25 AM, annlaw78 said: You mean the physics of the girl who we abruptly and suddenly learned was being poisoned and an invalid killing someone her own size, pulling teeth, and transporting the bodies? Which is it, show? I agree, the “physics” research is dumb. Seriously. With a medical file that size and scars from FEEDING tubes for cripes sake, how did she function or have any strength at all? See seemed too "normal" for someone that sick! 3 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 1 hour ago, Mothra said: I don't have much trouble believing that the town "knew" about Marian, and particularly that Jackie *knew* about Marian. Jackie and Adora were old friends (she tells Camille, "I wish you'd known Adora before Marian"--which, of course, as the older sister, Camille did), and I think Jackie was around Marian enough to know there wasn't much wrong with her--the flashbacks we saw of Marian, right up till the seizure, show a child much like Amma and Camille herself, running and playing, looking healthy as all get out. If Marian had been diagnosed with some rare, deadly disease, Adora would have been in hog heaven! I bet that's the dream of ever MBP mother--not to have to pretend to be the tirelessly caring, put-upon gallant nurse-angel of her child. Adora would have trumpeted that all over town. Yeah. The equivocal handling of the rape(s) was jarring to me, too. I believe they happened, but it's hard for me to imagine that in a small town word of the rapes wouldn't have eventually reached adult ears. Maybe adults knew about it, and sighed and shrugged their shoulders. A town that celebrates the heroism of a young woman raped to the point of losing her baby--and with an annual barbecue, no less!--I guess can't be expected to get all that het up over football players doing what football players do <---sarcasm, of course. The fact that Camille pretended nothing had happened in her encounters with the men later in life kind of rang true to me. She was comfortable in her role of acting like nothing had happened; when Mr. Lacey tried to apologize, forcing her to face the fact that something *had* happened, she ran like a rabbit. I have no evidence for this, but I believe it's quite common for rape victims to behave this way, to shut off the fact of the sexual assault as a way of carrying on with life. Plus, there's always the factor of rape victims feeling like they must have done something to warrant the rape. OTOH, what dramatic purpose did the rape really fulfill, other than explaining Camille's cutting? And what dramatic purpose did the cutting have? I think you could have left those two things out and still had the same story--Camille could have checked herself into rehab because of her alcohoism. My secret is out! I have a hummingbird feeder right outside the window where I sit to eat breakfast and read the paper. We have a ridiculous number of hummingbirds this year, and I guess the little buggers are on my mind. Do you know about ortolans?* *skating perilously close to total off-topicism Mothra, Do you have an Encyclopedia of Grotesqueries? Didnt you also bring up the dental extraction fetish? The cutting had everything to do with the plot. The rape could have had something more to do with the plot, rather than be continuously brought up an then not dealt wiith. And the thing about a place with such rigid gender roles and misogyny firmly in place, is that fathers in these cultures think they own their daughters, and their virginities. So no matter how much small towns love their football, I doubt that fathers there are going to routinely sacrifice their daughters up to 14 year old football playing punks for a good old gangbang. If they cherish their Millie Calhouns, it should be pointed out that the Yankees were the ones doing the gangraping, and these people seem to firmly side with the opposing army,so it makes no sense, even omn this level. 3 Link to comment
spaceghostess August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 (edited) On 8/27/2018 at 12:51 AM, ferjy said: I wonder. He's such a snivelling wimp, I bet they'd be able to get a confession out of him pretty easily. I'm not so sure about this. One of the things I thought both book and show got right was the portrayal of narcissism. Narcissists are expert at identifying those who will be sucked in by their charisma and subsequently provide narcissistic supply (i.e. continuous ego stroking and /or willing service) to the narc. Once secured, these followers (it's a very cult-like dynamic) will do all manner of seemingly uncharacteristic things, including: looking the other way as the narcissist commits heinous acts (Alan); lying to protect the narcissist (Alan) as they continue to be manipulated by the narcissist (Alan, Windgap residents, the Murderettes). The Murderettes were Amma's Flying Monkeys, i.e. the most aggressive variety of narcissist enablers. Because they've been manipulated to the point that they connect their sense of self worth to the success of the narc, Flying Monkeys and "regular" followers often exhibit very strong loyalty to the narc, to the point that they'll lie (and worse) to just about anyone to protect their leader. (Ahem. Not going into how we've been seeing this dynamic play out in national headlines for the past two years.) Don't mean to sound preachy; it's just that I was married to a malignant narcissist for 16 years. I was never a Flying Monkey for him, but I certainly grew to accept many of his bizarre and abusive behaviors as "normal", even as I rebelled against others. When I finally began pushing back hard, he became downright evil and, during our divorce, he and his monkeys came after me big-time. It was actually quite terrifying. The creepiest thing about it was that I later realized I'd provided such a good front of normalcy for him (which was, it turned out, my primary function--and I was GREAT at it, whoo hoo) that people would glimpse his true colors, only to wave away their suspicions because my very stable presence rubbed off on him. Several people--including his sister and his oldest friend--told me afterward that they thought I'd "changed him for the better". In other words he'd always been this variety of prick, but they thought he'd turned over a new leaf with me. Only a fly on the wall would know otherwise. Heh, the above lengthy tome was just to say that Alan might be a tougher interrogation subject than you think. :) Edited August 28, 2018 by spaceghostess 13 Link to comment
Butless August 28, 2018 Share August 28, 2018 12 hours ago, TattleTeeny said: And it's hard to get the images/thoughts to leave my head once they're there, man. But that's a whole other issue I have! This is messed up but, I hate spiders, yet that flashback clip of the black and white spider bothered me every time it was played because I thought they were going to eventually run that tape a second longer each time, and we would see the boys or Camille smash it. That ended up distracting me from the fact that ,Oh yeah, this is the beginning of a gangrape. The uneasy feeling of them potentially killing that spider had me more upset than the prospect of a gangrape. And somehow that scene is now burned into my head, because of it. Fuck 12 hours ago, spaceghostess said: I'm not so sure about this. One of the things I thought both book and show got right was the portrayal of narcissism. Narcissists are expert at identifying those who will be sucked in by their charisma and subsequently provide narcissistic supply (i.e. continuous ego stroking and /or willing service) to the narc. Once secured, these followers (it's a very cult-like dynamic) will do all manner of seemingly uncharacteristic things, including: looking the other way as the narcissist commits heinous acts (Alan); lying to protect the narcissist (Alan) as they continue to be manipulated by the narcissist (Alan, Windgap residents, the Murderettes). The Murderettes were Amma's Flying Monkeys, i.e. the most aggressive variety of narcissist enablers. Because they've been manipulated to the point that they connect their sense of self worth to the success of the narc, Flying Monkeys and "regular" followers often exhibit very strong loyalty to the narc, to the point that they'll lie (and worse) to just about anyone to protect their leader. (Ahem. Not going into how we've been seeing this dynamic play out in national headlines for the past two years.) Don't mean to sound preachy; it's just that I was married to a malignant narcissist for 16 years. I was never a Flying Monkey for him, but I certainly grew to accept many of his bizarre and abusive behaviors as "normal", even as I rebelled against others. When I finally began pushing back hard, he became downright evil and, during our divorce, he and his monkeys came after me big-time. It was actually quite terrifying. The creepiest thing about it was that I later realized I'd provided such a good front of normalcy for him (which was, it turned out, my primary function--and I was GREAT at it, whoo hoo) that people would glimpse his true colors, only to wave away their suspicions because my very stable presence rubbed off on him. Many people--including his own family members--told me afterward that they thought I'd "changed him for the better". In other words he'd always been this variety of prick, but they thought he'd turned over a new leaf with me. Only a fly on the wall would know otherwise. Heh, the above lengthy tome was just to say that Alan might be a tougher interrogation subject than you think. :) Now I want to hear more about this, lol Flyng monkeys! 3 Link to comment
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