S05.E01: Episode 1

[AngelaHunter]

1 minute ago, izabella said:

When they show the title card before each segment (i.e., Part 1:  Noah), it means that entire segment is only the way that Noah saw it.  So that's why we will then see differences in the way a different person perceived the same scene (i.e., Part 2: Helen).

I know, but as a previous poster said, if we only see scenes the way the characters perceived them to be, then do we never get to see the way it really happened?

I might have a conversation with someone and in that person's viewpoint, I was really rude. In my viewpoint, I was being funny or whatever. A person can say, "You're crazy" and it can mean or be interpreted many different ways - depending on the tone, facial expressions situation, relationship -  from loving to vicious. So what really happened, if no impartial observer saw it? Are we to think nothing we saw on this show really happened the way it was presented to us?  I really thought in the first episode of this series that we were seeing Noah's book scenes vs the way it really happened, yet I see now that I was wrong. 

[izabella]

56 minutes ago, AngelaHunter said:

I know, but as a previous poster said, if we only see scenes the way the characters perceived them to be, then do we never get to see the way it really happened?

Yes, that's correct.  We never see them as an objective observer from the outside - we never see what really happened.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

15 minutes ago, izabella said:

Yes, that's correct.  We never see them as an objective observer from the outside - we never see what really happened.

Part of the conceit of the show is that there is no such thing as an impartial observer.  Everyone has some level of bias in observation, whether it is what they tend to focus on, whether they are more accurate at remembering what was said versus what they saw, etc. When we see two versions of the same thing, the truth likely lies somewhere in between.  In the early seasons, the show did this well.  For example, Alison would see herself as dour and frumpy; Noah saw her as flirtatious and sexy.  As the show has progressed, the viewpoints have often digressed to a level that strays too far to be simply the differing interpretations of the same events by different people. 

[Milburn Stone]

5 hours ago, chick binewski said:

To me, the euthanasia illustrated Noah's first major act of selfishness. Whatever our thoughts are regarding the ethics of the matter, Noah didn't kill his mother until her illness was going to keep him from going to college. I've debated since S3 which escape Noah was punishing himself for - the one from his mom or the one from Helen. 

Wow...that's not how I remember it. (So we have our own versions of what we experienced, just like the characters in the show. 🙂 ) I interpreted that Noah's mother generously wanted to get out of the way of his path to success, and that Noah assented to her wish. Afterwards he felt remorse and guilt, as if he killed her--but that was Noah being hard on himself, because I would never describe what happened as "Noah killing her." Maybe he was her tacit accomplice in her suicide.

You could be right...I'm just saying what the story spoke to me.

[Pallas]

On 8/28/2019 at 7:22 PM, Milburn Stone said:

A particular moment in this episode made me think differently about the varying perspectives the show presents us with.

It was when Helen (in Noah's version) says to him, "Why didn't you die instead of Vic?"

That is so vicious that I can't believe that even Noah thinks she said that to him, or remembers the scene that way. However, I can believe that Noah senses that she thinks this, even though he knows full well she never said it. (And would never claim that she actually said it.

I like this idea, but I'm not sure it plays out. I'm not sure Noah thinks there's anything that Helen would bother to repress in his presence anymore, or even refuse to say aloud. (In fact, part of him has always counted on that: never more than now.)

It's the dusk of the day of Vik's funeral, and there he is, her inexplicable ex, toting out the garbage cans as Vik did, when Vik first met Sierra. Helen didn't care how she sounded when she told him this was Vik's job, or that what she wanted (you insufferable survivor, just like me) was Vik. I can see her finishing by asking, "Why wasn't it you?" There's some question in that question. And even as an accusation, it's a lot less vicious than what Cole's mother Cherry said to Alison in season one, about Gabriel's death: "It should have been you." 

Of course, Cherry's statement could be what Alison imagined that Cherry wanted to say. But I didn't take it that way then, and still don't. I'm not sure Cherry said it, but I'm certain it's what Alison remembers. Each POV, I'm pretty sure, is neither what "actually" happened nor what the character imagines might have happened: it's what the character recalls. The show is Treem's take on what memory is for. 

[AngelaHunter]

On 9/3/2019 at 5:55 PM, Milburn Stone said:

Afterwards he felt remorse and guilt, as if he killed her--but that was Noah being hard on himself, because I would never describe what happened as "Noah killing her." Maybe he was her tacit accomplice in her suicide.

That's the way I saw it - as Noah helping her die, but not killing her. I know what it's like to watch someone you love suffer where there is no hope and can't say for sure I wouldn't do the same if asked to. For sure, even then it would cause serious emotional distress and the feelings of guilt and remorse.