While all this discussion is thought provoking and I love the debate of it..... I personally feel she is telling the truth. I think too much thought is going into it. I don't think the machine was a scam. If anything, I think if it didn't work it would have killed her. She would have drown if it was simply water. She would have her lungs harden and die if it were that metal containing substance. Either she's dead or she went there. Or simply incinerated. I did not think or hear a STOP when the fluid was coming up. I heard a gasp for air and a minor freak out. She stalked them, she was on a mission, there was no going back in her mind.

She is the 'bravest girl on earth'. She has no purpose to lie or to make up a story. There is no 'better' story. And a lot of those "scams" that were referred to in an above posting were not intentional scams. Especially Matt writing the Book of Kevin. He felt it was real. If anything, the "scam" by GOD opened his eyes. Maybe just like Kevin's "scam" opened Nora's eyes to tell him what really happened. I think she felt depressed, sad, worthless, embarrassed, drained, and unworthy when she went to the other side and came back. I don't think she felt she belonged anywhere I think she simply was depressed and her appearance, mannerisms, isolation showed that side of her. When Kevin came, she decided to confess. She had nothing to lose and she didn't care. I believe her.

The show is partly about what you choose to believe in the absence of definitive proof. I don't think there's any way for us to know whether it's the "truth" or not, and I'm sure the scene was written that way on purpose. The important thing is that Kevin believes her.

After reading the bulk of this topic, I've now realized that I just don't really care. It could certainly be because I marathon viewed the whole thing in a month and didn't make the investment that many of you may have. The premise of the show was ludicrous from the start. I only continued to watch because the writing was pretty decent once I was able to fully suspend my disbelief.

The woman who lost her baby isn't lying to Laurie. That she was being careless and not loving in a stressful moment doesn't mean she didn't love her baby. We all act like that sometimes.

@Invidia said:

Do you agree or disagree that her story was the BETTER one?

I think it's fun that you have so many alternate realities within the context of this show... well as long as you aren't this way in real life. Hopefully you aren't an anti-evolution creationist or 9/11 truther or moon landing skeptic, climate change denier, or Sandy Hook false flagger. That would be disturbing, to say the least!

@Invidia said:

Definitely NOT one of those types.

OK, that's good. If you can see through Trump's BS, then you are mentally sound.

Yes, I agree. Trump and his people are implementing a technique known as "gaslighting". They want to make us feel like we are the crazy ones. I don't know how they live with themselves. --> Gaslighting <--

Let's please keep politics off a television message board. While you are opinionated/passionate in what you believe.... it doesn't mean you are correct and others may have a different point of view which doesn't make them crazy. Please stick to the topic and try not to go off tangent. Thank you.

@deconoir said:

Let's please keep politics off a television message board. While you are opinionated/passionate in what you believe.... it doesn't mean you are correct and others may have a different point of view which doesn't make them crazy. Please stick to the topic and try not to go off tangent. Thank you.

You know, people have different opinions about movies and TV shows. This very thread is a perfect example. Maybe we should keep quiet about everything? Wow, people are so soft and spineless these days. You can't discuss anything for fear of upsetting someone. Trump is a buffoon. This isn't even an opinion. It's fact based on all his ridiculous words and actions. Are you paying attention?

@Kewl_Kat said:

@deconoir said:

Let's please keep politics off a television message board. While you are opinionated/passionate in what you believe.... it doesn't mean you are correct and others may have a different point of view which doesn't make them crazy. Please stick to the topic and try not to go off tangent. Thank you.

You know, people have different opinions about movies and TV shows. This very thread is a perfect example. Maybe we should keep quiet about everything? Wow, people are so soft and spineless these days. You can't discuss anything for fear of upsetting someone. Trump is a buffoon. This isn't even an opinion. It's fact based on all his ridiculous words and actions. Are you paying attention?

Actually, an opinion is exactly what that is. And it doesn’t matter how sure you are of it, you COULD be wrong. So try not to be so arrogant.

I don’t think that Kevin represents Trump at all. It’s following on the GR as a powerful political force idea, that they showed already the first time Kevin went into that other world. That’s why he’s dressed in white, of course. And his party doesn’t claim AT ALL to love families. They want to outlaw family ffs. Remember when Patti asks him in that other visit what does he think is their party’s purpose? To destroy families, that’s Kevin’s answer.

@Invidia said:

@Crisstti said:

The woman who lost her baby isn't lying to Laurie. That she was being careless and not loving in a stressful moment doesn't mean she didn't love her baby. We all act like that sometimes.

Did you hear her asking someone else on the cell phone to make a meal or something for the baby?

She also has a can of soda or something in her hand she's sipping on, yet doesn't have or offer the hungry baby anything?

Not even a bottle of WATER to suck on?

Sorry, but what I saw indicates this woman was way to SELF ABSORBED to pay attention to that baby.

What's weird was how we later saw KEVIN in the SAME PLACE doing the same thing with LILY.

But that was also because of the presence of PATTI and his attempt to silence her constant chatter by wearing the HEAD PHONES.

Whereas in the case of the other woman, it was her CONSTANT CHATTER on that CELL PHONE that leads to the NEGLECT of her infant son.

And even after others pointed out what they were doing to them, both that woman and KEVIN still continued to NEGLECT the infants in their care once they got into the car in the parking lot.

My guess is the woman never really wanted a child and only had the in vitro treatments as a way to please her husband (very much like the way SUSAN also PRETENDS to be happy and pleased to be back home again with her husband and son again ... before she deliberately drives the car into the TRUCK and kills herself and both her son and her husband).

Which is A LOT of guessing, based on very little. Every parent has some moments of feeling overwhelmed and not paying enough attention to their children, not showing them all the love they should. Some more so than others of course. And in most cases those moments mean nothing cause the children don’t die/suddenly disappear. A moment of not paying enough attention to your child does NOT amount to neglect. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean she doesn’t care or love her child. People are not perfect. Maybe she, just that time, forgot the baby's water.

Wow, never imagined discussing whether Nora lied or didn't would go down a black hole of nonsense politic talk.

Sorry but to create unnecessary drama & bring politics into this clearly is indicative of what kind of a loose cannon a person is. Not every show or movie or book or story has direct or indirect ties into current culture or politics. Sometimes it's just a story, made up to entertain regardless of how much you want to tie it into. Creating or reading into it so deeply that you pull garbage like what's been spewed is just that, garbage.

I guess that's what we end up with on forums where opinions good and bad are freely exchanged regardless of relevance.

Bash away or spew the nonsense since it makes you feel you better for venting it.

Until a writer of the show or someone closely tied into the actual end product publicly says that what we are seeing is their view on politics or culture, I don't buy any of what's previously been said. And don't tell me it's exactly what they've done because it isn't unless they've said it. Then you can site them as the source and that they've tied it into current events or politics. Until then, you are just a sore loser who should be a DEPARTURE ;)

@friscokid said:

Until then, you are just a sore loser who should be a DEPARTURE ;)

Who the heck are you talking to?

Questioned at his masterclass on the inspiration for “The Leftovers,” Lindelof recognized that its Departure is inspired by the evangelical idea of Rapture; which sparked interesting, if unexpected, tangential musing. “With all apocalyptic thinking, if it’s not happening fast enough we are going to bring it about, which I think explains the election in America,” Lindelof reflected. He went on: “If you are unhappy with the way things are going, you may want to elect an agent of destruction. I think it’s very interesting that Trump doesn’t identify as particularly religious [but] so many evangelicals got behind him.”

I agree with this. I have a few nutty religious friends and family members and they all adore Trump. Why? The guy is the polar opposite of how Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament. Trump is wealthy, pompous, greedy, proud, narcissistic, deceitful, unfaithful, xenophobic, etc. The character of Jesus was against _all _of these things. It only makes sense when you realize most Evangelicals don't care what Jesus stood for. It's a ruse. They are mostly concerned with keeping people who are different from themselves as far away (or as dead) as possible. They are people filled with fear and nothing scares them more than the unknown or the unfamiliar.

I don't believe she did, I also don't believe that the machine was a scam either.

I think she changed her mind at the last minute. When the orb is filling up you can see she becomes agitated and when the liquid gets past her shoulders she panics and lifts her head clear. When I first watched it I thought it was clear that she was about to shout something just when the scene cuts away (my guess was stop) and it seems that people on many other sites have expressed the same opinion. Although I accepted at the time that she was probably just taking a last gasp before going under and I imagined the shoutout. However, I have gone back and watched that scene multiple times and there's no doubt in my mind that she was definitely about to shout something and that the word started with an 'S' sound, so I'm sticking with stop. So I believe she changed her mind, they stopped the machine and she got out. She told Matt to leave her and gave him a story to tell everyone else as he had already told her that he'll tell them whatever she wants.

I like the idea of there being a separate reality where the 2% are living believing that 98% of the world's population departed. I just think her story of what happened while she was there is implausible. I don't particularly buy that she wouldn't want to at least talk to her kids but I accept that her explanation for why is at least plausible but I struggle to believe that entire neighbourhoods still have power given how sparsely populated the country is and her description of Mapleton paints a picture of hardly anyone still living there, who is running all these power stations?

My biggest issue however is the inventor, I believe that he would create a machine for her but surely as a scientist he would have wanted to do this first? Bring back his family to the "original world"? Prove to the other scientist that his invention worked? Be the man responsible for bringing back all the departed? To me it just sounded like a story that she had come up with the help cope with the fact that her children were gone, it's much easier for her to believe that they were living a happy life with a loving family than to not know what happened.

Also when Nora started telling the story to Kevin they did show her in the tank again where she takes her last breath/shouts stop, to me that seemed a bit odd to use that clip as a visual reference when they wasn't planning on showing any other visual cut aways while she's telling the story.

I enjoyed the finale as a whole, for those people who wanted a clear explanation of what happened to the departed they can chose to believe Nora's story that a parallel world was created where 2% of the population disappeared to (or 98%, depending on your perspective) and for those of us who are happy to let the mystery be (pun intended) then there is enough leftover for us to debate and think about. Of course there will always be those people who feel they need everything explained completely with zero ambiguity, there are shows around that do that but this isn't one of them, so chalk it up to a bad show and move on to another.

Surely no-one went into the finale of this show genuinely expecting everything to be revealed to them did they?!