@Invidia said:

If you don't believe the Machine is a SCAM, then do you think NORA was right about how she believed people were being INCINERATED by it?

I don't really have a definitive opinion, completely possible that they were incinerated or they could have genuinely been transported wherever the departed went. I just don't believe that the scientist simply drugged them then dumped them. If it was that simple Nora would have found out, there would be people out there making noise about it, she investigated them thoroughly as it's her job which we're led to believe she is very good at.

What people seem to keep forgetting is how she's SITTING in the BOWL with her KNEES bent, which means all she needs to do if she changed her mind is STAND UP to keep the water from flowing over her MOUTH.

But we also don't see that happening.

So WHY would she take a DEEP BREATH to SHOUT STOP, but NOT also stand up to STOP the water from flowing over top of her head?

Again, if she SHOUTS STOP, then why didn't we also see her STAND UP to keep the fluid that she's told would RUIN her LUNGS from flowing over her head and risk it getting into them?

She wasn't in a bowl, it was an orb/sphere she couldn't have stood up, there wasn't the room. The liquid was closing in around here, the reason that she had to tilt her head back to shout/gasp was because the liquid was nearly to the top, there wasn't enough room to raise head up so she had to tilt it back.

Because the SHOW ME/ NOT TELL ME rule of writing was also ignored, which also left us with a BORING STORY where the character TELLS US what happened instead of the writers SHOWING US what had happened.

And the RESULT of doing that is to leave us with a BORING SNOOZE FEST for the SERIES FINALE, one that (like you say) is also NOT a PLAUSIBLE one.

I don't believe that the finale was a snooze-fest or boring at all. She told Kevin a story, it's up to Kevin (and us) whether we want to believe it. The "show, don't tell" rule isn't black and white, there are plenty of famous examples of films that tell instead of showing and they work really well. The rule is there to stop info dumping on the audience, it doesn't mean everything MUST be shown.

Showing it wouldn't have changed anything, just because they didn't show it doesn't automatically mean it's not true, just as showing it wouldn't have automatically made it true.

If she had gone into excruciating detail about the trip, explaining every encounter and interaction and how the other world is running then obviously it would have fallen foul of the old trope, but in this instance I think witnessing Nora tell the story helped the audience come to their own conclusion.

But for some other viewers who are willing to buy into what NORA said, apparently it was also a satisfactory ending for them?

It was satisfactory for me too (more than satisfactory actually), throughout the season we saw most characters get some form of closure, this was Nora's, she had finally come to accept what happened to her children and let go of all her perceived sins (the goat metaphor was probably as "on the nose" a show can get away with). Personally I believe that by not showing it, it put us the audience in the same position as Kevin. We had to listen to her story and decide if we believed it, Kevin did and in the end that's all that matters, especially after Kevin's self realisation in the previous episode, they can now both move on together.

At the end of the day, whether or not her story was true doesn't change the character's end point.

@Invidia said:

But as a LIT MAJOR, my viewing demands may also be GREATER than that of others who are not as demanding???

Quite possibly the most condescending and patronising thing that I've seen someone say on this site! Even if that's not your intention, I'm sure "as a lit major" you can understand why it might be misconstrued that way.

You're obviously entitled to your opinion and if you didn't like it then that's fair enough but the vast majority of viewers (judged by the scores given on other sites) and critics (based on numerous glowing reviews of the finale) disagree with you.

Even IF what she said to KEVIN isn't the least bit PLAUSIBLE or likely to have happened.

I'm not sure why you're so hung up about whether the story is true or not. As a lit major surely you know that part of the story is not important to the shows outcome?! It's not the story that's important, it's why she tells it and that Kevin believes it. Their relationship is the key plot in the series, particularly in this season. The departure became more of a sub-plot to Kevin and Nora's relationship. The penultimate episode, "The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)" hammered this point home, it wasn't exactly subtle about it!

@Invidia said:

In other words, the claim put forth that my opinion is WRONG because MORE PEOPLE share an OPPOSITE point of view is ILLOGICAL and therefore also HOLDS NO MERIT whatsoever.

And since Critics also DISAGREE with one another as well, that's also not PROOF that my opinion carries less VALIDITY than their opinion does either.

I didn't claim that your opinion was wrong, hence why I said "You're obviously entitled to your opinion and if you didn't like it then that's fair enough" ! However, you said that it's not the way that you end a show and that the finale was boring, which is fine but you then tried to validate this opinion by telling me you have a lit major... as if no-one with a lit major would ever find this enjoyable! That's why I brought up how there are so many others who share an opposite view, like do you genuinely believe that out of that group of people that you're the only person to have majored in literature?! I thought about making that distinction to make my point clear but I genuinely thought that you would have understood, but as the old saying goes "one should never assume" so that's my mistake, I hold my hands up on that one for not making my point clear enough.

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What matters is most when having a DEBATE is WHO puts forth the BEST ARGUMENT, and OFFERS PROOF of what they've said by backing it up with EVIDENCE, which has also been done by discussing what would happen in a place where 98 PERCENT of the POPULATION went MISSING.

And that also PROVES that NORA's story about seeing her 2 kids and former husband living in the SAME HOUSE, and seeing them HAPPY with BIG SMILES upon their faces, would most likely also NOT have ever happened in a POST APOCALYPTIC WORLD where they'd be VERY LUCKY to still be left alive.

Because SOCIETY would also have decayed to the point where there would be TOTAL CHAOS and CIVILIZATION as they once knew it would also be a thing of the past.

But of course you're also free to OVER LOOK FACTS like these if you like and to see things any way you wish.

Umm, I'm not over looking those facts because we're not having that debate! As was made clear already, I agree with you, I do not believe she departed.

The debate that we are having is whether or not this decision made for a good finale, this is where we disagree. Which I'm fine with, I enjoy debating TV/Movies with people who share a different opinion to me. I'm genuinely not looking for an argument I just like to see other people's thought process when we've come to different conclusions after watching the exact same thing.

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If you go back and read what's been said you'll also see the argument was also already put forth that SHE LIES to KEVIN because she thought that was the best way to handle the situation.

Because if she told him the TRUTH, which was BEING with her 2 KIDS meant MORE to her than BEING with him, then the ISSUE would also remain there BETWEEN them.

So the LIE that she tells KEVIN is also a way to PRETEND as if her 2 KIDS no longer mean more to her than HE does.

I've had that exact same thought but I actually don't believe she's told the lie to pretend that she cares more about him. I believe that she was trying to show that she was finally content with living in a world that her children disappeared from, throughout the series she's been consumed by the fact that they disappeared and that she has no closure for that. So in my mind she has either;

A - come up with this fantasy about going to the departed Earth to help her cope and she genuinely believes it. Which would mean that something will inevitably trigger some sort of meltdown somewhere down the line that Kevin will have to deal with.

OR

B - she finally accepts that she'll never have closure over the departure and her family and she wasn't ready to die (which was still a real possibility), so she managed to stop the machine and decided to make a life for herself in Australia where she was content. The story to Kevin was the best way she could think of to convince him that she was ready to move on, he knew that she could never live a normal life without closure, hence why he told her that she should go and be with them during their argument in the hotel, yes he said it in anger but it was said because she was obsessed with finding the truth, so the only believable way she could think of was to tell him that she had found her children and saw that they were happy.

For me, the second scenario makes more sense as it ties in with Nora refusing to accept that people didn't want to know the truth earlier in the series, like when the man on the pillar died, she couldn't grasp the fact that people believed these false stories because they made them feel better. And the nun telling about the doves and messages of love. But now she has finally come to understand why people do this. It would also explain why Kevin was so eager to believe, he was just happy that she was back and that she was "here" not just physically but emotionally.

It would also make more sense as to why the story was full of so many holes, if she has had 10-15 years to come up with that story it would be much more fleshed out surely? To me it seemed like something that she had only really made up when she realised that Kevin wasn't going to leave her alone. Like she hasn't had a lot of time to think about it, the only issues that she thought of were issues that would stop her from getting to Mapleton (lack of pilots, no direct routes) and how she got back (she knew about the inventor so there was a convenient way home) but she didn't have the time to flesh out the world.

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And I also disagree that the RELATIONSHIP between KEVIN and NORA was the MAIN FOCUS of the show.

Because MATT also had some STAND ALONE EPISODES where he SHINES BIGTIME and sometimes even brighter than KEVIN.

PLUS LAURIE and KEVIN SR. also had STAND ALONE episodes as well.

Matt had some great episodes and Eccleston steals pretty much every scene that he is in but that doesn't take anything away from my point. Just because Nora and Kevin's relationship is key to the show doesn't mean that other characters won't have big parts to play, plus pretty much all the regular supporting character are directly linked to Nora or Kevin in someway.

The whole point of "The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)" episode was for Kevin to realise that Nora was the thing that made him happy and that he kept sabotaging himself and running away, they pretty much smashed us over the head with that message when they had the two Kevins reading out that romance novel. He then killed the assassin version of himself and nuked the world that he kept escaping to so that they could never return. The book says;

"She had expected it all along but now she knew...he was a coward"

*The camera then cuts to the scene of Kevin trying to suffocate himself *

"A coward dressed in the uniform of a brave man,"

cuts to an image of Kevin standing in his police uniform

"brave enough to cross two oceans and a continent to find her, to fight countless enemies and yet, in the end he was terrified..."

pauses and looks up to his assassin twin

"...he was terrified of her,"

camera cuts to scene of him kissing Nora

"to lie beside her, to be comforted by her as he wept, to show her that he was small, for her to know that and to touch his cheek and to whisper words softly into his ear. All of that was a nightmare, all he knew to do was run... "

cut to scene of him leaving the hotel

"... he took a deep breath of the air, tasting the salt on his tongue and closed his eyes. Leaning into the spray as the Merciful picked up speed and sailed for the horizon... she was alone and all was well"

Both Kevins are then crying and the Assassin Kevin tells President Kevin to take the nuclear key out of him, when asked why Assassin Kevin says "So we can't ever come back here again." After he gets the key out the assassin's dying words are "We fucked up with Nora"

Kevin got his closure in that episode, he moved on from all the biblical/apocalypse/messiah BS and wanted to return to a normal life with Nora. Other supporting character got some form of closure throughout the final season and the finale was Nora's turn.

---

But if you chose to believe the 2 of them RODE OFF into the SUNSET and LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER, that's also your choice to see it that way and find it to be a satisfactory enough ending.

Not at all, the finale simply showed me two people that had finally both come to terms with the shit that they were dealing with and were ready to move on with their lives together. This doesn't mean they'll be perfect together, they had simply overcome something and were now ready to start a new life... but lets be honest he's a man who would tape plastic bags around his head and she is a woman who hired prostitutes to shoot her in the chest...

... they may have both overcome their specific demons that led them to those places but they are still people that are capable of those sorts of things in the first place so I can't imagine their relationship is EVER going to be plain sailing!

I'm not quite halfway through, but I believe Kevin and Nora are both institutionalized and severely mentally ill. You are watching their fantasy lives from their point of view. The GR are staff and how they appear to them both when they take smoking breaks and supervise the outside exercise time . Meg might have been an intern nurse who ends up joining the staff. Amy Brennerman never had any reason to lose her emotional instability from her family disappearing, no one apparently did. Except that she did lose her husband to mental illness, she lost Kevin. Kevin sees this when she visits and incorporates her into his fantasy life. Perhaps she was a nurse at the institution, perhaps she volunteered to see him, but she "joined" the GR in his mind. It's confusing because it's a visual medium and you believe everything they show you and you try to incorporate reasons why certain things exist or happen - just like the title characters are doing and you really can't. You experience their frustration. Remember Christopher Eccleston returning Kevin to the hospital and him getting maced and forcibly restrained and taken back in? What did you make of that? Viewer's discard whatever does not make sense to them, just like the title characters do. You get to experience them and their plight. The Book of Nora at the end must represent Nora's crazy fantasies on why her husband left with the kids to raise them away from her and this pain, but she realizes that they are better off now. They've moved on without her. She told "a better story" . There's a movie called The Forgotten that reminds me of this show. It's a sci-fi if you want to watch it that way. Or it's the point -of-view of the mother whose mental illness causes delusions and flights of fancy. This show is too sad for me.

@Invidia said:

The problem is we NEVER get any ANSWERS as to whether or not KEVIN JR. is crazy or not.

At the very least it's probably also safe to assume that NORA at least suffers from PTSD.

Season 2 also begins with the scene where the cave woman gives birth then dies from the SNAKE BITE, but we never find out WHY that scene is there.

S3 also shows us some religious CULT who climbs up on the ROOF TOP several times waiting for the END of the WORLD that never comes, but we also never find out WHY that scene is shown to us.

So what we end up with is a show that NEVER ADDRESSES WHY we see what we see.

But LAURIE is or definitely was a SHRINK.

But that also MAKES NO SENSE when we also see her RUNNING OVER the 2 members of the GR with her car and then NOTHING ever happens or is done about it.

So was that also a DELUSION or did it really happen?

Like the case is with many things that we've seen happening, we'll NEVER know now that the show is over.

Which is a shame, because otherwise the show could have been much better if they did bother to address certain situations that they introduced to us instead of never making it clear for us WHY they did so.

If the showrunner did give us a scene with Kevin and Nora institutionalized at the end, the continuing audience would say something akin to "Oh, they are mentally ill" or "they were crazy the whole time". The show is more nuanced than that and wanted to give you a compelling story to fight for and believe, just as Keven and Nora do. It's a visual medium, so we see imagined story lines that go nowhere and only try to piece together the framework of their deluded reality. Kev and Nora are doing the best they can to create a coherent reality, to fill in the blanks and make a complete story (as we are trying to do with this show). This is about having an experience related to theirs, not having someone hand over the story to us. Kevin and Nora are so ill, their questions about what we call reality will never be addressed and understood either, again you are having their experience.

Laurie never ran anybody over. Again, this is a paranoid delusion from Kevin or Nora, complete with Laurie inappropriately blasting death-metal music. There were hints along the way that there's something wrong with this story. Like Kevin imagining that he found a National Geographic with a bear in his kitchen and becoming un-nerved and then we see it when we briefly see him institutionalized and his father (who is not ill) is in the tv room. The father used it to pass him a note, "Stop talking to yourself and they'll let you watch tv for 10 minutes". That looked like visiting time to me for Sr. and Jr. This is how Lindelof writes in his modernist, unreliable narrator style. He will have you fill in the blanks and have an experience rather than be given the answers and directly given a story with an ending that has to be explained to you without you immersing yourself in it. Apparently the Emmy's are upset that he didn't do more to admit the truth of what we were watching and correlate the crazier events back to some reality at the institution that Kevin and Nora were processing. He could have done that and I think it would have been as fulfilling, but that's just not how Lindelof wants it to be done. I'm getting tired of his schtick too.

Kevin may have been a police officer before his illness progressed and he may even have been the Chief, but he may have never attained either of these things. We don't know how long he's been too ill to perform in the world. But our viewing of him in uniform in the show has always existed only in his head. Just as Nora never worked for the Department of Sudden Departures. There is no such a thing. There was no such event where 2% of the population disappeared. People disappeared from Kev and Nora because they were to remain in the hospital, away from normal life. They are not capable of dealing with reality.

The episode with the National Geographic magazine may be at the end of season one or at the beginning of two, but I saw it recently. In the kitchen Kevin is horrified to find the issue, we don't know why. Grampa has just saved Kev's daughter from the fridge in the woods where she was playing silly endurance games with her friends and almost died. She tells Kevin that gramps dropped off the NG mag and we get the idea that Kevin hates his father and wants to forget about him. Kevin throws it away. It seems that Grampa is ill and committed somewhere and Kevin can't deal with him or something, when in reality Kevin's father had to have Kevin committed. We're just seeing this now. Kevin hallucinates a lot, later we see him admitting to blackouts.

Not too much later Christopher Eccleston finds Kevin out at a cabin in the woods after some "highjinks", gives him some clothes and returns him to the mental facility where Kevin is forcibly removed from the car. Kevin is contained in a room so he doesn't hurt himself/others and someone slips the same NG magazine under the door with a note that says "Stop talking to yourself and they'll let you watch tv". It turns out to be his father, who is lucid and dressed - not as we have formally seen him- waiting to see Kevin in the tv room. Kevin's father seems to be an old hand at this. "Oh baby boy" his father coos to him. He loves him very much and this scene is heartbreaking.

I think Lindelof was fair in that he warned the audience very publicly before the show started that no direct answers would be given about the disappearances . The show would not be about what had really happened. It would only be about relationships and coping mechanisms. I chose not to watch because of this, but I'm checking it out now because it still gained a great deal of popularity. I haven't seen a wife "Mary" yet, but if Kevin gets another wife there is a good chance that it is all a delusion. She may be based on someone he admires and so he believes he is married to her. Never doubt the extent of either of their diseases. They are both, Kevin and Nora, profoundly ill.

No I don't think they ever went to Texas. Do you remember the scene in the fancy restaurant where Keven suggests "Hey, let's just get out of here"? He didn't worry about his job as chief, Mapleton, a paycheck, nothing. He just changed his frame of reference to Texas. That was in his head and perhaps Nora was close by and joined him in agreement to have her own fantasy about going to Texas. Their love story has been about building crazy delusions together. I didn't read subsequent to the first interviews by the writers, but I believe you when you say the writers made up the prophet stuff for K Sr. just to advertise the show. This is about money first and foremost. They just want you to watch, they honestly don't care if you don't enjoy what they give you.

I'm guessing here, but Eccleston's preacher, Matt, may have Kevin remembering him when he was "well" and had a church, or whatever, and then there was a break-down from tending to his wife's condition. It is probably true that no one bought his church away from him. Remember that there is no Guilty Revenant really. Kevin and Nora have made this up as an explanation of why they encounter these people all day. Matt might have lost his position as chaplain. Perhaps Matt is fighting depression or just mental fatigue for a time. We can't "know" because they will never tell us. Not outright, anyway. Perhaps he is no longer in charge of the Chapel in the facility. Kevin interprets this reality in his own way. Kevin can't operate in the real world like the rest of us. That's why he is locked away to live under supervision. Yeah, I think the writer's could have done a better job presenting this, but so do the critics. If you want to see a superlative job at writing about mental illness, take a look at Mr. Robot. Lindelof and company can't come close to this level of writing.

The more I hear about season three, the less enthusiastic I am to actually finish this series.

If you don't buy into this show and still choose to immerse yourself into this story - then you are behaving as Kevin and Nora do. That's the goal of the writers. The writer is trying to show you how it feels on the other side, literally, within Kevin and Nora's sickness. They are the leftovers excluded from society. This is a plot device that the writers are employing, and it's imperfect in many ways.

It's a visual medium and the writers are not really successful in pulling this off, are they? I'm as displeased as anyone and finishing the series just isn't high on my list because of it. If you have other theories, then that is a good thing. The show wanted to generate your thoughts and opinions and to have you incorporate your own experience of it. This is what Kev and Nora do with reality, they make their own because they can't do anything else and it disrupts and destroys their lives within normal society. Whatever you come up with on your own is fine with me, you can consider me wrong. But, I've seen enough to see what they are doing. Frankly, this show doesn't hold my interest because it is presented with such convolutions, sometimes just to pad episodes and drag out the series to three seasons. That's my opinion and what I see going on here. But you can continue with it of course. Enjoy!