Topher’s unexplained telekinetic abilities are another open-ended thread that I really have no problem with. I laughed at the damaged Dreamland theatre sign sowing only ‘DR M’
I really loved it. Obvious nits to be picked and all.
‘I am the egg man’, indeed.
MiM
When did this happen?
Not going through with it is not an option. He knew it would happen because for him it already happened.
I saw the theater sign as well, but don’t remember seeing signs of Topher’s telekinetic abilities.
That’s true, but tautological. It doesn’t explain why. I mean, he vaporized all the Kavalry’s heads, but left that one guy there behind the tachyon cannon, and then stood in just the right spot to be teleported into the lithium cage? It seems like he could have easily prevented that at any point. He is a god, after all.
The only thing I can imagine is that he chose to, and it was a form of suicide. But that motivation isn’t really hinted at. And honestly, I can’t wrap my head around the Doctor Manhattan I know dying by any means. In my mind, he’s just blasted himself to another metaphorical Mars.
It’s a legit question, and the biggest plot hole of the season. I can only hope there will be some explanation next season, but I already read Lindelof will not do another season, and he considers his story finished this season. So what are we missing?
Great story, either way. A lingering mystery gives you something to chew over. Hell, I’ve been thinking about the original comics for a decade now. Interpreting them is a lifelong source of entertainment, and I expect this show will be as well. There’s lots of unexplained things in The Leftovers I still think about when I’m bored, too. It’s part of the fun.
That would be true of literally anything he does. It explains nothing. If he had spent the last episode murdering Angela, her kids, and then tucking his cock between his legs and danced around like Buffalo Bill you wouldn’t say “he had to do that because for him he always did it.” You’d wonder what the possible motivation could be for him to do that.
It only really works if his actions turn out to be the same as what he would do if he has complete volition over them, knowing the future.
Reading a couple more reviews: in the second to last episode Dr. Manhattan tells Angela that it is important that she sees him walk on water. That seems to imply she actually did get his powers at the end. That, combined with Angela witnessing Trieu and Dr. Manhattan’s ends, perhaps sets her up as being a major force for good. I can see that being a worthy explanation.
To me he acted the way someone who knew what was going to happen was inevitable acts. He didn’t put in more effort to avoid getting teleported because he knew it would happen anyways. He is not suicidal, just resigned. To him this is a memory, not something he can actually affect.
I loved it. It’s really bugging me that we don’t know what crashed into the field though.
We do. It was Veidt.
I was expecting Trieu to pull off a “I did it 35 minutes ago” on Veidt. She fell into the classic trap of explaining her master-stroke while there was still a chance to stop her.
That was a good finale. I also was thrown off a bit by the infeasibility of the frozen squids being so damaging. They could have thrown in a line about the clock (and the floating ship) being incredibly delicate and fragile, I guess? Or “those squid are already so aerodynamic in shape, when I freeze them and launch them from 25,000 feet higher in the atmosphere…”? It’s a little nitpicky, and at the end of the day, doesn’t distract from the overall themes and stories of the season.
I was anticipating a larger diabolical plan from Trieu (or, at least, different). I was thinking parallel to the comics. That in place of the giant squid that unleashes a psychic blast of fear, we have an elephant with a city’s worth of culturally diverse memories that permanently blur the line of individuality once unleashed in every Tulsa inhabitant’s mind. But I guess “I’m going to become a god” is a pretty big plan as well. 
I don’t envy the job of writing an omnipotent character like Dr. Manhattan. It’s so problematic and full of loopholes, I wouldn’t know where to even begin.
There was a shot of him alone in his room playing with an Erector Set-like toy that was suspended in air, each piece moving independently.
I thought the idea there was that was a product of Dr Manhattan’s science magic, as were other things in that world.
I agree.
Maybe Dr. Manhattan was able to see the outcomes of a million different scenarios and they either ended with Trieu destroying the world or Angela being killed. He chose the option that had the best outcome.
It does seem like as soon as Angela had “awoken” him, he could have escaped the whole madness by teleporting him and the family to Europa. But Trieu wouldn’t have given up. Maybe she would have started blowing important shit up unless Dr. Manhattan returned. Or maybe the 7K would have eventually (inadvertently) blown up important shit as they used the teleportation device for nefarious purposes, so Dr. M saw the wisdom of allowing himself to be captured by them.
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Was it? Couldn’t Trieu have landed her rocket anywhere?
The way I figure, she sent a probe to Europa while Veidt was still in Antarctica. She told him it would arrive in five years, hence why he knew to escape the atmosphere and arrange bodies into a message at that time. Then, years after that, the rocket sent by Trieu to retrieve him arrived to pick him up. Then, years later, after he had been bronzed for preservation, it arrived on Earth, where Trieu and her team were waiting with their unbronzing ray.
But she bought that farm minutes before that thing in the sky landed. There was no reason to do that if the thing had been Veidt’s rocket. She could have landed it anywhere. And her unbronzing team was not there to receive Veidt when she bought the farm.
I guess I thought it was just a meteor, one with the right mix of rare radioactive elements to construct her unobtanium ray she planned to use to destroy/become Dr. Manhattan. But I’m not entirely clear on that point.
Oh, my headcannon for the frozen squid is that they weren’t falling out of the sky, they were shot out of the sky, and so Veidt’s claim that it would be like a machine gun could be true. They sure did look a lot like hail though.
But we’ve seen the Veidt bronze statue on her estate for several episodes - it/he had been there the whole time. It wasn’t until the moment of her final reveal did she want to unbronze him, probably for fear that he’d escape and try to stop her (which, in fact, he did).
She didn’t unbronze Veidt until much later, she had him displayed as a statue in her garden.
Okay, that does change my mental sequence of events.
…no, it was Veidt. Lindelof mentions this explicitly in many post-show interviews, he didn’t intend for it to be ambiguous, it just ended up that way for some
And my favourite post-show comment from Lindelof was this about Lube Man:
Lube Man was Lindelof’s homage to the mystery of Hooded Justice. I just love that.
As far as predestination - I think he addressed that with his chicken AND the egg at the same time bit when his telling Will about Judd caused the future that caused the past. Dr. M. is acting with volition but because of what he knows which causes the future the knowledge of which had caused the action that caused it … Causation is bidirectional in that framing.
As for the squids … they are not simple objects passively falling.