I discovered this series in season 2 (Thanks to TMN On Demand, I can watch it when it’s convenient to me.)
So, I’m left with a few questions.
Are the Gravelings involved in every death, or just the freakish accidents?
OK, searching online I managed to find out what happens if they don’t reap someone (creepy), but no mention of what happens if they accidentally reap the wrong person. Is that even addressed?
(An example: Say John Smith married a woman named Jane, and she was due to have a fatal (and freakish) accident while visiting him in hospital after he had a heart attack. Mason (He seems the one most likely to make a mistake like this…) goes to collect the soul, sees ‘J. Smith’ on the chart, makes the logical but incorrect assumption, and tries to take him rather than Jane. We know what happens to Jane when she has her accident unreaped, but for John, what would happen? Would it just not ‘take’? Would he be ‘pre-reaped’ when his time actually came? Would he die prematurely? Would Mason have to put him back?)
Is George’s mom always such a bitch, or is it just since George’s dad cheated on her?
Is Reggie’s conviction that George visits them time to time based on actually seeing George visit (in which case, how did she recognise her, instead of seeing ‘Millie’?), or just wishful thinking?
How are people chosen as Reapers, rather than just having them move on to…whatever comes next.
Yes, it appears she is. Except for some of the flashback episodes when George was a small girl.
I think it might be a little of both.
A Reaper has to reap X number of people before he’s allowed to move on. The last person he reaps that fills his quote takes his place as a Reaper. As was the case with George.
They used to be a happy family, but they were barely holding it together. Once George died, it kind of all fell apart. The husband had an affair, but he also blames his wife for Geoge’s death (he mentions it in the season premier while talking to the therapist).
That’s all I can help with so far. Truthfully, I’d like to know the answers myself.
Each reaper has pre-determined, unknown number of souls to collect before moving on to whatever comes next. (None of the reapers know what comes next; it’s someplace they’re not allowed to go.) When you reap your last soul, you move on and that person takes your place. This isn’t set in stone, but I get the feeling that not only is your number pre-determined, but so is the person who’ll come after you.
I think George was always destined to become a reaper, and the powers that set the appointments have known this for many years. For instance, there was an episode last season where George has a flashback of being pushed into a pool as a kid. While she’s under, gravelings came out of the drain and one of them started for her. The other holds it back and whispers something in the first one’s ear, something that causes its eyes to widen. Then both gravelings leave and the lifeguards jump into the pool. My impression was that the second one knew who George was and why she was off-limits for the time being.
As for whether or not gravelings are involved in every death, it never really says for sure. I get the feeling that they’re only involved in accidental deaths. Mason does say in the pilot that the gravelings make the accidents happen. They drop the pianos and the toilet seats, they make the diving boards slippery, they knock the cigarette butts into the sewer with the gas leaks.
Reggie’s seen Millie lurking around the house from time to time, and George has left her presents before. I think a lot of her conviction comes from the box that George left for her in the toilet tree. (George was killed by a falling toilet seat, and Reggie went through a spell of stealing toilet seats and hanging them in a tree. The kid’s got issues.)
AFAIK, they’ve never addressed the issue of reaping the wrong person.
CrazyCatLady, I don’t remember the pool incident from last season.
spoilers for unaired episode (I think):
It’s a scene from an upcoming episode
The whole reaping business is really just the surface. Notice how everything the reapers do reflect on real life. I think this season got off to a shaky start, but now I’ve seen up to 2.5 and it’s really cooking.
Whoa - back up. I need a little help, here. Got Showtime on a free month preview thingie, and got hooked on this show, but then the preview ended and I never subscribed. Help a girl out?
What are gravelings? I did a little looking, but I don’t want to wade through fansites.
This was explained graphically in the first season. If they don’t reap someone, the soul stays trapped in the body after death, aware but unable to move/talk, etc. Georgia refuses to reap a man and he is trapped in his body during his own autopsy. The soul was a babbling wreck when Georgia finally showed up to free him.
About the gravelings causing accidents, I think they’re only there for freak accidents. I didn’t see one when that woman got shot by the security gaurd (unless there was one, and I missed it, although I was sitting three feet away from the television).
That pool incident does happen in the upcoming episode.
There was no Graveling for that. I think you’re right they only do the real freakish ones.
Although how a cigarette falling in a gas-filled sewer (first episode of this season) counts as ‘freakish’ on the same level as the other ones we’ve seen the Gravelings do, I’m not sure.
As to Snickers’ question about the Gravelings - to put it explicitly, rather than keep implying it: Gravelings are theses little Gremlinny things that cause freakish accidents - such as George getting clocked by the toilet seat. (My personal favourite is Mason’s from the first episode this season.)
It’s impossible for this to happen. You don’t die because your soul is popped; it’s just a preparation for you dying. You really need to watch season 1.
She’s become unhappy. I couldn’t see their marriage holding together past Reggie leaving home, to be honest.
You really, really need to see Season 1. George has left several things for Reggie that only she could have left.
Predestination. If you’re the last person to be reaped by a given Reaper before they fill their tally, you take their place. Since the souls to reap are assigned to specific Reapers, we must assume there is a plan.
Excuse this hijack on the OP please, but instead of starting my own thread:
I missed last week’s episode (if you really want to know, I have one VCR hooked up directly through the cable box, and is the only VCR that can record the premium chanels. But it can only record what the cable box is set to, and the cable boxes are not programmable to change channels.
Since this season Dead Like Me comes on right after Six Feet Under, I can only record one, unless I am there at the end of SFU to change the cable box, but if I’m there, I can just watch Dead Like Me live)
I stupidly missed the repeat on Showtime 2 Monday night.
Do they repeat the episode again on any Showtime station before next Sunday night’s episode?
On further looking, yes, that’s not from last season. I watched what we had of season two and some episodes of season one I’d missed in the same day, so I incorrectly thought it was last years. Oops.