Six seasons and a movie and we’d have a full spectrum of worlds.
I watched the first two or three ep’s and bailed. Anybody want to post the spoilery synopsis that SenorBeef would have posted if he had understood WTF happened?
I don’t really need a lot of details, just the basic gist of it.
OK, I just finished watching. What the hell just happened? It doesn’t make any sense.
[Spoiler]
I really took the finale as waking up from a nightmare. Britten was essentially stuck in a dream and unitl it occurred to him this was ALL a dream, he was not waking up. Then it clicked and up he came. I know I’ve had similar events happen to me while dreaming. Everything seems fine till I realize its a dream and I wake up. IMHO, its reallly the only way to explain how he knew events occuring while he wasn’t present, how both worlds can exist without us seeing him multiverse transport, and how he essentially hadn’t had sleep in 6 months because he was always awake in one world or the other and hadn’t gone off the reservation. His wife and son also remarked that he had slept late, indicating again this was all a dream. The 3 world theory could work but given we will not see another episode of this, I think this explanation is much more simple and complete. [/spoiler]
Except for that Inception inspired close of his eyes at the end and the ep’s title: “Turtles all the way down” - this can just be the psychosis he can live with. At least it was ’ t his wife and child coming out of a shower!
I liked the ending because it resolved everything; the concept was getting a bit strained and it’s nice to have closure. I have a feeling that the producer didn’t really plan for a second season (though it would have been possible). It’s the type of concept that works best in a limited series.
OTOH, it’s one of the lamest cop-outs in literature (“He woke up and discovered it was all a dream!”). It wasn’t an egregiously bad usage of the cliche, though.
Please describe, as specifically as you need to, the last five or ten minutes of the show.
He’s talking with his Female Shrink, who gets him to go on and on about how recent events in Male Shrink World were obviously a dream. He then notices that Female Shrink is frozen like a bad playback – like an obvious dream – and dazedly gets up to wander through an open doorway into another room, where he (a) sees his wife and son alive and well, and (b) gets chided for having slept so long. He looks a little confused but very happy.
Huh. I’m oh soooo glad I decided to bail early.
That synopsis kinda has me wondering, though. Were they trying to make a statement about the cancellation of the show while drawing a parallel between the main character and the audience? Hmmm…
He goes directly from the dream state to walking into the kitchen with his family. He didn’t experience waking up (in the real world) and then walk into the kitchen, so the last segment isn’t real. The most straightforward reading of the ending - at least in as far as I can tell - is that he’s rejecting the help that the shrinks are trying to give him and choosing to go insane and live in a delusional state. In reality, he could be rotting in a prison cell while he hallucinates the reality with his wife and son.
According to the creator of the show, this ending was part of the original pitch for the series. It was always the intended end of the first season, and not something that was created as a reaction to the show’s cancellation.
Makes you wonder where they were going with season 2 then. I mean, I guess they could play the “oh, he’s fully crazy now”, but where can you go from there? Can you sustain a TV show with Lynchian weirdness?
Right. Again a nod to Inception. Is this really awake or just another dream? Inception had its top, this has Britten closing his eyes at the end. Same intentional leaving an open question.
Bottom line - meh.
So basically some things happened. What it all means is up to interpretation. If we would have gotten a second season then we’d have all new questions about what’s going on, with none of the old questions being answered.
What a bunch of BS. I’m glad it ended if that’s his (creator Kyle Killen’s) attitude. That huge important aspect of the show that drives everything? Don’t worry about it, just focus on the characters. You want an explanation? Make one up. They’re all equally valid.
Whatever.
Another theory: It’s turtles all the way down.
What if the whole family died? The guy’s been in a coma all this time, then finally dies and reunites with his family in some afterlife. Hollywood’s too cynical to have an actual happy ending.
I just watched the finale, and I haven’t seen this interpretation yet:
Wasn’t he returned to the very day of the car accident, but now armed with all the foreknowledge of his hit and the heroin conspiracy? His son’s shirt in that final scene looked very familiar, wasn’t that what his son was wearing in the accident?
I was thinking along similar lines if this might be what’s happening, but reading the interview link above then who knows.
Interesting. My memory is crap and I don’t pick up on a lot of small clues like that on TV shows and movies. But that would be interesting for season two to have the crash happen all over again.
His son did have a line – something like “today is registration.” Now, I’ve long since forgotten the first episode (and it has long since been deleted from my DVR), but was there any reference to some kind of registration (I’m assuming school, but not necessarily) happening on the day of the accident?