[GGG]

Originally Posted by Yamer

I'm the reverse. I thought the first season set up something interesting and supernatural to be explored, and the second and third seasons pissed it away.

There really wasn't anything ambiguous about the ending...

Spoiler!

The Departure was an unexplained splitting of Universes/realities, and Nora discovered that what she (they) lost was parallel to what they (she) lost. Nobody here belongs there any longer, and nobody there belongs here. The general theme is loss and how we manage it. Whoop de doo, Basil.

Oh, and Laurie didn't commit suicide scuba-diving.

To the foundational content of the series:

Spoiler!

So why the need for the afterlife/purgatory scenes? What about Kevin's constant resurrections? Why is Jarden important? Are people lenses? Why could Mary suddenly conceive, and why did she permanently wake up? Why didn't that change after she left Miracle Park? So Kevin Sr. was delusional? Just with the flood, or during the whole series? What's the deal with David Burton, and why did he kill that passenger? If he's God, why didn't he save Matt? Why did John's skepticism lead him to a life of grifting? Ultimately, what was the purpose of the Guilty Remnant? Or Wayne? Or anything remotely flirting with the supernatural in any sense of the concept?

Why didn't any of these broad religious themes and allegories mean anything? Is it because it's unfulfilling to hear all these stories and parables contrasted against our current existence? Isn't all that just as redundant and purposeless in the end, and wouldn't that negate a point to the whole ####ing thing?

That's not interesting or enlightening. It's just fluff we already know attached to a narrative context that doesn't deliver. Great, good, we have that in real life.

Tell me something interesting. Sufficiently explain at least a layer or two of the damn trifle you baked over the course of 3 seasons. It feels like the writers hoped you would forget all the little things they setup throughout the series when they had to bring the story to land.

I feel the same way I did after Lost accomplished absolutely nothing by erasing 5 seasons of intrigue with an artsy-fartsy final season that only left you with more questions. The Leftovers is Lost, but on HBO.

I guess I just don't understand the perspective of people not looking for answers in a series saturated with teasing a mysterious phenomenon. It ended more satisfyingly than Lost, but that was such a low bar for this genre.

To say something positive: the characters and their stories were amazing. Lindelof knows what he wants to achieve in that regard, and he delivers.

Spoiler!

You believe Nora?

To me the beauty of the ending is that it’s just as likely that the entire machine is made up and Nora’s story of what happened is made up. Nora has rationalized accepting her loss. Kevin accepts that her faith is okay and he doesn’t need to question it.

You can also logically infer that if Nora came back from the 2% it would become common that 2%era would also comeback as well and in the absense of this happening that Nora’s story is entirely made up.

That doesn’t matter though because the story is about accepting a loss of control in a world and accepting the nicer story (the nuns and the bird scene nails this)

There was no supernatural activity beyond the rapture at the start.