232 replies to this topic

[TWoP Mars]

From HBO.com:

Attempting to conjure some courage, Mitch tracks down a reclusive "chemist" in Mexico; Cissy heads up a citywide search team; Bill loses his feathered medium; Palaka's good-luck gift to Freddy ends up with Barry.

[lanter]

It’s always nice to see Howard Hesseman, too bad most of his scenes were sullied by the presence of Mitch.

Well a whole lot of nothing happened in day eight. I think that I am going to need the help of Jack Daniels to make it through the final episode because I don’t think that shit will be answered/revealed.

[the1casey]

I'm sorry, but this show is doing nothing but frustrating me at this point. I mean throw us a freaking bone here, Milch. Just like Freddy, I don't need to know exactly wtf is going on... but I'd like a little guidance while watching the damn show.

Tonights episode was booooring.

[jmz]

Season finale next week? Hopefully it's the series finale.

[uclagirl]

The Mitch is Back.

I just looove the way he was trying to tell Cissy to count on him (give me the weight, or whatever). Because he's been so reliable over the past week.

And I, too, doubt that all will be revealed. I don't think there's time in next week's episode to answer all of my questions.

[thatguy01]

I am working on a serious mancrush for Butchie.

Nice shot on Mitch's knee, C.

[crystalsage]

I will watch next week's finale, but I'm done with this quirkly snoozefest if it survives to another season. Deadwood at its worst wasn't as bad as this waste of actors. Wipe Out.

[Fisher King]

I am working on a serious mancrush for Butchie.

Forget it.
He's mine.

[MsBaxter]

That's it! I'm not even going to think about this show until next Sunday at 9. I'll just wait like Butchie on his board.

[the1casey]

I will watch next week's finale, but I'm done with this quirkly snoozefest if it survives to another season. Deadwood at its worst wasn't as bad as this waste of actors. Wipe Out.

I feel the same way unfortunately. I've gone from indifference to actually getting interested to now just totally disliking the show. I have to watch the next episode but after that I think I'm done.

Tonight was a waste of 45 minutes.

Edited by the1casey, Aug 5, 2007 @ 9:19 PM.

[uclagirl]

I feel the same way unfortunately. I've gone from indifference to actually getting interested to now just totally disliking the show. I have to watch the next episode but after that I think I'm done.

I've felt this way for about three weeks--I was far enough in to finish the season, but I don't have any interest in a second. Next week will have to be truly stupendous to get me to watch another season.

BTW, not only can I not believe that this is how HBO chose to kill Deadwood, or how they chose to follow the end of the Sopranos. I can't believe Big Love got pushed to Mondays for this.

[SharonDee]

I've given up on this show's making sense. I'm in it for the characters now. I enjoy their interaction, have fun with their soliloquies, laugh at their antics.

But no resolution? No second season? No great loss.

[Gibasi]

For a moment there I was going to like this episode. When Cissy, Bill, Jim Beaver were mobilizing everyone to look for Shaunie. When Cissy was talking to the kids and then the kids were talking to their friends--I was thinking shades of Gleaming the Cube--but then nothing. And I lost interest again.

[marleyfan]

Must be just me, but I really liked this episode. And I hope they renew it for another season. Did Zippy reincarnate? Or is he just hanging with John and Shaun?

I saw it as a group of people who for the most part really didn't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves -or so it seemed- in Episode one, who have now banded together to be there for each other. I really liked the progress that all the characters have made.
Praying for Shaun's safety (though no one prayed for Zippy), I was honestly touched by tonight's episode.

I wish I was better at words to explain this.

[TeresaDee]

Shaunie left behind his skateboard! How will he get around on land?

Poor, poor, terribly damaged Barry. Is he the only one who sees Shaun and Mr. Room 24 in the bar? Glad the Doc was there for him.

Loved how the chemist gets around on land--funky wave car! Also loved how he didn't care that Mitch levitated.

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More later...

[dennigan]

Not just you, Marleyfan, I liked this episode a lot too. I'm eager to see next week.

[nycfemme]

De-lurking to thank everyone on these boards for trying so damned hard to make sense of the story for those of us who don't have the wits to figure it out....
I've truly enjoyed getting to know the characters in the past few weeks. This episode cemented for me that I really love watching all the characters but Mitch (his character is aggravating) and Cissy (not only is her character grating, but DeMornay herself has convinced me she is NOT right for the part. Even though her character is basically unsympathetic, I feel strongly that another, more accomplished actress would have brought something deeper to the role.) Everyone else is fascinating, even if the story ultimately makes no sense. It's a privilege to see such talented actors show what they've got: I believe in them, if not in the storyline. This show is truly not worthy of supplanting Deadwood, but it is what it is... if it were anyone else's but Milch, I would have dropped it long ago. Even geniuses fuck up on occasion. At least the ride was kinda interesting. Honestly, I can't imagine another season of this "drek" producing some especially rewarding conclusion.

[Teawaddle Hill]

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ACK with the Monads, TeresaDee! So creepy, yet so appropriate. I still have no idea what it's all about but agree with all you said. Seeing all those figures tonight just confused me more and scared me.

[puppetmittens]

Heck with one week to go I'm in for the season finale. I just think David Milch is drinking from the waters of David Lynch and there's no easy answer. So I'm making up my own storyline and I think the symbol that is duplicating itself on a website, barroom walls and even in Avon catalogs is a Monad. The Monad represents man's higher self so John was sent to earth to shake things up a bit. Current mankind is so disjointed from each other and we have fallen in love with technology (the 0 and 1s constantly mentioned). Shaun is being reborn and his disappearance is starting to ripple through his community. The denizens of IB now have a common interest to find the missing Shaunie and they are even having collective dreams. Being human and flawed the message of the Monad will not be easily understood and I see Shaunie coming back and becoming a minor icon and with Linc promoting him the brand symbol of the commercial venture will feature the Monad logo. Just my theory and really this is better than watching 99% of the crap that's on regular TV.

[Lila82]

Must be just me, but I really liked this episode. And I hope they renew it for another season. Did Zippy reincarnate? Or is he just hanging with John and Shaun?

I really liked it too and I'm not ashamed to admit it!

I saw it as a group of people who for the most part really didn't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves -or so it seemed- in Episode one, who have now banded together to be there for each other. I really liked the progress that all the characters have made.
Praying for Shaun's safety (though no one prayed for Zippy), I was honestly touched by tonight's episode.

I think my favorite moment was Bill allowing Dickstein and Ramon to bring food to the Yosts after turning them away in Episode Three. Community is becoming everything to these people in ways they can't explain but won't ignore either. I loved how everyone, including the press, came together to find Shaun when they were solely vested in themselves the last time he was the focus of local news.

Or my favorite part was when Butchie *didn't* withdraw inside himself when Cissy started laying into him and tried to smother him in low blows. His body language was classic Butchie, but his behavior went in another direction. He didn't run, he didn't avoid -- his newly sober self calmly deflected his mother's attack and comforted and reassured her. It was really wonderful watching Butchie play the adult, eyes wide open and so aware of all he's missed while in a drugged out haze, while Cissy was as single-minded as a child. '

Loved how the chemist gets around on land--funky wave car! Also loved how he didn't care that Mitch levitated.

He was a really great minor character because he totally does not buy into Mitch's bullshit, but I think I liked him with Cissy best. I loved when he reminisced about the happy, free-spirited girl she used to be. I'd love to see a gliimpse of that Cissy.

Bruce Greenwood is really freaking hot. Mitch will never replace Butchie -- he's mine, boys and girls, so back off -- but BG is looking really good for an older guy. I really liked when he offered to take the weight and let Cissy count on him -- for a man who was previously unable to answer a telephone six inches from his face, it's start. Too little, too late, but still a step in the right direction. I also loved how he instantly assumed local vandals trashed his treehouse because Cissy could never stoop so low as to violate his personal space.

The ending confused me, not Kai watching over Butchie on the water and keeping the faith, but the splash against the camera lens. At first I thought it meant she dropped her camera from the pier, but not the case. The cinematography team is very specific with their camerawork, so I'm wondering what water on the lens means other than a distorted reality. Or maybe that's it.

Tina continues to make me tear up. Her stunning lack of self-esteem is heart breaking. She and Linc are weirdly good for one another. I think I finally like it.

Edited by Lila82, Aug 5, 2007 @ 10:07 PM.

[Queen of Six]

Gah! Ack! Woe is me, etc!

I missed this episode due to random crime (google Albanian gunshots on Putnam Avenue, Ridgewood. IN addition, my landlord nearly having a home invasion - vodka was clearly the only way to be happy). Anyhoo, this is the first episode I've missed...reading the comments, I feel that I've missed something big...


Aw, crap. Sorry TWOP, this is the first post I've made (?) that made no sense - please tell me that this epi was as slow as the rest (bar Cissy giving skippy whipping lessons), and I'll be happy.


Shite. I should stick to the ANTM thread.

[ShepherdSquared]

Not just you, Marleyfan, I liked this episode a lot too. I'm eager to see next week.

Me three. I love this show. Why I love it - I really don't know Butchie instead.

I've given up on this show's making sense. I'm in it for the characters now. I enjoy their interaction, have fun with their soliloquies, laugh at their antics.

But no resolution? No second season? No great loss.

I haven't given up on the show making sense, but I am very much in it for the characters, too. The finale may be a dud as far as tying all the plot points together goes, but I simply enjoy watching these people.

If there is no S2, I will miss Butchie, though.

[Morticuy]

I have been disappointed after the initial viewing of each and every episode...only to marvel at the genius of the same episode upon the first rewatch, and the second., etc. I agree with some of the earlier posts which feel that more of the plot should have been revealed during this episode (actually a few episodes back). The finale to the season will be necessarily anticlimactic due to the viewer's anticipation formed by being in the dark from the beginning. No revelation or clarification will probably be enough to satisfy the majority of the ardent followers of this show, not to mention the casual viewer (assuming they exist of course). Don't get me wrong, I love the show and its cast of surreal characters...but I feel that this story could have been told better without losing its core ideals. I have been the best cheerleader I can for this show, but most people just do not possess the ability for the delayed gratification that this show forces upon you. If (big IF) this show is granted a second season, I sincerely hope that Milch tweaks the writing to throw us masochistic viewers a bone periodically throughout the season.

As an aside, it would seem to me that if one wrote such an obtuse project as JFC...a good idea would be to shoot a few revelation plot pieces that could be randomly inserted into various episodes once you get a feel of how the viewers are relating to the show...Milch could have put some plot direction in any of the previous episodes which would have alleviated some of the anticipation of the final episode. Like I said before, the burden will just be too great for the show to shoulder. At the end of the day we will utter the same words that started the whole conundrum "Some Things I Know, and Some Things I Don't"...Amen.

[kathy999]

I haven't given up on the show making sense, but I am very much in it for the characters, too. The finale may be a dud as far as tying all the plot points together goes, but I simply enjoy watching these people.

Shep, I agree with you. I watched this evening and really enjoyed every scene. The characters have grown exponentially (except Mitch) of course! I will rewatch and attempt to glean some meaning - which, I'm sure, is there. later guys

[othkarwise]

I didn't like an episode without John. Having watched the first hour of TNT's "The Company" before switching over to JFC, my mind had to shift down a gear or two. Like other people have said, I really like the actors and I sincerely hope this show is going to make some kind of sense. I do have to admit, though, that unless something truly amazing happens next week, I won't care at all if it's cancelled. NOT the way I felt about Carnivale. NOT the way I felt about Deadwood. NOT the way I felt about Rome. In my opinion, a good TV show should run at least 5 seasons. It can be 5 seasons of 13 episodes like HBO normally does, or 22 or 26 split like some of the cable stations ( and now network shows) do.


Gone off subject, sorry. I didn't hate tonight's episode. Again, like someone else mentioned, I'm just afraid this is going the way of David Lynch's nightmare "Twin Peaks". Although I can't really say that because at least Twin Peaks got you good and hooked before you realized you weren't going anywhere. JFC?? Not so much. I do find myself humming the JFC's theme song quite a bit. Something's made an impression on me. Confused.

Edited by othkarwise, Aug 5, 2007 @ 10:40 PM.

[Pallas429]

Me, I was on the edge of my seat tonight, wanting to know what Shaun's being gone (along with Zippy) would mean, and expecting there would be no answer yet. I prefer Advent to Christmas. So I was amused to see in John's second message, not only the large stick figure and the smaller stick figure, but also, a little blip aside the smaller stick figure: I imagined, Zippy.

I think the symbol that is duplicating itself on a website, barroom walls and even in Avon catalogs is a Monad. The Monad represents man's higher self so John was sent to earth to shake things up a bit. Current mankind is so disjointed from each other and we have fallen in love with technology (the 0 and 1s constantly mentioned).

I think yes. As other posters have noted, the monad figure ties in human beginning to human present (and maybe, end, as in, near?) It was the original cave drawing on the wall (John's Sermon), and in likeness, close to the hierogliph NASA derived to send out into space on Voyager, to indicate four-limbed-one-headed intelligent life forms. John is trying to speak to our common, human ancestry, even as people in I.B. are creating a contemporary, human community: both, about Shaun.

Milch is playing with the same imagery as Kubrick's "2001" (which I swear, is the movie that made us decide, in 1969!, how we would phrase the coming early years of the new millenium. Not "aught-one," as our forebears did in the previous change of century, but...).

Anyways. As I recall, the first "monkey" imagery happens when Freddy asks Palaka, "Explain to me the difference between you, and a monkey in a tree." Palaka then tries to distract the assembled reporters at the hospital with a weird, monkey-freak-out. Bill, in his first show-down with Freddy, pretty much refers to him as a Cro-Magnon. Freddy returns the favor. Bill calls John a moron. John makes monkey-aggressive face and postures at the tiki on the border, as does Cissy to the tiki in Mitch's "No-Girlz-Allowed!" illumiation-levitation-loft above the empty garage. Tonight, Mitch refers to John as seeming brain-damaged or retarded.

We began as monkeys, and it is in our greatest, seeming worldiness or sophistication that we are monkeys, still: advancing (yet getting lost) by our capacity for physical violence or intellectual arrogance; beaten down yet rising up, by our capacity for compassion and self-forgiveness.

[Fisher King]

Also echoing marleyfan's sentiments. I love these people.

I don't think we'll see Shaunie back at IB. It'll only be via the 0s and 1s that make up all communication--or through Butchie's eyes. Butchie is like us, he doesn't know and he can't explain what is occuring but he knows it's going to be okay. It has to be. He has witnessed impossible things but more importantly, the changes within himself.

We are water. Are we not? Isn't that where life as we know it began?

The only thing Butchie has ever felt any accomplishment from is surfing and the water. That was his first high and he has now returned to that natural drug. At the end of the episode, he stared off into the water because he knows that's where he'll find Shaun. Having no prior thought about God or faith, the water has acted as his savior and could be equated to his belief system.

Shaun died in the surfing accident but the innocence of his spirit lingers.

I need to shut up and go to bed.

Edited by Fisher King, Aug 6, 2007 @ 12:07 AM.

[uclagirl]

Shaun died in the surfing accident but the innocence of his spirit lingers.

And as soon as he signed with Linc, his innocence came to an end. Very interesting--in fact, I think it's the most interesting theory I've seen! That makes me look forward to next week a little more, to see if this is how things unfold.

[thatguy01]

I can't see a solution without Shaun. Butchie has faith, but I can't see how anyone else can find Butchie's faith without Shaun. In particular, it puts Cissy and Tina back to square zero.

[MickNixon]

Interesting that the people who hate the show seem to be watching as consistently as those who love it, especially on a channel you have to pay to get. Put me in the "love it" column. Tonight was one of the most uplifting 50 minutes or so of TV ever. Cissy's guilt-driven anguish, Mitch's return to earth, Butchie's emergent faith, Bill & Freddy's neurotic loyalty, Linc's conversion--it was genuinely moving, w/o the usual sweet, sticky shit that passes for an attempt to explore mystery, faith and spirituality on TV. It's a show about desperate faith and redemption, and I am grateful for it. Hold on, the song said. I'm holding on.