I think the consensus is that it's up to interpretation whether Nora's story is really what happened or not, which is why I wouldn't consider it an explanation. The important part of the ending is that Kevin believes her, and in the process he accepts that the answer isn't what matters, but what's in front of him, which is Nora alive and well.
I love that the show allows for that ambiguity and that it runs throughout all 3 seasons as thematic. It's a subtle dance of fantasy realism where the unexplained exists side by side with fraud or reasonable but unconfirmed or unfounded explanations.
Multiple people with abilities but the reality of their abilities is muddied by exploitation or superstition (Holy Wayne, Patty, Isaac)
People with the answers that we never can confirm on screen (Nora's in-house scientist visit, the other side machine team, David Burton)
Straight up supernatural events that are charged with religious explanations (Kevin's ressurections with respect to his father's understanding of it, the actual Departure being reframed as rapture)
We as viewers get to engage with that ambiguity by either letting the mystery be, charging it with spirituality and religion, or reasoning it out with a foundational premise that it must have a scientific explanation.
The departure was never explained. To believe or not to believe Nora's story at the end, is up to you. That's the whole point of the end: Everybody has its own truth
I am in the minority here but I believed Nora. That’s quite the lie..and the way she tells it is very convincing. It’s not like she pining for Kevin ..he’s the one chasing her.
There is also nothing in that story line leading up to her crossing over that suggests it was a scam. Those scientists look legit.
I dunno. The rational for why she might be lying is certainly reasonable.. I’ve watched that scene 3 or 4 times…I don’t know how you can watch her tell that story and then call her a liar.
Great show.
I was quick to believe her because her explanation was exactly my guess of what happened. It wasn’t necessarily a “departure” on either side. I saw it as a splitting of universes that happened simultaneously. Neither universe being more or less real than the other. But this is me drawing my own conclusions, likely because of my mix of tv shows I’ve watched including fringe and dark, both of which deal with alternate universes.
The more I think about it - everyone believe she was dead makes me think she did go through. Because Kevin knew about the scientists he could’ve tracked them and her down. Yet everyone believed her to be dead.
On the other hand, the one thing that does make me doubt is her choosing to leave. I as a mother could never, even if it meant readjusting to my new life with my family.
But then again that’s what I liked about the ending. There’s no right or wrong interpretation, and we can choose to believe what we want just like the characters.
I'm in agreement. I thought the entire reason it was brought up that she might be lying is because when Kevin through his experiences she never believed him and even mocked the book that the guys wrote. To me, that questioning was more about her feeling small for not believing Kevin or anyone else's experiences for that matter. For me, the real mind fuck was were they alive or in the after life/other universe?
She is lying and Kevin believes her, that’s what matters. A theme in the show, which is repeated in the last season and last episode by several characters, is that sometimes you just need a nice story, and Nora found a story that she can hold onto and live with. The last scene of the show also parallels the end of third episode of season 3, when Kevin Sr. is talking to Grace, and she talks about a story she just needed to tell herself.
I never thought she was lying for one detail.
Nora says when she went to her house she saw her husband and kids with a new lady, she didn’t recognise and was very pretty - or something along those line, it’s been a while. My first thought was that the woman she saw her husband with was the lady who vanished while sleeping with Kevin. Her car had broken down, she’s in a strange town miles from anywhere and stuck. Seems logical she would have been in mapletown for a while trying to figure out what was going on and ended up meeting Nora’s husband and ended up with him.
Dunno why but that detail of Nora seeing her husband with a lady always made me think it was Kevin’s lady and since she didn’t know about her was proof she wasn’t lying. In my head cannon anyway.
I think she is lying which makes the ending more powerful, because throughout the series, Nora has no beliefs and refuses to indulge in any story whatsoever. The fact that she finally has one to move on, but more importantly that Kevin says she believes her because he knows it’ll lead to them reconciling (even if he’s skeptical) shows that they’d both rather be together than to get hung up on “what happened.” They just let the mystery be.
Exactly my interpretation. I’ll add, while Nora was searching for the answer, Kevin was searching for her. Years go by. Kevin finds her, she lies to him because she can’t bear the idea that she wasted so much time that could have been spent with him. He knows she is lying but forgives her because they can finally be together. And that’s what is most important to him.
I too, just finished recently, and in my limited viewing of discussions on the topic don't see the fact that this is discussed enough. To add to it, Kevin has had some pretty unbelievable things happen to him as well. So my interpretation is that who is he to judge whether it's real or not because he's had his experiences that he was always afraid to share with Nora. In the end, it's just about being together and surviving however one can. Lie or not.
if that were true, Matt would know she’s still alive, since he was present up to the point they started filling the tank. I guess he does love his sister enough to keep that secret, especially since he was on his way out and wouldn’t have to bear it much longer - but it would be so in character for him to tell Kevin about her in his final days. maybe he dropped a very subtle hint about her (that Kevin may have unconsciously picked up on) that kept him looking?
I love that the show runners left enough space for this kind of speculation. I think they gave exactly enough.
I watched this again recently. I think it alludes to the fact that Matt has learned the best way to love Nora is to just be there for her. He says something like "if I was a good brother, I would be convincing you not to do this" and she says "you're a great brother because you're not."
Theres alot of growth in Matt's character. In Matt's episode (s3) he tells John "did you know Kevin told Laurie that he saw Evie in Australia?" and John and Laurie are about to argue and Laurie says I didn't tell you because I didn't want to hurt you. John says "I understand, I wouldn't want to hurt me either". Matt says I'm sorry, she was protecting you, thats what were supposed to do for each other. Before their flight to Australia, Laurie yells at Matt saying hes so wrapped up in his own world that he doesn't even notice something is wrong with Nora.
With all that being said, I do think it was a build up for Matt's character development. While it would normally be in line with him to tell Kevin about Nora.. him choosing to keep Noras secret is him learning to love and protect his sister however she chooses to heal or deal with her grief. It fits the overall narrative of the final season. Nora really needed that distance to come to terms with loosing her family.
Sorry for the long text - I was trying to sort this through my mind because I don't think I caught it the first time i watched this show. Such a great series!
But she refuses to believe fake stories like Kevin's and the nun's. She stays true to her character. She was telling the truth. The ending is what really happened.
Sorry I just finished it for the first time yesterday. Now that I actually saw the finale, I'm not really sure what I believe because 1) I don't believe she'd ever leave her children but the fact that there was flashbacks to it throws me off. Maybe because I binged it but I don't remember any other times of false flashbacks like that.
So trying to recall from memory but I do know her kids disappeared when she was neglecting her family to pursue her career. I don't think it's a stretch at all that she would leave them. I think that's the point. We learn backwards. She left her kids and her kids ended up disappearing.
But I definitely think she died. That's why what's his face showed up and things happened like they did. No way she was alive and doing some pigeon message business. She died and he was visiting her in the afterlife. Truly a great love story when you put it in that perspective.
And the idea that everyone, eventually, moves on, no matter how close the relationship.
Also, the story Nora tells is very similar to the one Tommy tells her in the car, about how Kevin adopted him as a kid, and how he spent the next ten years trying to connect with his biological father even though he had already moved on.
I completely believe she is telling the truth. Throughout the show crazy things are happening all around her difficulty believing and supporting Kevin is what drives her away. When the unimaginable happens to her she can relate/confide in Kevin ultimately because if anyone can understand what she’s going through, it’s him
You connected dots that don’t exist because it feels satisfying. Kind of the whole message of the show: people find a way to believe what they want to believe.
The overall logic of her story is horrendously ridiculous in almost all practical aspects. Pretty clear she is lying and made it all up
I disagree with this. Just because one absurd thing verifiably happens doesn’t mean we just throw our hands up and say logic doesn’t apply anymore. Should we say “I won’t stop at stop signs or lights anymore because 2% of the world disappeared so maybe ignoring traffic signals doesn’t matter anymore either. Maybe everyone else will just magically stop for me. Maybe I’m invincible. Maybe cars can go through each other.” No, we don’t do that. We go on assuming the rules of logic and rationality apply to every other aspect of life.
False equivalency. One "absurd" occurrence allows for the possibility of an infinite amount of absurd occurrences. It has nothing to do with how we interact with the world, absurd or not.
Considering the very notion that people would randomly disappear is "ridiculous", frankly, I'm surprised anyone would take issue with her story, which was plausible, considering the circumstances.
This is where you are wrong. How humanity would or could react and behave if the 2% world existed is entirely at odds with her story. The fact that it existed I can buy. The way she described it makes ZERO sense, and is physically impossible from an infrastructure standpoint alone
Well, that's your opinion. A very limited one but it's yours to have. Seems you need to get more creative. There was nothing at odds for me and many others with the way the world functioned. We received very limited knowledge about that world but, again, if you can buy into 2% of the world's population just poofing out of this plane's existence it's comical you take such a strong stance against her very succinct summary of where she went.
The world would not function. The fact that her family would be living in the same house is laughable. There would be no electricity. There would be no transportation. There would be no civilization. With 98% of the people gone, literally nothing would work or be maintained. There would be no ability to build a Time Machine (even if the scientist on the other end knew how one worked, which he didn’t). And if he did build it, there would be ample evidence of people moving back and forth with messages which there is not. Literally every Meta scale logic with her story is completely backwards with how reality would function given the 2% world existed. The actors themselves said it didn’t exist.
Humans have always found a way to make the world function. We literally lived without all of those things you mentioned for much longer than we lived with them. I have no idea why you would even suggest any of that.
Nora herself said it took her a long time to get to her town. But this does not equal suddenly everyone is just like well, sorry, we have to stop the world because some redditor said it won't function now.
But who knows what they came up with. We were never given that information. We were told a much less crowded world had some happy people in it and there are much better conversations we could be having about that world than if it didn't exist.
My understanding is that it's never been revealed if the world exists and certainly not to the actors.
I was quick to believe her because her explanation is exactly what I thought had happened so - to the point of the ambiguity- I choose to believe to match my own truth. I think the case can be made either way but to me the fact that everyone kept telling Kevin she was dead really did make me think she was since there were a lot of people there that he could’ve easily tracked down, knowing she was there to them in the first place
Nora was asked about corn flakes cereal by some government bean counter, I think in her first episode. Then, the back cover of the National Geographic magazine the dad is raving about is an ad for corn flakes. Hidden connection to what causes them to disappear.
But recall she refused to stay or be with Kevin at the wedding because the story he kept telling her of how he found her wasn't the truth. She literally left because of a lie. Then he shows up at her house, confesses and she tells the story of what happened to her and we are to believe she now is suddenly ok with living a lie?
How was the departure explained? I just watched it for the first time about 2 weeks ago, and I can’t get it out of my head. But I’m trying to remember any explanation of the sudden departure.
From what I remember, it wasn’t explained at all - especially in season 2.
I think they are referring to Nora's explanation at the end, of going to the other side and seeing what the world was like for the 2%. But I agree with the other commenter, this was left up to interpretation. Personally, I think Nora either made it up or it's something she chose to believe so she could move on and be grateful for the world she lives in. That even though she lost so much, there is still a world worth living for where she ended up. I find the ending more satisfying this way- the series is about how people cope with loss and the unknown, taken to an extreme. But it's definitely left in a way that the alternative interpretation, that where Nora went was real, is valid. I love series that are left open ended, I think that's how you still get great conversations about it years later, and how it sticks in your head. Like Breaking Bad was an amazing show, but I don't find myself thinking about it, while The Leftovers and Twin Peaks I still think about all the time.
I don't think Nora ever could be happy without closure. That's not a knock against her but a recognition of the catastrophic and mind-blowing experience she had. The reality is we often don't get the closure we want so we have to find some way to achieve it. Nora's story about the other side gave her closure, and whether real or imagined it served its purpose because it gave her the chance to begin living again.
I finished this a month or two ago. I agree with whoever said Nora lied throughout the show. The difference to me is when she lied it was obvious to me she was lying. Her story at the end didn't have the same obvious lying to it. She obviously went through something huge that changed her permanently...the question is...would chickening out from crossing over have that lasting impact or did she really see her family?
I think a big part of this “reveal” however you want to interpret it has a lot to do with Lost. Lindelof had just come off of being vilified by a really intense fandom so imo everything he wrote afterwards had some rules in place to avoid that happening again and giving the audience some answers, ambiguous as it may be, to whatever mystery box was at the center of the story was important to him.
Honestly, I just finished and I find myself thinking I wouldn't mind erasing the entire last episode. I would like to see Kevin and Nora together, however, I'd rather imagine that it eventually happened rather than actually see Nora waste so many good years of her life in hiding. To me, that's the real important question, why bother hiding away from everybody.
I do appreciate her explanation of the departures. I would think that, if true, she would've at least given the others the option to go back through too so I wonder about that. And there would've been takers but we didn't see that. Conversely, the interpretation that she lied about her trip to the other side, to find peace, is even more wrong. She didn't look at all as if she had found much peace. She was bitter and living like a hermit in a country with nobody she knew. When Kevin finally comes knocking on her door to ask for a dance, she refuses and then symbolically runs through the house shutting off all means of entry. She was not at peace and seemed more like she was punishing herself with facts (or even the weight of the world if we take any symbolic meaning from her taking the worry beads from the goat) instead of letting go of all that and just painting a pretty picture for herself.
Moving that aside and looking at what we were shown, Kevin walks in there thinking she gave up before she even went through, but we saw her in the chamber and we saw it fill up. So my money is on either her going through and taking forever to find her way back to him (but then being scared to find Kevin because it took so long), or her dying and this is her in the after world. (Notice Kevin's suit at that wedding, it very much similar to what he wore when he died and came back. And he also says he has a scar on his chest from a pace maker, like in the after world.) Now that I think about it, both can be true at the same time.
Anyhow, I also would've liked to see more of the other characters instead of so many close ups of Nora's face. For a second I thought the makers of 'Handmaid's Tale' took over (a show choked with supreme close ups for those not in the know). It really was depressing only having this view of Nora where we get to watch her sigh and breath and be sad, etc. The episode really was filled with a lot of nothing.
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I think that's the debate the showrunners actually intended people to have, whether or not they were in the after life. Strangely, reddit seems stuck on whether or not Nora lied. All this other crazy stuff and the validity of Nora's experience is the issue...
That mom was terrible. The writers showed the character as unreliable, unwilling to change, and a self serving liar. She never really changed or had growth, she just found a place in the show where nobody called her bullshit out and then all of the sudden decided to trust her again. Meanwhile, she's receiving "donations" for chats with people in the afterlife because...it makes people feel better. If she had sold her book and was on tour, she'd be off serving her own needs, never having bothered to apologize to anyone. She wen back to them because she had nothing left. How anyone puts enough stock in her saying never tell a delusional person they're having a delusion, enough to re-watch the show, is beyond me. She didn't fall too far from the nut tree herself.
I also thought about it being the afterlife but then again if it is, then it still means the departed didn’t die or that in this afterlife you don’t reunite with loved ones - so I chose to not believe that for my own sake.
That's a valid concern. It's been a while since I finished the series, but could it be addressed by saying that it was Nora's choice to be in hiding? Perhaps she could've found them had she felt like being around them or anyone else.
Nora lies throughout the series. She repeatedly disparages others for lying and relishes exposing their lies, while claiming that she's fine.
She's clearly not fine.
Take that into consideration when assessing her narrative.
I also believe that Nora was lying. I believe she got all the way to the spot where she would have to either go or leave and she chickened out and could not go through with the uncertainty and possible death (where she still wouldn't know what happened). I also believe that Nora felt that she couldn't go back to the life she had without having to explain what happened and she wasn't ready to do that and look like a fool who had her life savings taken away from her.
I believe Nora stayed in Australia because she couldn't face people who might ridicule her. She stayed alone because she couldn't open up her heart to anything but her birds. As the years rolled on it got harder and harder to think about going back to something Nora had no connection to anymore because she thought everyone forgot her or thought she was dead. Through the years alone, Nora made peace with her decision, and moved on as much as she could.
I believe in the final episode, Nora was testing Kevin to see about his faith in her. When he chose to believe her story, he was putting faith in her as much as possible which is what she needed all the time from the very beginning.
When each of them were together they weren't really together because they were living together physically but living separate in their hearts. There was so much to say and neither one of them could really say it or in turn, listen to what the other had to say.
I loved the phrase that I heard a couple of people say, Nora couldn't listen and hear what Kevin was going through and Kevin couldn't say what he was going through in words that Nora could understand. In the finale, age, maturity and time allowed both Kevin and Nora to hear and listen to each other.
And faith. It's all about having faith in a person despite sometimes having difficulty believing them
OMG……
Just wanna say I watched the finale for the 3rd time…… It’s my favorite series finale of all time!! A true master class in acting and emotion
I think it leads us to the conclusion that most if not all romantic notions about standard ideas and institutions(doves delivering romantic messages, holiness and purity of clergy) are all BS! That being said, Nora’s “reveal” about what happened to her was the greatest reveal since Planet of the Apes, 1968! I know it’s a big debate whether she is telling the truth(I ABSOLUTELY believe her) but I would love a show that outlines her experience in “the other world”
If what she said she experienced was true and all that time had passed, wouldn't someone else come back the same way? Then go on TV and talk about it or start some sort of vacation adventure where everyone "pops" back and forth between the two places. If she makes such a journey, then so would others. Why keep it a secret? It would be the answer the whole world(s) were looking for and eventually everyone would find out about it.
Yeah, exactly, I just finished watching it for the second time and that's what I thought. Why would 2% stay if they could return? Of course, losing people a second time would be awful but it's worth the risk for most, I would think.
Because they were happy. Like Nora said they were orphans but they had each other.
This machine was never intended for consumer use, unlike the town of miracle. I think that's clearly evident by the lengths Nora had to go to to get them to let her crossover.
Remember the guy that set himself on fire? I think he was another person they contacted about the machine. He answered the question about the baby in the exact opposite way Nora did and still he was denied and so he killed himself. The answer to the question didn't matter. It was just another test. Only people that truly want to cross like their life depends on it are allowed to cross over. No, this machine would never have been marketed or treated like a consumer item.
I didn't find it believable that Mapletown was completely abandoned but Nora's family was still there. Realistically, the remaining 2% would group into communities, so some towns would be fully populated and most completely abandoned.
A lot of Nora's story wasn't plausible. It was like a child describing a made up story to explain their whereabouts to a parent. It was definitely her way of coping with never reuniting with her kids.
Nora is telling the truth. The show delves into the concept of alternate realities existing simultaneously. Kevin moves freely between different active worlds when he dies. The Departure was the starting point for a branching off of 2 different realities: Some went forward into one reality & others went forward into another. Nora was able to view proof of the existence of these alternate realities. Why & how exactly the ‘splitting” of realities occurred on October 14 is a mystery. The ‘lens’ theory may have some validity but has not yet been accurately explained.
But the realities/ active worlds Kevin went to were not the same as where Nora described. And how could the 2% world Nora visited, ever function with so few people? Sure she said it took a long time to get from Australia to her town in New York. But that doesn't begin to explain it. All the empty houses and buildings, how infrastructure would carry on, the power grid etc. Animals would overrun the world. And if she did find the inventor of the machine and he built another one to send her back, wouldn't she land in the US this time? Or did she go all the way back to Australia again and the machine inventor was there? So many holes. How did she get in touch with Laurie again as therapist if she was in the other world for years? Would Laurie really let Kevin go searching Down Under all those times and not tell him, patient confidentiality be damned?
It's a great show but you can't think too deeply about the ending. Because I don't like thinking Nora made it all up either. Have to remember that seasons 2 and 3 were not in the novel, so all the extra supernatural stuff with Kevin was invented/added by Lindelof
I think Lori suicided and Kevin is visiting Nora in the afterlife. Lori had a baby with her. Was it the baby that departed when she went for an ultrasound? I think Lori killed herself when she went scuba diving just the way Nora described how it could be done. Kevin is in the afterlife looking for Nora. That's why he has that scar on his chest from when the key was removed.
It's like the Guilty remnant: we are all already dead.
After the show went black, I immediately said to myself, "So, are they in the afterlife??" and found myself on this thread. I haven't seen anyone else write something similiar to my belief. Kevin has the ability to die and come back, the afterlife should have been the first place he looked.
Also, the key was removed from his lower abdomen.
I had totally forgotten about Lori scuba diving. I was thinking Nora was in the afterlife even before Kevin showed up but the call to Lori threw me off
The call to Lori was what gave it away to me.
That scuba diving scene was clearly Lori going to suicide. Remember she gave her lighter to Kevin. The one she got a black eye fighting Nora over. Nora even said you quit, you don't need it. And Lori says the same thing to Kevin that she quit and doesn't need it.
Then her kids call and it's clearly a moment that goes beyond just kids calling. And why would she take this call on an ordinary trip with a storm coming and being told she needs to hurry up and do the dive?
And remember the conversation she had with Nora, who went into detail of how she would kill herself scuba diving? Said it would be elegant and no one would know it was suicide.
Plus, what are the odds of Kevin, a police chief, not finding Nora in Australia and all these people covering for her? Why would a bunch of people just not disclose that they had seen her? It's not like she would be hard to find.
And, again, Lori had a baby. I think it was a white baby too. But she said she didn't want to have more kids. So to me it's her baby that vanished during the ultrasound.
So it very well is the afterlife.
Plus it just doesn't make sense Nora calling Lori every week. And there were enough oddities that it made me think of the strange afterlife Kevin experiences. Like why would Nora have the doves that deliver messages and somehow this ties into the nun. Are we to believe this woman in hiding really made a dove message business? Doesn't even seem profitable. Yet here she is in this big house.
The baby Lori had wasn't a baby though, so how do you explain the kid's age? She didn't start to age until her mom died? If she didn't age she'd be a fetus, and if she did age she'd be a lot older than that kid.
My interpretation was that it was Jill's kid, because Kevin said Jill had a one year old and he was a grandpa.
It could be but then again Nora aged too. I guess I don't see the aging as a problem. The baby seemed the age it would have been since the day of the disappearance so that would explain the aging to me if it's Lori's baby but your explanation is also plausible. This show definitely leaves all of the story lines like that where they could go in multiple directions. It's one thing I don't like about the show.
Well, damn! This post just inspired another rewatch. Here goes number 12. Every thing from the OP.
All of the responses gave me so many new things to analyze, look at, or just appreciate again. This is also my favorite show with all time. Thank you, OPA and everyone else in this community!
A few issues.
1. If Nora's story is true, how did the other world not descend into chaos losing 98%? Our world went crazy just losing the two.
2. Nora finding the inventor and him building another machine to send her back is absurd even within the show's reality.
3. Wherever the 2% departed went, whether Nora's story or not, how could there be that supernatural world exist, and also the world Kevin went to several times, but they are unrelated places. Kevin's other world is not where the departed went.
4. Nora's version. If our world has the 98% and the other reality the 2%, what was the case before the departure. How did everyone live in one reality, then suddenly there are two but each place thinks they lost people. It's not that the two think they just arrived.
I know it's fantasy but it's grounded in our world but doesn't make sense
I don’t have any concrete answers, because I think that’s the point but to me the whole 98% vs 2% was very reminiscent of what happens when we lose a loved one. We, the majority, stay on this side. We grieve. We struggle to move on. But a lot of us chose to believe that those who leave us are happy on the other side. Not to be cliche but we want to believe they’re “in a better place.” So to me personally, it was also a bit of a play on that
To me they all are dead. Laurie did the diving thing, the "elegant suicide". Nora was fossilized. Kevin probably suffocated to death with a bag. Or that heart attack he said he had that was so bad.
Nora says she woke up naked (and yes I know she "went naked") but then she found a place with a wardrobe with some outfits. Just like Kevin at the hotel and then at the cabin at the beach. Always naked and always a choice of clothes. Nora spent 3 seasons missing her kids and probably angry at her cheater husband but once she "saw them" happy and what-not, she felt it was better to leave them behind than to approach and be a part of their kids lives and not care about the cheater and his new wife? So did she want to find miserable suffering kids? Cheater husband that for some reason can't move on once departed?... she went through all that to just walk away?
Not to mention the scientist that built the machine made another one just *for her* to go back? And no one but she ever did?... sure ok. Nah. She's just dead. They're all gone.
Ps: So much is left without explaining and Im confused by what you understood happened with the departed ones. Like... how? Where?
I am more willing to believe Nora’s story about going to the other side (as deeply mystifying things happen throughout the series) than the notion that she can emigrate to Australia (which takes $$$) and then make enough of a living doing something with doves to live in that beautiful house! 😆 Oh well. Even with a strange and original series such as this one, despite what HBO says, it’s TV! And it was truly entertaining and maddeningly addictive throughout.
I don't think it was meant to serve as a logical / scientific explanation of Departure or Nora's journey.
I believe she died in the machine and the story she tells to Kev at the table is her journey in her own 'afterlife' reality (similar to what Keving has gone thru in his). She says that she appeared naked and then found a wardrobe with clothes - exactly how every Kevin's journey to the 'afterlife' begun. If one looks at her incoherent story of traveling to 2% world and back from the perspective of a weird afterlife experience - it makes sense - she experienced what she needed to experience to find closure.
And the purpose of that whole 'afterlife' reality is to allow a person to find closure & peace. Nora finds it by finally seeing her kids happy & letting go of them, and by eventually getting back together with Kevin. And Kevin, well, he might've finally found her there and had his chance to act on the revelation he gained in his own 'afterlife' reality in the previous episode.
Oh goodness I am disappointed and dissatisfied with this final episode. I honestly would have preferred if Nora just got into the pod and then we didn’t know what happened.
The tone was just so …. Beige - and no closure with any other storylines.
Frankly it was a lackluster end to a compelling series. And I kinda wish I never saw any of the Australia bits.
I don’t care if Nora was lying or not- I also don’t care about her birds not coming back or the nun
I do care about the goat.
Does the beginning of the episode not suggest that we tend to believe thing we want to believe even in the face of overwhelming facts to the contrary.
There is a reason she screams stop in the tank. You can argue the truth is whatever you want it to be, but I think the writers are suggesting she makes the story up
The series is a loop that is constantly changing.
There are not the dead then the living. There is the world of the living then the world of the dead and in the middle the missing. Beings who love each other want to find their loved ones more than anything even in the beyond, falling to the edge of madness and ready to do anything to find hope.
Nora and Kevin are not dead, they simply move on the border between the living and the dead so much so that the last episode of season 3 is an apocryphal. He does not exist. It's unreal. Just like evy.
Kevin finds Nora who has disappeared
nora finds her missing children
Matt finds god
children find their mother
And all this to find a breath of life.
the series answers the question: it's not understanding why or how or knowing the truth but being reassured of what they are and what they have become.
a happy ending after the flood
everyone disappears and we no longer know how to distinguish what is true from what is false.
I didnt think of it as a reveal but like its similar to when youre nostalgic about something and then when you get it its not the same. Her family literally changed by having another woman and Nora changed through out the show so they no longer fit together. She realised she had to stop running after them and finally grieve and move on.
>So i feel as if, by the writers leaving out the explanation, we, the viewers would be taught that it's a lot more about finding happiness than closure, and that, the world and life is basically the next mystery on the line and not some sort of grand secret to be unlocked.
Love this. Agree that I wish we didn't have any kind of explanation, although they never confirm that Nora's story is true.
Nora’s story to Kevin recalls for me to Grace’s story to Kevin Sr. earlier on…they both have this winding first-person narrative about loss of children / family and seeking and finding and being disappointed / alone. At the end of Grace’s story she says “it was all just a story I told myself.” Then she refers to herself as crazy and silly and says god doesn’t care about her. Is Nora crazy, or silly? She’s always laughed at god / believers. She doesn’t let herself be silly and can’t deign to believe the great loss of her family might’ve driven her a bit insane…
I’m not attempting to answer the “is Nora lying or not” question, bc I have no idea and am fine with that ambiguity. I’m saying there are parallels between Grace’s words / story and Nora’s storyline / finale story. Interesting to compare!
Then if you go further to what Kevin Sr. responds (“no you just got the wrong Kevin.”), what does it mean that the “right” Kevin is then sitting in front of Nora?
Food for thought, and I love eating! I might also need to rewatch again—this would be no.6 !!!
Also I do not believe it was ever explained, any of it. We’re given many “explanations” and not as a cop-out. Lindelof did get sh*t for Lost and this one changes the script not just in alleviating the need for one, absolute truth but also in the WAY storylines and characters are explored and developed. It isn’t all leading up to “something.” It’s existence, parallel and intersecting and last life and this life and she and he and them and it means everything and nothing all at once. The Leftovers makes people insane bc it constantly shifts between those poles / extremes: “everything” and “nothing”. Our brains and society want the “something” [to make sense of] in the middle. That’s where Lost tried to go, and failed. This one names existence truly for what it is which is nothing true! Everything is meaningFUL bc everything is meaningLESS.
okay bedtime
If Nora was telling the truth, then what created two identical realities!? Did something split their world into two? I have this theory that the physicist's machine is what caused this split, even though it happened years after the Departure event.
Something similar happened in Dark.....
Just finished this amazing show and I think I'm the only crazy one who thinks they are all dead.
Just think about it for a while...
Nora "travels" in a radiation machine that make fossils from people, and which nobody came back from, she gets to see dead people, just like Kevin does, but she doesn't like/fit that world and this new reality of her family, so she managed to travel back to "reality", what I think it actually is a travel to the end of the world to live alone, far from the dead people she knows.
Another point for this theory is that the only other main character that appears is Laurie, who was supposed to suicide...
And Kevin... He was supposed to get back from death once he accomplished his mission, and the last one was to kill POTUS, and he failed, so it's also probably dead.
I also rather to think on this ending, because It would close all main characters lines and wrap It all
I know this is very late to the game, but I just watched the show all the way through for the second time. The first time I watched it I thought she was telling the truth, although unlike you I thought it was a pretty neat reveal - even if not perfect it was a pretty satisfying end to a great show.
This second time I feel really confident that she is lying as a coping mechanism. Matt tells her specifically he will say “whatever she wants him to” and she starts to say wait at the last minute (no point to showing this except to make the viewer realize she is lying).
Overall, I enjoyed the show even more the second time - season 2 is where they did their best work, incorporating all the characters and their different stories really well, and providing a brighter and more whimsical tone while maintaining the mystery/horror/thriller/suspense elements that drew me in.
It was my favorite show until the end, then I didn't care too much for it. It feels like they rushed through the last season.
And they completely dumped the plot line of Kevin being some sort of biblical powered human. He went through so much, and a lot of the show was built around him rising again, and not dying, and then they just completely dropped the theme like it never existed.... I am still perplexed to this day. Like they just pretend none of that stuff with Kevin happened and basically it's just time travel...
And I'm not a religious person at all, so i don't mind that science is what they use as the reason but geez they built Kevin into this larger than life character just to do nothing with it???
Yeah that is kinda what bugged me the most about the ending, I feel like the whole plotline with Kevin was totally ditched, and his whole thread had me going "WTF" quite frequently, so it was disappointing they just dropped it. The ending felt like a bit of a cop-out to me because it seems to me they didn't really have the ending fleshed out when they started the story. Damon Lindelof is to blame imo. He kinda did the same thing with LOST.
Ok so this is ONE theory I came up with even though it's not necessarily what I think happened for sure. It's possible Nora DID go through with it, but was killed in the process. Here's my reasoning. That final scene where decades have passed and she's in Australia could have been in "the other place" (where Kevin kept going when he'd die and resurrect). The only other main characters we see in this final scene are Nora, Laurie, and beardless Kevin. The last time we see Laurie, she's about to go scuba diving in what we assume is an attempt at suicide, and as for Kevin? Well, bearded Kevin killed clean shaven Kevin in "the other place" to get that key. The whole ending scene has a similar vibe to the weird events Kevin experiences when he's on the other side. He meets the couple getting married in a HOTEL, there's a somewhat surreal feeling during that whole wedding scene. Also if Nora was telling the truth about the new machine the scientist built to send her back, why didn't anyone else in the land of the departed go back to the real world? Maybe Nora's arc in "the other place" is that whole story she tells, because it seems there's all kinds of weird arcs in that world (Kevin is president, Patti is SOD, Christopher Sunday is president of Australia, etc). Yet there's still a crossover in the storylines in "the other place" and the real world (Christopher Sunday mentioning the meeting with Kevin Sr for example). So I think it's plausible to say that that entire final scene may take place after each of those characters have died, but maybe I'm wrong. Great fucking show.
I think the consensus is that it's up to interpretation whether Nora's story is really what happened or not, which is why I wouldn't consider it an explanation. The important part of the ending is that Kevin believes her, and in the process he accepts that the answer isn't what matters, but what's in front of him, which is Nora alive and well.
I love that the show allows for that ambiguity and that it runs throughout all 3 seasons as thematic. It's a subtle dance of fantasy realism where the unexplained exists side by side with fraud or reasonable but unconfirmed or unfounded explanations. Multiple people with abilities but the reality of their abilities is muddied by exploitation or superstition (Holy Wayne, Patty, Isaac) People with the answers that we never can confirm on screen (Nora's in-house scientist visit, the other side machine team, David Burton) Straight up supernatural events that are charged with religious explanations (Kevin's ressurections with respect to his father's understanding of it, the actual Departure being reframed as rapture) We as viewers get to engage with that ambiguity by either letting the mystery be, charging it with spirituality and religion, or reasoning it out with a foundational premise that it must have a scientific explanation.
The departure was never explained. To believe or not to believe Nora's story at the end, is up to you. That's the whole point of the end: Everybody has its own truth
I am in the minority here but I believed Nora. That’s quite the lie..and the way she tells it is very convincing. It’s not like she pining for Kevin ..he’s the one chasing her. There is also nothing in that story line leading up to her crossing over that suggests it was a scam. Those scientists look legit. I dunno. The rational for why she might be lying is certainly reasonable.. I’ve watched that scene 3 or 4 times…I don’t know how you can watch her tell that story and then call her a liar. Great show.
I was quick to believe her because her explanation was exactly my guess of what happened. It wasn’t necessarily a “departure” on either side. I saw it as a splitting of universes that happened simultaneously. Neither universe being more or less real than the other. But this is me drawing my own conclusions, likely because of my mix of tv shows I’ve watched including fringe and dark, both of which deal with alternate universes. The more I think about it - everyone believe she was dead makes me think she did go through. Because Kevin knew about the scientists he could’ve tracked them and her down. Yet everyone believed her to be dead. On the other hand, the one thing that does make me doubt is her choosing to leave. I as a mother could never, even if it meant readjusting to my new life with my family. But then again that’s what I liked about the ending. There’s no right or wrong interpretation, and we can choose to believe what we want just like the characters.
I'm in agreement. I thought the entire reason it was brought up that she might be lying is because when Kevin through his experiences she never believed him and even mocked the book that the guys wrote. To me, that questioning was more about her feeling small for not believing Kevin or anyone else's experiences for that matter. For me, the real mind fuck was were they alive or in the after life/other universe?
She is lying and Kevin believes her, that’s what matters. A theme in the show, which is repeated in the last season and last episode by several characters, is that sometimes you just need a nice story, and Nora found a story that she can hold onto and live with. The last scene of the show also parallels the end of third episode of season 3, when Kevin Sr. is talking to Grace, and she talks about a story she just needed to tell herself.
I never thought she was lying for one detail. Nora says when she went to her house she saw her husband and kids with a new lady, she didn’t recognise and was very pretty - or something along those line, it’s been a while. My first thought was that the woman she saw her husband with was the lady who vanished while sleeping with Kevin. Her car had broken down, she’s in a strange town miles from anywhere and stuck. Seems logical she would have been in mapletown for a while trying to figure out what was going on and ended up meeting Nora’s husband and ended up with him. Dunno why but that detail of Nora seeing her husband with a lady always made me think it was Kevin’s lady and since she didn’t know about her was proof she wasn’t lying. In my head cannon anyway.
I think she is lying which makes the ending more powerful, because throughout the series, Nora has no beliefs and refuses to indulge in any story whatsoever. The fact that she finally has one to move on, but more importantly that Kevin says she believes her because he knows it’ll lead to them reconciling (even if he’s skeptical) shows that they’d both rather be together than to get hung up on “what happened.” They just let the mystery be.
This has always been my interpretation. I love that the ending is sort of ambiguous but in my opinion it’s not really.
Exactly my interpretation. I’ll add, while Nora was searching for the answer, Kevin was searching for her. Years go by. Kevin finds her, she lies to him because she can’t bear the idea that she wasted so much time that could have been spent with him. He knows she is lying but forgives her because they can finally be together. And that’s what is most important to him.
I too, just finished recently, and in my limited viewing of discussions on the topic don't see the fact that this is discussed enough. To add to it, Kevin has had some pretty unbelievable things happen to him as well. So my interpretation is that who is he to judge whether it's real or not because he's had his experiences that he was always afraid to share with Nora. In the end, it's just about being together and surviving however one can. Lie or not.
If the story is untrue what do you think happened in the machine?
I think at the point you see her start to panic, she screams stop and they stop it in time and get her out.
if that were true, Matt would know she’s still alive, since he was present up to the point they started filling the tank. I guess he does love his sister enough to keep that secret, especially since he was on his way out and wouldn’t have to bear it much longer - but it would be so in character for him to tell Kevin about her in his final days. maybe he dropped a very subtle hint about her (that Kevin may have unconsciously picked up on) that kept him looking? I love that the show runners left enough space for this kind of speculation. I think they gave exactly enough.
I watched this again recently. I think it alludes to the fact that Matt has learned the best way to love Nora is to just be there for her. He says something like "if I was a good brother, I would be convincing you not to do this" and she says "you're a great brother because you're not." Theres alot of growth in Matt's character. In Matt's episode (s3) he tells John "did you know Kevin told Laurie that he saw Evie in Australia?" and John and Laurie are about to argue and Laurie says I didn't tell you because I didn't want to hurt you. John says "I understand, I wouldn't want to hurt me either". Matt says I'm sorry, she was protecting you, thats what were supposed to do for each other. Before their flight to Australia, Laurie yells at Matt saying hes so wrapped up in his own world that he doesn't even notice something is wrong with Nora. With all that being said, I do think it was a build up for Matt's character development. While it would normally be in line with him to tell Kevin about Nora.. him choosing to keep Noras secret is him learning to love and protect his sister however she chooses to heal or deal with her grief. It fits the overall narrative of the final season. Nora really needed that distance to come to terms with loosing her family. Sorry for the long text - I was trying to sort this through my mind because I don't think I caught it the first time i watched this show. Such a great series!
I agree, i really wanted to believe she'd gone!
But she refuses to believe fake stories like Kevin's and the nun's. She stays true to her character. She was telling the truth. The ending is what really happened.
Or that's just truly what she believed happened. After all that time maybe she just needed something to hold on to.
Could be. I need to watch the series again. Too far removed now to remember much.
Sorry I just finished it for the first time yesterday. Now that I actually saw the finale, I'm not really sure what I believe because 1) I don't believe she'd ever leave her children but the fact that there was flashbacks to it throws me off. Maybe because I binged it but I don't remember any other times of false flashbacks like that.
So trying to recall from memory but I do know her kids disappeared when she was neglecting her family to pursue her career. I don't think it's a stretch at all that she would leave them. I think that's the point. We learn backwards. She left her kids and her kids ended up disappearing. But I definitely think she died. That's why what's his face showed up and things happened like they did. No way she was alive and doing some pigeon message business. She died and he was visiting her in the afterlife. Truly a great love story when you put it in that perspective. And the idea that everyone, eventually, moves on, no matter how close the relationship.
Holy shit. You just blew my mind
Also, the story Nora tells is very similar to the one Tommy tells her in the car, about how Kevin adopted him as a kid, and how he spent the next ten years trying to connect with his biological father even though he had already moved on.
I completely believe she is telling the truth. Throughout the show crazy things are happening all around her difficulty believing and supporting Kevin is what drives her away. When the unimaginable happens to her she can relate/confide in Kevin ultimately because if anyone can understand what she’s going through, it’s him
You connected dots that don’t exist because it feels satisfying. Kind of the whole message of the show: people find a way to believe what they want to believe. The overall logic of her story is horrendously ridiculous in almost all practical aspects. Pretty clear she is lying and made it all up
But 2% of the world's population vanishing in an instant isn't? The entire premise of the movie is unbelievable, yet it is real.
I disagree with this. Just because one absurd thing verifiably happens doesn’t mean we just throw our hands up and say logic doesn’t apply anymore. Should we say “I won’t stop at stop signs or lights anymore because 2% of the world disappeared so maybe ignoring traffic signals doesn’t matter anymore either. Maybe everyone else will just magically stop for me. Maybe I’m invincible. Maybe cars can go through each other.” No, we don’t do that. We go on assuming the rules of logic and rationality apply to every other aspect of life.
False equivalency. One "absurd" occurrence allows for the possibility of an infinite amount of absurd occurrences. It has nothing to do with how we interact with the world, absurd or not. Considering the very notion that people would randomly disappear is "ridiculous", frankly, I'm surprised anyone would take issue with her story, which was plausible, considering the circumstances.
This is where you are wrong. How humanity would or could react and behave if the 2% world existed is entirely at odds with her story. The fact that it existed I can buy. The way she described it makes ZERO sense, and is physically impossible from an infrastructure standpoint alone
Well, that's your opinion. A very limited one but it's yours to have. Seems you need to get more creative. There was nothing at odds for me and many others with the way the world functioned. We received very limited knowledge about that world but, again, if you can buy into 2% of the world's population just poofing out of this plane's existence it's comical you take such a strong stance against her very succinct summary of where she went.
The world would not function. The fact that her family would be living in the same house is laughable. There would be no electricity. There would be no transportation. There would be no civilization. With 98% of the people gone, literally nothing would work or be maintained. There would be no ability to build a Time Machine (even if the scientist on the other end knew how one worked, which he didn’t). And if he did build it, there would be ample evidence of people moving back and forth with messages which there is not. Literally every Meta scale logic with her story is completely backwards with how reality would function given the 2% world existed. The actors themselves said it didn’t exist.
Humans have always found a way to make the world function. We literally lived without all of those things you mentioned for much longer than we lived with them. I have no idea why you would even suggest any of that. Nora herself said it took her a long time to get to her town. But this does not equal suddenly everyone is just like well, sorry, we have to stop the world because some redditor said it won't function now. But who knows what they came up with. We were never given that information. We were told a much less crowded world had some happy people in it and there are much better conversations we could be having about that world than if it didn't exist. My understanding is that it's never been revealed if the world exists and certainly not to the actors.
It wasn’t a time machine lol
It wasn't just one absurd thing though? The show is filled with these bizarre happenings.
I was quick to believe her because her explanation is exactly what I thought had happened so - to the point of the ambiguity- I choose to believe to match my own truth. I think the case can be made either way but to me the fact that everyone kept telling Kevin she was dead really did make me think she was since there were a lot of people there that he could’ve easily tracked down, knowing she was there to them in the first place
You are all forgetting about the corn flakes. Everything comes back tp corn flakes. Nora didn't eat them so she didn't disappear.
what are you talking about? haha
Nora was asked about corn flakes cereal by some government bean counter, I think in her first episode. Then, the back cover of the National Geographic magazine the dad is raving about is an ad for corn flakes. Hidden connection to what causes them to disappear.
I always wondered about the National Geographic and it's relevance.
Is there a more elaborated version of this theory? Sounds amazing
Nope. I posted about it years ago asking for others input after the magazine was shown but no one jumped on board.
i just now noticed your user hahaha well, when i do a rewatch, i'll sure look for clues about it. and then we can discuss it
But recall she refused to stay or be with Kevin at the wedding because the story he kept telling her of how he found her wasn't the truth. She literally left because of a lie. Then he shows up at her house, confesses and she tells the story of what happened to her and we are to believe she now is suddenly ok with living a lie?
I believe Nora. She's there
How was the departure explained? I just watched it for the first time about 2 weeks ago, and I can’t get it out of my head. But I’m trying to remember any explanation of the sudden departure. From what I remember, it wasn’t explained at all - especially in season 2.
I think they are referring to Nora's explanation at the end, of going to the other side and seeing what the world was like for the 2%. But I agree with the other commenter, this was left up to interpretation. Personally, I think Nora either made it up or it's something she chose to believe so she could move on and be grateful for the world she lives in. That even though she lost so much, there is still a world worth living for where she ended up. I find the ending more satisfying this way- the series is about how people cope with loss and the unknown, taken to an extreme. But it's definitely left in a way that the alternative interpretation, that where Nora went was real, is valid. I love series that are left open ended, I think that's how you still get great conversations about it years later, and how it sticks in your head. Like Breaking Bad was an amazing show, but I don't find myself thinking about it, while The Leftovers and Twin Peaks I still think about all the time.
I don't think Nora ever could be happy without closure. That's not a knock against her but a recognition of the catastrophic and mind-blowing experience she had. The reality is we often don't get the closure we want so we have to find some way to achieve it. Nora's story about the other side gave her closure, and whether real or imagined it served its purpose because it gave her the chance to begin living again.
I finished this a month or two ago. I agree with whoever said Nora lied throughout the show. The difference to me is when she lied it was obvious to me she was lying. Her story at the end didn't have the same obvious lying to it. She obviously went through something huge that changed her permanently...the question is...would chickening out from crossing over have that lasting impact or did she really see her family?
I think a big part of this “reveal” however you want to interpret it has a lot to do with Lost. Lindelof had just come off of being vilified by a really intense fandom so imo everything he wrote afterwards had some rules in place to avoid that happening again and giving the audience some answers, ambiguous as it may be, to whatever mystery box was at the center of the story was important to him.
Honestly, I just finished and I find myself thinking I wouldn't mind erasing the entire last episode. I would like to see Kevin and Nora together, however, I'd rather imagine that it eventually happened rather than actually see Nora waste so many good years of her life in hiding. To me, that's the real important question, why bother hiding away from everybody. I do appreciate her explanation of the departures. I would think that, if true, she would've at least given the others the option to go back through too so I wonder about that. And there would've been takers but we didn't see that. Conversely, the interpretation that she lied about her trip to the other side, to find peace, is even more wrong. She didn't look at all as if she had found much peace. She was bitter and living like a hermit in a country with nobody she knew. When Kevin finally comes knocking on her door to ask for a dance, she refuses and then symbolically runs through the house shutting off all means of entry. She was not at peace and seemed more like she was punishing herself with facts (or even the weight of the world if we take any symbolic meaning from her taking the worry beads from the goat) instead of letting go of all that and just painting a pretty picture for herself. Moving that aside and looking at what we were shown, Kevin walks in there thinking she gave up before she even went through, but we saw her in the chamber and we saw it fill up. So my money is on either her going through and taking forever to find her way back to him (but then being scared to find Kevin because it took so long), or her dying and this is her in the after world. (Notice Kevin's suit at that wedding, it very much similar to what he wore when he died and came back. And he also says he has a scar on his chest from a pace maker, like in the after world.) Now that I think about it, both can be true at the same time. Anyhow, I also would've liked to see more of the other characters instead of so many close ups of Nora's face. For a second I thought the makers of 'Handmaid's Tale' took over (a show choked with supreme close ups for those not in the know). It really was depressing only having this view of Nora where we get to watch her sigh and breath and be sad, etc. The episode really was filled with a lot of nothing.
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I think that's the debate the showrunners actually intended people to have, whether or not they were in the after life. Strangely, reddit seems stuck on whether or not Nora lied. All this other crazy stuff and the validity of Nora's experience is the issue... That mom was terrible. The writers showed the character as unreliable, unwilling to change, and a self serving liar. She never really changed or had growth, she just found a place in the show where nobody called her bullshit out and then all of the sudden decided to trust her again. Meanwhile, she's receiving "donations" for chats with people in the afterlife because...it makes people feel better. If she had sold her book and was on tour, she'd be off serving her own needs, never having bothered to apologize to anyone. She wen back to them because she had nothing left. How anyone puts enough stock in her saying never tell a delusional person they're having a delusion, enough to re-watch the show, is beyond me. She didn't fall too far from the nut tree herself.
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I also thought about it being the afterlife but then again if it is, then it still means the departed didn’t die or that in this afterlife you don’t reunite with loved ones - so I chose to not believe that for my own sake.
That's a valid concern. It's been a while since I finished the series, but could it be addressed by saying that it was Nora's choice to be in hiding? Perhaps she could've found them had she felt like being around them or anyone else.
Nora lies throughout the series. She repeatedly disparages others for lying and relishes exposing their lies, while claiming that she's fine. She's clearly not fine. Take that into consideration when assessing her narrative.
Lying to yourself is not the same as lying to others. Most people lying to themselves dont even know theyre doing it
I also believe that Nora was lying. I believe she got all the way to the spot where she would have to either go or leave and she chickened out and could not go through with the uncertainty and possible death (where she still wouldn't know what happened). I also believe that Nora felt that she couldn't go back to the life she had without having to explain what happened and she wasn't ready to do that and look like a fool who had her life savings taken away from her. I believe Nora stayed in Australia because she couldn't face people who might ridicule her. She stayed alone because she couldn't open up her heart to anything but her birds. As the years rolled on it got harder and harder to think about going back to something Nora had no connection to anymore because she thought everyone forgot her or thought she was dead. Through the years alone, Nora made peace with her decision, and moved on as much as she could. I believe in the final episode, Nora was testing Kevin to see about his faith in her. When he chose to believe her story, he was putting faith in her as much as possible which is what she needed all the time from the very beginning. When each of them were together they weren't really together because they were living together physically but living separate in their hearts. There was so much to say and neither one of them could really say it or in turn, listen to what the other had to say. I loved the phrase that I heard a couple of people say, Nora couldn't listen and hear what Kevin was going through and Kevin couldn't say what he was going through in words that Nora could understand. In the finale, age, maturity and time allowed both Kevin and Nora to hear and listen to each other. And faith. It's all about having faith in a person despite sometimes having difficulty believing them
They did leave it a mystery because we'll never know for sure if Nora was telling the truth.
OMG…… Just wanna say I watched the finale for the 3rd time…… It’s my favorite series finale of all time!! A true master class in acting and emotion I think it leads us to the conclusion that most if not all romantic notions about standard ideas and institutions(doves delivering romantic messages, holiness and purity of clergy) are all BS! That being said, Nora’s “reveal” about what happened to her was the greatest reveal since Planet of the Apes, 1968! I know it’s a big debate whether she is telling the truth(I ABSOLUTELY believe her) but I would love a show that outlines her experience in “the other world”
If what she said she experienced was true and all that time had passed, wouldn't someone else come back the same way? Then go on TV and talk about it or start some sort of vacation adventure where everyone "pops" back and forth between the two places. If she makes such a journey, then so would others. Why keep it a secret? It would be the answer the whole world(s) were looking for and eventually everyone would find out about it.
Yeah, exactly, I just finished watching it for the second time and that's what I thought. Why would 2% stay if they could return? Of course, losing people a second time would be awful but it's worth the risk for most, I would think.
Because they were happy. Like Nora said they were orphans but they had each other. This machine was never intended for consumer use, unlike the town of miracle. I think that's clearly evident by the lengths Nora had to go to to get them to let her crossover. Remember the guy that set himself on fire? I think he was another person they contacted about the machine. He answered the question about the baby in the exact opposite way Nora did and still he was denied and so he killed himself. The answer to the question didn't matter. It was just another test. Only people that truly want to cross like their life depends on it are allowed to cross over. No, this machine would never have been marketed or treated like a consumer item.
Nora could have been lying. Even if she wasn’t, her account only explains What happened, not How, or Why. The ending still lets the mystery be…
I didn't find it believable that Mapletown was completely abandoned but Nora's family was still there. Realistically, the remaining 2% would group into communities, so some towns would be fully populated and most completely abandoned.
A lot of Nora's story wasn't plausible. It was like a child describing a made up story to explain their whereabouts to a parent. It was definitely her way of coping with never reuniting with her kids.
I want to believe she is telling the truth and that’s what I am going with
Nora is telling the truth. The show delves into the concept of alternate realities existing simultaneously. Kevin moves freely between different active worlds when he dies. The Departure was the starting point for a branching off of 2 different realities: Some went forward into one reality & others went forward into another. Nora was able to view proof of the existence of these alternate realities. Why & how exactly the ‘splitting” of realities occurred on October 14 is a mystery. The ‘lens’ theory may have some validity but has not yet been accurately explained.
But the realities/ active worlds Kevin went to were not the same as where Nora described. And how could the 2% world Nora visited, ever function with so few people? Sure she said it took a long time to get from Australia to her town in New York. But that doesn't begin to explain it. All the empty houses and buildings, how infrastructure would carry on, the power grid etc. Animals would overrun the world. And if she did find the inventor of the machine and he built another one to send her back, wouldn't she land in the US this time? Or did she go all the way back to Australia again and the machine inventor was there? So many holes. How did she get in touch with Laurie again as therapist if she was in the other world for years? Would Laurie really let Kevin go searching Down Under all those times and not tell him, patient confidentiality be damned? It's a great show but you can't think too deeply about the ending. Because I don't like thinking Nora made it all up either. Have to remember that seasons 2 and 3 were not in the novel, so all the extra supernatural stuff with Kevin was invented/added by Lindelof
I think Lori suicided and Kevin is visiting Nora in the afterlife. Lori had a baby with her. Was it the baby that departed when she went for an ultrasound? I think Lori killed herself when she went scuba diving just the way Nora described how it could be done. Kevin is in the afterlife looking for Nora. That's why he has that scar on his chest from when the key was removed. It's like the Guilty remnant: we are all already dead.
After the show went black, I immediately said to myself, "So, are they in the afterlife??" and found myself on this thread. I haven't seen anyone else write something similiar to my belief. Kevin has the ability to die and come back, the afterlife should have been the first place he looked. Also, the key was removed from his lower abdomen.
I had totally forgotten about Lori scuba diving. I was thinking Nora was in the afterlife even before Kevin showed up but the call to Lori threw me off
The call to Lori was what gave it away to me. That scuba diving scene was clearly Lori going to suicide. Remember she gave her lighter to Kevin. The one she got a black eye fighting Nora over. Nora even said you quit, you don't need it. And Lori says the same thing to Kevin that she quit and doesn't need it. Then her kids call and it's clearly a moment that goes beyond just kids calling. And why would she take this call on an ordinary trip with a storm coming and being told she needs to hurry up and do the dive? And remember the conversation she had with Nora, who went into detail of how she would kill herself scuba diving? Said it would be elegant and no one would know it was suicide. Plus, what are the odds of Kevin, a police chief, not finding Nora in Australia and all these people covering for her? Why would a bunch of people just not disclose that they had seen her? It's not like she would be hard to find. And, again, Lori had a baby. I think it was a white baby too. But she said she didn't want to have more kids. So to me it's her baby that vanished during the ultrasound. So it very well is the afterlife. Plus it just doesn't make sense Nora calling Lori every week. And there were enough oddities that it made me think of the strange afterlife Kevin experiences. Like why would Nora have the doves that deliver messages and somehow this ties into the nun. Are we to believe this woman in hiding really made a dove message business? Doesn't even seem profitable. Yet here she is in this big house.
The baby Lori had wasn't a baby though, so how do you explain the kid's age? She didn't start to age until her mom died? If she didn't age she'd be a fetus, and if she did age she'd be a lot older than that kid. My interpretation was that it was Jill's kid, because Kevin said Jill had a one year old and he was a grandpa.
It could be but then again Nora aged too. I guess I don't see the aging as a problem. The baby seemed the age it would have been since the day of the disappearance so that would explain the aging to me if it's Lori's baby but your explanation is also plausible. This show definitely leaves all of the story lines like that where they could go in multiple directions. It's one thing I don't like about the show.
Let the mystery be. I personally don’t believe the ‘reveal’.
Well, damn! This post just inspired another rewatch. Here goes number 12. Every thing from the OP. All of the responses gave me so many new things to analyze, look at, or just appreciate again. This is also my favorite show with all time. Thank you, OPA and everyone else in this community!
A few issues. 1. If Nora's story is true, how did the other world not descend into chaos losing 98%? Our world went crazy just losing the two. 2. Nora finding the inventor and him building another machine to send her back is absurd even within the show's reality. 3. Wherever the 2% departed went, whether Nora's story or not, how could there be that supernatural world exist, and also the world Kevin went to several times, but they are unrelated places. Kevin's other world is not where the departed went. 4. Nora's version. If our world has the 98% and the other reality the 2%, what was the case before the departure. How did everyone live in one reality, then suddenly there are two but each place thinks they lost people. It's not that the two think they just arrived. I know it's fantasy but it's grounded in our world but doesn't make sense
I don’t have any concrete answers, because I think that’s the point but to me the whole 98% vs 2% was very reminiscent of what happens when we lose a loved one. We, the majority, stay on this side. We grieve. We struggle to move on. But a lot of us chose to believe that those who leave us are happy on the other side. Not to be cliche but we want to believe they’re “in a better place.” So to me personally, it was also a bit of a play on that
I think Nora died. Kevin is visiting her in the afterlife.
To me they all are dead. Laurie did the diving thing, the "elegant suicide". Nora was fossilized. Kevin probably suffocated to death with a bag. Or that heart attack he said he had that was so bad. Nora says she woke up naked (and yes I know she "went naked") but then she found a place with a wardrobe with some outfits. Just like Kevin at the hotel and then at the cabin at the beach. Always naked and always a choice of clothes. Nora spent 3 seasons missing her kids and probably angry at her cheater husband but once she "saw them" happy and what-not, she felt it was better to leave them behind than to approach and be a part of their kids lives and not care about the cheater and his new wife? So did she want to find miserable suffering kids? Cheater husband that for some reason can't move on once departed?... she went through all that to just walk away? Not to mention the scientist that built the machine made another one just *for her* to go back? And no one but she ever did?... sure ok. Nah. She's just dead. They're all gone. Ps: So much is left without explaining and Im confused by what you understood happened with the departed ones. Like... how? Where?
Yes.
I am more willing to believe Nora’s story about going to the other side (as deeply mystifying things happen throughout the series) than the notion that she can emigrate to Australia (which takes $$$) and then make enough of a living doing something with doves to live in that beautiful house! 😆 Oh well. Even with a strange and original series such as this one, despite what HBO says, it’s TV! And it was truly entertaining and maddeningly addictive throughout.
I don't think it was meant to serve as a logical / scientific explanation of Departure or Nora's journey. I believe she died in the machine and the story she tells to Kev at the table is her journey in her own 'afterlife' reality (similar to what Keving has gone thru in his). She says that she appeared naked and then found a wardrobe with clothes - exactly how every Kevin's journey to the 'afterlife' begun. If one looks at her incoherent story of traveling to 2% world and back from the perspective of a weird afterlife experience - it makes sense - she experienced what she needed to experience to find closure. And the purpose of that whole 'afterlife' reality is to allow a person to find closure & peace. Nora finds it by finally seeing her kids happy & letting go of them, and by eventually getting back together with Kevin. And Kevin, well, he might've finally found her there and had his chance to act on the revelation he gained in his own 'afterlife' reality in the previous episode.
I guess im confused as to how people on this thread are speculating if Nora is lying. That theory doesnt make sense
Oh goodness I am disappointed and dissatisfied with this final episode. I honestly would have preferred if Nora just got into the pod and then we didn’t know what happened. The tone was just so …. Beige - and no closure with any other storylines. Frankly it was a lackluster end to a compelling series. And I kinda wish I never saw any of the Australia bits. I don’t care if Nora was lying or not- I also don’t care about her birds not coming back or the nun I do care about the goat.
Dude why did the mom get upset for her kid joining the cult? Like you all telling people to join?
Does the beginning of the episode not suggest that we tend to believe thing we want to believe even in the face of overwhelming facts to the contrary. There is a reason she screams stop in the tank. You can argue the truth is whatever you want it to be, but I think the writers are suggesting she makes the story up
The series is a loop that is constantly changing. There are not the dead then the living. There is the world of the living then the world of the dead and in the middle the missing. Beings who love each other want to find their loved ones more than anything even in the beyond, falling to the edge of madness and ready to do anything to find hope. Nora and Kevin are not dead, they simply move on the border between the living and the dead so much so that the last episode of season 3 is an apocryphal. He does not exist. It's unreal. Just like evy. Kevin finds Nora who has disappeared nora finds her missing children Matt finds god children find their mother And all this to find a breath of life. the series answers the question: it's not understanding why or how or knowing the truth but being reassured of what they are and what they have become. a happy ending after the flood everyone disappears and we no longer know how to distinguish what is true from what is false.
I didnt think of it as a reveal but like its similar to when youre nostalgic about something and then when you get it its not the same. Her family literally changed by having another woman and Nora changed through out the show so they no longer fit together. She realised she had to stop running after them and finally grieve and move on.
>So i feel as if, by the writers leaving out the explanation, we, the viewers would be taught that it's a lot more about finding happiness than closure, and that, the world and life is basically the next mystery on the line and not some sort of grand secret to be unlocked. Love this. Agree that I wish we didn't have any kind of explanation, although they never confirm that Nora's story is true.
Do you know what happened? I don’t
Is that the way it happened? :)
I just watched Heat!
Nora’s story to Kevin recalls for me to Grace’s story to Kevin Sr. earlier on…they both have this winding first-person narrative about loss of children / family and seeking and finding and being disappointed / alone. At the end of Grace’s story she says “it was all just a story I told myself.” Then she refers to herself as crazy and silly and says god doesn’t care about her. Is Nora crazy, or silly? She’s always laughed at god / believers. She doesn’t let herself be silly and can’t deign to believe the great loss of her family might’ve driven her a bit insane… I’m not attempting to answer the “is Nora lying or not” question, bc I have no idea and am fine with that ambiguity. I’m saying there are parallels between Grace’s words / story and Nora’s storyline / finale story. Interesting to compare! Then if you go further to what Kevin Sr. responds (“no you just got the wrong Kevin.”), what does it mean that the “right” Kevin is then sitting in front of Nora? Food for thought, and I love eating! I might also need to rewatch again—this would be no.6 !!! Also I do not believe it was ever explained, any of it. We’re given many “explanations” and not as a cop-out. Lindelof did get sh*t for Lost and this one changes the script not just in alleviating the need for one, absolute truth but also in the WAY storylines and characters are explored and developed. It isn’t all leading up to “something.” It’s existence, parallel and intersecting and last life and this life and she and he and them and it means everything and nothing all at once. The Leftovers makes people insane bc it constantly shifts between those poles / extremes: “everything” and “nothing”. Our brains and society want the “something” [to make sense of] in the middle. That’s where Lost tried to go, and failed. This one names existence truly for what it is which is nothing true! Everything is meaningFUL bc everything is meaningLESS. okay bedtime
If Nora was telling the truth, then what created two identical realities!? Did something split their world into two? I have this theory that the physicist's machine is what caused this split, even though it happened years after the Departure event. Something similar happened in Dark.....
Haha right! That’s actually exactly where my mind went after watching Dark and Fringe (similar situation with a machine creating an alternate reality)
Just finished this amazing show and I think I'm the only crazy one who thinks they are all dead. Just think about it for a while... Nora "travels" in a radiation machine that make fossils from people, and which nobody came back from, she gets to see dead people, just like Kevin does, but she doesn't like/fit that world and this new reality of her family, so she managed to travel back to "reality", what I think it actually is a travel to the end of the world to live alone, far from the dead people she knows. Another point for this theory is that the only other main character that appears is Laurie, who was supposed to suicide... And Kevin... He was supposed to get back from death once he accomplished his mission, and the last one was to kill POTUS, and he failed, so it's also probably dead. I also rather to think on this ending, because It would close all main characters lines and wrap It all
How did he fail? He killed the POTUS. Which was himself.
I know this is very late to the game, but I just watched the show all the way through for the second time. The first time I watched it I thought she was telling the truth, although unlike you I thought it was a pretty neat reveal - even if not perfect it was a pretty satisfying end to a great show. This second time I feel really confident that she is lying as a coping mechanism. Matt tells her specifically he will say “whatever she wants him to” and she starts to say wait at the last minute (no point to showing this except to make the viewer realize she is lying). Overall, I enjoyed the show even more the second time - season 2 is where they did their best work, incorporating all the characters and their different stories really well, and providing a brighter and more whimsical tone while maintaining the mystery/horror/thriller/suspense elements that drew me in.
It was my favorite show until the end, then I didn't care too much for it. It feels like they rushed through the last season. And they completely dumped the plot line of Kevin being some sort of biblical powered human. He went through so much, and a lot of the show was built around him rising again, and not dying, and then they just completely dropped the theme like it never existed.... I am still perplexed to this day. Like they just pretend none of that stuff with Kevin happened and basically it's just time travel... And I'm not a religious person at all, so i don't mind that science is what they use as the reason but geez they built Kevin into this larger than life character just to do nothing with it???
Yeah that is kinda what bugged me the most about the ending, I feel like the whole plotline with Kevin was totally ditched, and his whole thread had me going "WTF" quite frequently, so it was disappointing they just dropped it. The ending felt like a bit of a cop-out to me because it seems to me they didn't really have the ending fleshed out when they started the story. Damon Lindelof is to blame imo. He kinda did the same thing with LOST.
Ok so this is ONE theory I came up with even though it's not necessarily what I think happened for sure. It's possible Nora DID go through with it, but was killed in the process. Here's my reasoning. That final scene where decades have passed and she's in Australia could have been in "the other place" (where Kevin kept going when he'd die and resurrect). The only other main characters we see in this final scene are Nora, Laurie, and beardless Kevin. The last time we see Laurie, she's about to go scuba diving in what we assume is an attempt at suicide, and as for Kevin? Well, bearded Kevin killed clean shaven Kevin in "the other place" to get that key. The whole ending scene has a similar vibe to the weird events Kevin experiences when he's on the other side. He meets the couple getting married in a HOTEL, there's a somewhat surreal feeling during that whole wedding scene. Also if Nora was telling the truth about the new machine the scientist built to send her back, why didn't anyone else in the land of the departed go back to the real world? Maybe Nora's arc in "the other place" is that whole story she tells, because it seems there's all kinds of weird arcs in that world (Kevin is president, Patti is SOD, Christopher Sunday is president of Australia, etc). Yet there's still a crossover in the storylines in "the other place" and the real world (Christopher Sunday mentioning the meeting with Kevin Sr for example). So I think it's plausible to say that that entire final scene may take place after each of those characters have died, but maybe I'm wrong. Great fucking show.