Season 4 Episode 12: Patty

[enemyofperfect]

We're so close to the end of the series, and I'm not ready, but I'm also really looking forward to tonight's episode! Whenever you get a chance to watch it, please share all your episode reactions with us in the comments right here. Spoilers and speculation welcome!

Comments

[jadelennox]

I don't disagree that this closing period has been weaker, and this episode wasn't among the strongest. But I think the reason I was happy with their solution is that I've been ethically unhappy with all the available choices. This probably ties into my own philosophies -- I find the idea of an afterlife to be an existential horror. (If they're not thinking about the people left behind in life, how can it be good? And if they are, how can they be not suffering?) So creating an exit door is just such a relief to me: the idea of heaven that's just the good parts of life but completely endless really is so grim.

But I don't disagree with you that they didn't earn it.

[enemyofperfect]

I really appreciate you sharing your opinion on this -- obviously I had my own reaction, but the excellent questions you ask in your parenthetical highlight a whole other side of this I hadn't been considering. It makes me think about Abigail Nussbaum's interesting criticism of season three and its decision to examine morality in a world stripped of most of the inherent constraints of life on Earth; I wonder if maybe I've accepted that jettisoning of the concerns of the real world a little farther than I would in a less sprightly and stylized series. Because of course you're right -- to accept happiness in heaven and not even consider the plight of people still living seems remarkably cold.

It keeps teasing at the back of my mind that the finale might involve a return to Earth in some form (as many other people have speculated), but I can't decide if I think that's the way they're going to go or not.