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San Junipero - is it Elysium or Gehenna? (SPOILERS)
Posted on 12/1/16 at 10:42 pm
Posted on 12/1/16 at 10:42 pm
Absolutely my favorite episode. And it perfectly captured 80s and 90s nostalgia which was wonderful.
[the more I've thought about this episode the more edits I've made to this thread. I posted three questions below, but eventually in question three I figured out the answers to questions one and two. Regardless, I highly suggest you read all three questions to see how I arrived to my final theory on this episode]
Question #1: What was the point of Quagmire, the hellish club outside of San Junipero? Why would dying or dead people choose to go to a danceclub version of Hell? Different strokes, different folks? Did you notice that the deeper Yorkie walked into Quagmire the more sinful and evil it became? It was the danceclub version of Dante's Inferno:
Question #2: Why did Kelly run her jeep into a road block, an action that would certainly kill her in real life, when she only had 1 minute remaining in San Junipero? That scene didn't make sense to me. Her time was about to end. Plus, in San Junipero there's no way to hurt yourself, no way to die, because it's all a simulation...so what was the point of that?
Question #3: Is it possible that San Junipero is Hell on Earth disguised as Heaven? People in San Junipero seem lost in sinful repetition. It would be like choosing a "Groundhog Day" version of Vegas as your afterlife. It's a place where people who have zero religious faith choose to go when they die, cowardly shunning the "unknown" (God, Heaven, and potential reunification with deceased family and friends) in favor of immediate sinful gratification: Drinking, meaningless sex, empty relationships, etc.
It's simulated eternal selfishness. Very much the opposite of Eternal Salvation. Is it possible that Kelly made a HUGE mistake choosing Yorkie and San Junipero over her faith in God and loyalty to her husband and daughter? She shunned God, Heaven, and her family for eternal simulated sin.
Perhaps the main character in this story isn't Yorkie, but rather Kelly. Perhaps this is Kelly's story - a story of temptation, demonic deception, eternal damnation, and eventually regret.
I think regret and the human condition is key in this story.
If real Heaven represents eternal salvation, happiness, and health...San Junipero represents the exact opposite. Why? Because San Junipero allows the participant's conscious to continue a human, Earthly experience. And some believe life on Earth and the human condition itself is the foundation of Hell.
San Junipero allows participants to be eternally "human" which means participant's still experience all human emotions in San Junipero including anger, jealousy, love, lust, envy, and worst of all - resentfulness, obsession, and regret.
We actually see this in the episode. Yorkie becomes obsessed with Kelly which confuses and angers her. Yorkie feels she cannot be happy, even in San Junipero, without Kelly's companionship. When Yorkie sees Kelly at the bar dancing and flirting with a man, she is jealous. When Kelly disappears from the 1980s for a stretch of time and Yorkie later discovers her in the 2000s, Yorkie is upset. Kelly gets so upset with Yorkie's total misunderstanding of Kelly's decision to choose the spiritual unknown over San Junipero that Kelly actually chooses to commit highway suicide (which the more I think about it is another discussion unto itself)!
And San Junipero is supposed to be a simulated version of Heaven?
I'm convinced San Junipero is a simulated version of Hell. San Junipero cannot be Heaven if the simulation allows human emotions, memories, and attachments from the participant's previous life to remain active in San Junipero. I truly believe Kelly will regret choosing San Junipero because in San Junipero she'll continue to be trapped in her human emotions and past memories which eventually will cause her to resent Yorkie and regret not choosing to pass into the spiritual unknown to hopefully unite with her husband and daughter.
Yorkie never really experienced life so it makes sense that she chose an eternal human experience. Yorkie has nothing to regret - she's living an adult life for the first time. Kelly is in San Junipero not because she really wants to be, but because she wants to please someone else - and that scenario always results in conflict and suffering.
Kelly chose Hell. And the moment their relationship sours in San Junipero is the moment San Junipero will become Hell for Yorkie too.
ETA: The highway suicide scene
Why is this scene important? I've been wondering this since I finished the episode. At first the scene didn't make sense. Why attempt to commit suicide in a simulation which doesn't allow death? At first it doesn't make sense.
But after long thought, it makes INCREDIBLE sense! And that scene, in my opinion, is one of the most important scene's of the episode because it foreshadows what's to come.
When Kelly attempted highway suicide, she was a part time participant in the San Junipero simulation. She had one minute remaining before her session ended. Regardless what happened, her session was about to end.
But, why did she attempt suicide? She attempted suicide because she was overcome with grief related to her late husband and daughter. Her grief and disgust with Yorkie was so strong she wanted out of the simulation at that moment versus just waiting for the minute to expire.
What she discovered is that the simulation doesn't allow for death. The simulation doesn't allow for an artificial escape. She discovers this at the moment her session expires.
But consider for a moment what implication this has for someone who actually passes away and chooses San Junipero as their eternal "Heaven". It means that if someone arrives in San Junipero full time (which implies they've died and there's no going back), there is no escaping the simulation if they have a bad experience. They're stuck there for eternity!
And, folks, nothing is more Hellish than being eternally stuck in place you don't want to be with someone you don't want to be with.
The suicide scene confirms San Junipero is Hell...which makes the ending song "Heaven is a Place on Earth" all the more ironic and sinister.
This episode is perhaps the most depressing and frightening episode of the entire series. The creators performed an awesome magic trick on the viewers by giving viewers the false impression that San Junipero had a positive good ending!
San Junipero is Hell. It's a place for people who have rejected a spiritual existence. It's a place for people who reject God.
It is Hell.
[the more I've thought about this episode the more edits I've made to this thread. I posted three questions below, but eventually in question three I figured out the answers to questions one and two. Regardless, I highly suggest you read all three questions to see how I arrived to my final theory on this episode]
Question #1: What was the point of Quagmire, the hellish club outside of San Junipero? Why would dying or dead people choose to go to a danceclub version of Hell? Different strokes, different folks? Did you notice that the deeper Yorkie walked into Quagmire the more sinful and evil it became? It was the danceclub version of Dante's Inferno:
quote:
(from Wikipedia) nine circles of suffering located within the Earth; it is the "realm of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen
Question #2: Why did Kelly run her jeep into a road block, an action that would certainly kill her in real life, when she only had 1 minute remaining in San Junipero? That scene didn't make sense to me. Her time was about to end. Plus, in San Junipero there's no way to hurt yourself, no way to die, because it's all a simulation...so what was the point of that?
Question #3: Is it possible that San Junipero is Hell on Earth disguised as Heaven? People in San Junipero seem lost in sinful repetition. It would be like choosing a "Groundhog Day" version of Vegas as your afterlife. It's a place where people who have zero religious faith choose to go when they die, cowardly shunning the "unknown" (God, Heaven, and potential reunification with deceased family and friends) in favor of immediate sinful gratification: Drinking, meaningless sex, empty relationships, etc.
It's simulated eternal selfishness. Very much the opposite of Eternal Salvation. Is it possible that Kelly made a HUGE mistake choosing Yorkie and San Junipero over her faith in God and loyalty to her husband and daughter? She shunned God, Heaven, and her family for eternal simulated sin.
Perhaps the main character in this story isn't Yorkie, but rather Kelly. Perhaps this is Kelly's story - a story of temptation, demonic deception, eternal damnation, and eventually regret.
I think regret and the human condition is key in this story.
If real Heaven represents eternal salvation, happiness, and health...San Junipero represents the exact opposite. Why? Because San Junipero allows the participant's conscious to continue a human, Earthly experience. And some believe life on Earth and the human condition itself is the foundation of Hell.
San Junipero allows participants to be eternally "human" which means participant's still experience all human emotions in San Junipero including anger, jealousy, love, lust, envy, and worst of all - resentfulness, obsession, and regret.
We actually see this in the episode. Yorkie becomes obsessed with Kelly which confuses and angers her. Yorkie feels she cannot be happy, even in San Junipero, without Kelly's companionship. When Yorkie sees Kelly at the bar dancing and flirting with a man, she is jealous. When Kelly disappears from the 1980s for a stretch of time and Yorkie later discovers her in the 2000s, Yorkie is upset. Kelly gets so upset with Yorkie's total misunderstanding of Kelly's decision to choose the spiritual unknown over San Junipero that Kelly actually chooses to commit highway suicide (which the more I think about it is another discussion unto itself)!
And San Junipero is supposed to be a simulated version of Heaven?
I'm convinced San Junipero is a simulated version of Hell. San Junipero cannot be Heaven if the simulation allows human emotions, memories, and attachments from the participant's previous life to remain active in San Junipero. I truly believe Kelly will regret choosing San Junipero because in San Junipero she'll continue to be trapped in her human emotions and past memories which eventually will cause her to resent Yorkie and regret not choosing to pass into the spiritual unknown to hopefully unite with her husband and daughter.
Yorkie never really experienced life so it makes sense that she chose an eternal human experience. Yorkie has nothing to regret - she's living an adult life for the first time. Kelly is in San Junipero not because she really wants to be, but because she wants to please someone else - and that scenario always results in conflict and suffering.
Kelly chose Hell. And the moment their relationship sours in San Junipero is the moment San Junipero will become Hell for Yorkie too.
ETA: The highway suicide scene
Why is this scene important? I've been wondering this since I finished the episode. At first the scene didn't make sense. Why attempt to commit suicide in a simulation which doesn't allow death? At first it doesn't make sense.
But after long thought, it makes INCREDIBLE sense! And that scene, in my opinion, is one of the most important scene's of the episode because it foreshadows what's to come.
When Kelly attempted highway suicide, she was a part time participant in the San Junipero simulation. She had one minute remaining before her session ended. Regardless what happened, her session was about to end.
But, why did she attempt suicide? She attempted suicide because she was overcome with grief related to her late husband and daughter. Her grief and disgust with Yorkie was so strong she wanted out of the simulation at that moment versus just waiting for the minute to expire.
What she discovered is that the simulation doesn't allow for death. The simulation doesn't allow for an artificial escape. She discovers this at the moment her session expires.
But consider for a moment what implication this has for someone who actually passes away and chooses San Junipero as their eternal "Heaven". It means that if someone arrives in San Junipero full time (which implies they've died and there's no going back), there is no escaping the simulation if they have a bad experience. They're stuck there for eternity!
And, folks, nothing is more Hellish than being eternally stuck in place you don't want to be with someone you don't want to be with.
The suicide scene confirms San Junipero is Hell...which makes the ending song "Heaven is a Place on Earth" all the more ironic and sinister.
This episode is perhaps the most depressing and frightening episode of the entire series. The creators performed an awesome magic trick on the viewers by giving viewers the false impression that San Junipero had a positive good ending!
San Junipero is Hell. It's a place for people who have rejected a spiritual existence. It's a place for people who reject God.
It is Hell.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 12:45 pm
Posted on 12/1/16 at 10:49 pm to mizzoukills
I watched this like a week ago and don't even know what you are talking about in your first question? You talking about the other club?
Posted on 12/1/16 at 10:58 pm to mizzoukills
quote:
Why did Kelly run her jeep into a road block
Can't answer either question but I wasn't sure about this either, maybe just an act of suicide even though she knew there would be no consequence. Maybe just tempting fate to possibly join her husband. The conversation they had before hand was some solid acting from both. Them two, and the kid from Shut Up and Dance did a great job.
I need to watch it again because it has more mysteries than the other episodes. I think San Junipero is the best of the series, it has the most ambitious concept of any episode which is saying something.
Posted on 12/1/16 at 11:03 pm to Fenwick86
I just added a third question....
Posted on 12/1/16 at 11:26 pm to mizzoukills
There is definitely a certain darkness about choosing a virtual afterlife over the possibility of joining her family. That heated conversation they had brought up several philosophical questions about this manufactured afterlife.
Maybe it's not a positive spin on the future at all, seems like the episode doesn't paint a negative or positive picture of this virtual world but asks you to decide. There was something creepy and powerful about the scene towards the end showing that machine placing the chips in the San Junipero section of that huge hard drive warehouse.
Maybe it's not a positive spin on the future at all, seems like the episode doesn't paint a negative or positive picture of this virtual world but asks you to decide. There was something creepy and powerful about the scene towards the end showing that machine placing the chips in the San Junipero section of that huge hard drive warehouse.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 1:03 am to mizzoukills
I know you are trolling but you nailed it.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 6:02 am to Tiger Ryno
How the frick am I trolling? Smh
Posted on 12/2/16 at 7:23 am to mizzoukills
quote:
Question #1: What was the point of Quagmire, the hellish club outside of San Junipero? Why would dying or dead people choose to go to a danceclub version of Hell? Different strokes, different folks? Did you notice that the deeper Yorkie walked into Quagmire the more sinful and evil it became? It was the danceclub version of Dante's Inferno!
Why wouldn't they? Looked like a good time to me
quote:
Question #2: Why did Kelly run her jeep into a road block, an action that would certainly kill her in real life, when she only had 1 minute remaining in San Junipero? That scene didn't make sense to me. Her time was about to end. Plus, in San Junipero there's no way to hurt yourself, no way to die, because it's all a simulation...so what was the point of that?
She knew it wouldn't kill her. She was just emotional and irrational.
quote:
Question #3: Is it possible that San Junipero is Hell on Earth disguised as Heaven? People in San Junipero seem lost in sinful repetition. It would be like choosing Vegas as your afterlife. It's a place where people who have zero religious faith choose to go when they die, cowardly shunning the "unknown" (God, Heaven, and potential reunification with long lost family and friends) in favor of immediate sinful gratification: Drinking, meaningless sex, empty relationships, etc.
It's simulated eternal selfishness. Very much the opposite of Eternal Salvation. Is it possible that Kelly made a HUGE mistake choosing Yorkie and San Junipero over her faith in God and loyalty to her husband and daughter? She shunned God, Heaven, and her family for eternal simulated sin.
You had me till the "eternal selfishness" nonsense. Did Kelly ever say she had faith in God? Or just her husband?
Posted on 12/2/16 at 7:45 am to Salmon
quote:
You had me till the "eternal selfishness" nonsense. Did Kelly ever say she had faith in God? Or just her husband?
I added much more to the OP which I think will answer your question.
I cannot stop thinking about the episode. It's having a profound magical effect on me this morning.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:03 am to mizzoukills
quote:
And San Junipero is supposed to be a simulated version of Heaven?
No.
quote:
Kelly is in San Junipero not because she really wants to be, but because she wants to please someone else - and that scenario always results in conflict and suffering.
And this is wrong. Once Kelly let her guilt go, she was free and chose to go to San Junipero, where she wanted to go, but she felt guilty for choosing it when her daughter didn't get the chance and her husband chose not to go.
The end was Kelly finally being free and releasing her guilt.
You have it all backwards.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 8:04 am
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:07 am to Salmon
I don't think I do. Read the ETA in the OP again.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:09 am to mizzoukills
quote:
But consider for a moment what implication this has for someone who actually passes away and chooses San Junipero as their eternal "Heaven". It means that if someone arrives in San Junipero full time (which implies they've died and there's no going back), if they have a bad experience in San Junipero there's no escaping the simulation. They're stuck there for eternity!
And, folks, nothing is more Hellish than being eternally stuck in place you don't want to be with someone you don't want to be with.
The suicide scene confirms San Junipero is Hell...which makes the ending song "Heaven is a Place on Earth" all the more ironic and sinister.
except Yorkie tells Kelly that they are not trapped and that they can release themselves at any time, so...
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:10 am to mizzoukills
quote:
I don't think I do. Read the ETA in the OP again.
I did. You're still wrong.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:17 am to Salmon
quote:
except Yorkie tells Kelly that they are not trapped and that they can release themselves at any time, so...
How would Yorkie know?
Yorkie just said that to convince Kelly to choose Yorkie over the spiritual unknown
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:19 am to mizzoukills
quote:
How would Yorkie know?
it's in the brochure...?
Kelly knew that committing suicide did not end her time at San Junipero. She knew they couldn't get hurt. Her attempt was not her trying to end her time early.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 8:24 am
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:25 am to Salmon
Yorkie doesn't know. The episode gives participants a choice at death - choice to pass into the spiritual unknown or choose eternity in San Junipero.
There isn't a release from San Junipero once a participant arrives there full time (unless of course the corporation running the simulation terminates the program).
That is the point of the suicide scene.
And Quagmire exists as a clue of what San Junipero really is - it's a place for people who reject a spiritual existence. San Junipero is a place for people who reject God.
There isn't a release from San Junipero once a participant arrives there full time (unless of course the corporation running the simulation terminates the program).
That is the point of the suicide scene.
And Quagmire exists as a clue of what San Junipero really is - it's a place for people who reject a spiritual existence. San Junipero is a place for people who reject God.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 8:29 am
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:30 am to mizzoukills
quote:
There isn't a release from San Junipero once a participant arrives there full time (unless of course the corporation running the simulation terminates the program).
there is no evidence that this is true...the only evidence we have is to the exact opposite
quote:
That is the point of the suicide scene.
no...its not
when Yorkie was sitting on the roof top Kelly asks her "How high is your pain threshold?" (or something like that) because she knew they couldn't hurt themselves
quote:
And Quagmire exists as a clue of what San Junipero really is - it's a place for people who reject a spiritual existence. San Junipero is a place for people who reject God.
Quagmire exists because not everyone is content with playing arcade games for eternity
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:34 am to Salmon
Wow, I completely disagree with you!
But that's okay because I like a good debate.
This debate only strengthens my opinion that San Junipero is the best episode of the entire series.
But make no mistake...San Junipero is 100 percent Hell. It's literally Hell on Earth!
But that's okay because I like a good debate.
This debate only strengthens my opinion that San Junipero is the best episode of the entire series.
But make no mistake...San Junipero is 100 percent Hell. It's literally Hell on Earth!
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:37 am to mizzoukills
quote:
But make no mistake...San Junipero is 100 percent Hell. It's literally Hell on Earth!
It is what you make of it.
Quagmire is a type of hell. Those people are choosing to feel pain.
San Junipero is a type of heaven. Those people are choosing to feel happiness and nostalgia.
The theme is the episode is about grief, not rejecting religion or faith. That is where you are wrong.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 8:47 am to Salmon
quote:
It is what you make of it.
I agree and I think the debate "Is San Junipero Heaven or Hell" is what the episode's creators want the audience to contemplate.
quote:
Quagmire is a type of hell. Those people are choosing to feel pain.
I agree
quote:
San Junipero is a type of heaven. Those people are choosing to feel happiness and nostalgia
I totally disagree. San Junipero is sold as a type of Heaven, but as I pointed out in the OP, Heaven cannot exist if "tourists" retain past memories and human emotions. It may be sold as Heaven but it will eventually become Hell for all tourists because there's no spiritual connection.
This is what's fascinating about this episode. The human creators of this program may actually believe they've created Heaven in a microchip, but that's impossible because humans cannot create a spiritual realm. Humans can only create something that is "human".
quote:
The theme is the episode is about grief, not rejecting religion or faith.
And that's the magic trick the creators of the episode performed on the audience. They make you believe it's about grief. They make you believe it has a happy ending. The episode is really a simulated version of the Divine Comedy. It 100 percent is about religion, faith, the rejection of a spiritual existence, and ultimately the Hell of eternal regret.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 8:50 am
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