re: From Season 3 Discussion Thread (Spoilers)

It’s more about how the show is answering without answering

Remember in season 1, we’d all sit back and say “if I was Jim, I’d just follow the wires to see where electricity is being produced”, “if I was Jim, I’d ask about where animals come from”, “if I was Jim, I’d…”

And then the show organically used Jim, the outsider, to actually ask the same questions the audience would ask and then to guide us through the town

The questions were somewhat concrete and presented through the show in a way we could process and rationalize

Now, the show seems to be going the way of Lost by just piling on layer upon layer of questions and nuance without really backtracking and explaining the previous layer.

Now this WORKED with Lost for a few reasons:

1. It was a novel experience
2. The production and acting was top notch
3. We LOVED the characters and that’s what the show was really about

These points aren’t as true for this show. We don’t really love all the characters. In fact, most of the characters are super annoying.

Jim has become a caricature of himself running around with the right side of his hair always sticking out. Like bruh, you have LONG hair, you have to be trying to do that, the fat mad chick just runs around contorting her face and yelling, Fatima sits around crying while eating garbage, Boyd’s son just follows her around with his arms outstretched with a furrowed brow, Tabitha just enters each room biting her fingernails and quickly looking both directions like she is a 5 year old crossing the street, the kids are grumpy and do nothing but complain, the two carpet munchers are constantly consoling others and patting people’s shoulders, the Asian dude is constantly swallowing, staring at walls, and “not wanting to talk about it”

The only interesting characters are Boyd, and probably because he reflects the audience’s frustrations as he is growing tired of the nonsense, Victor (and his dad, who I am beginning to suspect is a plant) because his story is heartfelt, Randall because like Boyd, he’s just tired of nonsense, and Jade because he is GOAT.

With all that said, I LOVE the show and I am hoping this lands. That’s why I watch. It’s just most of it, like the characters, seem to be filler until we get to the interesting characters/stories.

Oddly I’m usually most skeptical about this show going nowhere yet I thought this past episode was one of the best.

They’re starting to drop plenty of hints as to what this place may be and they have multiple people getting involved in problem solving. Fatima isn’t doing this baby thing all on her own anymore, there’s now 5 people in the know with what’s happening to her and the puzzle about the bottle trees also has plenty eyes on now. Victor is going to provide answers before the end of the season too from whatever he learns from Jasper.

Tabitha and Victors mom have both seen this place in their dreams before. Jade notes how the 2 bottle trees maybe dont just exist there but in reality too. Instead of being in a portal of some kind they may be in an alternate dimension also in Camden Maine where the 2 bottle trees are also present. There was talk about the numbers being a number of steps, maybe Victors dad being there informs them that the distance between the 2 bottle trees there is the distance between the 2 bottle trees where he is now in this monster town. Seems more and more like there’s a link they’re stuck in an alternate dimension and that there will be a payoff as to how they all arrived there through some link. Maybe they’ve all had nightmares (or acid trips in the case of Victors mom) of this town in some form or fashion as it was just dropped about Tabitha having seen this place before

They always end episodes on these cliffhangers. That definitely wasn’t anything new.

eta dude living alone in the bus is moving in with folks, the only person whose character progression has gone backwards is Jim. He from the bat needed to figure out what this place was and now doesn’t want to learn anything. He’s got some severe trauma from all the trolls he’s had reach out to him (the call when he set up the tower in the beginning telling him to stop searching, his deceased baby Thomas calling him on the phone trolling him about Tabitha leaving him, etc)

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We don’t really love all the characters. In fact, most of the characters are super annoying.

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This can’t really be emphasized enough.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show where almost every character would bring me joy if they died lol

I enjoy watching this show but it's really starting to get close to that line of moving the plot too slow. There is just too much repetition going on, Elgin with the Kimono lady, Victor again walking through the caves at a slow pace, Fatima baby situation. It also feels like the writers do not have this show mapped out like they claimed. There are just too many characters and they don't know what to do with them all. I have no faith that they are going to be able to wrap this up and it's no longer fun to really theorize, nobody has a clue what is really going on.

Another fairly boring episode this week. Not sure anything of consequence happened. The new cop chick quickly became my least favorite character. Are we getting 10 episodes or only 8 this season?

Getting 10 episodes

Ditto on everything you said. Cop chick sucks. Not just in a “I hate her character” kind of way, but just the actress herself. Hope they are setting her up to die soon

Only thing of note was Tillie getting killed; didn’t even know her name until she died , just knew her as the old lady all up in everyone’s shite

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The new cop chick quickly became my least favorite character.

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She desperately needs a slap across her face, I know Boyd won’t do it, but someone needs to.

This episode appears to have flipped the switch for the reddit nerds. Slow burn shows like this really shouldn't last more than 2 seasons. The show is falling off the same way Yellow Jackets did. Eventually people just tune out.

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The show is falling off the same way Yellow Jackets did.

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Whoa now. Let's calm down.

This episode was boring this week. But this show is leaps and bounds better than YJ.

And yes, the new lady cop is awful. I think it's the actress more than anything else. 3 episodes left I believe, so I suspect things may ramp up a little. And it feels like someone is about to die.

Hopefully it's Fatima.

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Last few episodes give us a lot of answers and a few surprises. That's all I'll say.

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Thank you for your service.