Interesting episode! Can't believe that we've only got one left...
Did Jim stop the funeral curtains from closing around Viv's coffin?
There were two references to the the number 13 in this episode. The first was when they found 13 stab wounds on the dead body, and the second is when Gene mentions form APR 13. Could this be a reference to the 13 apostles?
Jim always appears at the wrong moment, just as Chris was about to talk to Alex
Why is Chris scared of the police whistle? Could this be part of his former life breaking through into this reality??
Finally some info about Sam! Gene says that Sam was acting strange, wanted to leave and asked Gene to help him fake his own death. He then dissapeared! So it seems Sam is still alive, which hopefully means he will return in the last episode.
I'm glad that Gene and Chris finally made up, and Chris finally gets his 'Life on Mars' moment!
Interestingly we get some analysis from him about it. He says that the guy he heard speaking was Nelson, the landlord of the pub from Life on Mars.
What was the figure on the weathervane in the picture that Alex had? Looks like a hunched old woman. I think it will play a part in the last episode, and we should hopefully find out about Sam and the half-face copper, and if they are linked.
Chris, Shaz, and Ray have all seen the stars together!! Wish I knew what it meant. Can't wait for the last episode, though I shall also be sad when it arrives, as I know there will be no more after this
14 years ago
Mon May 17 2010, 07:09am
Argh, I know - one episode left! :'(
That they've all seen stars together absolutely relieves me - it means that whatever happens, they're in it together. I was SO scared for Chris this episode, it was just so frustrating when Jim walked in at the wrong moment. He did the same thing to Viv the week before, when he'd been about to go talk to the Gov.
Is the 6-6-20 still relevant? I'm starting to think about the Life on Mars parallels here and...didn't Sam have a number that kept coming up? And it ended up being a Ward number in Hyde? Also it's interesting how that Alex's purpose in AtA appears to be aligning with Sam's purpose at the end of LoM. Remember he ends up finding out that he's there to expose Gene Hunt as corrupt? And that's definitely what Jim wants Alex to do.
So...by exposing him, he will lose whatever power he has. I'm guessing in the scheme of things it means that he'll no longer be in charge of 'limbo', or wherever it is they are being held, directly after people's deaths?
Sam + Gene...it's good to actually know something now, but really - what was the deal a couple of episodes ago, with that guy who was trying to convince Alex that he was Sam? Why did that happen? Was it something set up to try force her to expose Gene as well?
OMG, Viv's funeral undid me, it was so sad. Yeah, Jim appeared to stop the curtains from closing. And Gene went and fixed it. What a mental scene...as in, hurts, mentally :P
What were on those video tapes that Jim looked so happy to have? Their real lives? Their mistakes?
Random biblical reference this week from Gene about being cast out of paradise. It was supposed to be a reference about their going from Manchester to London, but still :P
So with all these clues and things to tie up in one episode...they absolutely cannot give us an ending like the US version! And I hope Sam Tyler actually comes back - that'd be amazing. If he is making an appearance (other than flashback ones) the spoiler-monkeys are keeping quiet about it!
I'm just starting to catch up on series three - SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
All I can say is that uptown girl dream is genius ...
Min:
Maybe (if Jim is the devil and Gene an angel) Jim brought both Sam and Alex to this parallel world (and others if what we've seen last season is true) to try and unseat Gene's rule of this limbo, so that he can take over. He's picked what he sees as the best candidates, and has engineered things in our world to make it happen?
14 years ago
Wed May 19 2010, 07:18am
Hehe, yeah, I don't think I'll be able to forget their performance any time I hear that song now.
Interesting note about the --
Wizard of Oz theory.
I've been dying to rewatch some Life on Mars, and got the opportunity last night. There was a Wizard of Oz reference in both episodes 1 and 2 (or 3? They blurred together into one story for me); in the first, Sam says "follow the yellow brick road" - when he's talking to Annie about walking until his mind can't make up any more faces.
Then in 2 or 3, Sam asks Gene if he can be sent back to where he came from; Gene picks up the phone, and says something about he's just phoning the Wizard to ask. For all the wonderful things he does, something along those lines.
No idea what it means. They're probably just referencing the story (instead of it having any deep meaning), because it's similar to Dorothy's tale (coma, fantasyland). Sort of like how when Sam says he's a time traveller, we have a giggle because of the parallel to his Doctor Who role. And yes, what does that make Keats? I have a lot of time for the Wicked Witch of the West since reading Wicked, so I hope that's not true as well XD and who's Gene? Glinda the Good Witch? XD
One other interesting thing Gene says in ep 2 - Sam and he have just had a fight over June's bed when she's in hospital - and they're sitting at the end of it talking. He's talking about how nobody cares about this city, but he loves it...and something like, "the orphans get me". Referring I think to the inhabitants of Manchester in their world...but if it means more then it's implying that he's not like everyone else (so, not someone who died like the rest of them), he's above it all.
Last thing - promise :P - I really want to know what happened to Annie. She's an awesome character and if she was actually like Sam - dead or dying and in limbo - then what was she looking for, resolution to what? She'd obviously well forgotten about dying and any former life she may have had, because Sam talked all the time to her about it, and she reasons it away logically with him. Perhaps this is just her nature, though, and the reason she argues it is because she is in massive denial...don't know. I just hope we have Annie's story sorted out in AtA as well.
Wanderer Ward
13 years ago
Wanderer Ward
Rebel
*squee* XD
was that a finale or what?!? :O
... sorry - did you want coherance? Not possible after that really.
That was a superb finale!
Loved the 'It's a Knockout' parody at the beginning!
Hadn't thought of the Wizard of Oz references
Min: The theories you read about the dead copper being Gene Hunt were true. The TV he was watching showed the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which took place in 1953, so that's the era that gene was killed in.
Ray hung himself in the late 50's/early 60's looking at that style or furniture.
No clue as to what era Chris was killed in, though i'm guessing late 70's/early 80's
Looking at the Sierra Cosworth car model in the scene when Shaz was killed puts her death in the late 80's/early 90's
Looks like they had someone from every era!
This episode proved that Jim is the Devil (or at least one of his minions)!: The number he typed into the door keypad was 666; the lifts only went down, and you could hear the 'screams of tortured souls' eminating from the lift shaft; the way he was acting like a beast and hissing after Gene punched him.
It was great seeing the pub and Nelson from Life on Mars again, and at least we finally know what happened to Sam (and i'm guessing Annie as well).
I'm glad that Chris and Shaz are finally back together before the end.
I think the saddest part of the whole episode was when they killed the Audi Quattro :(
It's nice to know that Gene will continue on his path of guiding lost police souls to their resting place, and the way that new guy stormed into the office was almost exactly the same as when Gene met Sam for the first time
Still wish they'd do another series though...
Arghhhhh!! How interesting and awesome was that finale?!
I was kinda upset when it turned out Gene was just like them; as in, he didn't really have higher authority over them. But they worked with it, and in the end it was a better ending than him being a higher power :P
Jim was scary. I guess in the end, the victim had to agree to go with him, or he had no power. But what about Viv, then? How did it work that way - that if you died, he got you anyway? Perhaps he made some sort of bargain when they died...brrr. Spooky. Poor Viv. He didn't deserve that fate :(
I think Jim was one of the Devil's minions, not the Devil himself - owing to the phone conversation he has when he arrives; "it's me. ME". He wouldn't have to identify himself so many times if he was head honcho right?
And, does that shed any light on what Gene said to that copper from Manchester a couple of episodes ago? Did he say 'don't worry, you're already dead' or something to that effect?
Yeap, definitely was awesome to see the Railway arms + Nelson again! So what were the Life on Mars moments, that the characters had during the season? Maybe it signaled that they sorted themselves out? They were nearer to resolution than any other time, at that point.
Stars; they were a weakening of Gene, right? I want to go back and see exactly when they occurred again...maybe they only showed up when the others were doing something completely the opposite to Gene's orders...
Very sad ending too. Alex's final realisation that she was actually dead, that she wouldn't get home to her daughter. Gene's 'she'll be fine' was uber sad too...it was a fitting, realistic ending.
QUATRO! :"( RIP
What was the car magazine he was looking at at the very end? A Mercedes of some kind? LOL yeah the new guy storming into the office was very similar to Sam's intro!
Argh wanna talk more about it but gotta go to work in a sec!
I don't know how they can do another series...we know it all now. I just hope the people who made it keep making fantastic, amazing tv shows.
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
I just finished it!!!
You know, it had almost a narnia end (if you've never read the last battle by CS Lewis ...well, I think I just spoiled the end). It fits with the whole biblical theme.
That was so good!
Re shazza's death - I thought it was mid 90's - I thought Oasis was playing in the background ... I may have been mistaken.
The only disappointment was that I thought Sam was going to turn back up. Seeing Nelson was good, but Sam ... *sigh*
ARGHHHH!! I can't sleep now - what with IC's tweets and A2A finale ... I'm too wound up!
Nef I agree with you about-
Shaz - when I heard Wonderwall, all i could think was mid-90's as well.
I wanted John Simm to be in it, but I'm kinda glad Sam didn't come back now. It would have stolen Alex's thunder a little, wouldn't it?
DO - Yeah, I can see Gene driving that car ;D awesome. I did wonder if it was a car from the 80's or if time would progress a little further forward for them once the others had gone.
What Paul wonders (that has me wondering now too) is, if the whole construct was really Gene's fantasy, how did it progress beyond the 50's (sorry, that's when he was from, wasn't it..?)? How did he know about the music and tv events and such? Or were they created by the other people who were there with him?
Ashlings' guildleader
13 years ago
Fri May 28 2010, 10:04am
Ashlings' guildleader
Master of Obernewtyn
I can't believe it's all finished now :"(, but it is one of the best endings to a show I've watched.
Did anyone notice the silhouette of Sam against the glass door right at the begging? I'd like to think it was Simm but I guess they could have used anyone for that shot :P. I agree that Jim would be a minion of the Devil, but the creators were vague enough about it that people could decide what they wished (although the signs we picked up all point to it, they didn't make it glaringly obvious). And that poor quattro ;(, may it RIP (although I don't think it was the one they have used the most, I've read they had a second one for when the first one had problems), but as DO said, he's going for a mercedes (I had to pause when I saw the car brochure ;D) and the brochure was for the 190D.
Min, I hadn't thought before how Gene knows things after his time. Maybe when he first got to limbo, Jim made a deal with him, seeing Gene as a naive youngster, but after time Gene realises his mistake and constructs his world to protect others that end up in the same situation. Gees, so many theories could be thought up for that ;D.
My question is
What about Litton - What happened to him when he was stripped of his rank? does Keats get him? does he keep working his death out? Or is he like Gene? They definitely had some similarities in the episode ... except he lost to Jim.
The writers of A2A said we'd be left with more questions at the end
I'm not sure which Quattro was destroyed, but apparently one of the writers has the door at home at the top of his stairs, and Sam's gravestone in his garden.
Min: I'm guessing that if people arrived from different times, Gene could construct different era's from their memories perhaps?
Wanderer Ward
13 years ago
Wanderer Ward
Rebel
Can someone answer me (idiot newbie to the fandom)
- between series 2 and 3 - did she really wake up or was it a sort of 'dream within a dream' type scenario??? Because if it was a dream within a dream then was that HER heaven as opposed to Gene's (since there was all that stuff about people are supposed to create their own heaven but they don't as Gene draws them in or something)?
Ohh....um, good point Maz. I'm not 100% sure if we know that either way...(but then, I could have missed an obvious explanation somewhere too).
I like your explanation though. Let's go with that ;D
Yeah, I'd go with Maz's theory
I'm waiting for series 3 to come out on TV still...
don't look for spoilers - seriously, this is something you need to experience for yourself!
Sorry for not replying before, but I'm looking forward to the third series. Should be good. I have a feeling about Gene Hunt.
