The questions you ask about World A and World B are why a lot of people think Nora made the story up, that she called off the machine before going through. I don't know if you saw this on the train but immediately before the chamber is filled she goes to shout something. It's ambiguous whether she actually went through or called it off.
For me the whole episode is about the lies people tell themselves and others to be happy. The scapegoat taking away everyone's sins, the pigeons, the nun lying about what she does. Kevin pretends he's never met and she goes along with it and they're reasonably happy, then at the end he tells her the truth and has a breakdown.
Nora decides to come up with a story that will allow her to move on from losing her children in the departure, to stop wondering what happened to them. She decides to believe that they're happy in an alternate universe with each other, and that allows her to move on.
If you think about the practicalities of her story it's absurd. How do you get from Australia to New York in a post apocalyptic world where 98% of people disappeared and then back again? How did she fund the building of the machine? When she got back to Australia how did she build up a life? Why did nobody else go through?
As for the question about whether they put a mattress there, there wouldn't be much point . They're on the run, that's why they're in a truck.
> I don't know if you saw this on the train but immediately before the chamber is filled she goes to shout something. It's ambiguous whether she actually went through or called it off.
This is an excellent point, and that (and the "lying" theme) came up often in the discussion when I posted to the Leftovers subreddit. Through that conversation, and due to the themes of the episode, I have become convinced that you're 100% right: she chickened out at the last moment and never went through, then never returned because she feared facing the consequences of her cowardice.
It's not widely accepted that the machine works. There are all kinds of scams and cults and such that come up after the Departure. There's a very strong chance it's just a way of getting huge amounts of money off of desperate people then killing them. Even if it really does as promised send the departed to wherever they really went, maybe that's to a vacuum in space, maybe it's to another universe where humans can't survive etc.
Even the scientists who run the machine don't say that they're going to an alternative Earth, in an earlier episode they're pretty open about the fact that people going through may not survive. They just say that wherever the Departed went, that's where the people going through the machine will go.
So the conclusion that I drew - that even though nobody's returned, and they don't know where those people went, they still somehow know that wherever they are they're okay - is completely wrong. They're just *hoping* that's the case, and blindly leaping off the cliff after them.
The questions you ask about World A and World B are why a lot of people think Nora made the story up, that she called off the machine before going through. I don't know if you saw this on the train but immediately before the chamber is filled she goes to shout something. It's ambiguous whether she actually went through or called it off.
For me the whole episode is about the lies people tell themselves and others to be happy. The scapegoat taking away everyone's sins, the pigeons, the nun lying about what she does. Kevin pretends he's never met and she goes along with it and they're reasonably happy, then at the end he tells her the truth and has a breakdown.
Nora decides to come up with a story that will allow her to move on from losing her children in the departure, to stop wondering what happened to them. She decides to believe that they're happy in an alternate universe with each other, and that allows her to move on.
If you think about the practicalities of her story it's absurd. How do you get from Australia to New York in a post apocalyptic world where 98% of people disappeared and then back again? How did she fund the building of the machine? When she got back to Australia how did she build up a life? Why did nobody else go through?
As for the question about whether they put a mattress there, there wouldn't be much point . They're on the run, that's why they're in a truck.
> I don't know if you saw this on the train but immediately before the chamber is filled she goes to shout something. It's ambiguous whether she actually went through or called it off.
This is an excellent point, and that (and the "lying" theme) came up often in the discussion when I posted to the Leftovers subreddit. Through that conversation, and due to the themes of the episode, I have become convinced that you're 100% right: she chickened out at the last moment and never went through, then never returned because she feared facing the consequences of her cowardice.
Re: mattress, why are the scientists on the run?
It's not widely accepted that the machine works. There are all kinds of scams and cults and such that come up after the Departure. There's a very strong chance it's just a way of getting huge amounts of money off of desperate people then killing them. Even if it really does as promised send the departed to wherever they really went, maybe that's to a vacuum in space, maybe it's to another universe where humans can't survive etc.
Even the scientists who run the machine don't say that they're going to an alternative Earth, in an earlier episode they're pretty open about the fact that people going through may not survive. They just say that wherever the Departed went, that's where the people going through the machine will go.
So the conclusion that I drew - that even though nobody's returned, and they don't know where those people went, they still somehow know that wherever they are they're okay - is completely wrong. They're just *hoping* that's the case, and blindly leaping off the cliff after them.
Exactly.