This scene proved why he had to leave (he was so prepared to be berated and belittled for an admittedly big mistake, but like... in the grand scheme, whatever, ya know?) and why The Bear will be fine without him (because they can both understand that shit is hitting the fan AND see the person on the other side of it).
I don't know man. I'm glad the season played out in the aftermath of his announcement over the course of a couple (really one chaotic) day(s). It's the end the show needed.
He said the food overall was truly exceptional. And creative. He said the talent here is undeniable. That there's a scallop dish he hasn't been able to stop thinking about and the hospitality was beautiful. He said the room felt alive without being precious or try-hard.
That shiso worked really beautifully with the violet. Oh, you like that? Just some completely random idea I had. Oh, yeah? I got it from this dude in Copenhagen.
Richie/Jessica (still in the flirty, discovery stage and now that he's closed the chapter with Tiff he can truly lean in)
Tina/David (established, grounded, secure.)
Nat/Pete (oh my sweet sweet Pete who loves Nat so so much that the thought of her being disappointed again by her mother brought him to tears for both of them)
NBD, just sitting here rewatching this and burst into tears thinking about how brave Shane is. Now don't get me wrong, Ilya is as well in his own way, but my GOD. Shane:
Went up to Ilya and introduced himself (just as we were informed that, in the eyes of the world, he's standoff-ish and not personable).
Gave Ilya his room number.
OPENED THE DOOR.
Reached for Ilya first (because as a consent king, Ilya waited for Shane to confirm before he commenced changing their lives).
LOOKED for Ilya in Vegas I.
LOOKED for Ilya during the Olympics and went to him IMMEDIATELY.
Was HONEST about what he needed in Vegas II.
FORCED THE TAMPA CONVERSATION.
INVITED ILYA TO THE CABIN SO THEY COULD SPEND SOME REAL TIME TOGETHER.
STAYED UP ALL NIGHT COMING UP WITH THEIR PLAN.
I'm sure I'm missing some things and of course there are moments when fear took over (e.g., #tunamelt), but my GOD. What a brave brave soul.
I love them forever and ever and ever and ever and ever ::fade out as I repeat::.
This felt like a reunion movie more than anything (kind of like the sequel to A Simple Favor) and you know what? I don't blame them. Travel! Be in beautiful outfits! Hang out with your friends! But like... sure. Fine. Whatever.
One of my biggest viewing pet peeves is when there are obviously empty cups in a scene. It throws me off every time and this movie was filled with them. Surely there's a better way, right?? ... Right?
Spoiler-Filled
LUCY LIU HAS BEEN THAT GIRL HER WHOLE LIFE. I loved seeing her on the screen.
Didn't Miranda have a realization about taking Nigel for granted in the last movie?
This is an indictment on media and I liked it.
The real romance is Emily and Andy, right? Like that guy is there, but... I don't buy it.
Speaking of, Emily being Judas was so unfortunate, but a great plot point.
You're telling me that it ISN'T James Spader voicing Sebastian???????? Wowowowow.
Regina Hall is just... I love her so much. She was the PERFECT Cloud. All the other voice actors were great, but I had to shout her out.
I love that Hugh Jackman commits to the films he's in. He's so wonderful and gentle in this.
Can't lie—I was viewing Molly's character as her character in The Bear for many minutes before my brain could switch. (kind of derogatory, but also humbling)
Spoiler-Filled
The scene where the butcher was counting the sheep was so funny because he fell asleep counting sheep!!! Well played.
I hate that they were so mean to the Winter sheep! He was so little and cute!!
The twist was twisting. This is an excellent mystery plot.
Related: Elliot was a scoundrel!
Final Thoughts: I loved it! Such a pleasant surprise.
This is officially one of my comfort movies. I laughed out loud CONSISTENTLY.
Jennifer Lopez has never seen a rom-com she can't execute flawlessly. My goodness. This is her bag.
The British guy is DARLING!!! Wowowowow. I love him.
Related: He really wrote fanfiction featuring him falling in love with his celebrity crush and waited until she was available to play her part. Not him living out his dream. Never give up, folks!!!! You can go anything you put your mind to!!!! (And he was absolutely right to because again, Ms. Lopez is exactly who she thinks she is when it comes to this genre).
Them being based in NJ and not NY feels really important. I like that detail.
Spoiler-Filled
The handshake scene was absurd!!! LMAO, now why did the props department do that????
The English room scene was so silly!! This movie is hilarious.
Okay, he was allowed to keep the info about his sister to himself AND I understand why she was like wtf... her following him and then going INSIDE is loco though lmao.
I had to pause and silently scream during the shareholder meeting when they started overcompensating because what are you dooooiiiiinnnnggggg???? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Her homegirl being on the case SENT me!
I just KNEW that stupid lady at the resort was a snake!!!!!
The birthing scene... again with the props department!!! That was the most realistic newborn I've seen in a movie though.
Vance running the food truck is hilarious, especially because my familiarity with that actor is from Handmaids Tale (I know he's in other things, too, but recency bias is at play here).
Stay for the after credit scene lmfao. I KNEW SHE WAS WITH THAT BOY!!!!
Finally sat down to watch "Gary" and had to pause once they were...
Spoilers under the cut
... getting to ready to leave the bar because I just KNEW something bad was gonna happen and then I looked at the clock to see how much time I had left and said out loud in the silence of my living room, "12 minutes??? Fuck."
Finally sat down to watch "Gary" and had to pause once they were...
Spoilers under the cut
... getting to ready to leave the bar because I just KNEW something bad was gonna happen and then I looked at the clock to see how much time I had left and said out loud in the silence of my living room, "12 minutes??? Fuck."
Okay and when we're in Karadec's apartment next season and the camera pans to the wall and we see that the painting from Lucia is replaced by an art piece from (or encouraged by) Morgan, what happens? Because he'll obvi take it down, right? And she'll obvi encourage him to fill the space with something else so he's not staring at a blank wall and empty space, RIGHT?
Where are my Paradise watchers??? Because I have thoughts on S2, the finale, and the whole "wtf is happening???" of it all.
Spoilers in 3... 2... 1...
Okay so boom. This season we saw Sinatra's conversation with the climate guy at the conference when she ordered that expensive ass bottle and he drank that thing down like it was water—
She was all like "I have money. Tell me what I need to buy to fix this" and he was all like "you can't buy the one thing you actually need which is time."
Obviously, ol' girl is still grieving. She wasn't able to do anything to save her son, but she sure as hell is going to do everything in her power to save her daughter so she starts researching. She starts talking to people. And when it's all said and done, she has a plan with two parts:
PART 1. The bunker. Obviously. We know her, we love her, we're all like "this is some twisted shit."
BUT ALSO, like Sinatra told Cal, it was never just about the bunker. The whole point of the bunker was to what? Say it with me, class—buy them time.
She needed time for the most important part of her plan to actually happen—Alex.
And we finally know wtf "Alex" is. I mean we had hints (remember when the Circuit City guy got those random ass messages about Jane before she was born? They were all signed from "Alex". And we know the professor's wife's name is Alex, and)—
Sidenote: Usually I'd go in with screen grabs and episode cues, but this is me right now for real for real:
I'm supposed to be reading for class or sleeping, but I'm doing this instead so just keep this in the back of your mind for a rewatch I guess. Moving on.
So yeah. Alex has been circling around in the background because A-L3X0.2 has literally been circling around in the background underneath the Denver airport!!!!
Sinatra's plan was always to give them enough time for A-L3X0.2 to figure out how to solve the climate crisis. And we know this because the season finale taught us some important things:
A-L3X (the original prototype that Link/Dylan made and showed the professor in class that one day) was the first AI of its kind. That little bop-it, tomigachi, chia-pet type thing was definitely a science fair project (you could tell Dylan was just fucking around in his little lab because he couldn't get why people were just yapping and not creating), but you could tell by the professor's reaction that it was something HUGE. (He dismissed that class with a quickness cuz he had nerding to do with his new protégé.) In short, Dylan is a genius, but of course—he's (as we later found out) Sinatra's son.
Once they had Sinatra's blank check, they were able to work on A-L3X at a rapid pace, but it out-advanced them. That man told Sinatra they had to shut the project down because it answered a question that should have taken lightyears to answer in seconds before they even asked the question. Do you understand how POWERFUL that is????? How terrifying?????
Sinatra obviously was like nah. This is exactly what I've been looking for. Enter Billy Pace and his methods of persuasion.
So, she stole A-L3X and got her own team in place to refine it. Hence A-L3X0.2 in a separate, secret bunker 100 miles away. (And now we know where all the power from the main bunker was going).
Okay. So here's where I think this is all leading:
There are two timelines:
Timeline A is the world we've been introduced to. Here, Xavier exists, the world really did go through The Day, and most importantly, Dylan died. His death is Sinatra's entire reason for trying to fix the climate crisis, the development of the bunker, etc. This is where we exist with them.
In Timeline B, Dylan didn't die!!! He actually is alive and is able to create the technology... that technology just happens to have the ability to save everything. I also think this is the actual, real timeline.
I think A-L3X created a world (Timeline A) where Dylan died so that Sinatra could grieve and save the planet from what Timeline B would eventually experience if it didn't solve the crisis. It's all getting a little loopy and cyclical so I'm gonna leave it up to Dan et al. to make it make sense, but at a high level, I think:
Start with Timeline B. Dylan is just creating to create for creation's sake and he comes up with A-L3X.
Because A-L3X knows all the things, it knows that there's going to be a climate crisis if it doesn't do something. It also knows that it's running out of time to figure out the solution in the face of what's coming so it...
Creates alternate realities, one of which is Timeline A where Dylan dies, Sinatra grieves, the climate crisis actually happens, and Sinatra builds the bunker to buy time while A-L3X0.2 figures out the large-scale solution and
Once it figures out the solution (whatever Xavier is going to have to do in s3), it merges the timelines and realities together. I also think that this merging of timelines might have something to do with the nosebleeds, but I'm not quite sure what all that is yet. (Although I do think the professor had an inkling about A-L3X's power/plans because he gave Billy the tissue because he knew his nose would bleed.)
Wouldn't it be wild if we realize the world we exist in with the characters (i.e., Timeline A) was all fake, just like we realized the community was fake at the end of s1 e1?????
Okay, that's it. That's what I got. Also:
The bookends of Xavier running through paradise at the top of s1 e1 and then again at the end of that episode as everything comes crashing down (metaphorically) with him running through town at the end of s2 e8 as everything is about to come crashing down (literally) was absolute poetry.
Dylan/Link helping to take care of (human) Alex. OMG stop.
Annie's Baby is now with her daddy. OMG STOP.
Xavier knows he's wrong as hell for introducing those two women like that. And Teri knows that Gabi wasn't just his therapist, too. Lol.
Speaking of Gabi, why didn't she jook jook Jane again just to be sure??? UGH. Now look at her. Doofy. Because Jane is alive. Her injuries/the location of her wound match Robinson's and we saw that Robinson was able to survive, AND she wasn't in the shower when they did the closing shot as the bunker came down. Whatever, man. Whatever.
Sinatra having revelations when she hears people's nicknames lololol. She had one when Big Poppa (was that his name? either way, RIP) called Link "Dylan" and again when Dylan called Xavier "X". Is it a coincidence that these are the two characters that it happened with? I think not.
Jeremy coming back with help was cute. He's still a brat, but he's nice.
Now what were Presley and Sinatra's daughter going to do when they got down to the prison and saw the guards? Don't piss me off!!!!! That was so silly.
Can't wait for next season!!!!
Thoughts? What am I missing? What do you think?
If you're not watching this show, but you read this anyway... um... sorry for the spoilers (I made the appropriate stopgap!!!), but go watch it! It's amazing.
