#the path meta

[themeyeristmovement]

ancatdubh777 replied to your post “Season 3 Finale Speculation”

@brushstrokesmcgee @themeyeristmovement Question. So when Eddie and Sarah went to Cal’s and told him they were going to spill the Steve beans, Sarah said that Cal’s been affected by his past to the point that he’s already destroyed one life. WHAT THE WHAT?! I’m sure she meant Silas. So why was she so casual about that and why didn’t Eddie say “what do you mean, Sarah”?

brushstrokesmcgee replied to your post “Season 3 Finale Speculation”

@ancatdubh777 I think she was referencing Silas to Cal. But at the same time she could have been talking about Cal's own life so Eddie wasn't too suspicious. I do think part of teh reason Cal is so terrifified to face up to his past is that he'll have to deal with what he did though.

royal-chief-architect replied to your post “Season 3 Finale Speculation”

I just can’t deal I remember him saying. I killed once I can do it again no no no my man. We indeed can not repeat your life’s traumatic events.

What Sarah said:

"It's time for us to face all of it, Cal. We have to. The damage, the pain, the hurt inflicted by that man...it's destroying you. And it made you destroy a life."

I agree she and Cal both knew she meant Silas as the life destroyed. 

I think Eddie let it pass, at least in the moment, because he assumed she meant Richard. And because he was in that mindset he habitually gets into this season, that doesn’t take in critical details around him. He’s focused on thinking he can storm into Cal’s apartment and impose his will. (I am very angry with Eddie right now. And Sarah. It’s everything that made me mad about him storming in and demanding Forest be Embraced but EVEN MORE SO because now he knows and he’s like tell me what I can do now that you’ve separated from Mary and are completely alone in the world. Except don’t ask me to not trot your abuse out in front of the whole community right now.)

I do hope they do use this as the leaping off point to address what Silas, and the rest of the first generation, actually knew about what Steve was doing to Cal. I do hope Eddie comes back and asks her what she meant, because he knows she’s just as culpable, if not more, for Richard’s suicide. 

If Silas really was some sort of shaman who could commune with Steve while Steve was in a coma – how could he not see who Steve truly was. Even if somehow he completely missed the shared sleeping bag that even Cal’s mother, an IS, managed to learn about? 

[rants for days about the complicity of the first generation. Cal should be coming for them.]

[themeyeristmovement]

brushstrokesmcgee

replied to your photoset

“You’re not a commodity to me.  Hugh Dancy as Cal Roberts, Emma...”

@kronette I don't think he wants to be touched at all. Notice he never allows her to touch him. And his aversion to intimacy ( physical and emotional) has damaged his relationship with Mary. She doesn't think she matters to him. So asking her what she wants is a huge step for him. He's putting her needs first. Which he's never done before. Even when he was trying to do the right thing with Sean back in S1.

@brushstrokesmcgee​ I agree with your reading of how his distance has affected Mary and how important it is that he, for the first time, is putting her needs first. 

But I disagree with the interpretation that Cal doesn’t want to be touched. I think he very much wants to be touched, and to touch. 

But because of what Steve did to him (and his father, through physical abuse), he needs to feel in control of that touch. 

Hugh’s spoken of Cal being basically celibate in the years leading up to S1. What changed that? I think part of his inability to keep himself away from Mary in S1 was entirely that longing for touch, something he’d denied himself, something she offered to him, something Sarah would not. 

I can’t stop thinking about the contrast between the masturbation scene in 104 and this scene. 

There, Cal used Mary talking about someone else touching her, forced her into the performant role she’s always had to play, doing whatever the man in power tells her to do. Feeding into that sense that she’s just a commodity to him, something he can use when he needs to, regardless of her needs and wants and feelings.

Now, the complete opposite. He lets her know that he needs her. He asks her to guide him in how she wants to be touched. He makes it clear he wants touch her, not because he can, but because he wants to please her and comfort her.

I like that his move back when she laughs can be read in two ways. Yes, he’s embarrassed that he’s opened himself to her and her response is to laugh. But he’s also giving her space to respond as she needs to. 

I think the scene was pretty perfect as it was, cutting as we see them in a tender hug. 

[themeyeristmovement]

elephantandthedove replied to your post “In 304 Eddie ordered that Forest needs to be embraced. What does it...”

I don't get why the Embracing ritual is Eddie being "unlikable". In one regard, its Eddie outwitting Cal by throwing him a curveball in Cal's plan to "take back his movement". But you can also see it as a generous gesture, where Eddie is trying to play the good parent to Cal, who did not ever receive the benefit of good parenting and was 'failed' three times over.

My problem with it* is that Eddie’s decision to conduct the ceremony is explicitly presented as his punishment of Cal. It’s the worst side of Eddie we see.

“A gesture of humility. Submission. Those are my terms. And those are your consequences.”

This is something Eddie didn’t have to endure for his children, which says this isn’t at the level of a christening or first communion - this has become an exceptional ceremony.

It’s an excellent example of cynically choosing which parts of the Old Testament to continue to follow, when it suits one’s feelings. Eddie lashes out - you have to submit your child to this thing (that I didn’t submit my own to) even though I’m abolishing all the other uncomfortable traditions. 

It marks Eddie as petty and vindictive, which goes back to my least favorite part of season 2, when he stays in the Chosen Son game not because he thinks he really is, but to throw it in Cal’s face when he learns Sarah finally let Cal into her bed. 

So yes, we as viewers know Cal is still Cal. But Eddie is...still the Eddie who can believe a kid with a swastika tattoo who failed the ODE capable of being saved but...not the man his wife finally let sleep with her after he himself had had sex with someone else.

Even after the shared vision where Cal says Eddie is the true Light, Eddie forces Cal to endure the Embracing. It’s petty, Eddie.

The focus on the emotional reaction of different characters to the ritual was very effective for me as a viewer, specifically Hawk, Summer, and, Sarah.

[*] We cannot blame Eddie for any association with Cal’s abuse by Steve because the theme of this season so far is no one has yet actually clued him in to this critical piece of information he needs.

[themeyeristmovement]

illxadvised replied to your post “Question: the red stuff that Felicia pours over the rabbit bodies at...”

I'm 100% positive that that was vine or a juice. That looked nothing like blood.

Oh, I agree the prop liquid wasn’t very convincing. Neither was the “blood” Cal had all over himself after killing Silas. 

But these are people who make pine coffins and write down their sins to float them on a lake and then burn them. They don’t do things by half measures.

How does pouring wine or juice restore the blood taken on their land? Just seems a little...underwhelming to me. That would be more like - we’re not cremating these poor rabbits, we’re marinating them. 

Also, in echoing “from many we are one” between the restoration ceremony and Lilith giving the bird to the snake...it seems to be a refrain fraught with giving up something more symbolic than the same stuff they drink for dinner. 

[themeyeristmovement]

brushstrokesmcgee replied to your photoset

Anyone else get the feeling that despite everything Cal has yet to hit rock bottom?

Absolutely. Cal hasn’t begun to honestly think about what he’s done, or what has been done to him. In S2 interviews, Hugh would refer to Cal as compartmentalized - and that’s really it. He’s locked away everything - his abuse by his biological parents and Steve, his abuse of Mary, his murder of Silas, his adoration of Sarah, his envy of Eddie. He thinks he’s addressed it, but it’s just festering in whatever compartments he thinks his hidden them in.

I’m really hoping we’ll see at least some of this in the coming season. 

Let’s see Cal in the dirt with his emotions and really beginning to understand what he’s done and what was done to him.

[themeyeristmovement]

I'm at the end of S1 so I might be wrong and I didn't find anything about, but does this movement have anything to preach about homossexuality and such things? I watched the episode about the quickly Mary Cox's bi lover and it seemed to me when it came out with Cal discussing with them that it was kind of...wrong? Thank you!

My interpretation at the time I saw that episode was that it was not the homosexual nature of Betsy and Mary’s relationship, or Mary’s bisexuality, that was “wrong” in the eyes of the Movement. 

From Betsy’s perspective – she wasn’t afraid to out herself when she told Sean that she and Mary had been together. She wanted to let Sean know that Mary had cheated on them both. I think if you rewatch the first episode and see how Betsy gives Mary the water bottle, she’s never hidden (felt the need to hide) her sexuality. 

In the meeting where Cal tells Betsy he’ll have her go to Richard - I think it’s an olive branch. Betsy’s not being punished. Quite the opposite. Sure, she’s embarrassed for having lost her temper, and this is how everybody saves face. She does the prescribed mea culpas for causing a scene and it all goes back to normal. It’s almost like she’s being offered a week at a spa. 

And now Cal can try to clean up the chaos he created by sending Sean away. 

Season 2 provides more evidence that homosexuality is at least tolerated within the Movement. I hope you’ll come back with your impressions when you finish it. 

And all that said - I do think it would be more compelling if the show would expressly say the Movement didn’t discriminate on the basis of sexual preference. Especially with all the hullabaloo about the family being the cathedral and what have you. 

[themeyeristmovement]

I'm kind of confused by the finale...why was Sarah SO mad at Eddie and saying this was ruining everything good about him? I know she's probably not too pleased that he is trying to dethrone her as the leader, but isn't she at least happy that he's back in the movement? Also, why haven't they discussed leading together? I know Season 3 will likely be about the 3 of them trying to hold the power.

Sarah wasn’t mad. She was heartbroken. 

She had compromised herself with the blackmail to save the Movement, but at least she was going to be able to save Clarksville. 

Eddie bargained that away to save her. She didn’t feel worthy of being saved from her own actions, must less at the cost of the lives of the people of Clarksville. 

Eddie was supposed to be the purer one. The one chosen by Steve. The one that made her see the world differently, that’s why she chose him. 

And here, already, he’s polluting himself, giving up the good of so many for what are really his own selfish ends. To save the mother of his children. Just like Steve said, a leader shouldn’t have a family because he’ll put their needs above others. Eddie isn’t even in charge yet and he’s already doing that.

She doesn’t want him to lead because she doesn’t want to be dethroned, but because she knows what leading does to a person, and she doesn’t want that to happen to Eddie. 

Season three will likely be the two of them stepping on each other’s toes try to lead together, providing an opportunity for Cal to slither back to the top. 

[themeyeristmovement]

brushstrokesmcgee replied to your photoset “We will carry each other into the Light. Hugh Dancy as Cal Roberts,...”

Is that something Dads do now or is it a Meyerist thing? Or just a Cal thing?

elephantandthedove replied to your photoset “We will carry each other into the Light. Hugh Dancy as Cal Roberts,...”

This entire little ritual was kind of fascinating. Cal comes in, opens up his shirt, lays the baby on his chest for 20 minutes or whatever. It's like he's trying to have the baby imprint with him.

I interpreted it as a Meyerist thing. It does feel very ritualistic. I’m imagining there’s some pseudo-science explanation Steve stitched together, similar to teens being Hyper Sensitized. Babies need to have at least 20 minutes a day skin to skin contact with a man a day to help them bond with both the male and female or some such. So Cal is initially standing in for the “absent” father for the good of the child, until little Forest Silas gets his name.