Big O Season 2 Finale

[Anubis]

THIS THREAD WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS

OK, what just happened here? This finale left as many questions open if not more than the first season. Pretty well executed, but huh? The season was seeping with dark city traits IMO, but this finale left everything WTF. I am going to have to watch the series from scratch all over again, both seasons, after S2 comes on DVD, and see if it makes more sense. To me it seems like some kind of 40 year old humanity study on a city large scale. Some of the shots implies that most everyone there was an android wether they knew it or not. Is that possible? Roger's informant turned out to be an android even though there was never any reference to that as well. That's what I take from this "stage" they set up. Kind of a "dark city" that we set up ourselves, to learn from after a big war that scorced a lot of the earth. See if they would repeat the same mistakes? I don't know.

Either way, I am confused.

Eva made more sence in its original ending to me (after I saw it twice though).

Edited November 3, 2003 by Anubis

[bandit29]

Join the club lol I dunno WTF that ending was all about. There are rumors of a third season floating around.

[NSJ23]

Yeah, that was a Big WTF ep.

But I still enjoyed it.

[Effect]

I'm throwing in my hat on this. I missed most of season 2 and even season 1's finale so this episode was even more of a WTF. Usually I can pick up on things to and still understand things but that wasn't even possible with this. It seems like this like said very Dark City plus a mix of, what was the name of that movie with Jim Carry where his entire life was broadcasted on TV.

[Mechafan]

I missed most of season 2 also but seen the finale and was like what is going on. Will we ever know the truth. This is like X-Files, which reminds me I still waiting for the truth on that one.

[Anubis]

I'm throwing in my hat on this. I missed most of season 2 and even season 1's finale so this episode was even more of a WTF.  Usually I can pick up on things to and still understand things but that wasn't even possible with this. It seems like this like said very Dark City plus a mix of, what was the name of that movie with Jim Carry where his entire life was broadcasted on TV.

Truman Show. The series really did come out kind of a hybrid of both it and Dark City, at least to me. What it meant exactly, we may never know. I can't say I'm happy for another TV Eva-type finale, but the series was pretty good overall. I had stronger conclusions coming out of Serial Experiment Lain, though. I still don't know how Dorothy got up without her memory circuits.

I look forward to sitting through both seasons on dvd and seeing if it clicks better. One episode a week probably did not help it any.

Edited November 3, 2003 by Anubis

[Yang_Neumann]

Member #5 of the WTF club here. I knew it was going to end with more questions than answers from the moment I heard season two was being made exclusively for Cartoon Network (Anime Insider # due to the demand for some closure on the series and its characters. I missed the first half of the finale. Was whatever happened in the first twelve minutes of the final episode of any signifigance to the end, or would it have confused me more than I've already been in the past 20 hours.

[JsARCLIGHT]

From what I gathered the ending was a mish-mash of themes, leaving us with several feelings on what the "truth" was:

Truth #1) The city was nothing more than a fabrication, a TV show for some unseen audience that began 40 years ago... all the characters were players on a stage made to exsist in the present. The bizzare flashbacks, flash forwards and a few flash sideways were glimpses not of memories but of other shows that happened on that same stage in the past. This point is driven home by the somewhat retroactive ending with everything "back to the way it started" as if the show was begging again for a second run.

Truth #2) The city was actually the remains of one that fell in a cataclysmic war 40 years ago by unknown forces only to somehow rise from the ashes , in the process loosing their memories so the horrible events would never happen again.

Truth #3) (my personal favorite) the writers wanted to get artsy with it and threw in a ton of unresolved elements just to make us wonder what the hell was going on in the first place just so they could shoehorn a season three in later on down the line.

I myself do not like the Big O. It is a very self-absorbed show that doesn't do much to heighten the genre and to me reeks of Japanese Batman the Animated Series ripoff with a few big robots thrown in for good measure. They never explained anything and when the show ends it is no wonder everyone is lost. They introduced too many themes with not enough development or character depth to support those themes and the show just... is. It spins it's metaphysical wheels and goes nowhere other than shaking in place. Makes me wonder why I watched it in the first place... oh yeah, I remember now... I thought it was going somewhere.

[BoBe-Patt]

man I'm so confused about this ending. It was so quick and easy how it ended. So the "angel" type big O and big O walked into each other and next thing I know roger and dorothy are behind that blond girl. After that, the credits start coming up and roger is now driving down the street and dorothy and that blond girl are just standing there. WTF is that all about? Man this posts more questions than answers. SIGH! these anime cartoons and their WTF endings!

[Effect]

This is the major thing I hate about japanese animated shows. While the overall shows are good the endings are usually horrible or confusing as hell with no sense of closure. I'm not sure if this is a cultural thing or not but I'm tired of it. Its one thing to leave openings for a sequel, that's all good but not like this.

Edited November 4, 2003 by Effect

[jwinges]

I agree...wtf! I'm pretty sure there will be a season 3.

[David Hingtgen]

Anyone love the "Ep 20" opening at the beginning?

Anyways---huh, wha? I lean more towards the "Truman Show" explanation than anything else. They've been showing there's no sky for a while in zoomed-out shots of the city, it's a LOT like the Truman Show's upper level. Heck, having it all a show gone wrong explains a lot.

At least Macross shows make sense at the end. Usually everything's been blown up to save someone, and people head off to further reaches of the galaxy.

[zeus the zentran]

i thought the ending was disapointing.i felt it was kind of cop-out.that it was all just a computer program.

[Nied]

I liked it. It seems to me that while they didn't answer anyone's questions, they did give us enough clues to figure it out for ourselves, that in itself is cool. Now we just need to figure it out.

One little piece of this puzzle no one else seems to have noticed: Did anyone else notice that Big Venus's head showed up before in the first season on the body of a different Mega Deaus? And in that episode Angel was yelling at Roger not to destroy the head because that's where the memories are stored?

I haven't figured out the signifigance of that but I'm sure there is one.

[Keith]

You know, when the first episode of the second season played, I thought "well, it's a little weak, but it'll get better." IT DIDN'T! The whole freakin' second season was weak. THERE IS NO SECOND SEASON OF BIG O, IT ENDED ON THE 13TH EPISODE, PERIOD!

I love introspective meditational crap as much as the next guy, if not more. But it absolutely has to be substanciated in something more solid than vague wandering. Evangelion showed how this can be perfectly executed, Orguss did as well, but this ending is nowhere near either of those.

Because I'm a completist, and did so love the first season, I'll probably pick up the second season too (during one of RSI's imfamous sales), but I'm definately dissapointed with that weakass ending. It meant nothing, there was no solution to the mystery, or any gratifying conclusion to the mysteries of the first season whatsoever, anywhere in this second season. All the creativity & class is devoid here..... I'll be fair, maybe it's just the fault of a bad dub translation....yeah, that's gotta be it!

Seriously though, this "it's all about nothing" is well & fine when you're watching something like Mulholland drive. But when everything was set up so neat & tidy in the first season, this is just such a freakin' huge insult.

Don't try to rationalize it

Don't let them trick you into thinking it's an artsy way to end it

Don't fall for it!