That was hideous, verging on sick. And went well past the show’s well-established internal logic. It’s totally unbelievable that Carol and Erica would be trying to set up a ten-ish year old boy with discipline issues with their baby daughters without realizing that they’re encouraging him to start sexual relationships…

NO AIMEE MANN ?!? I reject this list.

Thanks, Lucille. I'll keep that in mind on my next reading, which will probably be in a fairly soon. I wind up re-reading Saunders' entire body of work about once a year.

I've read Bardo three times now (one of them listening to the audiobook) and that's the one thing I can't figure out. Everyone else's fates seemed fairly clear, but not the Reverend's. Too bad.

More or less agree with you about Lincoln/Bardo, though I liked it maybe a bit more than you did. But Saunders is my favorite writer, bar none, so yes, I was predisposed to like it.

The cover isn't visible anymore at the original address, but I found it here: http://www.motherjones.com/…

>… including the National Enquirer, which is perhaps most famous for bringing Bat Boy into the world.

About the doctoral student looking for a girlfriend: did anyone else think her problem is this: "I took an online Harry Potter test once for a friend, and it said I was a Slytherin". DON'T ADMIT TO ANYONE THAT YOU TESTED AS A SLYTHERIN! That's a giant red flag about your personality.

Clearly, I was wrong.

I love that Lindelof, etc said in interviews over and over that they'd never explain what happened to the Departed… but then at the end, they did!

OK, I know I'm picking nits here, but if you're some guy fucking a nun, or you're a nun fucking some guy, wouldn't you decide together that the best way to enter and leave the house would be THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR, instead of using a ladder to get to the second story? Front door: many plausible explanations. Ladder to…

>If Nora’s experience represents the “other side” with regard to the Sudden Departure,
> then Kevin has been going someplace much, much different. What and where is that place?

Of course! I'm embarrassed I didn't catch that. Thank you - you've saved me looking for it through the entire last episode!

I'm guessing that we're done with Laurie, and that John and the remaining characters never find out what happened to her.

Given that Lindelof was so insistent in interviews during the first two seasons that they would never explain where the Departed went, the ultimate twist to the series would to actually explain it, and to show us that alt-universe in the last ep.

The nun's words are "Does the name Kevin mean anything to you?" Nora COULD be in some future world where the book of Kevin is religious scripture, and there's a religion based around him, and the nun is a Kevin-nun, not a Jesus nun, and the nun is asking that question in the way a nun today might ask "Does the name…

I thought that too, the first time I watched it. But the second time it's pretty clear that Patti took the scalpel from the first briefcase, and the scalpel is the only prop that involved the second Kevin.

Another possibility: I think it's pretty evident from the s3 first ep that older Nora is a carrier pigeon postmistress. Which would imply that she's living in a world where there' s no power. That COULD be Kevin's alternate world post-bombing, or the Departed world, or the "real" world that has somehow gone powerless.…

Forgive me if this has already been discussed here; if it has been, I can't find it.

Not cancellation. The show was renewed a few days ago.