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Last Man On Earth: The show about which whom we should talk [SPOILERS, so to speak]
Posts
http://www.hitfix.com/the-fien-print/last-man-on-earth-finale-will-forte-explains-that-last-shot-and-the-seasons-learning-curve
Will Forte: Yeah, it's all gonna be in space. It's only Jason. We're gonna pay him $5 an episode and... No, I honestly have no idea. We truly don't know what the size and scope of that storyline will be.
HitFix: But he's sorta available for you hypothetically?
Will Forte: Hypothetically. He is so wonderful and so busy. I've always had somewhat of a plan for what we could do with that character, but I certainly don't want to take advantage of his friendship, because he's a friend first. We'd love for him to be involved on whatever level he's comfortable. He's got a wife and kid and a million offers to do a million things, so I certainly want to be respectful of his life.
Anyway, as for other Phil...
Dude is legitimately willing to murder 14% of the world population over a personality clash.
He's basically history's greatest monster.
Yeah, Tandy was a bit nuts at times. He literally survived the end of human civilization as we know it. It happens.
Anyway
I don't think you can be to hard on new-Phil. Old-Phil basically admitted he thought about killing Todd and wanted to kill new-Phil. I think once you know that you can't trust Tandy and when there are only 7 people in a group, why would you risk keeping him around?
That being said, OG-Phil is a much more interesting character than new-Phil.
He's a dickhole.
Tandy's dickholeness doesn't remove that.
It's like Carol said,
Old Phil is terrible because he once though about killing someone.
So support the new Phil, who actually went through with it.
It's like a puzzle that has the right pieces but none of them were put together properly.
You know, like superman v batman
Really liked the end. Not sure why everyone keeps saying Phil II was going to Kill Tandy. He left him with enough supplies to get to the next town. He was banished not left to die.
First, no, he didn't leave Phil with enough supplies. He gave 20 minutes worth of food to a dude who had already gone three days without food.
Second, if old Phil was actually within a 2 days walk to the next town (as opposed to being left to die), here's a thought: Why not just drop old Phil into the next town? Leaving him within walking distance of the next town just doesn't make any sense. It would have been 15 minutes of extra driving by truck.
Third, there's no reason to believe that old Phil was actually competent enough to survive on his own in the middle of nowhere. The reason he was able to get by before is because he had access to vehicles to get around. He doesn't have that anymore.
Finally, old Phil at least has the excuse of being emotional and thinking in the moment. Which, for a traumatized survivor of a post-apocalypse, is perfectly understandable. New Phil made a cold, calculated decision with all of the above information in mind.
So I don't have any reason to believe that New Phil actually thought old Phil would survive the week. The only reason he gave old Phil 20 minutes worth of supplies was for plausible deniability, so at least he could tell himself "hey, I tried."
Good points on all of it. I don't like New-Phil, I was just thinking that his reasoning wasn't totally off-base for getting rid of this guy who has been nothing but a pain in the ass to everyone. At this point we're not even sure if anyone else but Carol (and possibly Todd) had a problem with it.
But I don't really want to over analyze as I just really enjoy the show.
That was a good and ballsy show with a good and ballsy ending. I look forward to next season.
he's a danger to himself. he's an annoyance to the group at best. I'd argue the military guy who leaves people without a vehicle in the dessert is probably more dangerous
Now, if new-Phil was a more thoughtful person, he would have gathered that while an immature dick, Phil was ultimately harmless and occasionally helpful, you can't really fault him for making that decision.
I think Carol was more a leader than New phil and the group will kinda collapse without Phil as a scapegoat for their issues.
It seemed to me that New Phil was just happy to have an excuse to kick Old Phil out of the group. He had an open contempt for Old Phil and went out of his way to be an asshole, and was smug as shit just in general.
"Oh, it's terrible in Tuscon. New Phil rules with an iron fist. If we don't do what he says, he tortures us cruelly by making us eat hot peppers until we comply - we can't figure out where he got them all!"
Because killing off 1/7th of the world population over a simple personality clash is completely rational.
When you know you have to repopulate the Earth eventually, bringing the available genetic stock down to 6 people is just a terrible idea.
Attempted murder is when you try to kill someone and fail, not when you try to kill someone and then chicken out before you do any actual harm to the person.
There's only one Phil guilty of attempted murder. And it's not the guy who got exiled.
He's a veteran. Shouldn't he know how dehydration works? I mean, for Christ Sakes, he already saw the shape that New Phil was in after spending only one day in the sun. And he was going to have him walk two days in a dirt road in Tuscon?
Have we mentioned that New Phil decided to do ambush old Phil without consulting the rest of the group yet? Because we should totally mention that. Because I'm pretty sure that everyone else would have said that Phil might be a terrible person, but he certainly didn't deserve to die, which was obviously going to happen if he was abandoned in the middle of nowhere with enough food and water to last for 20 minutes.
New Phil was honest about not wanting to be President.
At this point, he's basically a dictator.
I think it's really important to remember that Real Phil survived a post-apocalypse. He a liar who just watched as all of reality crumbled before him. He's looted the homes of corpses just to survive. You'd have to be a crazy person not to be severely damaged by that. Most of his faults are due to his insecurity. You know what's a legitimate source of insecurity? Knowing that 7 billion people just spontaneously died and you're basically the last person on Earth.
A lot of the characters make note on the fact that Real Phil was smart enough to think of the billboards. But here's the real question: Why didn't anyone else think of that?
Hell, Real Phil's not exactly a bright person. If Fake Phil really put his mind to it, he could have placed ham radios throughout the country, along with instructions on where to find them. But he didn't. It's not that he wasn't capable. For some reason, he just never really tried to put his mind to it. No one did, except for Real Phil, the dumbest man left on Planet Earth.
I think Real Phil is simply more sensitive to loneliness than anyone else on the show, and so it's taken a bigger toll on him. And while he has acted like a jerk on numerous occasions, I also don't think that the rest of the group has ever done a good job of reaching out to him up until Carol at the very end. The fact that no one knew that Real Phil had a brother implies that no one ever had any interest on getting to know him beyond a completely superficial level.
I don't see Fake Phil as the cult leader type. I think he's been raised his entire life to be a strong person, and he resents Real Phil for being weak and insecure, and he wants to set an example to the group that weakness won't be tolerated. Basically, Fake Phil is a Cobra Kai, and Real Phil is Alison Brie.
One thing that would be interesting is if it turns out that Real Phil and Fake Phil are actually related, which we learn when Fake Phil mentions that he has a distant cousin who's an astronaut.
Like logically immunity for whatever it was wouldn't stop at 7 people. Smaller towns Phil didn't visit and places like Army bases or quarantine camps he wouldnt think to visit might be full of people but not be sweeping for stragglers.
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You should tweet that suggestion to the writers, because it sounds like they're just making it up as they go along.
And it makes perfect sense on how they managed to stay sane while Phil and Carol went crazy.
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i.e., Jack hates Marla at the beginning of the movie because she's obviously a fraud, who makes him insecure because he's secretly a fraud.
So everyone in the group hates Real Phil because Real Phil makes them remember how easy it is to get kicked out of the group, and so they scapegoat on him in order to set themselves apart from him.
Seriously brilliant fan theory.
You can't repopulate from those numbers. You just can't. Not even in a sitcom.
If that's truly all you have to work with, then it's all about how the last humans live out their remaining time.
(apparently, being awful to each other. quelle surprise!)
I guess the general Fox-watching audience isn't a space nerd like me.
But then there are plenty of other things about this show that you can only put down to hand-waving/*television-magic*.
No cars blocking any of the roads, for one.
Overall I've really enjoyed this show, probably one of the strongest pilots for a show I've seen in years, then it went all over the place.
The show isn't overly concerned with science.
I mean, that cow is lactating despite it possibly being the only cow in existence.
The gas for the cars wouldn't be viable to use as fuel after 2 years. The cow would produce zero milk. The water would in the towers would likely be disgustingly filthy and needing cleaning. It's a nice high horse you have there, but all people tend to hand wave away things they don't fully understand. I am certain there is more stuff I missed, and/or some of the stuff I mentioned has an explanation. It just sucks when a TV show goes into an area you know stuff about because then the mistakes are so obvious.
From what we can tell, all of the buildings are impeccable. Which means that the virus essentially operated like the rapture, where everyone's bodies vanished into total nothingness almost instantly. Does that make any sense at all? Of course not. Just go with it.
I'm probably just nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, really. :P
It really doesn't bother me to be honest, I have a pretty high tolerance for suspension of disbelief etc.
The whole setup is there to enable the character's own narratives, not necessarily the narrative of the world they inhabit.
If you start pulling out too many loose threads on this show, the whole conceit/concept unravels, much like Carol's knitting. :snap:
So right now, I'm liking the idea of Real Phil stumbling upon a military base and hearing, "Oh, your name is Phil Miller? We had a guy named Phil Miller here before. We had to kick him out for being an asshole."
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Although yeah, with the other causality-holes on top of this, it really isn't about making sense.
And as far as "attempted murder," yes, it doesn't count because Phil stopped himself, but he never told anybody that. Another fun bit of communication breakdown that the show thrives on.
I've started to think that unless something comes up in the second season, this is Phil in hell or purgatory.
It's not just the missing corpses but the absolute lack of semi-feral pets, the lack of wildlife, the lack of more wandering farm animals. Yeah, a plague covers humanity nicely but few of those jump species, let alone all domesticated and wild ones.
And all of the coincidences. It's been funny to watch Phil get hoisted by his own petard but that's a one note song and used too many times. To me, the only way it makes sense is if there's something or someone constantly playing with Phil to see what he does. Or if he learns anything.
I've been kinda disappointed there weren't more flashbacks to that birthday party in the first episode. You know, something to give Phil's character more framework. Something to explain why he keeps jumping into conversations with one-ups and lies.
which is a totally normal thing, magnified by a million because of all the other people that aren't there to move onto if you disappoint someone
just a part of why he lies the way he lies, I think.
Why did they find a cow? Because randomly finding a cow is funny.
Why are there no corpses anywhere? Because corpses everywhere would be gross and depressing and decidedly unfunny.
How is AstroMiller still in orbit? Because it's funny.
I hope they just never explain most of this stuff. The less they explain, the more random shit they can make up on the fly.
I also hope we never see Tucson again and rarely mention the folks there. It would be kind of a fun running joke if Phil and his crew find or found a new community each season, then someone fucks it up and they need to bail. Maybe each season they pick up a new permanent addition.
I just hope Kristen Schaal is in it for the long term, because her chemistry with Forte makes the show. Well, that and Forte's chemistry with himself.
Wait, did Phil leave all his balls behind? If so, that's weirdly tragic. I wonder if he'll make more.