What a stupid ending! - Ashes to Ashes (2009) Discussion

Maybe you should watch it again. I'm sure you'll enjoy it a bit more with hindsight.

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[–] jimmers 14 years ago

Just because it wasn't what you expected, doesn't mean it's stupid

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Firstly how would Sam possible be alived if he was confirmed to have commited suicide, in Ashes to Ashes before Alex goes into a coma.

All the other people in the world besides the police are fictional creations of Gene's mind.

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[–] Gubby-Allen 14 years ago

Good ending, I didn't take all the other people as all being in Gene's mind - more just an emalgamation of all of the 4 of them, a sub-conscious scenario that fits around them all equally.

Gene was the guide for them all but didn't deem anything to be fictional & in his mind.

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[–] flutterby-7 14 years ago

careful mwzausner, anyone who doesn't like the ending is a troll and should bugger off according to some of the people on here! I totally agree with you...it was moronic...'purgatory for coppers' please!

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[–] Cartman401 14 years ago

This was purgatory for coppers, yes, but that implied purgatory for everyone else, just in a different show, ie not in this story.

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[–] flutterby-7 14 years ago

I can't wait to see the show set in purgatory for chartered accountants

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[–] Johnnyjueves 14 years ago

A stupid ending for a stupid programme. One of the poorest excuses for a police detective programme I've ever had the misfortune to endure. 0/10 for this and for its predecessor too.

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[–] dannyguitar 14 years ago

Johnnyjueves,

you hated it and life on mars but you still watched it through to the end? 5 series? Why? haha

***"What are you going to do, bleed on me?"***

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[–] mwzausner 14 years ago

Because I hoped until the end that Alex could see her daughter again.

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[–] andymcquade 12 years ago

You great... soft... sissy... girlie... nancy... french... bender... Man-United supporting POOF!

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[–] Johnnyjueves 14 years ago

Actually I watched about 5 episodes of Life on Mars and had a hunch that it was going nowhere so I skipped to the end of season one which, incidentally was boring as hell and resolved nothing. Then I watched last 2 episodes of season 2 because I knew the whole of season 2 would be filler. I was livid when the ending was 100 times worse than even I imagined. Ditto for Ashes to Ashes. Even having seen about 1/4 of the series it still felt like I was wasting my time. Now when I watch a new english series I know 15 minutes in if it's going to be a load of *beep* which means that I currently avoid about 90% of UK television. Even flipping coronation street does cop shows better than cop shows these days.

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[–] SteveWasling 14 years ago

I'd like to see you come up with something that made as much sense...

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[–] TheDepressionist 14 years ago

Johnnyjueves, so you hated Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes - yet you watched them all? You might be the biggest moron of all time.

Anyway, back on track. The ending was ok I suppose... A little cliche with the heaven/hell thing. I thought near the start of this series that the corpse guy was a young Gene Hunt - then dismissed that because I thought he didn't have any resemblence to him.
It was nice to see Nelson again though and the very last scene which was like when Sam first entered the office in '73. Wasn't blown away by it... but it will probably grow on me when I watch it again.

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[–] peter-mcgill-1 12 years ago

thanks for your input. Back to Hell's Kitchen and musings about plot holes in Bruce Willis movies, I guess.

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[–] Johnnyjueves 12 years ago

Yes, I pride myself on my short attention span.

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[–] joedixon63 12 years ago

Its meant to be a fantasy series. It therefore has things that are unbelievable and have to be taken at face value for entertainment reasons.

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[–] Cartman401 14 years ago

An ending with Sam and Alex alive really wouldn't have made that much sense.

This was purgatory, albeit seemingly only for coppers.

Would a shared consciousness experience between two living people have been a more satisfactory ending? I'd have hated it.

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[–] oakcourt 14 years ago

Well Cartman they could have done a Bobby Ewing thing as in Dallas (if you are old enough to remember that if not basically Bobby Ewing died then the writers made it into a dream sequence). I have to say though I found the whole concept fascinating and that's what kept me glued I think all the 5 years, the whole time travel type thing. I found tonight's ending particularly poignant and again quite intriguing, the idea of lost souls walking the world etc. I am not particularly religous or anything like that but I do believe we all go on to somehwere and some of us do go before others think we should have done (I know of two people who died young. So sorry I disagree but we are all entitled to our opinon on this board.

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[–] Cartman401 14 years ago

Oh I remember the Bobby Ewing shower ending :D

But thats my point. Yes they could have had it just Alex and Sam, alive, but that would most likely have sucked. I found the ending the same as you, poignant in many ways.

The interesting thing here for me, and probably the objection for those that didn't like it, was this this started off about Sam Tyler, but ended up being an ensemble piece. We started off caring about Sam getting back to the real world, and then are forced to care about the other characters moving on with their lives. Notably series 1 and 2 of ashes are about Molly, but they suddenly she's not in the picture. Mommy has died, it's time to move on....

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[–] oakcourt 14 years ago

Ah sorry Cartman I didn't read your post closely enough. It might not have been as bad here but Dallas was quite ridiculous anyway sometimes so it did suck as you say there :).

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[–] milesduh8 14 years ago

It's already been made clear that Sam is dead. He jumped to his death, for goodness' sake. Alex knew this right from the beginning, she just could not figure out why he went back into Gene's world. This ending pretty much explained what type of 'world' they are in, what they were meant to do, where they were meant to go. It's not a 'it's my own interpretation' kind of thing. The ending is what it is, simple as that. They were all in limbo and they had to go to the pub (heaven). The only difference between Sam and Alex was that when Sam went back to Gene, he already knew he was dead, whereas Alex didn't. And this is what she had to figure out.

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[–] poofta1970 14 years ago

It poses more questions than it answers.

Did Sam jump off a roof after coming out of a coma or did he just never come out of his coma (was his numbness another form of limbo or a level of hell which he escaped when he realised the truth)?

If so is the beginning of Episode One part of Drake's Limbo, the man on the roof does seem an incongruity (if so when and how was the trigger pulled on her)?

Did Alex wake up at the end of Season 2 only to have a relapse or was that an illusion?

Did Gene forget his death (as Alex says) or was he just defending the illusion to give them something to believe in over and above temptation?

Considering this involves deception and a degree of temptation on his part too is he that different from Keats?

If the Railway Arms is specific to Ray and Chris's time with Gene and Sam why does it appear for Shaz and Alex (wouldn't they have all been more content at Luigi's, was he like Nelson, was Annie)?

Why did Shaz have a limbo fantasy of the 80's did she want to be like Juliet Bravo (she must of died after 1995 going by the soundtrack of her death)?

What's leading iPhone cop to 1983 limbo?

Wasn't "Heroes" too obvious a song and it's from the wrong era wouldn't "Criminal World" have been better?

And what is it with Bowie anyway (and the too numerous to mention Doctor Who references)?

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[–] poofta1970 14 years ago

^How did Sam know?
How does iPhone cop know?
How do any of them know?

Knowing about Sam Tyler is not necessary for being in Gene's world.

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[–] poofta1970 14 years ago

You seem to misunderstand the point I'm making.

Alex doesn't need to know about Sam to be part of Gene's world.

Sam's suicide may well be as much part of her limbo world as "It's A Knockout" with foam head Gene.

Look what happens to Sam.

He is tempted with the offer to escape from Gene back to the 'real' world but when he gets there he can't feel anything.

This could be the same as Keats tempting Shaz, Ray and Chris with an afterlife on their own terms.

To return to 'reality' he had to leave his team in danger and he took the temptation but his 'real' world wasn't real.

So it's possible that he never woke up from his coma.

Instead he was tempted away from Gene and co when all he needed to do for salvation was to believe in the Jean Genie and after a successful job done go to the pub something he managed to do.

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[–] bronxe100 14 years ago

Sam did return to the real world, thats how Alex knew of his trip back to 1973. He didn't feel alive in the real world, he had moved on and his return to the real world was holding him back. His life was over with. Although I agree he was tempted back in order to expose and destroy Gene's world, had he done so he would have probably confined them all to an existence in hell.

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[–] Knight_Yellow 14 years ago

You are missing the point...

For Alex to have previous knowledge about Gene, Chris, Ray, Tyler and the whole 1973 thing... she had to have read Sams notes and tape messages that he made when he woke up from his coma.

The absolute stone cold carved in granite fact that she did know about them before she was shot (hence her conversation with her kid in the car before she was shot... in which she mentions Sam and how hes special)....

Means that Same did wake up or it would have been impossible for Alex to have that information.

The reason he felt numb and detatched from the real world is simply because he had gotten used to the coma world and had friends and a love interest there that he was far more attached to than his colleagues in the real world.

In 2006 hes seen spending his police time in meetins talking about statistics and red tape, in 1973 he was making a direct impact on peoples lives... if he needed to get something done he could do it without a mountain of paperwork.

Yeah you could argue that he still left his mum alone by killing himself but then you just need to remember the scene in which he talks to her and alludes to leaving Annie behind and how he misses her.

Sam woke up, or Alex wouldnt have had prior information about Gene... which she clearly did have.

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[–] poofta1970 14 years ago

No you are missing the point.

Only Alex is supposed to know about Sam's notes but everyone in Gene's office ends up there.

So she didn't need to know about Sam before going there, so it's possible within the story (even though this was clearly not the writers intent) for Sam's actual suicide to be a figment of her imagination.

Alex is a dead cop with issues and like all the other people who never heard of Sam she ends up in Gene's world.

In terms of Sam's story he could now never have woken up, this ending complicates and distorts the rather pleasing ending to LOM.

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[–] bronxe100 14 years ago

No, you are missing the point. Sam woke up, give his testimoney to his time in 1973 (Alex was a colleague who read his notes and recprdings) and was in possession of all this knowledge when she arrived in 1981. It's that simple. There was no hidden layer to the dream world, he did wake up in the real world.

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[–] brownguy2004 14 years ago

one thing it contradicts

is Alex seeing Hunt in her pass, when her mom died.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1070584060

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[–] poofta1970 14 years ago

^This is from a guy who sees Zippy and George and has a conversational relationship with the girl from Test Card F and a woman who get's a wake up call from Roland Rat...Are you sure they know what's real and what's not?

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[–] bronxe100 14 years ago

The world is deliberately surreal to remind the audience and the character that it's not the real world. Even though the test card girl taunted him, she was their to remind Sam what he had to do. Besides, he always woke up after these events as though he was dreaming, so who is to say.

When he woke up it was the real world - bland and dull, none of the excitement, no Gene Hunt to keep him on his toes and no Annie. Nelson told him something to the effect that wherever he feels the most alive is where he belongs. The world may be fake, but the people weren't.

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[–] adster81-1 14 years ago

i want to know what happens to people tha die in the limbo world, when Shaz was stabbed and had she had died (when she was already dead) what happens to her?

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[–] Doris_Wildthyme 14 years ago

I'm not sure. When the woman detective who'd "gone native" while working with the gangsters in series 3 died, Keats was there to claim her soul. Similarly, when Viv died after smuggling a gun into a prison riot, Keats also claimed his soul. Both of them went to hell.

However, when Shaz nearly died, it was in the course of her duty (and, now we can look back on it, startlingly similar to how she died in the "real" world). It is likely that, given the circumstances and given that Gene was present, she might have passed over to Heaven. I'm only guessing though.

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[–] Doris_Wildthyme 14 years ago

Before Alex is even shot and sent back to 1981 she is driving along in her car, talking to her daughter about Sam Tyler's case notes. She was the psychologist that Sam mentioned he was communicating with when he'd woken back up in the 21st Century in the last episode of Life on Mars. If Sam had not woken up, then Alex wouldn't have been able to drive along having that conversation with Molly before she was shot

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[–] poofta1970 14 years ago

Some people perfectly understand the ending but still think it's an overly contrived 'cop' out (even if the acting was great).

It doesn't make that much sense (in it's own terms).

The fantastic may have a warped sense of logic but it has to have a sense of internal logic or it just doesn't work.

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[–] geekgirl76 14 years ago

I'm flashing back to the most wasted hour of my life at Dragon Con a few years ago, watching a room full of people try and reconcile the entire Terminator Universe into one cohesive cannon. *rolls eyes*

Now, I get what both of you are saying, and you're both right. Depending on how you want to look at it. Everything we know about Alex Drake, including the interviews with Sam, the conversation in the car with Molly, even her being shot can all be in her fantasy. OR Sam could have woken from the coma, met Alex and then gone back. Conversely, Sam may have never woken up and only thought he did. I'm seeing it as, if not a complete universe, one that feeds info back and forth between inhabitants. That it's not created completely from Gene's mind alone, but rather an amalgamation of everyone's perception. Gene wasn't really at the explosion when Alex was a little girl, but she's added him to the memory as a way to explain how she ended up in this wacky world and with him specifically.
That made sence in my head, I'm not sure it made the jump though. :)

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[–] bronxe100 14 years ago

Trying to reconcile the entire terminator universe sounds like a royal headache.

The whole premise behind A2A is that someone else from modern times is put into a coma, wakes up and meets Gene Hunt and Co. confirming that it was not just in Sam's head. At the end of LOM Sam chooses to wake up. Frank Morgan, the Hyde number where real life elements depicting in the 70s, Frank being the surgeon who brought him out of the coma, and the hyde number being the hospital room number - his connection to Hyde and real life.

We are meant to believe that Sam spent a brief amount of time recording his testimony of his time in the 70s. Alex had a chance to learn about Sam's case and what had allegedly happened to him. To her surprise, Sam had not imagined any of it.

At the very end of LOM, you can either hear the Doctors or Paramedics state that they are losing Sam (you can hear this through the radio). The television and radio where Sam's portal to 2006. When he killed himself he had crossed over for good and you can safely assume he died in real life and lived in purgatory for another 7 years before finally going to the railway arms one last time.

Sam had another chance at life, he didn't take it, he felt more alive back in the 70s. Alex on the otherhand wanted to get back to her daughter, that was her reason for wanting to retutn home, she didn't want to stay, she missed her daughter dearly. Anyway, she had to accept her fate that she had died and it was time for her to crossover. It was a sad farewell as she wanted to spend eternity with Gene, but he is a glutton for punishment and wants to stay behind to help along more dead people.

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[–] christina_h_3000 14 years ago

Gene, but he is a glutton for punishment and wants to stay behind to help along more dead people.

@bronxe - why punishment - for what?

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[–] rbaylis 12 years ago

There are many references all through the shows to characters gradually forgetting things about their real life prior to death. Gene himself in the last episode has a scene where he appears lost and confused, and says that he had forgotten all about his young self who died.

It has nothing to do with being a glutton for punishment. He simply has suppressed his memories even further to help him cope with the role he has now as being the guide for the lost souls that come to him. I agree that that is also in keeping with his leadership position as a DCI and his "I'm the Sheriff round here' attitude.

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[–] SpurtyKnowledge 14 years ago

I've been cranky this whole season because I felt nothing made sense and I didn't understand people's motives. But the ending? That made sense. It gave me a whole new perspective to the whole series. Heck, it even made me smile which is really, really weird considering they're all dead.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

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[–] Miss_gene_hunt 14 years ago

i thought the ending was good . It was well writen. Better than the whole space ship ending.

I love... I love... I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on"

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