MovieChat Forums > Ashes to Ashes (2009) Discussion > Questions / plot hole?

Questions / plot hole?

posted 13 years ago by youareinvisible
7 replies | jump to latest

Just finished watching LOM and accidentally read about the ending of Ashes to Ashes. Under normal circumstances I'd be pissed off for getting spoiled, but in this case I'm glad. That saved me a lot of wasted time. I spent some time reading threads in this forum but there are some points that don't make sense in relation to the connection of the two shows.

So it turns out that Gene's world is limbo, and everyone one in his team, including Ray and Chris, is a dead cop that appeared there in similar fashion to Sam Tyler's, that is thinking they traveled back in time or something. In LOM, s02e01, the bad guy (I forget his name), reveals to everyone in the team what Sam told him about the future. Now, if everyone in the team was in a similar state like Sam Tyler's (dead/comatose, thinking they came from another time), but each one was supposedly not talking about it in fear of ridicule, wouldn't that make them aware of their shared fate? Or does none remember of their previous life except Sam? Correct me if I'm wrong, without telling me to watch A2A, because I'm not planning to.

On a minor note, what is the nature of time in the limbo world? Is it continuous? Is the limbo world some sort of template and a new instance of it gets created for each dead cop, set in a different time (1973 for Sam, 1981 for Alex). But Ray and Chris are there during both times and they are dead cops themselves right? So it has to be continuous. So if the limbo world runs independent of the person experiencing it, did it "pause" during the time between Sam regaining consciousness after the surgery and committing suicide?

[–] Smegger 13 years ago

Chris, Ray etc had forgotten their previous life, maybe the way they died, they didnt want to remember....though it may also be the case that they hadnt actually wrote the ending of A2A which reveals it all. Im going with the fact that they were deeply ingrained in Genes world, they had no recollection of anything else

As for the time...thats Genes doing..I assume he set it, and even though Shaz from A2A is from the "future" as well, they all appear in the timeline of Gene...ie the time from LOM to A2A is still going on, just as it is in the real world, just 30 odd years back

And A2A is a good watch..esp the last season

I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Orlando_Gardner 12 years ago

Now, if everyone in the team was in a similar state like Sam Tyler's (dead/comatose, thinking they came from another time), but each one was supposedly not talking about it in fear of ridicule, wouldn't that make them aware of their shared fate? Or does none remember of their previous life except Sam? Correct me if I'm wrong, without telling me to watch A2A, because I'm not planning to.

No, they just plum forgot. Alex in A2A also starts to forget Molly's face and other aspects of her life. Shaz, Ray and Chris were all there just that little bit too long and they forgot who they really were.

On a minor note, what is the nature of time in the limbo world? Is it continuous? Is the limbo world some sort of template and a new instance of it gets created for each dead cop, set in a different time (1973 for Sam, 1981 for Alex). But Ray and Chris are there during both times and they are dead cops themselves right? So it has to be continuous. So if the limbo world runs independent of the person experiencing it, did it "pause" during the time between Sam regaining consciousness after the surgery and committing suicide?

It is continuous, but it is obviously outside of time. We see this in A2A. Sam and Alex are not the only ones to be taken here, they are they only two we get to follow. There could have been many between Sam and Alex, we just haven't seen them. Also right at the end of A2A we see a new guy enter Fenchurch asking where his iPhone is.

As I said above it is continuous to those in it but it is also outside of time. There was no "pause" when Sam left as there is no real time in the construct. We see this throughout both LoM and A2A, the whole first two seasons of A2A takes place while Alex is being treated for the gun shot wound, probably a couple of hours, yet in Fenchurch a year has passed.

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." Ambrose Bierce

[–] Sakurako_Chan 12 years ago

The main difference I noticed, and I think it's also mentioned in A2A is that Sam and Alex were both in Comas, whereas everyone else was already Dead. Maybe that's the reason they kept their memories?

[–] The-Peake 12 years ago

Bingo. Sam and Alex were still alive but comatose, and thus experienced a bleed-through between the two worlds. All other characters were fully dead, and fully inhabited Gene's world.

What I don't know is how Gene was able to help Sam 'move on' whilst also apparently forgetting his own role in Limbo? The last series is written so as to seem to the viewer that Gene was involved with Sam's death, and the first-time viewer has no way of guessing the Limbo truth, but all the suspense built up over Gene's role in Sam's death kind of falls apart on repeated viewings.

I think I liked it better when he just said "Annyong".

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] emm386 12 years ago

I'd wondered that as well, if he'd guessed about Nelson from some of the things he'd said...