The Ending

I just now finished the ending. I was putting it off, assuming that it was possible there would be more episodes down the line and the last episode would have some sort of cliffhanger that I wouldn't want to end on. Boy was I wrong! In fact, at the very last moment before everyone clapping, I thought "Well.....I guess there isn't going to be any second season of this. I guess I won't have to wonder what happens". It was both a very satisfying and very depressing feeling. I had grown to really look forward to seeing these characters, even the ones I didn't really like.

I loved reading the comments in this thread, too. I actually grew to love Sylvie for some reason, understanding her toughness as a New Yorker, which is definitely a common personality trait for them. I also appreciated that she, whether she wanted to be or not, was as much of a blunt A-hole as the rest of her family. In the last scene, where she's crying and actually reflecting on Horace, I wondered if she blamed herself for the knife being out, and also if she'd thought about what 'kind of man' Horace might have become after he told her he thought he knew what he was going to do with himself, and they both smiled. She had to tell his son there was nothing noteworthy to speak of about him, but that might have changed, and I assumed that might be part of the reason for the tears, which she didn't seem to shed for anyone else in the show besides herself. What's great about the show is that there were so many different things you could think or take from it.

You know how when you're a little kid, Disney movies and Don Bluth movies were meant to teach you empathy and deal with death and sadness...I feel like this show is a lesson in empathy and compassion for adults.

"If the rule you followed brought you to this...of what use was the rule?"

Louis just went full on Shakespeare in that one!

Also, not sure if it has been mentioned on this message board but who/what was that person supposed to be in the end, walking into the bar just as it faded to black? It was too brief to see if there was any likeness to a character on the show in the unfortunatley low picture quality I was watching it on. But did anyone notice that? Or could it somehow just have been a mistake, not supposed to be shown in the final cut?

I don't believe that the implications of the ending was that mentally ill people are inherently dangerous, but rather, that every mentally ill person relies on society and the government to keep a handle on their illness. Pete's constant struggles with even obtaining his meds, paired by the constant shrugging from his family led him to that place, and that is the reality of mental illness: Not all mentally ill people are dangerous, but there's potential in many mental illness for its sufferers to become unhinged and do something ill advised.

A really sad ending but I was more depressed when we found out the real reason why Pete'e mother/aunt did not take him when she left.