But then it takes another turn, showing viewer-submitted videos repeating “you are me, and I am you.” Octavio adds the lesson to be learned is that “you and only you are you.” He continues, “the answer to change lies not in a game or a missing girl or a clown-faced boy.
#Where to watch dispatches from elsewhere series#
And there’s something satisfyingly tongue-in-cheek about Segel acknowledging the tropes of TV series and finales in particular, giving everything an intimate, homespun feel inline with the series’ overall aesthetic. Everything about the show, and the game, from the start though had this kind of meta tinge to it, so that’s not necessarily a stretch (even though it increasingly leans into it). This episode, and these last moments in particular, will be polarizing. And then, he tells us to “enjoy Octavio’s final, emotionally satisfying epilogue.” We’re told there were spooky elements and surprise elements, because that’s what Segel likes best. “It’s been about us, all of us making something together,” Segel says straight to the camera, as it zooms out to reveal the entire cast and crew of the series. But you know,” says Fredwynn (or perhaps actually André 3000 at this point). Some moments dipped into self-indulgence, which is not to my taste. “I felt it was well-executed, most of the time.
“I thought it was lovely, just … way out there,” Janice opines, each character speaking a different kind of pre-selected criticism. “I thought it was beautiful,” Simone says. Segel confirms that through layers of meta dialogue, particularly at the end of the hour, when the four leads discuss the show they just watched. But this, “The Boy,” is the finale for us. And it’s good advice.ĭispatches’ penultimate episode was, then, the true finale for its characters. It’s a variant of being in the moment, of taking things one day at a time. “The only thing we need to know at any given time is what to do next,” Janice/the game tells Jason. Janice tells Jason that he’s not unique, and what makes him special is not that he’s different, but that he’s the same. But we also don’t have to lose that former part of ourselves, one that was perhaps more able to access joy. We have to grow up, we have to take responsibility and own our shit and be adults to function in the world, yes. The series reminds us to reclaim childlike wonder, to not give up on that part of ourselves that we may have packed away. It’s another view of the Lee/Clara story, one that manifests itself in the game. His clown-faced-boy past says the same: “You’re 40 years old, and this manchild victim shit has to end!” There is a lot of catharsis here, and so much that Segal seems to have personally poured into the character, the episode, and the series overall (“if you need to write another Muppets movie, I’ll be back,” the boy tells him-one of a number of specific references to Segal’s real life).
Here, and elsewhere, are flickers of inspiration that lead character-Jason to spend four months writing Dispatches from Elsewhere, which Simone reads and gives notes on-including the need for him to take responsibility. Yes it’s something specific from his character’s childhood where he’s told-before all of the burnout and sadness-that he is special, but isn’t it also what each of us is desperate to hear? That we are somehow different from everyone else? When Octavio tells Peter, in a pre-recorded message, that he’s “special,” it makes him cry.
There are some caveats to each, but essentially, the understanding is that there are universal aspects to every character that will somehow resonate with us. Grant) tells us that Peter is us, and that later, Simone, Janice, and Fredwynn are also us. That, of course, ties back in to the series’ first episode where Octavio (Richard E. A truncated version of the game played throughout the season, Jason follows a whimsical set of clues and ends up talking with Janice (Sally Field), who assures him that “your pain, whatever it is, is 0% unique.” Simone gives him a postcard that will take him on a short journey to self-discovery, one that she also experienced, as part of the journey’s “pass it forward” philosophy. We meet Jason in recovery from alcohol addiction, where he meets Simone (Eve Lindley), who is also a different version of her character from the rest of the season. In the finale, we discover his story, and that he is Peter, who is actually Jason Segel … as Jason Segel. It tells, initially, the story of the clown-face boy, a strange figure who has occasionally appeared to Peter (Segel) throughout the season like some kind of Lynchian spectre. In this final episode, “The Boy,” Dispatches really set itself apart in a very meta hour that felt at times like an entirely different show.
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