Disjointed thoughts on Carol And The End of the World

Last weekend, I watched Carol & The End of the World with my wife.

We do this thing where we grab a TV show or movie and then hyper-obsess over it for a few weeks or months. We watch it, discuss it, re-watch it, find video essays on the topic, re-watch it, and keep talking about it until there's nothing left to learn or say about it. It's a lucky thing we are the same in this regard, otherwise we would probably drive each other up the wall with our nonstop chatter.

We are obsessing over Carol & The End of the World this time.

The show's premise follows a straightforward pre-apocalyptic setup: A planetary mass named Keppler 9-c will destroy the planet and kill everyone in a few months. The certainty of death causes most people to go into a berserk-yolo-follow-your-dreams state that permeates every single aspect of life. In a world where everyone is learning to play the bass and traveling to Tibet to find their "true selves", Carol seems much more content with finding meaning in life's smaller joys.

The show gave me plenty to think about, and while I am still not 100% sure about what everything means, I wanted to share some of these thoughts. Of course, I am still not very good at writing and don't know how to put all these vague ideas and notions into a consistent paragraph-driven form, so here it is:

It reminds me of Majora's Mask

The show reminds me the most of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. I mean, there is an obvious similarity in the setting: There is a massive planetary body threatening to kill everyone, and there is certainty on when this will happen.

As a kid, the strangest aspect of the game for me (and if you played it, you know there's a lot of weird stuff going on) was that everyone in Clock Town seemed not to care too much about it. They could see the moon, and some of them made comments about it, but they were all so distracted by their problems and obligations that most of the time didn't even seem to register that they were all going to die, at least until the end was nigh.

It was strange, but very "in character" for the world of Termina.

For a 10-year-old that was madness, but now I know that's the way most of us live our lives. Yeah, sure, there is no reminder of death hanging up in the sky, visible at all times, but we all will, with 100% certainty die one day.

The show has pretty much the same strange-but-in-character energy to it. It reminds me of MM, and because of that, it feels a little bit like home.

It reminds me of Kentucky Route Zero

And I'm not even sure why.

Is it the aesthetics? Maybe, they are both beautiful, colorful, stylish, and use many of the same visual resources.

Is it the tone and themes? Both stories deal with many of the same themes and ideas, sometimes with striking tonal similarities, perhaps it's that.

I think the clearest connection between the two happens in the seventh episode, The Beetle Broach. Carol, Donna, and Luis spend some time looking for a beetle broach in the office's lost & found room and wonder about the stories behind a collection of mundane objects.

Later in the episode, they made an important realization about the lost objects and whether they are truly lost, and the people who currently work at The Distraction. They were all lost at some point but managed to find themselves (and eventually, a community) in an unexpected place, under totally unexpected circumstances.

Maybe it reminds me of The Zero, where all lost objects (and people) eventually wound up.

Maybe it feels a bit like a funeral for two nameless horses, I still don't know.

So, is it like a purgatory?

In episode 3, Luis proposes an explanation for the state of the world: They are all dead and this is purgatory.

Is it possible that in a previous life, Carol was a surfer, that episode 9 is a chronicle of that life, and that she drowned? Yeah, that's possible.

Is it possible that Donna died in a car crash coming back from a Christmas dinner with her family, tired from overwork? Yeah, sure.

Is the weird opening scene with a bunch of ghosts having a party some sort of threshold between life and death? Maybe.

I'm not convinced the show takes place in Limbo. Even if that's the case, the "they were dead all along!'' trope does not seem to add anything to the story, so I decided to just ignore the possibility.

The Captain

The captain goes down with the ship, unless it's the end of the world, and said captain is very, very into deserts and arid landscapes.

I like how this encompasses a lot of what the show is about, and I like the amount of self-compassion the captain has for himself. It's a good way to live the last few months of a life filled with regrets.

Hedonism and meaning

The end of the world shown in this show is a bit different from how most media portrays it. It does not become an apocalyptic landscape ruled by cruelty, violence, and chaos.

It's quite cozy and chill, people just want to live their last days doing the things they love, and most people seem OK, maybe that's the weirdest thing about the show. Knowing it will all end soon is the nudge they need to do what they want to do: Travel the world, learn to surf, write a novel, find love in unexpected places, and go for it.

It's not all rosy and perfect, though. This is a world full of abandoned children and dogs, left behind by people who decided they were too heavy a weight to carry. It's also a world full of numbness and superficiality, where people try to cut connections with others in order to alleviate the pain of knowing that very soon, those connections will cease to exist.

People seem hyper-obsessed with engaging in pleasurable experiences, and many of them seem to have fallen totally out of touch with the people around them. One of my favorite depictions is Jannet and her group of friends, who seem to be very into Tibetan culture, but just at a surface/touristy level. From the outside, you can see they are just a bunch of condescending (though well-meaning) people who are more in love with the idea of Tibetan culture, than any genuine connection with reaching peace and true understanding within themselves.

Carol is different. She has always known exactly who she is, and what she wants in life. She seems like the type of person who finds joy in the mundane, someone for whom "This is nice" is more than good enough. Her sister gets it, and it's what she's always admired about Carol.

She also seems to pay attention to non-events. Her first memory is about a dog not growling, and she is happy when a child does not insult her without reason.

The one thing that seemed to be missing from her life was friendship and bonds with people outside of her family, but she managed to gain the appreciation and friendship of the other people at The Distraction.

I like that, I like that This is nice is more than good enough, I like she is true to herself, and that people around her can recognize that and connect with her in a meaningful way.

This is nice.