Die. Cry. Hate.

like. what do you mean!! what do you mean you cut the lines where ed tells annie about the letter and they put it together that riley truly is dead but it wasn't his fault and he didn't run away from them and he kept his sobriety to the end!! what do you mean you cut the lines where they get to die knowing their baby boy was brave and strong and did the right thing till the very last moment and all he wanted was to come home to them!!

what do you mean you cut the lines where ali reunites with hassan and tells him i didnt hurt anyone and his dad says of course you didn't and so we get actual resolution about what happens to their relationship after ali has succumbed to the cult brainwashing and turned away from his faith and been groomed into betraying his dad!! and we know that yes it was too late and yes they were both doomed but at least ali died knowing that despite everything his dad never stopped loving him and never thought he was a monster and never ever lost faith in his son's goodness even when ali was in the depths of evil and his dad couldn't save him from it! and hassan gets to die with his son knowing that he forgave him because how could he not forgive him that's his son that's his baby that's his whole world!!!!!

and for what!! what was possibly worth getting rid of these scenes for? ANOTHER paragraph of erin greene having a teenage boy on shrooms epiphany?? another sermon??? another opportunity for mike flanagan to use father pruitt and erin as mouthpieces for his own personal beliefs repeating himself over and over while the other characters die with only the bare minimum of acknowledgment to their entire storylines??? sorry but no amount of metaphors about our atoms returning to the cosmos is going to give me closure when there's literally no emotional resolution for half the fucking cast of characters!!!

it is not enough that we see milly forgive john. it is not enough to take it on faith that the rest of these conversations happened off-camera and the audience just doesn't see it but we should laugh it off and fill in the blanks ourselves. i dont care. i dont care!!!!!!! show me that riley's suffering and his bravery was acknowledged by someone other than his love interest!!! show me that ali was a real fully-fledged person and son and not just some plot device who could have been any random muslim kid bc he was only being used as a narrative pawn for proving a point about christian fundamentalism!!! show me that hassan didnt let his kid die thinking his dad hated him!!!

Charles in Bono's eyes