I've been on the fence about Nora's truth/lie. Knowing she has a track record of lying throughout the series, I am leaning more towards the conclusion that she lied. At the same time though, she could very well be telling the truth. I guess I'm just having trouble finding the logic in her getting this one guy to build a whole machine just to send her back. Personally, I believe she backed out and got out of the machine (We don't really know if it even works or not, despite the "fossil".) due to fear. I don't necessarily think she was scared of being zapped into this "new place", but she was scared of what she would see. She told Matt before she got into the machine that he could tell people whatever he wanted in terms of what happened to her. I feel like she decided to change her name and live on her own, and Matt covered for her. Not that anyone was probably looking for her (other than Kevin), but she probably wanted to avoid the embarrassment. She was conflicted through the whole series so I think it's definitely plausible she backed out of it. At the end when she told Kevin, I look at that as her telling a story that she wanted to believe in order for her to want to get over her family. Kevin believed her (or he says he did), but I guess whether or not she was telling the truth was not important in that he found her and they were together again. I, too, love the laid back feel of the finale. Episode 7 was incredibly intense and I just felt at peace throughout the finale (though I thought Kevin had alzheimer's or something for a while)
This series was incredible and sits at the top as my favorite show of all time. I've seen some episodes of season 3 several times but I'd love to watch the whole season again without having to wait for the weekly episodes. Season 2 was my favorite and may still be, but I'm not sure. Each season really is so different and I love that. This show even inspired my thesis idea!