THE LEFTOVERS: HBO's nondenominational post-rapture series

The last episode is by far the best one yet. I love the Nora characther, and I also have hope now(for the show that is).

Going for the old "make every third episode worthwhile" approach, I guess?

Carrie Coon is awesome. (Also, apparently she is married to Tracy Letts. Neat!)

yeah Nora is great

About 20 minutes in I thought "I don't want the other characters, let's just make this show about Nora please."

otm

Forgot to obtain this week, thanks for reminding me. Although I don't know why I forgot because I love the show so far.

getting so good! last night's was pretty creepy feeling and awesome.

I said to Mr Veg last night, if they succeed at nothing else, they seem to have pretty much nailed the sad banality of a cult

Yes I am one of those people who looked for the contents of May 72 NatGeo

Mr Veg googled May 1972 and the best he could come up with on quick notice was that it is the day that Dwayne the Rock Johnson was born, lol

Here ya go

is no one really watching this show ?

Yeah, I am and loving it. I think I haven't been commenting because I know I'm out of sync with everyone else.

I really, really like it. I still think there's more to Kevin's hallucinations than is being let on even after all the people saw tobacco chewing man in the town meeting a couple of weeks ago. I'm definitely intrigued about the voices in his dad's head and how spot on they seem to be about a lot of things. I'm kind of hoping it isn't actually related to the departed to be honest but if it is then I would posit we're actually closer to it being a conspiracy drama and the people going missing is a Philadelphia Experiment type thing.

Although I love Paterson Joseph I'm not completely digging the Holy Wayne plot, much less how Kevin's son got completely seduced by them since he seems to spend all his screen time questioning what they do.

The GRs are a great concept and I think they're going to become more important as the series continues, but to a large degree it feels like Christopher Ecclestone was only really in the show to give the GRs a more developed arc.

Kevin definitely shagged his daughter's friend, right?

oh god I hope not

I feel like they're leaning heavily on that as a thing that MIGHT happen, or that she wants to happen

also is there anything in the world more lol/terrifying than bored teenagers

xp

really enjoyed how Wayne was positioned as a total con man ... but the twist here is he actually is effective at what he does. was not expecting that

yeah that whole 'you don't remember do you' thing was really weird. not even a sinister Memento vibe, just complete elision. no way would the girl go for him though, it would have destroyed her relationship with the daughter

seems like so far the worst thing anyone has to say about the show is that Lindeloff is involved

Possibly because a lot of or at least some people are in the same position as I am: I don't want to watch because Lindelof has a habit of drawing you into promising, intriguing movies and shows and stories that end so badly, so slapdash, cynically and stupid, you regret ever watching.

it's true he is the lucy-with-the-football of popular entertainment

no way would the girl go for him though, it would have destroyed her relationship with the daughter

this is the same chick who shagged the guy her best friend had a crush on

daughter's friend has a real mena suvari in american beauty vibe )which may have been mentioned upthread)

i'm interested in how kevin's ex wife met the leader of the gr. There was a comment when they were in the diner that made me think possibly one had been a patient of the other or sth

there needs to be more naked Justin Theroux in this show

this is the same chick who shagged the guy her best friend had a crush on

whooooooops you are totally right keyes, forgot that

fucked up

Episode 8 took a huge running jump into awesome. Best show on tv in years, I'm calling it.

I'll be curious to see how the second season goes. It seems like they've already used about 75% of the events in the book.

All-flashback episode was surprisingly great. You could see where lots of it was going from quite early on - Kevin hooking up with the woman from the crash, for example - but it was still really well executed and shocking when the disappearances happened. Recognising little bits of imagery, like Nora taking the second last sheet of kitchen towel (we saw this in the episode when Holy Wayne took her grief) meant the dread built just waiting for the denouement, and from the second "let's build a circuit" was spoken you knew it would climax with the light going out for an unseen reason. Strangest part was Gladys; we're still not clear on what she lost that made her join the GR. her attachment to the dogs makes it look like it's them, but that's surely misdirection.

Was Kevin's vision with the stag supposed to invoke Saint Hubertus, maybe? (The image of Hubertus' vision is shown on the Jagermeister label.) Hubertus is the saint invoked in curing rabies, which is presumably behind Dean's (and by extension Kevin's) motivation for dispatching dogs? Bits of Hubertus' vision also following through in Kevin arguing that the stag should be saved and not killed. We don't have Dean's surname but I'm willing to bet it will turn out to be Lambert for the same reason.

I might have something longer on Lori and her reasons for joining the GR, because I was having that exact conversation after watching ep 8, and probably then also something on the significance of the house.

Not looking forward to the Memorial Day painathon in the finale tbh

I didn't see the Next Week On but I'm assuming the GR stealing all those family photos had something to do with the clothes and the carcasses in the church last week

"We don't have Dean's surname but I'm willing to bet it will turn out to be Lambert for the same reason."

wait, why?

oh I see

Uh...ok.

love this show

it's over now, yes? time to dig in?

eww do you actually wait to 'binge watch'? but yeah, the season finale aired.

binge watching the Leftovers would be pretty depressing imo

yeah after i watch an episode i definitely needed a palate cleanser of something more upbeat to watch, and a few days' break before i watched another

that was a p good finale, I thought.

As little trust as i have in the creators here, i was waiting till the end of the season so that if there was A CLEVER TWIST i could just skip it

Nothing like that

that's what i was waiting to hear... but they left it open for season two with potential to fuck it up later?

Well yeah but really that's every show, isn't it?

This show is far more brazenly not about the plot or the "mystery" than most

I hear season 2 is all new cast and new global cataclysm to mope about

xp i suppose. really really hold a lot of enmity toward the lost team still, you know?

Mr Veg and I were bracing for full-Lindelof handwavey ending shenanigans and were pleasantly surprised to find that there wasn't really any of that.

k, will try.

I don't know, I really dug this show but the finale tipped me off that they didn't really know exactly what they were doing...the whole Wayne storyline was only compelling to the extent that it portended some connection to the vanishing, plus I assumed we'd get some backstory on him before they wrote him off.

Also, I get that the remainder people are devoted to fucking with people, but when it elevates logistically & elaborately like this—that they are smuggling lookalike dummies into people's homes, there needs to be some commensurate insight into their belief system or something beyond just "Duh we're making them remember" again. The acting is so good on this show but the emotional amplitude esp. in the finale seemed independent of the storyline.

just because they wrote him off doesn't mean we won't get back story imo -- this show goes hard w/ flashbacks, and it's a good portion of the storytelling

as for the commensurate insight into their belief system
for me, part of the 'appeal' of the Guilty Remnants is that they *are* so circumspect. And I feel like I know enough about how they roll through the exposition given piecemeal here and there to take this whole event as them somehow, idk, levelling up their presence in the town. and that they did it knowing that shit would go crazy.
like, it seems like part of their motivation is chaos-driven. how do we NOT allow status quo.
or the short version of all that is that I didn't mind that there was no big explanation.

they've done such a good job developing the key characters enough for me to engage with them and their journeys, where I don't mind that i'm not getting answers to the big crazy important questions that keep arising

Probably the best prism through which to view the show: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/7/6116687/leftovers-depression-hbo