THE LEFTOVERS: HBO's nondenominational post-rapture series

i wish there was more activity on this thread.

last 10 or so minutes of the last episode were just outstanding.

no one watches things at the same time any more. I plan on watching cos i loved s 1 but wrapping up some other shows first.

i enjoy this show, though sometimes it is just toooooo grim.
and the theme song for this season is just atrocious.

yeah it's annoying

I like this season but I'm not clear where the son went after he declared he had the prophet's powers.

also it will be interesting if that is all we see of Liv Tyler all year.

It's not clear because we don't know! He went AWOL.

i like the new theme song a lot

i like the theme song too.

the grimness works for me, perhaps because there's a clear sense of humor and playfulness in so many of the other choices.

i cannot stop thinking about regina king's bird in a box from ep 1

good payoff to this. that whole scene, from the acting to the directing to the writing, was just wonderful. this show is somehow able to pull of things that would just not work elsewhere.

Really love this show, especially current season; most recent episode, "Lens," might be the strongest yet -- so many interesting reveals, so many new twists and turns, none of it feeling rushed or overblown or scattershot. The direction and the acting is just fantastic. Not sure if, for pure emotional impact, they'll top the conversation between Erika and Nora, but then I didn't think they'd top the previous episode centered around Matt, either. I thought season one had its great moments and fine episodes and pretty great acting throughout, but I seem to recall there were some flat-out bad episodes too, not to mention the quickly tiresome Holy Wayne silliness. I'm now obsessive enough about S2, that I assume I may get more out of some of that stuff when I go back to it, which I definitely plan to do.

I love a lot of Max Richter's soundtrack music, too, plus there's been some good pop music scattered about, from Al Green in the last episode of S1 to Bellamy Bros to Rihanna in "Lens."

I think this is secretly becoming my favourite show on television. I remember trying to persuade someone to watch S1 and not getting further than saying it was a show about depression, and about the stages of grief, and about how you could only transcend them by embracing these things and accepting them as an essential part of you. That pretty much convinced them not to watch it.

Last week I said near the beginning that Matt was really a metaphor for Job. Then he went on to have that conversation about how it was his favourite book, so his sacrifice at the end was nailed on by then.

I think it's the pacing of the show that's extraordinary. As said above, the reveals happen at just the right times and - well learned, Lindelhof - there aren't too many mysteries. And even as big a theory of lensing coming in now doesn't feel forced, it might even feel inevitable as it explains the MIT purchase; for me the highlight of this week was "we believe you are possessed by the daemon Azrael" and Nora collapsing into laughter when she realised they were whackjobs after all.

Megan's rape of Tommy is obviously a key moment in S2; I'm struggling to find the motivation for it. I get the whole thing to frighten him with the petrol but... is it just a long game to create a baby related to Kevin/Lori to use as a weapon? If the GR are such a nationwide thing, why does what happened in Mapleton even matter?

It'll be a really bold step if after the best part of two seasons and the potential build of a Shaman plot Kevin is revealed to just be schizophrenic.

. I remember trying to persuade someone to watch S1 and not getting further than saying it was a show about depression, and about the stages of grief, and about how you could only transcend them by embracing these things and accepting them as an essential part of you.

i like this reading, especially of season one (which im halfway through right now). i tried to sell someone on season 2 by saying it was about the trauma of the unexplainable, which makes it sound so incredibly pretentious, which i guess it is in a way, but its working for me big-time.

i read a recap somewhere where the writer said he was completely in love with the show & into the symbolism etc but watching it with someone else in the room made him hyperaware of how much more ridiculous it all seemed, making it hard to know if the show is actually as good as you think it is

seemed kinda otm. i love it but there's no way i could convince anyone to watch it

that last episide was so great, i could watch regina king & nora go toe to toe all day

it is maybe the only drama going right now that has no detectable gameplan and seems to give zero fucks about luring in new viewers, for which I respect it tremendously

if it keeps playing to this level i may finally make my peace with damon lindelof

That's funny, I've found myself raving about it to different people in a very defensive way, sort of like, "it's totally amazing--not that I think you should waste your time with it." What I like about the show's ridiculousness, if that's the right way to put it (its suspension-of-disbeliefness?), is that -- Holy Wayne aside -- it doesn't extend to the characters, all of whom, even the crazy ones, seem grounded and real in their response to everything. Yeah, there are some wise psychic types milling about, and of course the Guilty Remnant cult, but the show goes out of its way to avoid Twin Peaks' Log Lady-type characterizations (btw, I loved the Log Lady). I sense that a lot of people got fed up with the Guilty Remnant angle in S1, but I found it compelling, in part because they were never reduced to cartoons. It feels very real-world-people-dealing-with-an-unreal-situation to me.

Re-watched some of the most recent episode, and my favourite two seconds is the look Erika shoots John after she calls him out for giving the goat killer a free pass--so classic!

yeah I think if Lindelof and co. had adopted a straight-up "fuck y'all" approach to the "mythology" on Lost as opposed to trying and failing to supply satisfactory "answers", that would have worked out better for everyone

i am loving ecclestone so so much

the biblical/faith notes they keep hitting feel, idk, right. it just wrestles with faith in such an unflinching way, the situations are ridiculous on paper but the emotions are so real

and everyone is sweaty & stressed out, i love it

Re-watched "Guest," Nora's big episode from S1. Great episode, and that opening scene has to be one of the most powerful things I've ever seen on TV ("what happened to you?" is a great line). But man, was I struck by how overall despondent the show felt in S1. Moving locales and opening things up in S2 was a really good idea, I think.

I rewatched that one too, and had forgotten about Nora saying "oh, fuck your daughter!" to Kevin, which was the best

Yeah, that was great.

Also -- Nora making out with the mannequin. Some seriously amazing and far-out acting going on there.

and everyone is sweaty & stressed out, i love it

been waiting for someone to acknowledge on the show that--given they are around an hour from Austin in the Texas hill country--it's gonna be hot as balls for a substantial part of the year.

almost done with season one, and while I like it there's definitely a huge quality leap in this new season.

gotta say that cliffhanger felt very LOSTy

what makes it Lost-y? (I never watched much of Lost)

slight comedown after last week's high but this show has been pretty consistent for me this season.

I guess LOST deals pretty explicitly with a central character making the choice between science and faith and you could argue something broadly similar happens to him once he becomes the cheerleader for one of those sides. It's certainly transformative.

Patti's troll game A1 in this ep:

The whole bit about the Egyptian cup
'Did you really think the plot would actually be solved by a magical black man?'
"I can't believe you're putting your faith in someone whose only qualification for this job is being a paedophile"

Trying not to read what Lindelof says about it, because I remember what he said about various LOST plot events when they happened.

his statement about it in the HitFix recap is honestly hilarious.

I was looking up something about this show a few days ago, and came across a quote from Lindelof saying episode 7 was (I'm paraphrasing) "the one where we jump the shark," and though I don't think the episode was quite as farout/weird/incomprehensible/whatever-he-was-suggesting as I expected, it did sort of veer into mystery-mystical-layering-bullshit territory that could potentially lose me in the long run. The main stuff -- Kevin and Patti -- was very good, but some of the stuff more extraneous to this particular episode (Laurie and Nora, especially) felt a little half-formed or something, though it's interesting how Kevin can only measure the worthiness of himself against each of them. Ending is pretty wild, but even it lacked the impact it should have? Michael continues to become more interesting. There were a couple really good jokes, and the ten seconds of the Pixies (a replay, no? wasn't that used in S1 also?) was really exciting and well edited. The kind of episode where I feel I could be persuaded by people more enthusiastic than myself. Not a dud by any stretch, but a little off.

his statement about it in the HitFix recap is honestly hilarious.

saw this and his troll game is peerless.

Chickie otm though in that there's an awful lot riding on what happens next week.

'where is my mind' has been used a ton all season. maybe last season too? can't remember. the tune is even used as piano instrumental music.

and while I like it, it does recall Fight Club a little too much

that's funny, akm, I listened to a podcast about this episode this morning, and the hosts were all, "yeah, they keep playing that Pixies song," and they mentioned something about The Fight Club, and of course I felt really dumb for not getting any of this (which i think was the point), but that's probably because a) I've never had any desire to see TFC, and b) I'm a half-hearted Pixies fan <em>at best</em>. But I do vaguely recall hearing it earlier, and will keep my ear out for it.

it also made a "memorable" appearance on Mr Robot

a friend pointed out that the design of Virgil's home evoked this Jeff Wall piece:

http://www.moma.org/wp/moma_learning/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Jeff-Wall.-After-Invisible-Man1-469x329.jpg

I wish they had just stuck to the original Richter opening score which was very nice. If you are not a fan of a certain type of twee indie Americana, some of these over-long indulgences where they play some entire song (that you don't want to hear!) are not good television and detract from a decentish series.

i love the opening credits song! and i like the graphics too

no one can seem to agree on it, but the combo of the wackadoo season prologue and the seeing the new intro for the first time is still one of the series' highlights for me

agreed!

in my memory the prologue was a cold open with the intro coming after but i found out i was sadly mistaken when i re-watched it recently.

pixies. so twee!

Love the Jeff Wall image. Have to admit, the first thing that came to mind when we went inside Virgil's hovel was some imagery in an early chapter of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, in which the protagonist describes his "hole in the basement" as being lit with 1,369 light bulbs. Not a perfect analogy for a bunch of reasons, but the image always stuck with me from the first time I read the book and it hit me immediately upon seeing it on the screen.

[I wish the protagonist in Ellison's book had lit his room with 100 less bulbs -- 1,269 -- because that would be an anagram of 9,261, which is how many spared citizens there are in Jardin, Texas, and... oh man, could've lit up the Leftovers chat boards big time with that!!]

the Jeff Wall piece is directly based on the Ellison book.

Ah, nice, thanks.

"You people and that movie!" Virgil's line about <i>The Exorcist</i> made me laugh.

One character I do miss a lot from Mapleton/S1 (and who, imo, wasn't used enough in S1) is Mayor Lucy (Amanda Warren). Was flipping through episode 1 last night, and she's really great. Also forgot that Buddy Garrity (Brad Leland) from Friday Night Lights is in episode 1 as a congressman who treks up to see Wayne (and I think that's the last we see of him).

most recent episode sure ends with a bang

wow

this show just constantly leaves me in dazed wonder now

i fuckin love this season

Many things I heard about season one set off enough alarms that I skipped it, yet I've heard such great things about season two. Can I see season two without seeing season one or do I sort of need to slog through all of it to get the most reward out of the current season?

I just started with two and loved it. as long as you know the premise you'll be fine. let the mystery be, you know.

I would strongly suggest getting around to Season 1 at some point -- even if you watch the seasons in reverse, which is probably do-able. It will fill in a lot of the story, and -- much as I've been critical of it at times -- it's a pretty great season at times (it's not like anyone forced me to stick around for season 2). My guess is, if you like S2, you'll want to go back to get more -- and S1 has plenty to get. By my count (and from what I recall) there are three or four near-perfect episodes, and only a severe dropoff in a couple somewhere around the middle.