THE LEFTOVERS: HBO's nondenominational post-rapture series

yeah the only real downer for me about the last few episodes was that she took a real backseat, though her emphatic "shut the fuck up!" was a delight.

it is the only thing I've seen that gives equal weight to the faithful, the doubtful and non-believers... allows them
all to exist together, even problematically... but also acknowledges that those states can also be experienced by one person sometimes simultaneously

it's so spiritually rich, layered with symbolism & meaning and as mentioned upthread, a lot of it pays off. it's not just for show

yeah i like how it takes faith as a serious thing, but as an everyday thing, too. really glad they allowed matt the priest to soften from a driven prig -- like oh great, another snarling preacher character -- to something more admirable over two seasons. and poor janel maloney! what a thankless acting job.

ecclestone said in an interview that Matt is his favorite character he's played

look, i still harbor huge fears that if this thing goes on it will just fall apart under its own weight because l i n d e l o f. but for now i'm really impressed that all the interlocking stories, the flashbacks, the layers, are just so well fitted together

xp oh nice :)

is there some danger this won't get renewed?

are we left to imagine that the three disappeared girls were seduced into the GR via some kind of self-radicalization process on the internet, a la ISIS?

yeah the show takes place in a kind of heightened reality but it's using that idea to simply clarify the stakes of everyday life. like, with people's varied reactions and responses to the departure i often think "yeah, people do cope (or not) that way" and it's often tremendously cathartic to recognize that.

there's a great deal of danger it wont be renewed. praying there's some exec at hbo in lindelof's corner.

are we left to imagine that the three disappeared girls were seduced into the GR via some kind of self-radicalization process on the internet, a la ISIS?

this is what i thought. teenagery discovery of adult hypocrisy finds ready outlet.

i'd love for it to be renewed but if not it was a fine series finale

re: the girls, it seems like Megan poached them pretty directly.

re: renewal - no talks yet; the ratings weren't good but it also aired against The Walking Dead this season. I personally think it'll be back but we might have to wait till early '17

never thought i'd get anything out of someone singing simon and garfunkel. i had something in my eye.

I watched the first 4 eps of S1 and then dropped out. Can I start fresh on S2?

fuck yeah that was beautiful

i spied Prince's 'I would die 4 u' on that wheel but I knew that was too good to be true

I went back and freeze-framed, here's what I could spot:

Homeward Bound
I Would Die 4 U
Like a Prayer
Livin' on a Prayer
Don't Stop Believin'
Angel of the Morning
All My Ex's Live In Texas (<--looooool)

oh, and Bohemian Rhapsody.

haha

bet that was a lively day in the writer's room.

"I watched the first 4 eps of S1 and then dropped out. Can I start fresh on S2?"

no. I mean you could but you should watch all of season 1. S2 was better but S1 was very good also.

I think Reza Aslan had a lot to do with the richness of the spirituality subtext that makes S2 so rewarding.

per a lindelof interview, the initial idea was for KG to sing "like a prayer" but madonna wouldn't grant them the rights

i saw it on the spinning wheel.

From the avclub:

Nobody is watching The Leftovers. Like, seriously nobody is watching it. “International Assassin” was beaten in its time slot by an episode of Law And Order: SVU. Not a first-run episode, not a sweeps-month crossover with Chicago [Insert Municipal Service], just a regular old repeat on USA, perhaps an episode where Olivia and Munch have to pose as a married couple to infiltrate a dog-fighting ring or some shit. Premium cable networks don’t excel at concealing their enthusiasm for a show, and HBO has never been bashful about handing out additional seasons to a show if they believe in it. Hell, the fact that The Leftovers got a second season is evidence of the latitude the network will grant to shows and storytellers they’re invested in. But HBO has yet to breathe a word about The Leftovers season three, even as the second season has earned a deeply passionate, if tiny following. This could very well be the end of the series, and if “I Live Here Now” is the series finale, it’s a really odd note to end on, and another deeply polarizing, spiritually playful series finale for Damon Lindelof to add to his resume.

Anyway, I haven't seen a minute of it, partly because everything I read about it makes it sound like a combination of spiritual, silly and surreal, a combo I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Like, this one had a purgatory karaoke bar or something?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/arts/television/damon-lindelof-on-the-leftovers-finale-the-shows-future-and-his-afterlife-obsession.html?_r=0

Will there be a season three of “The Leftovers”?

At the moment I do not know. We’re starting to have preliminary conversations with HBO. I think that I’m a pragmatic individual. I understand that television is a business first and foremost, and the ratings — I don’t want to use the phrase “apocryphally bad.” But let’s just use that phrase.

HBO’s response to the creative of the show has been overwhelmingly positive and they’ve been immensely supportive in letting us do some pretty wacky stuff. I think that I definitely want there to be more show, and hopefully we’ll have some clarity as to whether or not that’s going to happen in the coming weeks, before the new year.

him not knowing what "apocryphally" means is lessening the blow tbh

lol i was just reading the primaries thread and mention of 'cozzen larry' is reminding me of mark linn-baker showing up in this for real.

http://i.imgur.com/HGY2UTD.jpg

maybe not the best idea

Nora yelling "Fix this, Jesus!" and trashing the cd player followed by an immediate tremor was some well-timed levity.

The neighbor John's arc from being this angry guy who we only knew had gone to jail and was so edgy he seemed he could flare up violently at any moment -- and did at anyone he could justify targeting -- makes the neighborly wave from the porch at the end so much more genuine than the same one he did at the beginning of the season. The character always seemed at cross purposes -- trying so hard to keep his family together and denying the spiritual element his father-in-law and townspeople are so into but still seeming broken. All of it being real at the end, with his daughter having ditched out, the town's sanctity broken, and someone who he killed coming back was a good ending.

also lol @ lindelof using cool words he doesn't really understand, that pretty much sums up his plotting direction

ha, or the transcriber really fucked him over? i mean, surely he meant "apocalyptically"? thank god i dont have to give interviews...

it's funny, i find lindelof really disarming in interviews. but then i didnt watch Lost and dont really have any baggage with him other than Prometheus, which i am on record here as vigorously defending. but this season is the best thing he's done, where all that rube goldberg plotting and his own temperamental self-criticism and uncertainty actually works as a resource and not a limitation.

"best thing he's done" = assuming that, since i havent seen Lost.

like "is this right? will this work? who knows! #yolo" is kinda what the characters are going through at any given moment.

there's a lot of "metaphors 101" class that's actually reasonably well-executed

the bridge isn't the only way into jarden, it's the only thing keeping people out! meg doesn't really blow up the bridge, she metaphorically blows up the bridge! omg

This was great. Really great.

I'll be more than ok with that as the end of it.

there's a lot of "metaphors 101" class that's actually reasonably well-executed

and it's really playful this way! hence the "because it's STUPID" bit which made me laugh.

I took "because it's stupid" to be he final instalment of Lindelof trolling his own writing.

kevin fails to kill himself in water. kevin is killed, comes into the afterlife in water. comes back to life through the dirt. gets killed again, enters the afterlife through water, then back to life on... the floor

"denying the spiritual element his father-in-law "

it's his father though, not father in law, correct?

I was mixed on that, I thought it was his dad but I swear they said otherwise at some point

I think you're right

Virgil was Erika's father.

Great finale. If the show really is gone, I'll miss the unique feelings of wonder, dread, intense sadness and rapturous happiness that it inspired in me, often at the same time.

from way above: "(incl. a country song by Sturgill Simpson I'd never heard of)"...really? it's a cover of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIphTYxQRwE

while we're on the subj i never liked the iris dement song

I fucking hate it

If there is one criticism I have for this series it is the winsome indie overkill in some episodes, like playing the whole wretched tune is not good at all and it does this crime a few times. But respect for maintaining max weirdness without ever truly letting the viewer know wtf is going on.

I mean that sincerely as well

Thanks, akm, I got lambasted by a couple folks on facebook for admitting I was unfamiliar with When in Rome. Big radio/dance/pop fan, too, so who knows... just the randomness of what I know, I guess.

Some parts of the last two episodes did not come together for me, I gotta be honest, but I still thoroughly enjoyed them overall (my nitpicking tends to recede when I re-watch them, which is why I characterize it as "nitpicking"), and I completely loved the entire middle section of the season, as much as I've loved any show. Probably my most nitpicky thing from last night: I'm definitely glad Mary's pregnancy turned out to be what it was hoped to be, but the way it was revealed was way too pat ("yes, Matt, of course I remember"). That definitely seemed like a part written as such in the event that there would be no season 3 (which I guess means I understand WHY it was handled the way it was, but it was a fairly unimaginative playing out).

but...why *wouldn't* she remember if she was conscious for it

You're right. I watched it again, and the scene in particular does not bother me -- maybe it's just the tying of all loose ends at once I found a little unnerving (on the Garvey/Durst/Jamison side -- quite the opposite on the Murphy's side, of course).

The karaoke scene really is amazing -- and btw, the 8 songs listed above are definitely all of them--between a couple different shots, they all come into the frame pretty clearly.

It took me the whole season to make the connection, but the season's prologue reminds me of the frustrated Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation. "No, no, it starts...at the dawn of time!"

does that intro scene have anything to do with what's going on in the present day? it is a ~mystery~

I was worried that the earthquake was gonna knock down the Garvey house and kill the whole family like the rockslide killed the caveman clan in the beginning of the season

Then I thought "even The Leftovers wouldn't be that depressing"