THE LEFTOVERS: HBO's nondenominational post-rapture series

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"

I dunno why but I thought they would still be in the trailer on the bridge, I yelled at the tv when Kevin didnt follow the dog lol

same

me too. i don't really get that story beat tbh.

maybe the dog just ran over there when they were filming and they thought it seemed somehow poignant

the dog was like "fuck this shit, I'm outta here"

dog makes a good point

i have no idea what it means either, but it's gotta have something with the dog not being able to (and then not wanting to) enter Jasper. it can't come "home," etc?

first thought was that it was another moment of frustration for the viewer: dog goes to nora, the baby & tommy, and kevin thinks he has to go into town

second thought was that this was just a confusing and badly staged moment. dog runs off, kevin has to get to the clinic

third thought is that (not shown) the dog running to the trailer lets nor and tommy know that kevin is probably a live (?) and they should head into town themselves

dog wasn't lassie

i get really unhappy with shows where people don't or can't explain themselves, where 'dramatic irony' is based on people being fucking inarticulate or asking each other stupid questions, so i gotta say a lot of the patty haunting and handprint plots got on my nerves. (but it's not as bad as game of thrones, woo doggy)

lmao i mentioned lassie in my first draft of that post and deleted it

you think i could have fixed some of those typos huh

i get really unhappy with shows where people don't or can't explain themselves, where 'dramatic irony' is based on people being fucking inarticulate or asking each other stupid questions, so i gotta say a lot of the patty haunting and handprint plots got on my nerves.

i think i know what you mean, but i didnt get much of that from this show--though i have stars in my eyes and refuse to accept any flaws for now. im sure i'll be more objective in 6 weeks or so. was actually pretty moved by the darting-eyes desperation of theroux's performance. if one of the major themes was family as what patty called a "life jacket" (and i actually think the show posits that she is right about this) then there's a tension between a notion of family as something that has to be protected at all costs (and then the inevitable need to evade, hide the truth, hide your own trauma, etc) and something that can absorb all that. that's why nora running off and coming back was really moving as well, as embodying that tension. also the neat contrast of the garvey's coming together just as the murphy's are spinning apart.

also, patty as "destroying family" and megan as "family is everything" are kinda two sides of same coin. megan cannot grasp family except as pure loss, hence her nihilism.

also re: at least patty's inarticulatness (or just her own inability to explain what she's doing there and why) works out if you think of her as not just a reflection of kevin's own mind but as the seductive voice of his own beliefs that he cannot process as his own and must disassociate from.

"she's not in you, she's on you" was a particularly rich line, i thought.

that's the funny thing about this show: all of the mystical and magical shit that happens to people can all be explained away with some realistic plausibility, except for the fact that all these people disappeared three years ago, it keeps you guessing what the "rules" are

I figured the dog smelled Nora & company had been in the trailer and went to go check it out because dog

they did keep us on the fence for a long time about whether anyone had any actual mystical experience in Jarden - did the lady in a coma wake up, or was it wishful thinking? Can this medium really talk to people on the other side, or is he a fraud? Both seemed really unlikely until the end of the season. I was actually surprised by the reveal of Meg's previous visit to Jarden where she received a message from her dead mom -- I figured John was right about people being frauds in the town.

other underrated scene: Kevin talking to his dad, who is on a drug trip in Australia, through the television in the hotel underworld

who knows if this is the intent but the show makes you want to believe in the mystical because it's the only way kevin makes it to s3 alive