THE LEFTOVERS: HBO's nondenominational post-rapture series

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

Meg is the antihero of this thing, right?

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

Scott Glenn is always great

My God, just like Fargo this is an already excellent series stepping it up a level for season 2. Also the only time My Mother comes to visit me is to watch this, so I'm hoping for another season just for the human connection. And we have different uh religious beliefs but this covers all our bases, and appeals to both our... cognitave dissonance?
I can't really add to all your opinions above but Goddamn...

renewed! for just one more season, but that's how lindelof wanted it, apparently.

Three seasons feels right. I'm just hoping it's a full season and not a quickie a la Treme.

I'm so happy!!

yeah i think it's good news on both fronts...i think they have one more potentially great (nora-centric please!) season in them.

they have to spend some substantial time in Australia this time around right? i need at least one episode where i can trip along w/ Kevin's dad

I just hope that whatever s3 is turns out to be as much of a formal/spatial leap as s2 was from s1

yeah for sure

fish out water stoner comedy with scott glenn in the outback, brief mentions of previous seasons only. "mad shit in texas mate" "yeah buddy"

would watch

I made the mistake of reading a couple of post-season interviews with Lindelof, the Sepinwall one and the Mo Ryan one, my God this man is an insufferable tool. "Yes that meant something very specific, we had a very clear idea all worked out, but I am not going to tell you the answer. But rest assured I am a genius". Considering he also spends a lot of time apologising for Lost you'd think he might have approached his interactions with his audience even slighty different this time. Also he seems to have fundamentally misunderstood some of the proper deep shit that Reza Aslan brought to the show (which was all explained very openly by Aslan in his own interview, can't remember where). It kinda reminds me of Donnie Darko, where I had the whole thing sussed out and was appreciating it until I heard the director's commentary, and then saw the director's cut, and it's like oh wow, this guy really doesn't understand this thing he actually wrote, and doesn't seem so smart as I assumed.
Still, yay for 3rd season, cos by accident or design (or more likely the skill of Lindelof's collabarators) this was on fire that whole season, and I will happily swallow whatever pseudo-spiritual bullshit I am fed next season, and just tack my own interpretation on top of it. The renewal makes me genuinely happy.

I kinda liked the 'yeah there's this obscured stuff in there, but I'm not holding your hand to find it' bits in the interviews. Rather than annoying me it was pretty intriguing since the stuff he mentions I completely missed. It's probably pretty obvious that I have a large tumbler of Kool-aid here on the side table. I can totally see how that would feel obnoxious, though. Really happy to hear about the renewal too

i've thrown so much shade at Lindelof that i'm kinda ready to just let the light in this time

this season was like therapy for me, i have nothing but love in my heart for this weirdass show & old baldy

and it feels like a jinx even saying it out loud

like PSYCH season 3 is a giant spacewheel and polar bears mwahaha

Amen to that - let the light in! I'm just scared of being hurt again. So often with the various series I watch I'm like a battered spouse, always returning to my abuser with the same excuses - "oh but he's so nice to me some of the time...", "it was my own fault really...". I should've kicked Lost to the kerb long before our relationship petered out to it's natural conclusion, and I THINK this mid-season break from The Walking Dead will be sufficient for me to walk out that door for the final time, but Imma keep coming back to The Leftovers, cos it's been nothing but good times up til now. Maybe if this is the final season as suggested then afterwards we can remain friends, occasionally get together for a drink, watch the old home movies and reminisce about our relationship with a wistful smile...

Like that deathtrip episode in the hotel I was getting major polarbear-wheel vibes, and I was very uneasy sitting through it, but everything turned out great! (Still not gunna say anything nice about Lindelof himself tho cos seriously fuck that dude).

Listened to the first bit of this Andy Greenwald interview with Damon Lindelof and it's...interesting:

https://soundcloud.com/channel33/ep-17-the-andy-greenwald-show

Four episodes to go. Still baffled and fascinated and waiting for explanations, if any are forthcoming. And noticing the music, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDW6v9OsVlI

Mom: "I don't understand."
Evie: "You understand."
Clemenza: "No, really, she doesn't, and neither do I."

Everyone crosses the bridge in order to...set up camp on the other side and recreate the golden calf scene from The Ten Commandments? Was the idea simply to put an end to the idea that Miracle was anything special? I'm sincerely confused.

I did like this, though. No idea where they take it for a third season. Lot of good performances. Scott Glenn was my favourite, and he's never been anyone I take much notice of; Carrie Coon, Ann Dowd (having just watched True Detective too, she's a major trouble-on-the-way red flag right now), and Jasmin Savoy Brown (Evie) were very good too. I thought Justin Theroux really grew into the role: kinda bad in the first few episodes (overly grim and dour, scowling at everyone), after which he got better and better. The minister's resemblance to Al Bundy and the brother's to Justin Bieber were a bit disorienting for me. Scott Woods has a piece up on the music that I haven't read yet:

http://www.watchingtheleftovers.com/blog/2015/12/16/the-leftovers-music-in-season-2

I loved the song above, Patti doing Rick Astley (reminded me of Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet, and "I Am a Rock"; there seemed to be a lot of good '60s/70s soul stuff I didn't recognize.

"Was the idea simply to put an end to the idea that Miracle was anything special?"

More, I think, to mock the idea that Jardin wasn't impacted by the sudden departure. And/or just to fuck the place up (Meg has basically gone full-blown Trump with the G.R., and Evie and her seem to share disdain for the town's self-righteousness?).

re: the conversation between Evie and Erika, I think there are different things to infer from that, some of it related to Michael's story about the bathtub, suggesting that Erika turned a blind eye to problems within. Might have something to do with abuse, which we know happened in the Murphy family though it's still unclear who was abused (we only know that Virgil was the abuser). I think there might be something telling about Erika proclaiming early in the season that "no one would ever hurt Evie." Possibly it means no more than that. Always a lot of loose ends at work here (though I think the season did a satisfying job of answering a lot of them.

Fight scene between Kevin and the bellhop reminded me a lot of The Manchurian Candidate scene with Sinatra fighting Henry Silva (and the 'Manchurian candidate' from that movie is played by Laurence Harvey; Kevin's new alias is Kevin Harvey.
― Chickie Levitt, Monday, November 23, 2015 10:59 PM (1 month ago)

Good call--thought of the same thing (though not the Laurence Harvey part). Also suspect that the Guilty Remnants' practice of stoning people (maybe an overstatement--it comes up twice) was lifted from Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."

we all want to relate stonings to that story, but I am pretty sure there was a book where they were mentioned that the GR try to clown

Probably everything eventually traces back to that other book--might even be a hidden weapon planted behind a tree Corleone-style somewhere--but I haven't read it, so I gotta stick with what I know. (You're right, of course.)

I think Evie knew Erika was planning on leaving. So even without any people being lost to the departure, she lost her father to jail and was about to lose her mother to her fleeing.

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53865adce4b04631a5de6077/5674732cb204d55fb336be0f/56747362c647ad126efdb15f/1450472293133/5.jpg?format=750w

wait, those tattoos are real? lmao

max richter's piano theme in this series is one hell of an earworm

the concept for this show always seemed very intriguing, so I finally got the first disc of s1 from Netflix. Watched the first episode and I'm done. Way too dark and depressing to want to carry on. Didn't particularly like any of the characters and the awful world they inhabit. I don't usually bail on a show so quickly, but just getting through the one ep was a chore.

yr call obvs but it does get a lot better.

Yeah the first ep is certainly punishing, but i tend to find even the first season remarkably cathartic if you can hang in there. not to everyone's taste of course.

only show i've seen that hit me somewhere i don't really know how to talk about... completely in love with justin theroux and carrie coon

Moodles you should at least give ep 3, "Two Boats and a Helicopter," a try before you give up on it. I was kinda meh on the initial episodes but that one and "Guest" are something else.

The Nice Guys' plot hinges on Margaret Qualley/Jill Garvey's character. She's not particularly good; even with a two-part Nixon joke, neither is the film. I don't generally turn into Tipper Gore when I go to the movies, but some of the stuff involving Ryan Gosling's 13-year-old daughter struck me as tasteless. Russell Crowe plays John Goodman.

8-episode final season premieres 04/16

Yeah, I saw it flash by in an HBO promo the other day. Looking forward to it, no clue as to where they go from here.

Actually (almost a certainty with the upcoming House of Cards season), I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is somehow lurking in the background. Mood, a new character, something.

:D

Here you go--Trump's flying the plane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=37&v=qj1tpBYiHnU

I though Justin Theroux did reasonably well will a silly character in The Girl on the Train.