THE LEFTOVERS: HBO's nondenominational post-rapture series

incredibly on the nose

Your arguments already make me feel a little more generous towards it, ryan. I suspect if i do re-watch some of these, it may pull together a little better. But there's a strange disconnect in spots, that I just can't...well, connect.

A couple specific things haven't worked for me. The opera that you mention in last night's episode was a problem; it was amped up too high, like much of the show seems to be this year. (In fact, I haven't been drawn to a single bit of music in the series. I liked the a-Ha piano version last night, but nothing has really gotten to me, and I thought the "Personal Jesus" cover a couple episodes back was annoying.) Also, I have completely lost interest for some reason in Laurie, which is too bad as she was one of the things I liked most about season 1 (her role in season 2 was much diminished and a little less interesting). Her and John---it just feels like a convenience to keep them both around?

I did love one line from Kevin Garvey Sr. (which I think is repeated a couple times, and he may have even said it in S2): "It's not that the voices went away, it's that I started doing what they told me to do." That's a fantastic thought--especially given how deliberately he carries it out.

a "single bit of music" this SEASON, I should specify.

This was great

Yes. With Matt's conversation with "God" I am starting to see that withholding of catharsis that I mentioned above as deliberate. Looks like next week will be a Laurie episode, which is a nice complement to Matt episodes.

they're doing a good job of puzzling out the most insufferable character might be with these single character episodes

kevin sr.'s shaggy dog tale on his episode about how he ended up learning rain dances was great, especially the fake-out when you thought he was going to say he saw his son's image on tv. nope, a chicken!

this was one of their best eps

(have not seen the latest one yet)

i was p disappointed with the kevin and nora separation moment. not that some kind of fracture wasn't plausible or dramatically necessary but the writing seemed a little entry level. i thought they were smarter in dealing with each others' bullshit than that.

It worked for me because the whole episode (and really the first two episodes) showed Nora pulling further and further away (Theroux's reaction to Nora's silence at "are you together?" was incredible). This separation anxiety leads to Kevin's breakdown, Nora's implacable grief and thus distance from all connection, and so his explosion makes a lot of sense even if it feels abrupt. Kevin's great fear is that connection is impossible or pointless, so of course he's drawn to this unreachable woman who commuted last season what to him is an unforgivable sin: she abandoned him. It's classic traumatic repetition compulsion (and kinda makes the frightening argument that all romantic relationships are). His big mistake in the argument is saying the truth out loud.

I've just finished season one and i like it a lot but it would have been nice to have 5 straight minutes of airtime where someone wasn't almost getting into a car wreck.

That is very good priming for season 2, actually.

into season 3 now. the music on this show is lol.

this was a LAFF RIOT

wife read some article's comments where people were pointing out that"god" was referenced a bunch in season 2, that the guy in the tower had michael send him a letter, that there were news stories about him on TV, talking about how the afterlife is a "hotel" etc.

I'm still trying to figure out if the possible dog-person politician that crazy shoots-dogs guy was talking about was actually the same congressman that Tom drove to meet Wayne in season one

did everyone forget to watch this this week with twin peaks starting? I did (caught it last night)

I'm assuming Laurie is dead now

Yeah I think so. Pretty brutal way to close out that character.

Oh wow I forgot! Tonight!

So good.

And yeah.

And I shouldn't have watched the "scenes from next weeks episode" bit because it was mildly spoilery.

This show is sooooo gooood.

it is. I'm going to be sorry to see it go.

The convolutions in this show seem increasingly arbitrary to me, just one Hail Mary after another. And completely OTT but not in the service of the narrative, just banking on portent and quirk.

Gonna grind it out and still enjoying parts but disappointed to find that finally it is short of smart, merely clever.

ok so this season is incredible

tough to follow-up international assassin, but i think that last episode worked splendidly

the show long ago left the idea that we'd get some 'this means this' sort of puzzle type solution; I don't expect an answer about 'where people went' or 'what is going on' and haven't since season 2. That was quite liberating for this show, I think; but I can see how, if someone expects those types of plot manipulations, they'd be disappointed.

When Kevin appeared in the other world on a beach near a hut, I couldn't resist saying "ooh, he's on the island from Lost! this show really is a sequel"

In the post-show thingy for this latest one, Lindelof says that Kevin is symbolically killing his investment in a fantasy, meaning that he needs to remove the temptation of 'the afterlife' giving him a false sense of purpose and preventing him from focusing on the real world and the people in it. I'm probably not summarizing it well but it made a lot of sense to me emotionally, and made the wackiness of this ep bearable. What the afterlife visions actually are and what they mean I think I'll be turning over in my head for a long time

Watched the Laurie ep (6, 'Certified') a few times, such an incredible episode

that was wonderful

I loved that mostly but I'm having mixed feelings about Laurie being alive

I'm also having mixed feelings about Nora's "story" being told through dialogue where Kevin's adventures to other realms were always shown to us. I'm not sure what the purpose of that discrepancy is.

I loved this and was very moved by a lot of it.

re: Nora's story, is part of the reason it's kept as dialogue maybe that it's not really true? that she really did change her mind? perhaps it doesn't matter, and I really love that ambiguity because narratives and our possibly sincere-possibly ironic relationship to them are at the heart of this season, because it really works as a parable of working through grief.

I also found Laurie being alive to be a weird choice, however. Not sure what they were going for there.

I thought it worked pretty well as a fake-out, realizing that ending Laurie's episode the way they did would make viewers think she'd died, so seeing her in this episode made it even more ambiguous for a while whether we were seeing a different reality

Laurie doing the scuba dive thing that Nora had mentioned made sense in a "we're tying up the show" way but I'm not sure her death made sense for the character

Laurie being alive doesn't really work for me at the moment, as 306 had done such a beautiful job reframing the character on her own as opposed to in her capacity for other characters. Seeing the finale revert to her alive and in that kind of role again felt false to me.

the laurie thing was a little weird but i thought everything else was fantastic including nora telling her story via dialog because a) carrie coon is fantastic at that, b) the "is she lying?" ambiguity, and c) two characters talking one-on-one is one of the things this show has always done best, and it's what makes the show human, and i'm very glad they went out like that instead of having nora do her own international assassin thing or get on a boat to new york with a bunch of naked people or whatever for the last 20 minutes of the series. an A-plus finale for me.

A triumphant conclusion to a peerless final series. Walking the line between the realist solution and the supernatural is something the series has done brilliantly and the concluding chapter was no exception. Was Kevin seeing Patti Levin in S2 or was he just mad? Was Kevin seeing Dean in S1 or was he just mad? Was Mary cured or did she just (pregnancy-related?) spontaneously come out of her coma? Did Matt just rape her prone body? Did the hotel exist or was it just near-death hallucinations? And finally, was the machine real or did Nora just chicken out? As ever, we get to interpret it how we like and the series supports us in our decision.

Kevin's reliance on the same story for why he's in Australia is brilliantly done and ties in with the underlying theme of the series. To let go. To move on. To live in the world that we have. And that's what Nora's monologue is about, it's finally laying to rest the events of the departure. Whether that came about through her sudden realisation of the lengths she was prepared to go to, or whether it was because she saw her husband in another world is irrelevant. (Actually, much as I was disappointed by the Laurie reveal that's also what happens there imo - having built the 'perfect' conditions for her suicide, she then decides it's not what she wants having been given the means of her death; a mirror for Nora in the machine having seen the previous shell.)

In more prosaic news, the aging makeup was very well done I thought, and completely convincing.

We see Nora shout as the sphere fills. Did anyone catch what it was?

Also where S03E07 used the S1 title music in closing the door, in finally dealing with Patti and Meg and their impact on Kevin and how they haunt him (metaphorically or otherwise), S03E08 using the S2 title music and "Let the mystery be" explicitly says it's not going to lecture over what happened to Nora, that it's your choice what to believe.

I think it was really well done but do have a ton of questions which i"m sure is the point

this felt like atonement for the sins of L O S T

because the atonement goat got L O S T and attached itself to a fence...hmmmm

I love the idea that after being burned on Lost, Lindelof once again decided to be coy and ambiguous in a finale, and everyone seems to say 'oh, that's a great explanation!'

L O S T finale wasn't coy or ambiguous. Just stupid.

there was nothing in the leftovers that needed explanation!

otm

LOST spent an entire season explaining that two supernatural forces were at war with each other on an island and then did some shenanigans to explain shit

leftovers was still like "idk people disappeared and we explored some about the how and why but left those open, because it's about people"

let the mystery be, and whatnot

The Leftovers was spectacular, one of my favorite series ever. few shows could make me feel such a range of emotion, often in quick succession. But I think the greatest achievement of the show is introducing the world to Carrie Coon, who might be the best actress on the planet.

I haven't watched Fargo, but she's definitely arrived.

she's been underutilized in fargo this season IMO, but it has some nice references to her character in the Leftovers in the first few episodes.

leftovers was still like "idk people disappeared and we explored some about the how and why but left those open, because it's about people"

― mh, Tuesday, June 6, 2017 10:53 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right? I feeling like a dreadful person for thinking it was only 2%. Chill the fuck out.

But other than that Scott Glenn was the shit.

oh and John Murphy sure went from let kill and burn everything down to I just cant get this damn smile of my face so fast I got whiplash.

Also, shout out to Jill because see is the queen.

I would have really liked a couple more eps to deal with John and the kids. I would also really have loved to get an ep about Mary at some point.