THE LEFTOVERS: HBO's nondenominational post-rapture series

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.

there was nothing in the leftovers that needed explanation!

Except for, you know, the whole "where did 2 per cent of the world's population vanish to?" thing.

that's the premise, not the question!

if you go with Nora's story being true, it sounded like our (living) world got split in two, and over there everyone thinks 98% of the population vanished

Kevin's alt-world appears to be the actual afterlife. which would explain why only people known to have died were there. he never ran into anyone who had disappeared during the departure, right?

I think giving a possible answer, not a definitive why or how, was more than enough

if you get down to it, every story begins in medias res, unless you start every story at the beginning of life on earth or w/e

/there was nothing in the leftovers that needed explanation!/

Except for, you know, the whole "where did 2 per cent of the world's population vanish to?" thing.

o_O

I never noticed how that Robin Trower song turns up on the Rub n Tug Campfire vinyl, but not on the mix CD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3P8nZTS4hA

Ok I was majorly behind and I finally finished s3 yesterday

Goddamn I love this series so much, like I hope that I will cherish it for years afterwards because of how hard they swung for the fences with the ideas they explored and the writing and the acting and just the remarkable fact that we got a whole show that wrestles not with Religion but BELIEF

someone up thread, Simon maybe?, wondered why we se Kevin go through his journeys but that Norah's was only told verbally and it felt like her character was cheated somehow by that. IMO the idea that Norah is *telling* Kevin a story at all is WAY more important than us seeing it. The events of the story itself are somewhat immaterial. Because Norah, maybe aside from Laurie, is the character who for the whole series has been actively anti-story. She challenges the stories she's told and exists to uncover only the lies that those stories are based on. She was dealing only with truth/lies in such a determined way that it reached the point of reckless mania by the end. It means more for us, and her, to finally be telling a story of any kind. That she has experienced something personally, something that has shaken her worldview and is now moving her in a new direction, and moved her to the point to become vulnerable enough to tell that story to Kevin and share it with him is the whole point. It's the Book of Norah.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's why I love this show

yeah I've talked about it with a few people and I am no longer aggrieved at that idea. pretty brilliant finale even if I am a bit o_0 at the Laurie scene

I never expected that she would actually commit suicide even though that was the tone they were going for when she was on the boat etc. i wasn't all that surprised to see her again tbh

Yeah, I might feel differently if I rewatched the season knowing where it's headed. At any rate it was a great finale and a v v strong last season

the acting was so phenomenal

VG otm

awesome show great job

I was wondering what he'd get up to next:

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/damon-lindelof-the-watchmen-hbo-1202473414/

I suppose this is intended to be the post Game of Thrones blockbuster for HBO.

Watched season one. Mixed feelings. Very well acted (Carrie Coon in particular is excellent). Good dialogue on the whole. I'm not sure any of it really means anything though, which would be fine if everything wasn't so dripping with portent. They haven't explored the intriguing premise in a particulary truthful or insightful way yet imo.

My favourite two episodes were the most self contained, the one where Matt tried to buy back the church, and the one where Norah went to the weird convention.

You'll be pleased with where the show goes, I think. S2 throws some curveballs pretty much immediately.

Thanks, slightly more enthused now.

S1 totally hooked me and was probably the least interesting season. i kept wondering why i was watching this relentlessly nihilistic enterprise. and yet i kept watching. S2 is where they seem to figure out what the show is about.

and yeah the matt trying to buy back church episode is fantastic.

S2 is a kind of a high water mark for TV in the last decade or so, imo. watching it unfold was a real pleasure so try to avoid spoilers if you can.

yeah I agree with that. and s3 is almost as good.

I am listening to the soundtrack on a train and logged on to post how much I miss this show now it's done, but also totally wouldn't want any more because it's perfect as-is. I adored the way it finished.

I watched the first season at the time and was pretty nonplussed, so left it there. Came back to s2&3 recently and they really were wonderful. It really made me think a lot about my own familial loss and how I and my family dealt with things. S2 is totally worth starting.

And the score, my god.

yeah s1 was great but looking back it feels very removed from all the emotion & richness of s2 & 3

like s1 feeld like it's almost *too much* narrative somehow?

it's weird to even think that

You lot are right, S2 is next level. Just watched the Matt episode, which for once deserves the adjective Kafkaesque, followed by the one culminating in the face-off between Norah and Erika, which is one of the most multi-layered and emotionally rich confrontations I can remember seeing on TV, and which I had to read a couple of recaps of to even begin to unpick. Stunning.

Also it's much funnier than season 1!

i had a nightmare about this show the other night.

I was just thinking about the Leftovers as the anti-Game of Thrones, since when LO ran out of source material it actually got better.

I'm loving the new twin peaks but all the articles about how it's a new level for tv and changing everything again etc just makes me think of the leftovers. I mean they're different kinds of art TV for sure but the leftovers combines humor and drama in a way less wacky way, and has levels of humanity, of questions about human nature and suffering and grief and desire and religion and spirituality that just make me wish more people paid attention.

Did it only run for three seasons intentionally or cancelled?

After S2 got nice reviews but zip in the ratings, HBO gave them one last, slightly truncated season to finish it off

followed by the one culminating in the face-off between Norah and Erika, which is one of the most multi-layered and emotionally rich confrontations I can remember seeing on TV, and which I had to read a couple of recaps of to even begin to unpick. Stunning.

this was the exact moment in the season--which I had been enjoying quite a bit without really reflecting on just how good it was--when i realized it was something special.

The Kevin in the afterlife episode was very Murakami-esque.

After S2 got nice reviews but zip in the ratings, HBO gave them one last, slightly truncated season to finish it off

That's not the way I heard it. My understanding was that the decision to let it run for three seasons only was Lindelof's.

there are a lot of "here are the lessons I learned from working on Lost" bits in the production and plotting imo

He admits that the cavemen sequence was there to troll critics (the guys from the Ringer in particular)

say more?

From Andy Greenwald:

So what a relief it was to learn, as I did last night, that I absolutely was being trolled. “There was a lot of ‘Oh, Greenwald’s gonna love this’ going around in the writers’ room,” Lindelof told Vulture‘s Joe Adalian when asked about the decision to start Season 2 on such rocky and venomous ground.

That sequence totally works thematically, though. My only issue is that surely neolithic people in North America would not have been caucasian?

There's a pretty long 90 or so minute interview with Greenwald (who hated season 1 but loved season 2) and Lindelof after S2 finished that's worth tracking down. I think it's linked upthread somewhere.

just finished the series. top 5 all time finale for me. weird season i had a hard time sticking with some stretches but really glad i did.

I should wait a couple of days before posting--literally finished ten minutes ago--but I guess I'm in a very small minority: felt let down by Season 3, finale included. I'm wondering if watching it immediately after a rewatch of Six Feet Under was a bad idea--that's a lot of metaphysical rabbit holes to process at once. Some of the penultimate episode was funny; Kevin's death-dreams always have funny stuff. The best music moment was trampoline Wu-Tang Clan. ("God Only Knows" already belongs to Boogie Nights.) I found the absence of Jill really awkward, and getting her in there sideways for a couple of minutes made it even more so--was there a contract dispute? The final line of the fifth episode, "That's the guy I was telling you about," was fantastic. I thought the third episode, the one devoted to Scott Glenn, was possibly the worst of the entire run, except for that great bit of Aboriginal music that was used throughout.