The Leftovers (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

I was surprised that the orgy was rather tastefully depicted... for an orgy anyway.

Between the full frontal male nudity with the French sailor who had the mental breakdown on the Triomphant-class submarine, and the orgy on the ferry, this episode felt like "The Leftovers" doing a standard-issue premium cable episode.

The priest and the pimple joke was hilariously demented.

I spent the rest of the episode wondering when and in what context Matt had heard it.

Then, there are punctuated instances of humour, like Matt's final comment before the end credits.

This wasn't my favorite episode, and was easily my least favorite of the three Matt-centric episodes, but that final beat was pure perfection.

It's still hard to decipher what the creators of this show are trying to suggest, if anything, besides traditional religions are no less crazy cults than the ones like the Guilty Remnant or the Frasier orgy crew. Get your faith wherever you can, because it's all meshuga.

Damon Lindelof had a great quote about all of the craziness in this world: "[In] a world where the sudden Departure happened, atheism doesn’t really work anymore."

If you accept the argument that religion served as a placeholder until we could understand science sufficiently to explain the universe, then something like the Sudden Departure resets the clock. Overnight, the universe is unexplainable again. Nothing we know about science explains something like the Sudden Departure. In the face of that, humanity tries its best to explain the unexplainable. Over the course of the show, we have accumulated some concrete evidence of other things that are not explainable by science. There does seem to be greater forces at work here, and it stands to reason that some of the religious belief that has popped up is grounded in some deeper cosmic truth.

But if you accept Judaism as the truth, that still left a whole lot of gentiles following false idols when Moses was anointed by God at the burning bush. If you accept Christianity as the truth, that still left a lot of Jewish and Roman nonbelievers at the time of the resurrection. If you accept Islam as the truth, that still left a lot of people of both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic faiths who did not acknowledge Muhammad as the Messenger of Allah, and the Seal of the Prophets.

If the show is leading us toward a new divinity, it makes perfect sense to me that there'd be a lot false faiths cropping up all around it.

And it's to the show's credit that David Burton doesn't comfortably fit nearly into a true or false column. Matt is convinced that he was a blasphemer, and the fact that he ran from police and got killed by the lion would surely seem to puncture his divinity. On the other hand, we did see him last year in the In Between Place, twice. The first time, was on the bridge, when he gave Kevin his options and whispered something in his ear that shook him to his core. The second time was in the bar at the hotel, when he was the gatekeeper between the In Between Place and the world of the living. The timing, roughly three years ago, would seem to line up with the time between when Burton broke his neck and supposedly was resurrected in the cave. If so, he has at least as much of a claim to divinity as Kevin does. The new broadcast in the third episode of season two would seem to point that way, since the eyewitnesses to his resurrection said he'd mentioned a hotel.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

I see Reza Aslan's influence heavy on this season as a consulting producer. His series on CNN "Believer" was all about exploring offbeat religions that followers are fervently devoted to, not knocking them in any way, but seeing what it means to be a true believer in each of them.

 

[joshEH]

Someone noticed this clue in the opening moments of the episode (the soon-to-be-buck-naked French sailor who launches the nuke):

 

[MarkMel]

Hmm, I don't see it. What are we looking at?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Hmm, I don't see it. What are we looking at?

The last name of the sailor who launched the nuke is Lyon.

Brief interesting article on Frasier the Lion.

 

[MarkMel]

Ah, now I see. That's what makes this show great!

 

[TravisR]

Is his first initial an F (as in Frasier) or a P?

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

That's one discreet little detail. Looks like a "P" to me.

 

[TravisR]

Whoa, that was another brutal episode.

 

[Josh Dial]

I wonder about Nora's "flash forward" we've seen earlier this season. In an episode about suicide and leaving (departing) your loved ones behind, the Nora scenes certainly went down a similarly themed path (i.e. using the "suicide machine").

But have seen Nora "alive" in the "future." Was that scene on the other side of the machine? Will nothing happen and the scene was simply as it was on its face (in the future, Nora still lives in Australia)? Some crazy sci-fi twist was Nora enters the machine, comes out in an inverse reality where 98% of the population has departed and uses carrier pigeons to communicate?

Fascinating stuff.

 

[TravisR]

I wonder about Nora's "flash forward" we've seen earlier this season. In an episode about suicide and leaving (departing) your loved ones behind, the Nora scenes certainly went down a similarly themed path (i.e. using the "suicide machine").

But have seen Nora "alive" in the "future." Was that scene on the other side of the machine? Will nothing happen and the scene was simply as it was on its face (in the future, Nora still lives in Australia)? Some crazy sci-fi twist was Nora enters the machine, comes out in an inverse reality where 98% of the population has departed and uses carrier pigeons to communicate?

Fascinating stuff.

Yeah, I didn't think of it a few episodes ago when they introduced the idea of going through the machine but that seems to be the way it's going to me.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

I'm not guessing ahead on this show, but just relieved SOMEBODY lives on at this point because this show should come with a side effect warning not to be viewed with any alcohol or sedatives because it may cause SUICIDAL thoughts.

(And, for the record, turning off your oxygen regulator while scuba-diving would not be a good way to go. Now filling the tank with helium instead of oxygen...)

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

One of the most brutal parts about the first season for me was Laurie seeing and understanding how the choices she was making were devastating Jill, and making them anyway. That phone call, and then proceeding with her plan anyway, just gutted me.

 

[TravisR]

One of the most brutal parts about the first season for me was Laurie seeing and understanding how the choices she was making were devastating Jill, and making them anyway. That phone call, and then proceeding with her plan anyway, just gutted me.

My first thought was that the call was going to get her to change her mind (which would have been a little convenient but I would have been glad to have it have stopped her). However, I pretty quickly realized that she was still going to go through with it.

The Laurie scene was more horror & shock for me and the most emotional scene was when Laurie left Nora and Matt. There was something nice about seeing the two of them together for what is likely the last time and Matt having enough faith in something else to support her decision to presumably use the machine.

 

[TravisR]

Solid penis jokes this week. "I couldn't enlighten you with a 1,000 watt fucking bulb" is a funny line. Nice (final?) use of the old theme song and even better use of "God Only Knows".

And it's the Sophie's choice of TV next week- a new episode of Twin Peaks or the last episode of The Leftovers.

 

[joshEH]

Also, the cover of "The End of the World" over the closing credits (the original was recently used in Fallout 4, appropriately enough).

 

[TravisR]

Also, the cover of "The End of the World" over the closing credits (the original was recently used in Fallout 4, appropriately enough).

The original was used on Lost (no surprise there) and I'm pretty sure it was on Mad Men too.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Really powerful episode this week. I love the idea that Patti came back because she owed him.

I love that Kevin may have literally had God speaking in his ear telling him what to do, and he cast Him aside without a second thought to complete his agenda.

I also love that he blew up purgatory or whatever astral plane that was to force himself to fully commit to his life in the real world and as an affirmation of his commitment and love for Nora.

Nice (final?) use of the old theme song and even better use of "God Only Knows".

Seeing the Season 2 style credits with the Season 1 theme music was really jarring. I've got to believe the finale's credits will bring back "Let the Mystery Be".

Maybe because of the HBO connection, but "God Only Knows" really brought back "Big Love" flashbacks for me.

Jasmin Savoy Brown's rendition of “Love Will Keep Us Together” was pretty great, too.

And it's the Sophie's choice of TV next week- a new episode of Twin Peaks or the last episode of The Leftovers.

It's been really interesting having these two shows on at the same time, since their arguably the two most out there shows on television, yet in completely different ways.

This one gets the nod over "Twin Peaks" for me next week, since it's the series finale and I don't want anything spoiled. Going into it, I have no idea what's going to happen except that Nora will be at the center of it.

Thank goodness for On Demand, though.

Also, the cover of "The End of the World" over the closing credits (the original was recently used in Fallout 4, appropriately enough).

That was the single most on point use of a song I can recall. On the nose in all of the right ways, speaking both to the literal destruction of the planet and Kevin's determination to repair his broken relationship.

"We fucked up with Nora."

 

[TravisR]

Seeing the Season 2 style credits with the Season 1 theme music was really jarring. I've got to believe the finale's credits will bring back "Let the Mystery Be".

That would be my guess too. Unless they go opening credit-less like the premiere.

It's been really interesting having these two shows on at the same time, since their arguably the two most out there shows on television, yet in completely different ways.

This one gets the nod over "Twin Peaks" for me next week, since it's the series finale and I don't want anything spoiled. Going into it, I have no idea what's going to happen except that Nora will be at the center of it.

Thank goodness for On Demand, though.

Given my decades long love for Twin Peaks, I'll probably go with that and then I'll watch The Leftovers via On Demand before I go to bed. Then again, I can't imagine that's going to be an episode that will lead to pleasant dreams.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

If this were an episode of Lost, I think many would have just labeled it complete nonsense, but because it's The Leftovers on HBO, we give it a pass. Sometimes I feel the writers are just jerking us around while they're jerking off, and the penis scanner bit, to me, is a bit of a nod to that.