The Leftovers (1 Viewer)

[Josh Dial]

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.

Suffice to say this opinion is a 180 from mine.

 

[Stan]

Sad, so sad. Bad timing, but I'm seven episodes behind. Was going to do a binge, but knowing the finale was coming up, I'll wait until next week

Really enjoyed the earlier seasons, hope the quality is still there. Binge postponed.

DISH doesn't offer any description, doesn't say season finale or series finale, so hope it continues.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Series finale. The end.

 

[TravisR]

Series finale. The end.

And here's HBO's amusing description for it

Spoiler

Nothing is answered. Everything is answered. And then it ends.

 

[Stan]

Series finale. The end.

Well, I guess that settles it. Looking forward to the eight episodes I'll watch, hope it ended well.

DVRs are dangerous, stuff from months, even years ago can just hang around until you catch up

 

[John Lee_275604]

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

They purposefully used the Patty Duke version to tie into Patti singing that riff on the Patty Duke Show theme song.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

They purposefully used the Patty Duke version to tie into Patti singing that riff on the Patty Duke Show theme song.

I never knew Patty Duke did a version and was wondering why I wasn't hearing Skeeter Davis (or whatever her strange name was) who did the original. Duke's was a pale copy. I think her identical cousin could have done a better job.

 

[John Lee_275604]

Skeeter Davis (or whatever her strange name was)

That's her correct [stage] name. Don't know where Skeeter came from, but she used Davis as a surname so she and Betty Jack Davis could tour as a sister act.

 

[Stan]

That's her correct [stage] name. Don't know where Skeeter came from, but she used Davis as a surname so she and Betty Jack Davis could tour as a sister act.

Not positive, but I think Patty Duke went through several name changes. She passed away last year, living in Idaho about 20 miles away from me. She did some local theatre stuff and some commercial ads. Never met her, but she always seemed very nice.

 

[TravisR]

Rolling Stone has an interview with Carrie Coon about The Leftovers and Fargo: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/fea...came-tvs-most-valuable-player-of-2017-w478266

 

[Greg.K]

Interesting finale. I didn't expect them to answer as much as they did.

 

[TravisR]

What a beautiful show. I can't think of any other TV show that was as human or as moving as that series.

I was shocked by how much was explained. Also, I guess that (since it's a finale, I'll give the west coast DVRers a break)

Spoiler

Laurie was inadvertently saved by Jill and Tommy's phone call and she changed her mind before drowning herself.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

That finale was not at all what I expected. It answered far more than I expected it to, and yet was less encompassing than I think I needed it to be.

I don't know that I buy that:

Spoiler

Nora would get that close to her husband and children, and then just walk away seeing them happy without her. If the last two seasons have taught us anything, it's that the idea of family is amorphous and adaptable. Nora might not be in love with her husband anymore, and he might not be in love with her. But there was still the possibility of a life that includes her and all of them. It's the only reason I thought it might be what the nun said about the homing pigeons: "It's a better story."

On the other hand:

Spoiler

Seeing Laurie alive and nurturing Jill's baby daughter was such an affirming moment, that after all of the shit she put her daughter and family through, she chose in that moment under the waves to embrace living instead of dying and do right by those she loves.

One thing's for sure: This finale will be spinning around in my thoughts for quite a long while to come.

 

[Paul D G]

Good finale. I'm not sure how I feel about some of the fake-outs like

Spoiler

Jill being alive and holding a baby. (not bothered about Jill not really killing herself a couple weeks back, more that we're led to assume by this that she's with her unborn baby on the Other Side), and Kevin's automaton response to "how did you find me" immediately made me think this was all in her head.

As for Adam's first spoiler

Spoiler

I don't know... I can she her seeing her now grown children, children who don't know her anymore, her husband and happily married to someone else and realizing if she just walked up to them she couldn't expect them to welcome her back or to include her in part of their lives. I wonder, tho, if there were reports of people returning. That might have made her sudden appearance more plausible. But still, she never would have really fit in.

I'm glad they didn't go for a truly ambiguous resolution. I don't need to know how they Departure occurred, but just what happened to the Departed was enough for me.

As a side note, I let my 15 year old watch this with me last night. He's never seen an episode but didn't want to retire to his room. I had to explain the setup, but only briefly, and explain who Kevin was, but other than that, the episode was amazingly well contained. He didn't need to know three years of backstory to enjoy it. To him it was like a Twilight Zone episode.

 

[MarkMel]

Perfect, I think it was a perfect ending to the series. They answered just enough and there will always be questions left to interpretation.

Ultimately it was a love story.

I was really thrown when Kevin said their story started and ended at the school dance. I'm glad they went the way the did.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Satisfied with the emotional ending of the story. Still wondering where the hell Kevin was going when he "died." Guess I'll let the mystery be.

Not to be crude or sophomoric, but they would have had me spouting "Great Finale" just with Carrie Coon naked. (Emotionally, of course)

 

[John Lee_275604]

I never knew Patty Duke did a version and was wondering why I wasn't hearing Skeeter Davis (or whatever her strange name was) who did the original. Duke's was a pale copy. I think her identical cousin could have done a better job.

In 'it's a small world' news, this week's American Pickers had the guy who had a bunch of effects from Skeeter Davis' estate sale,

 

[Stan]

Satisfied with the emotional ending of the story. Still wondering where the hell Kevin was going when he "died." Guess I'll let the mystery be.

Not to be crude or sophomoric, but they would have had me spouting "Great Finale" just with Carrie Coon naked. (Emotionally, of course)

Laid up due to a broken foot and now the doctors finally figured out why my ribs hurt so badly, several of them are broken, so not going anywhere. Have the final eight episodes on the DVR, perfect time for a little marathon viewing.

Thanks for all the "spoiler" warnings from fellow members. I'm fairly immune to them, don't really mind unless there's a super surprise ending. I've avoided them this time and most of the other posts haven't given away much.

Sad that it ended. Was hoping for another season or two, but that's life. Still have "The Last Ship" to look forward to, it just keeps going. To bad it's not nuclear powered, it could run for decades

 

[The Drifter]

Resurrecting this thread to re-post my thoughts on the finale of The Leftovers (that I originally posted on another site about 2 years ago). The show was so good, it really stayed with me. I'm definitely going to do a re-watch in the next several years:

The series finale of The Leftovers was brilliant. Really intense, and though not a lot "happened", it was gripping. I was very impressed & satisfied with the way everything was "resolved". Very poignant how Kevin had searched everywhere for Nora & finally found her living in the middle of nowhere, "down under" - 20 years?! after her initial disappearance. The Australian episodes in the second half of this season were amazing. And, they really separated this season from the previous two; having this partially take place in Australia is one of the reasons S03 is my favorite of the series.

The scene of the guy coming down the ladder from the Nun's room & her subsequent lying about this (to Nora) was hilarious - it brought to mind a couple of high-school kids who are screwing around "in secret" behind their parents' backs - LOL. I guess they included this sequence to illustrate the nun's dishonesty; if she could lie about her secret "lover", she could definitely have lied to Nora about what she had told Kevin.

I was thrown off by Kevin initially claiming that he had only met with Nora once (at the high school dance), and didn't mention their subsequent meetings & marriage. I initially thought there was some kind of "alternate reality" situation going on here. However, this was all explained later.

Spoiler: SPOILER

The final "story" Nora told Kevin about going to "the other side" and coming back is extremely unlikely & probably impossible. If you watch the initial scene when she's in the bubble carefully, when the fluid starts to fill up the bubble she yells "stop" right as it's filling up her mouth. And, in the later flash-back scene when she's talking to Kevin, the fluid does also fill up her mouth somewhat. And, the two "technicians" had specifically told Nora that she had to hold her breath for 30 seconds so the fluid wouldn't enter her mouth, or else she would either die?!, or the process wouldn't work (can't remember exactly what they said). In any case, I believe she stopped the "process" before it was "completed".

That being said, this whole "process" that the technicians came up with for "going through" was certainly a scam anyway - in order to make $ off of the suckers willing to believe in this. I suspect that in the cases of those people that "did" really want to go to the other side & went through the process (not Nora), somehow the technicians eliminated them & then covered this up by having the fake "body fossils" to show as "proof" that people did go through.

The story of her finding the "scientist" on the other side (that had built the first machine) and convincing him to build her another machine so she could "go back" to where she came from really sounds like a lot of crap, and not at all plausible....yeah, right.

Going along with this, when Nora was telling Kevin about life on the other side, we never saw any scenes corresponding with what she was saying. In and of itself that doesn't mean this didn't happen, but it does lend credence to the idea that she was making the whole thing up.

The reason Nora was lying to Kevin here is probably because:

-She really believe she did go to that other place, and was lying to herself about this because she wanted to believe everything she was saying.

Or:

- She knew she was lying, but was making the whole story up to give her life some kind of "closure", so she could believe that her family (husband & kids) were happy & content in a new life. She described her kids as having grown older, and her husband as happily re-married to a "pretty wife".

To me, the whole point of the entire series is the exploration of faith & religion; and, more importantly, the exploration of people trying to understand why their loved ones (family members, spouses, etc.) have passed and coming to terms with their deaths. And, this conversation that Nora had with Kevin in the finale really encapsulated the series to some extent. I've been watching TL since S01, and have been puzzled at times by the message(s) that the show's writers/producers are trying to convey. However, it all came together here & made sense in this finale.

 

[Citizen87645]

So I spent the last couple weeks watching the series and getting caught up on this thread.

It's interesting reading comments about Laurie's episode "Certified" and the assumption made that she killed herself while scuba diving. I actually was leaning more on the side that she didn't kill herself, and she went scuba diving as a celebration / affirmation of her life. Even though Nora had mentioned that as the best way to make suicide look like an accident, I didn't feel like Laurie was there for that reason, and the series finale basically confirmed it when it showed her taking care of her granddaughter.

I also tend to think Nora told the "truth" about her experience in the machine. Is it hard to believe? Sure, but no one can prove it didn't happen in the same way no one can prove what Kevin experienced didn't happen. As the final words say, the only evidence is that she's there, so whatever they went through for them to be still in the world is as "real" or "true" as their continued existence / persistence / survival.

I do find the idea compelling of the inverse realities, where they lost 2% on their side, but on the other side it was 98%. Like occupants just moved to parallel planes of existence and then had to figure out how to move on without each other. Makes me think of the show Fringe, though that was more about alternate realities with copies of every person, whereas this seems more like the worlds are duplicated but not the people.