This is usually a movie blog, but I
just finished watching this 3-season HBO show, and I had to write
about it. “The Leftovers” is an absolute tour-de-force, better
than any movie I saw this past year. I had previously considered
“Breaking Bad” to be the best story I ever saw told on
television, and it is a great show. But where “Breaking Bad”
sprawls over 5 seasons, sometimes losing the narrative arc and
repeating story lines, “The Leftovers” is tightly-crafted within
its 3 seasons, with nothing wasted.
The show is based on the book of the
same name by Tom Perotta, and Season 1 starts out much like the book.
We enter the small town of Mapleton, New York in a world where, 3
years earlier, a seemingly-random 2% of the world's population
vanished in an event called the “Sudden Departure.” This event
left mothers suddenly pushing empty strollers, babies without a
babysitter, cars without a driver, and prison cells empty.
Naturally, Christians try to view the event through the lens of the
Biblical Rapture, but with murderers having departed while faithful
believers were left behind, no one can make sense of it.
In the wake of this, traditional
religions have declined, while cults have sprung up like mushrooms.
One of these cults is the Guilty Remnant, a group of nihilists who
view the Departure as a sign that nothing matters, not family, not
personal happiness, not life. Members give up speaking and take up
smoking, and they silently follow regular people around to remind
them of the Departure.
Police Chief Kevin Garvey (Justin
Theroux) is one of the lucky ones who didn't lose any family in the
Departure. Unfortunately, the aftermath of the event drove his wife,
Laurie (Amy Brenneman) to join the Guilty Remnant. This leaves Kevin
alone to raise their daughter Jill, worry about their son Tom (who is
secretly off in another cult), and deal with his own mental demons.
He meets Nora (Carrie Coon), a tough, but bruised woman who lost her
husband and both kids in the Departure. The two fall in love, while
Kevin tries to keep Mapleton from tearing itself apart, as the Guilty
Remnant works to recruit new members and enrage the rest of the town.
Season 2 finds Kevin and Nora and
their crew moving to Jarden, Tx, a small town renamed Miracle because
no one from there Departed. The town's seemingly protected status
has made it a magnet for seekers from all over, and it is fenced off
and managed as a national park. Nora buys an outrageously overpriced
house in Jarden, and they settle in to make a life in what they think
is a safe place. Jarden, of course, turns out not to be as placid as
it seems.
The third, and final, season details
the days leading up to the seventh anniversary of the Sudden
Departure. Seven is a number of recurring biblical import, so people
are attaching a lot of significance to this anniversary. Many,
including Kevin's insane father (Scott Glenn), believe it will be the
end of the world, so crazy behavior is even more prevalent than
usual. Kevin and Nora outwardly have their acts together, but we find
that there is a lot of turmoil under the surface. Meanwhile, Nora's
brother, Matt (Christopher Eccleston) is writing a holy book based on
Kevin's life. It gets weirder from there. Ultimately, many, but not
all, things are explained, and the show wraps up in a somewhat
mystifying, but beautiful, finale.
Producer Damon Lindelof (“Lost”)
and author Tom Perotta co-wrote the series, and they have succeeded
in turning Perotta's excellent book into something much greater. The
book covers roughly the same events as Season 1 of the show. From
there, they are in completely original territory.
The show is a deep exploration of
loss. We all fear losing people we love, and the Sudden Departure
caused a significant proportion of humanity to experience that loss
all at once. This leads to a secondary loss, for many, of their
religious faith, which suddenly seems to make no sense. One of the
lessons of the show, however, is that loss is universal. The
Departure leaves people feeling like they have experienced a
world-ending cataclysm, but to put things in perspective, only 2% of
the population was taken in the Departure. The Black Plague killed
30-60% of Europe's population in just a few years. Of course, the
Black Plague also caused massive religious, cultural, and political
upheaval. The story of humanity is a series of such convulsions.
“The Leftovers” is simply an individual look at what it might be
like to be part of one of those events.
The show is also about Family, and the
many ways of defining and re-forming a family after things go wrong.
Even the Guilty Remnant is a type of family, giving its members
something they couldn't get from their previous relationships.
This story has incredible empathy for
the characters that inhabit it. Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon are
the stars, but there are no small roles in “The Leftovers.”
Every character owns their own story, their own arc. Matt, for
example, is first introduced handing out flyers detailing the sins of
individuals who departed. He is trying to convince people that the
Departure could not have been the biblical Rapture, and he comes off
as a pious jerk. As the story progresses, however, he turns out to be
a guy who consistently puts aside his own interests to help others,
and whom you can call to help bury a body.
The worst tv shows string the audience
along, with their only goal being to get you to keep watching for as
long as the network can squeeze money out of the show. At its best,
tv tells a narrative, which ends when it should, not when the
audience quits watching. “The Leftovers” is TV at its best, with
a narrative arc that makes sense, and a gigantic heart.
5 stars out of 5
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