The Leftovers Series blog: Episode 3

Eschewing the multiple narrative perspectives used in the first two episodes, The Leftovers chooses to focus its attentions solely on Reverend Matt Jamison this week as he faces the potential foreclosure of his church, the show’s endeavours suitably rewarded in an episode more personal and affecting than those that came before it.

Genre favourite Chistopher Eccleston portrays Matt Jamison in The Leftovers
source: wikipedia

Genre favourite Christopher Eccleston is called upon to carry large portions of the episode as the preacher, acquitting himself well, although his American accent does initially prove a little disconcerting. The character is equal parts pious and fastidious, repeatedly framed either cleaning or fixing things into their proper place within the church. This is a man reacting to the chaos of a life left ravaged by the Sudden Departure, able to find a small degree of control in his life through the environment of the church and its diminished congregation.

A Man of God he may be, but Matt is as damaged as everyone else. Leaving Wanted-like posters decrying the supposed saintliness of the departed, the preacher has evidently turned his crisis of faith into a personal crusade. Its yet another example of the sort of sadomasochism seen in the games of sexual submission and pain that the teenagers take part in. Lindelof and Hoyt frame this existential uncertainty as a crucible, allowing the beleaguered preacher a desperate means to comprehend his own suffering as one of the many left behind. This is undoubtedly a show that will raise questions of fate and chance throughout its run, but the possibility of any sort of future redress looks increasingly unlikely. Lindelof has been nothing if not quick in foregrounding the characters and their plight over any sort of long-term mystery. It’s a decidedly humanist approach that lends great empathy to Matt’s tale; his being a blind search for meaning like any of the others we’ve seen. No easy answers will be given here.

As such, The Leftovers refuses to paint Matt as a complete charlatan. His baptism of a baby boy is treated with a certain sacredness, along with a rather on-the-nose angelic choir of voices to accompany it. For a show so detached from the ember of its own emotions, the moment is imbued with a sense of divinity that proves disarming. It arises not from some higher power, but from the warmth of what is a very human gesture. It marks an important moment, as the first time the show has been able to burst out –temporarily – from its own bubble of grief in a form quite different to the outbursts of defiance seen at the end of the last episode.

A Man of God he may be, but Matt is as damaged as everyone else… the preacher has evidently turned his crisis of faith into a personal crusade.

Scenes such as this provide the human connection that has hitherto been missing in an otherwise cold show. The confrontation between Nora and Matt as siblings similarly succeeds because of its greater intimacy, addressing grief in a more forthright manner than has been previously seen as the pair struggle in their own ways to decipher why both innocent and guilty were taken. This is aided in no small part by the direction of Keith Gordon, epitomised in the scene where Matt cleans the prone form of his ill wife. The cinematography remains tightly framed throughout the episode, focusing on pairs of hands and faces in a manner that emphasises the human and personal. In this episode the bursts of violence previously seen in brief, spastic cutaways, instead integrate themselves naturally into the central narrative. It is interesting that the more these characters come to terms with their situation, the more fully realised and connected The Leftovers feels in a very intentional way.

A sort of stasis is finally broken here, signalled by the Captain and Tennille song ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’; used also in Lindelof’s Lost. Although Matt ultimately compromises his morals for nothing, the journey along the way is one of vicarious thrill for both him and the viewer, closing out on what is the strongest instalment of The Leftovers to date.