The Leftovers Series blog: Episode 10

The first season of The Leftovers has essentially been a dark thought experiment masquerading as a HBO series – testing how far can you push both characters and an audience psychologically in the face of inexplicable, irreducible grief. Its season finale is, for the most part, a measured and slow contemplation on this greater social and philosophical quandary. An early sequence serves to explicitly remind the viewer of this all-important central conceit, as a passing man offers a desperate-looking Tom help. He turns down the offer, but not before asking, “Do people ever say yes?”

Perhaps the show’s most isolated character at this point, Tom simply cannot imagine someone making that small reaching gesture to another human being. That the man answers “Yes” is a revelation in of itself: one that is to shape all that comes after it, as The Leftovers finally seeks to address more directly the emotional dilemma at the heart of its thinking.

The Leftovers finally seeks to address more directly the emotional dilemma at the heart of its thinking.

If one thing has been made clear to the audience, it is that the Guilty Remnant most certainly does not want anybody’s help. Their efforts to sow discord in Mapleton reach an all time high this week as the Memorial Day plot comes to fruition. Their plan is revealed in a rather on the nose montage that connects the various dots, from the clothing in the church to the mysterious packages they had delivered there. That there were ‘Loved Ones’ remembrance dolls under the wrapping likely surprised no one. However, unlike in earlier episodes the dolls appear purposely artificial here, grotesque waxworks that lack any semblance of life.

Source: indiewire.com

Nora discovering her family of facsimiles at the kitchen table is a true punch to the gut moment, built up in slow and excruciating detail as we first watch her go about her morning routine. Accompanied by a dissonant ringing sound that drowns out her cries, the scene sees Nora’s carefully built façade crumble. Nora had asked for help from Holy Wayne, but it was falsely offered as a way to erase all grief, and so now her world falls apart around her once again.

Kevin, however, seeks help from a more genuine place. At his lowest point following Patti’s suicide, he calls Matt of all people, who in turn is willing to implicate himself in the death if needs be. His act of kindness will likely receive its own karmic reward, a surprising turn for a show as bleak as The Leftovers, as the audience alone saw the first hints of movement in Matt’s wife Mary during a scene in Cairo.

What the show is delivering here is a better balance of hope and despair than it has in the past, through Matt doing something as simple as providing Kevin with fresh clothes and water. The latter is used by Kevin to cleanse himself, a significant, almost spiritual act in this context. Matt isn’t some messianic figure like Holy Wayne: just a friend, hoping to help someone else in his community.

What the show is delivering here is a better balance of hope and despair than it has in the past

Kevin in turn opens up to the reverend, admitting that whilst he may have felt trapped by his family prior to the ‘Sudden Disappearance’, all he wanted was to be with them once the tragedy had occurred. His moment of catharsis is qualified somewhat by a later extended dream sequence, in which Kevin finds himself institutionalised alongside his father, host to the same voices that plague his old man as Patti reappears to haunt him.

Source: tvrecaps.ew.com

Whilst Kevin is able to better reconcile himself to his situation through Matt’s assistance, the question of whether he is a “good man” is still entirely up in the air, and his mental state is left even more precarious. Interestingly, an episode of Mork and Mindy plays in the background during Kevin’s nightmare – Mork the alien being a character than initially appeared in an outlandish dream in Happy Days before later being retconned as a real creature for his own television spinoff. We are reminded once again that nothing is ever simple in The Leftovers.

As if to confirm the point Holy Wayne reappears, only to die unceremoniously moments later on the floor of a toilet. Kevin helps the man in his final instants by allowing Wayne to bestow a single wish upon him, its exact nature left unspoken by Kevin. The gesture allows the would-be prophet to die reassured in the belief that his abilities were genuine. An FBI squad immediately swoops in and appropriates the body, a bizarre and unfathomable affair.  Such things are par for the course in this show. The Leftovers often forms a closed circuit of its own design, encouraging analysis whilst simultaneously warning against the folly of over interpretation.

Largely characterised up until this point by a feeling of quiet rumination, the episode holds off till almost the last minute to pull back and reveal the devastation of Memorial Day. The Guilty Remnant’s incendiary attempts to make the people remember are shown to be foolishly unneeded. Watching the distraught elderly couple put their son’s effigy on a fire in yet another impromptu burial rite, we understand that these people could never forget those gone, nor never fully move past their grief.

Having already reached its lowest ebb last week, The Leftovers sees its characters recognise the enormity of their loss here, and in contrast to earlier episodes embrace that which they still have left.

Having already reached its lowest ebb last week, The Leftovers sees its characters recognise the enormity of their loss here, and in contrast to earlier episodes embrace that which they still have left. A belief in reconciliation is shown to be paramount, no matter how flawed it might seem. Kevin and Jill reunite, finding themselves voluntarily re-joined by the feral dog they had once housed (used to similar effect by Lindelof in the emotional final moments of Lost), and Laurie and Tom also find each other once again. Even Nora, unable to see any way past her loss, finds a new reason to continue on. These are moments of optimism, yet they don’t attempt to create some great cohesive whole. Instead, they simply present small, fragile instances of human connection, tenuously held.