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The Leftovers “International Assassin” Review (2×08)

22 Nov

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“Holy shit.”

Holy shit is right. This is undoubtedly going to be a polarizing episode for the viewers, but it’s one that gripped me from start to finish. It’s both hilarious and absolutely devastating, and it rides a trippy wave of energy as it plunges deep into the show’s supernatural elements. It’s not an episode that takes us on a “WTF?” journey just for the sake of it; it’s also a character and theme study that deftly brings us back to the beginning of the season. Goddamn, this hour is a pleasure to watch unfold.

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The Leftovers “A Most Powerful Adversary” Review (2×07)

15 Nov

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“It was finally over. That’s freedom.”

So far this year, The Leftovers has focused on the concept of faith, on why we feel the need to believe as we navigate the often illogical world around us. “A Most Powerful Adversary” reemphasizes that point, but it also delves into our desires to simply escape, to just end things and be free of the worries that have constantly plagued us. The central figure for this exploration is Kevin Garvey, someone who has tried before to escape and has felt a heavy weight on his shoulders since the beginning of this all.

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The Leftovers “No Room at the Inn” Review (2×05)

1 Nov

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The Leftovers revolves around faith: faith in the face of a seemingly hopeless situation, faith and its potential erosion over time, faith and the capability of humans to find something within nothing. Matt Jamison is someone who can believe, someone who has to believe, and “No Room at the Inn” takes us down a devastating and fascinating path as he grapples with the world around him. It’s my favorite episode of the season thus far, and it’s the show at its best.

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The Leftovers “Orange Sticker” Review (2×04)

25 Oct

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“There are no miracles in Miracle.”

Once again, The Leftovers tackles the desire to explain the unexplainable, to feel 100% about various beliefs, actions, or events. “Orange Sticker” takes a look at people who believe one way, but ultimately crumble under the weight of the world they live in now. It’s an interesting episode both plot-wise and theme-wise, and it features an absolutely stellar Carrie Coon performance throughout.

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The Leftovers “Off Ramp” Review (2×03)

18 Oct

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“Well, let’s give them something.”

What’s great about The Leftovers is its ability to acknowledge the complexities of the systems we’ve put into place over the years, the systems that make up society as a whole. From a slightly more cynical viewpoint, believing in something can also be seen as buying into something. However, the key point here is: belief tethers us to something tangible or metaphorical or both, and there can certainly be value in a support group around us. The show isn’t so much concerned with critiquing belief systems like religion as it is explaining why they exist in the first place, and a telling encapsulation of this idea comes in this episode’s “THEY MAKE SENSE!” (in reference to the Guilty Remnant). It’s easier to have something to believe in, after all.

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The Leftovers “A Matter of Geography” Review (2×02)

11 Oct

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“Nobody’s okay.”

“All I see is what’s done,” Kevin Garvey Sr. tells his son midway through this episode. “I could either sit around and cry about how the world fucking ended, or I could start it up again.” Seeing as this show is concerned with the idea of loss and how we deal with it, it’s interesting to see these characters attempting to finally move on with their lives. Sure, we saw some of that last season, but it seems like the desire is coming out in full force right now, literally driving them to another location known as Miracle. It’s all about escape from recent events, about trying to restore some sense of normalcy into a world described aptly by Garvey Sr.: “Would you agree that the laws of fucking nature [seem] a bit upside down as of late?”

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The Leftovers “Axis Mundi” Review (2×01)

4 Oct

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A perfectly understandable reaction to this premiere would be: “What the hell?” That was mine, after all, when we were introduced to the season through a 10-minute sequence involving childbirth, an earthquake, and a snakebite. There are certainly a plethora of ways you can look at it, and that can be both a frustrating and an engaging aspect of the viewing experience. I think it’s clear, though, that the series is more concerned with the emotional fallout of the Departure–or in this case, the lack thereof–than with the concrete answers.

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The Leftovers “The Prodigal Son Returns” Review (1×10)

8 Sep

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“We made them remember.”

The Leftovers paints a picture of a broken world. It’s broken because its people are broken, and its people are broken because of their search for concrete answers in a post-Departure world. As humans, we tend to want to think in terms of black and white, of good and bad, of us and them, and it simply winds up being detrimental to the people who lost their loved ones on October 14th.  “There’s a reason for everything,” we think, and we crumble when we can’t pinpoint that reason in the sea of darkness.

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The Leftovers “The Garveys at Their Best” Review (1×09)

25 Aug

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“A man said to the universe, ‘Sir, I exist'”. 

“However,” the universe replied, “that fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”

“The Garveys at Their Best” makes its point known from the irony inherent in the title. Prior to the Sudden Departure, the Garveys were already a broken family, a group of people apparently fine from the outside but straining when you looked closer, and what resulted from October 14th was an extension off of what already existed. That, fittingly, is why people throughout this episode seem to sense that something terrible is about to happen.

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