Damon Lindelof is increasingly becoming one of my favorite TV writers ever. Yeah, I know, hot take considering how controversial the Lost finale is, but as a sucker for ambiguity, his style just works for me. Lindelof is a master at using unexplained supernatural events to tell personal, human stories, as shown in all-timer TV episodes like The Constant. The Leftovers feels like an evolution of his craft.
The Leftovers has a simple premise. One random day, 2% of the world's population suddenly and permanently disappears in an event later dubbed the Departure. If you've followed the MCU, it's like a less extreme but a no less crippling version of "The Snap". Unlike in the MCU, however, The Leftovers doesn't focus on how people disappeared or how they could be brought back. The Departure happened, no one understands why, and there's no reversing it. Instead, The Leftovers focuses on a small town called Mapleton as we watch them process their grief over the event. As you might expect given my other reviews, I think this premise is brilliant. The fact that The Departure is a wholly ambiguous and unexplained event allows The Leftovers to explore how people reconcile things that don't make sense. Some people may try to find a scientific explanation, even if nothing necessarily adds up, while others may try to find a religious explanation, even if The Departure was too random to be a rapture. Lost had this "Man Of Science, Man Of Faith" theme that I found really interesting even if it ended up settling for the faith side by the end. The Leftovers further explores that same exact theme but doesn't settle for an answer, at least not in this season.
But more than faith, The Leftovers is primarily a story about grief. I've always found episodes in TV shows where the characters deal with grief to be fascinating, because you can tell a lot about a person by the way they process a traumatic event. The Leftovers is well aware of this, so Mapleton is filled with a wide variety of people dealing with the Departure in their own different ways, and you learn more about them by watching their actions. A testament to the cast's variety is the parallel between lead Kevin and side character Nora, the latter losing everyone to the Departure and the former losing no one, and yet they're both struggling immensely. It's actually really hard to watch considering that there's a single character who's not miserable or rage-filled, but I also can't say any of these characters are not incredibly interesting. The main "plot" of the season involves a nihilistic cult called the Guilty Remnant harassing the town and trying to remind them of the Departure, and while they annoy me to no end, I think they're a good exploration of toxic nihilism. Still, it's unmistakable that the best thing about The Leftovers is the characters, so most of its best episodes focus entirely on a single character. Lost did a similar thing and I think it's for the best considering that the episodes that focus on the entire town can feel like they're spread a bit thin.
Highlights:
Two Boats And A Helicopter: I'm kind of surprised I liked this episode as much as I did. Matt's story here is borderline misery porn, every brief moment of hope ripped from him in the cruelest way possible. I think what makes it manageable is that Matt is an incredibly morally gray character. His noble motivations and Christopher Eccleston's tender performance do a good job at eliciting sympathy, yet he repeatedly makes the wrong decisions to the point where it's hard not to feel he doesn't deserve some of the stuff that happens to him. What's most thought-provoking is the parallels between him and the Guilty Remnant, both forcing the town to remember the Departure for their own reasons.
The Garveys At Their Best: Yet another character-exploration episode, though this time it's a flashback to pre-Departure Mapleton. Most of the episode was honestly pretty predictable, with most of the characters being noticeably happier than they are now, but I did like the hints to Nora's family issues and the fact that the Garveys "at their best" still isn't really all that great. And the real highlight was that final scene anyway, where we see everyone's reactions to the events of the Departure.
The Prodigal Son Returns: With all of its experimental episodes and more slice of life-y moments, I went into this finale a bit wary of what this season of The Leftovers was building towards. I'm really happy with what we got though, The Prodigal Son Returns gives pretty much everything a satisfying, or even hopeful, resolution. The Guilty Remnant pulls off its more controversial protest yet, and subsequently suffers its greatest defeat. Wayne dies for something he probably deserved, but he managed to grant one last bit of hope for Kevin. Nora reaches rock bottom, only to find Christine's child and end the season with more of a reason to live than ever before.
To be perfectly honest, I went into The Leftovers a bit skeptical. I thought maybe it'd be too depressing or too prestige-y for me, but instead it showed me that I shouldn't underestimate Lindelof a bit. While the first season has its rough edges in terms of pacing, The Leftovers has so far been a fantastic character study that takes what Lost did well and expands on it even further.
4/5 Stars
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