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There’s never been a TV show quite like “The Leftovers” and there may never be one again. Sure, it shares elements of other near-post-apocalyptics like “Revolution,” quasi-religious ontological mindbenders like “The OA” and grief dramas like “The Returned,” but none were as devastating as “The Leftovers.”
The HBO show, for those who are unfamiliar, has a simple premise: 2% of the world’s population disappears at the exact same moment — the Sudden Departure — leaving everyone looking for answers. A plucky band of survivors in Mapleton, N.Y., led by police chief Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), the town’s unluckiest survivor, Nora Durst (Carrie Coon) — who lost her husband and two kids — and Nora’s reverend brother, Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston) set out on an unlikely quest to understand the universe, while butting heads with the Guilty Remnant — a white-clad cult of cigarette-smoking nihilists led by Patti (Ann Dowd), Meg (Liv Tyler) and Garvey’s estranged wife, Laurie (Amy Brenneman).
For Season 2, Kevin and crew head to Miracle, Texas, a town where no one has disappeared, and we meet John (Kevin Carroll), Erika Murphy (Regina King) and their two kids. Season 3 takes place mostly in Australia, where Kevin’s father (Scott Glenn) is trying to stop a biblical-like flood.
The show is taut, frustrating and grim — and like creator Damon Lindelof’s previous beloved-but-flawed series, “Lost,” it goes completely off the rails. But this time, the derailed train ends up somewhere achingly beautiful. You may not love “The Leftovers,” but in the end, you know you’re watching something utterly unique. These are the 10 best episodes that get us from point A to, well, somewhere on the quantum plane.
The Prodigal Son Returns
Season 1, Episode 10
By the end of the first season, you’re already submerged into “The Leftovers’” universe. It’s weird, but you still haven’t figured out how weird. In fact, for most people, the show doesn’t really find its groove until the second season. But there’s moments in Season 1 that offer a glimpse of what’s to come. The finale, picking up the pieces from the penultimate episode’s shocker — Patti’s sudden self-martyrdom — kicks off with the Guilty Remnant sneaking into survivors’ homes at night and setting up mannequin replicas of the Departed. The townspeople, fueled by their opened wounds, attack the Remnant, burning down their house and making a bonfire of melting mannequins out front. In the aftermath, Nora tries to leave town. Her voiceover reads her Dear John letter to Kevin, which she doesn’t get a chance to deliver. As she walks up to Kevin’s house, she finds a baby on his stoop, setting up the next season. Fire leading to rebirth is a major theme in “The Leftovers” and this rebirth leaves viewers wanting more.
Don’t Be Ridiculous
Season 3, Episode 2
“The Leftovers” rarely gets caught up in pop culture references, but this episode has two. Nora, whose job is to suss out false claims of Departure, gets a call from Mark Linn-Baker, the actor who played cousin Larry on “Perfect Strangers.” The entire cast of the ‘80s ABC comedy has Departed, except Linn-Baker, who faked his Departure before showing up in Mexico. He’s contacted Nora to tell her about this technology that can blast people into wherever it is the Departed went. She goes to St. Louis to see if he’s scamming people, but comes away flustered. She heads home to Miracle and tells Erika about the Wu-Tang Clan ink she got in St. Louis to cover up a tattoo of her kids’ names. Then, Erika and Nora go into the backyard to cathartically jump on a trampoline, soundtracked by Wu-Tang’s “Protect Ya Neck.” It’s a brief moment of levity before jumping back into the bleakness of Nora walking in on Kevin with a bag over his head because he’s become addicted to near-death experiences.
Pilot
Season 1, Episode 1
This wild journey begins a few seconds before the Sudden Departure. A woman’s baby disappears from his car seat when she looks away for a second. She screams for him as chaos descends all around her. After the cold open, we meet Kevin — it’s days before the third anniversary of the Sudden Departure. We meet Laurie, his ex, now living in the communal home of the Guilty Remnant. We meet Jill (Margaret Qualley), Kevin’s morose daughter. And we meet Kevin’s son, Tom (Chris Zylka), who has joined a cult led by Holy Wayne — a prophet who claims to have the ability to “take away” people’s pain by touching them. There’s a little bit of mawkishness at the third anniversary ceremony, and it’s hard to tell exactly what kind of show this is. The saccharine bits quickly turn sour when the Guilty Remnant shows up, and the kind of beautiful chaos this show does so well erupts around the town with Kevin, stuck in the middle, always trying to keep the peace.
I Live Here Now
Season 2, Episode 10
The episode unravels the mystery of Evie (Jasmin Savoy Brown), John’s daughter who was thought to have Departed — she actually snuck away to join the Guilty Remnant. Then Kevin comes back to life after crossing over to the other side. And that’s all in the first few minutes. The Season 2 finale does not disappoint: Matt’s comatose wife Mary wakes up right before Meg drives an airstream trailer full of explosives onto the heavily guarded bridge to Miracle. Evie steps out, but not before John shoots Kevin dead. But the trailer is a red herring — soon the Guilty Remnant storms the bridge and enters Miracle. Kevin wakes up in “the hotel,” which is best interpreted as purgatory. In the hotel bar, he’s told he has to sing a karaoke song to get back to the land of the living, and he picks Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound.”
Two Boats and a Helicopter
Season 1, Episode 3
Sometimes a miracle is just a miracle. Until it’s not. Early in the series, this is the episode that marks the moment the show gains traction. The ep (the first not focused on Kevin) follows Reverend Matt. No one goes to church after the Sudden Departure so Matt’s church is in foreclosure and a mysterious entity has bid on it. He remembers that Kevin’s father, Mapleton’s former police chief, left $20,000 buried in a coffee can in the ground — a lot, but not quite enough so Matt heads to the casino. In a stroke of fate (or exceedingly good luck), he wins three times in a row at roulette. A rogue couple follows him to the parking lot to rob him, but the reverend beats the man to a pulp — a sign that Matt will do anything for his faith. He heads back to the bank to pay off the debt, but stops to help a couple of Guilty Remnant members under attack by an angry mob. Caught in the crossfire, he takes a rock to the head that knocks him out. He awakens a few days later to find out that the Guilty Remnant has bought the church, flaming the fans on the rivalry between the faithful and the faithless. It’s a messy, beautiful episode.
It’s a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World
Season 3, Episode 5
The cold open is masterful — a French navy man on a South Pacific submarine cranks up some Charles Aznavour, strips down naked, murders an officer, steals his nuclear key, runs in slo-mo to the control room, and does a completely nude full-extension stretch in order to turn both keys needed to launch the weapon. The episode only gets weirder from there. Kevin is stuck in Australia when flights are grounded after the nuke, and Matt and John want — need — to get him back to Miracle before the seven-year anniversary of the Sudden Departure. So Matt hires a cargo plane, but the plane gets diverted to Tasmania, where they have to sneak onto the only cruise liner making the 11-hour trip across the Bass Strait to the mainland. The boat happens to be a private party for a sex cult that worships a lion named Frasier. (The best part? Frasier is based on an actual lion that birthed 33 cubs in 16 months at a zoo, after being rescued from an abusive circus.) Matt gets punched by a man named Burton who claims to be “God,” and for a second, you think he might be. But then Matt witnesses Burton throwing a passenger overboard. When he tells the boat’s captain, he doesn’t believe “God” would do such a thing. At the end, Matt is vindicated in the most brutal manner — with Frasier mauling Burton to death as he disembarks the boat.
The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)
Season 3, Episode 7
The penultimate episode of “The Leftovers” is one of its best. Kevin is back in “the hotel,” where he discovers he’s an assassin who has to kill his identical twin brother, the president, who is hiding in a bunker following a nuclear threat. What happens doesn’t matter much — Patti tries to manipulate president Kevin to launch a nuclear response, but it requires cutting a launch key out of assassin Kevin’s heart — but this episode is all about interactions between the Kevins and Patti. The series is wrapping up, and this is actually kind of the climax. It’s got all the trippy elements of “the hotel” episodes, but even tenser, and that’s all we could ask for.
Axis Mundi
Season 2, Episode 1
This episode is all about the intro. A prehistoric woman leaves her cave to give birth when a massive earthquake hits. The cave is destroyed, along with her whole tribe. She gives birth on her own, and tries to survive by camping out next to a river and stealing eggs from a bird’s nest, but a venomous snake bites her. She protects her baby as she lies down to die by a pool of water. Another prehistoric woman approaches, picks up the baby and walks away. Cut to the same swimming hole — Evie and her friends are taking a dip — which we quickly find out is the sacred swimming hole of Miracle, Texas (the town where no one Departed). This is when the viewer understands that “The Leftovers” is prone to drastic changes — we don’t even see Kevin and crew until three-quarters of the way through the episode when they arrive in town. As for Miracle, it’s been closed off lest the hordes descend on the town to capture its magic. We’re introduced to John and Erika and all the side characters — John and Erika’s son, Michael, who gives Miracle water to tourists in order to entice them into his church; palm-reader Isaac; a man who sacrifices goats in the diner; and a man who lives atop a pillar in the middle of town. Miracle is not your typical town.
International Assassin
Season 2, Episode 8
Kevin’s been haunted by Patti’s ghost for almost a whole season. She tells him that in order to get rid of her, he must drink poison (administered by Erika’s father Virgil) and defeat her in the afterlife. He wakes up in “the hotel” and finds out that he’s an assassin and has to kill Patti, who is a presidential candidate. It’s trippy and dreamy and perfectly encapsulates everything that’s good about “The Leftovers.”
The Book of Nora
Season 3, Episode 8
All’s well that ends well, but very few things actually do — and even fewer TV shows. There’s a lot to love about this episode, but the real joy is the tension between Kevin and Nora as he pretends that he doesn’t know her. Finally, he gives in and admits, of course he remembers her, and that he’s been searching for her, but doesn’t know what happened to her after she went into Mark Linn-Baker’s other-side machine two episodes prior. Nora’s showstopping explanation at the end is the perfect note. It’s heartbreaking and revealing and sad. And if you’re not under the spell of this show by then, you might just be one of the Departed.
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