The Leftovers

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flyonthewall2983
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Re: The Leftovers

#26 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon May 22, 2017 2:20 pm

The direct line of pure unfettered emotion that has unwavered for the whole season (and perhaps, the entire show) so far feels like it was in some sense preparing you for last night's show. Amy Brenneman delivered on levels that were at times punctuated, a little mischevious, and just raw nerve sticking out. And not at the expense of other meaningful moments as well.

flyonthewall2983
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Re: The Leftovers

#27 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:45 am

The finale felt more like a comedown from the dizzying highs this season took.


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Andre Jurieu
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:38 pm
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Re: The Leftovers

#28 Post by Andre Jurieu » Mon Jun 05, 2017 12:20 pm

Thought it was a well-crafted finale that offered a very serene conclusion to a show that sometimes (especially early on) verged on erratic. Even though I'm not very religious, I really enjoyed that Nora's summary of her journey basically serves as another test of faith for everyone involved, including the audience.

Also, here's a brief Damon Lindelof interview that covers his thoughts and intentions regarding the series finale.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: The Leftovers

#29 Post by Roger Ryan » Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:26 am

I was pleased with how this final episode concluded the series as it offered an intriguing "explanation" of the supernatural event (one that, frankly, I hadn't considered) while allowing the veracity of the explanation to be left up to the viewer. My biggest fear was that the second half of the episode was going to be upended with an "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" reveal. As it is, I think it was a mistake to provide a glimpse of the final sequence at the end of the first episode of this season; the impact of the sudden jump in time was lessened because I was anticipating it.

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Murdoch
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Re: The Leftovers

#30 Post by Murdoch » Wed Jun 07, 2017 8:50 pm

SpoilerShow
One theory floating around is that Nora's quest to the other side, so to speak, was much like Kevin's - a manifestation of the individual's mentality rather than an actual location they went to. Kevin's looks like a Bourne movie, Nora's is something far more downplayed and personal. I like the idea that these travels of the characters aren't so much where dead characters went or where the departed went, but Kevin and Nora's psyches' desperate attempts to understand the incomprehensible. The show never offered explanations and I don't see Nora's journey to provide any clarity. Her tracking of the scientist who built the machine seems like Kevin's ridiculous presidential assassination plot (which was the high point of the series for me).

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Leftovers

#31 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:09 pm

I'm rewatching the series for the first time since it ended, and season 1, which left me unimpressed on a first go, is drastically better in the context of the whole. The way the show tests each character to confront their perspective and compromise within and outside of their outlooks never threatens their sincerity or invalidates the gravity of the need to make sense of life, via security in personal credences or institutions, even when exposing ironies with care (and often including montages of makeshift rituals from intended ones to the way the camera shoots a body entering incineration, letting us be the sole witnesses to the value of this person in a humanistic vision). I also appreciate how we as an audience aren't given authorship over their situations, so we ourselves need to take consistent leaps of faith to dignify the characters' unknowable collective loss. We aren't privileged into understanding from the get-go why the Guilty Remnant is alluring, or why Garvey can be wooed into believing "these aren't our dogs" as a lesser show would overexplain for us to 'earn' the development. These people have been through enough before we got here, and we're here to observe with curiosity, and meet them where they're at with unconditional compassion. In order to achieve this, we, like them, must accept our place devoid of mastery.
SpoilerShow
The thesis for the show is essentially summed up when Nora asks Kevin why he would cheat on his wife and he pauses in emotional reflection and finally says, "is there a good answer to that question?" and she says, "I think I just heard it."
Still, each season improves upon itself and the broadness of the approach to how we process loss empathizes with each strategy of belief on equal ground. I also love the unexplained events that keep gradually upping the ante, from roulette winnings and a hug breaking a questionnaire streak to truly incontestable enigmas. I'm always wary to make hyperbolic TV declarations, as The Wire, Twin Peaks, etc. have long been firmly cemented at the top, but this might be my favorite TV show of all time. It's certainly the most spiritually profound, while Bojack Horseman is probably the best at addressing similarly piercing corporeal concerns without the inclusivity of that higher relationship.

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Walter Kurtz
Joined: Sat Jul 25, 2020 3:03 pm

Re: The Leftovers

#32 Post by Walter Kurtz » Mon May 24, 2021 2:39 am

The Leftovers has been my favorite show of all time since my first viewing and now I'm lucky enough to see an extended epilogue. It seems Kevin Garvey fell asleep within a few weeks or so of the original ending after having some tasty apple pie and is now having a lengthy dream on Apple TV+ called The Mosquito Coast.

Although his name is different now he still has a wife with light brown hair, a dark-haired daughter and a sandy-haired son. The first scene or so has Kevin sitting and chatting with a bunch of people in the daylight instead of sitting and chatting at night under party lights as in the last episode of Leftovers season 3. Instead of being the law... he is now on the run from the law. Instead of a preening alpha male he is now a preening nerd.

The whole show makes about as much sense as the secret agent/assassin dream (or 'other place') episodes in Leftovers. All in all, Mosquito is nowhere near the quality of Leftovers but I'm hoping that at the end of the last show in the last season of Mosquito, Kevin wakes up next to Nora.

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pianocrash
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Re: The Leftovers

#33 Post by pianocrash » Wed May 26, 2021 3:38 am

Walter Kurtz wrote:
Mon May 24, 2021 2:39 am
The Leftovers has been my favorite show of all time since my first viewing and now I'm lucky enough to see an extended epilogue. It seems Kevin Garvey fell asleep within a few weeks or so of the original ending after having some tasty apple pie and is now having a lengthy dream on Apple TV+ called The Mosquito Coast.
Though I am only fully into the second season proper of The Leftovers, I can only imagine a fourth season of the show could also have been the same title of that upcoming AMC series: Kevin Can F*!? Himself :), but, you know, a show that people would actually want to see.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: The Leftovers

#34 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed May 26, 2021 9:55 am

Kevin Garvey is a rigid atheist and represents this stance, not only in faith but in personality. He demonstrates how psychological defense mechanisms work to alienate himself from and harm others as a result of his fear, just as all the characters do, really, in their own ways. I empathize with his character and am intimately familiar with some of his traits, but the effects of his identity on the viewer issues a challenge to atheist or fixed solipsistic thinking patterns. Regardless of whether or not one is a believer, there are qualities to relate to in Kevin Garvey- as there are in all the characters- just as Kevin Garvey (and all of us) has a relationship with God/the idea of God, despite not outwardly 'believing'. The genius of the show is in framing the content just vague enough to become accessible to anyone regardless of specific beliefs or background, because coping with loss and faith are universal experiences. So when we become irritated by, or drawn toward, a character on the show, it’s usually gifting a map towards some kind of introspection- to empathize with the fear that drives us, as reflected in the players. Who are we to judge how people respond to, and process, loss in life? And yet, because we do play God naturally through our own principles when presented in a position of social observation, these are opportunities to reflect and identify on the grounds of commonality rather than differentiate. The Leftovers, more than any other show, gently guides me towards adopting that broad humanist intimacy via multifaceted avenues including judgment. Going from beginning to end of the show is like a self-reflexive spiritual awakening.

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Walter Kurtz
Joined: Sat Jul 25, 2020 3:03 pm

Re: The Leftovers

#35 Post by Walter Kurtz » Wed May 26, 2021 3:30 pm

I definitely agree that one of the beautiful things about the show is that various people will take away completely different things. The Leftovers is a post-modern Rorschach test for elucidating personal belief systems. My wife and I both love the show and are not believers. My little brother loves the show and is a Christian minister. Personally I think the planet and everybody on it was in a quantum superposition that instantaneously decohered in such a way that 98% of the people went left and 2% went right.

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Leftovers

#36 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed May 26, 2021 3:58 pm

Well and of course the show is about infusing us with grace, however you define it, to not only acknowledge our own belief systems but emerge from them with some peripheral vision to accepting what is unknown- the God-sized blind spot that science cannot explain, or the God-sized hole in our emotional cores. The show tenderly guides us like a non-interventionist shepherd to a place where we do see the value in 'believing' in something greater than ourselves- whether trusting our partner in a corporeal sense or worshiping a celestial higher power to keep ourselves right-sized. The show is about the definition of spirituality that allows us to escape our rigidity and access humility, almost always something we need to do on earth around those we are close with

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