Kevin and Nora figuring some things out on The Leftovers
Woah...
The Leftovers was a great show in its first season. It was a
show who was powerful and emotionally satisfying enough to overlook its various
flaws and at times divisiveness. It was a great dramatic gut punch, one that I
could not stop thinking about for long after I finished.
But boy was I not expecting season two to be this great. The
Leftovers made the proverbial “leap” in season two from a show that was great,
but great in and amongst other shows along the same level, to having one of the
all-time greatest television drama seasons. The Leftovers season two left me a
wreck after its conclusion, and it is a season of television that I will
remember for a long time.
Now due to some exam related time constraints lets go right
to the bullets:
- How about that final scene in the finale? Kevin and John’s gradual conflict/tense friendship had been one of the through lines to the season and it payed off in the most wacky and beautiful way. All it took was for them to finally air out the tensions of where the hell Eve went (more on that in a bit) and of course for John to shoot Kevin for good measure. The scene the two share making up on their respective porches is so powerful because it has been strangely earned. The exact same thing applies to the great scene that follows and ultimately ends the season with the whole fractured extended Garvey/Durst/Jamison clan welcoming Kevin back home. In a season full of Kevin fighting his demons and fracturing his family within a space where nothing seemed to go wrong only to have the safe space be destroyed only to find a potentially sane Kevin reuniting with the family he had almost drove away was powerful and provided the perfect ending for a near perfect season.
- So Kevin survived death not once but twice this season. The first time led to one of the great hours of television “International Assassin” in which Kevin explored his own version of an existential hell in the form of a hotel as an assassin. There was no stranger or more perfect way to end Kevin’s conflict with the ghost/hallucination/psychotic nightmare of Paddy then in a plot that turns him into an international assassin and climaxes with him pushing a child version of Paddy into a well and then waking up being buried in Jordan’s magical dirt. The second time he goes back to the existential hotel and sings a Simon and Garfunkel song! Whatever supernatural elements are going on within those moments (and throughout other parts of the season as well) go largely unexplained for better. Hey as this season’s theme song says “let the mystery be!”
- The execution of the single character POV mode of storytelling this season pushed this season over the top for me. The format allowed the viewer to really sink into one (sometimes two) characters for an hour allowing room for a lot of sheer emotional investment. It was especially powerful when used to focus on side characters such as the Matt episode “No Room at the Inn” which was one of the season’s best. The way the narrative was handled also ultimately avoided clutter problems and let each main character shine in their own individual way while still moving the plot forward at a nice pace
- The POV format also made it so when they did pull away from it in the finale it made it that much more impactful. One of the best things about “I live here now” was how it felt like a culmination of all the arcs that we had seen develop individually throughout the season. All the dominoes fell from Marry finally waking up and confirming that she did wake up the first time and the sex that she and Matt had was consensual, to Meg’s plan being revealed as just a larger extension of her “throw a fake grenade into the school bus.” Yet at the same time the show kept it personal and stuck to individual character’s POVs only instead presenting a bunch of fixed POVs instead of one. It made the finale a culmination of plot, character, and style in a super satisfying fashion.
- Finally the biggest plot point in the finale. Meg’s big elaborate scare was the perfect place to end the false paradise of Miracle. The city finally being forced to break out of its fantasy and being thrust into the new reality they had been avoiding for so long was a wonderfully powerful moment. It was almost like a different version of the cave analogy except Socrates is a delightfully evil Meg and who knows if the enlightenment is actually a good thing. It was the big explosion that resulted from the slow cooker of full of bad things that the town was hiding. The actual bridge crossing scene itself was beautifully directed, it is kinetic and visceral despite essentially being people jogging across a bridge. It helps that the bridge sequence contains the horrifying scene of Nora having to essentially dive on top of her baby in order to save it, which resulted in one of the more memorable images of the finale.
I have so much more to say about this season of The
Leftovers so this may be something I revisit again at the end of the year. But
for now…
That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?
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