Carrie Coon investigating the death of Pillar Man on The Leftovers
Photo Credit: HBO
Tonight’s brief thoughts on “Don’t be Ridiculous” brought to
you in part by my new trampoline…
“I think I’m going crazy”
-Nora
The second episode of the final season of The Leftovers, “Don’t
be Ridiculous” opens with the theme from Perfect Strangers set to the opening
credits package from season 2. The Leftovers has done ridiculous things in the
past, i.e. spending a whole episode in the afterlife in which Kevin transforms
into an international assassin, but never has the show gone to these lengths to
pay off such a background joke. One of the main “pop culture departures”
introduced early on in the series is that the entire main cast of the 80s
sitcom Perfect Strangers, minus Mark Lin-Baker who we later discover faked his
departure, all departed. It’s the kind of joke that I laughed at when it came
up initially, and again with the discovery of Lin-Baker still being around in season
2, but never in my wildest imagination did I think the show would take the joke
this far. It made for a wonderful surprise when I finally recognized the theme
(not being a child of the 80s and only having limited exposure to Perfect Strangers
from watching random reruns or doing some research when the show brought it up initially
it took me a second to recognize the theme) it produced an embarrassingly loud
laugh.
Now it would be one thing for The Leftovers to make a joke
of itself by using the Perfect Strangers theme as a kind of fun little final
season Easter egg of sorts but somehow, someway, the Leftovers works its magic
and transforms a background running joke into an hour of television that is
utterly devastating emotionally without ever ringing false for a single moment.
“Don’t Be Ridiculous” uses a returning Mark Lin-Baker and his two degrees from
Yale in masterful fashion providing an incredible scene between Baker (who of
course is playing a “post departure” version of himself) and Nora that nearly
steals the whole episode (nearly being the key word we will get to Wu-Tang
trampoline in a minute). It’s a nice showing of just how good a dramatic actor
Baker can be as in every moment of the sequence in which he is selling the “radiation
gun” to Nora he is punching at Carrie Coon’s level which is by no means an easy
task. The use of Lin-Baker which is used to drive home the theme of Nora’s
ultimate powerlessness in dealing with the departure of her children is a great
example of how even the most background joke on The Leftovers can blossom into
something so much more.
The rest of “Don’t be Ridiculous” is a masterclass of a
character study and provides an incredible showcase for the best actress
working on television in Carrie Coon. The show has made us aware of Nora’s brokenness
in the past, whether it be through prostitutes shooting her in the chest with a
bulletproof vest on, or otherwise; but it had been a while since Carrie Coon
had gotten a showcase on this level and “Don’t be Ridiculous” was the perfect
reminder of just how broken emotionally Nora really is. Despite the hardened
rational exterior Nora is still grappling with the departure of her children
along with the fact that Lily was taken away from her and it’s eating her
alive. The scene in which Nora confesses her tattoo fiasco is the first time in
a while where Nora finally releases all the anxiety that is eating her alive in
any way that is raw and uncalculated. It’s an incredible scene, one that is not
just a showcase for the incredible Carrie Coon but one that really lets us back
into the realization that Nora really is a horridly troubled human being.
It’s a credit to Carrie Coon that all of this emotional
baggage with Nora even works at all, as the more we get of Nora, the less
sympathetic she is becoming. Coon balances perfectly the hardness and
tenderness of the character. Despite her cruel over rationality, which includes
completely destroying the faith of poor dead pillar man’s wife and laughing in
Kevin’s face when he asks (the albeit ridiculous request) to have a child with
her, Nora is still sympathetic. With the eyes alone Coon finds the humanity in
a woman who is lashing out at the world in kind of horrible (if not sort of
understandable) ways. Even in the small moments like the simple montages of her
striding through the airport, and especially in the moments where Nora is
lashing out in cruel fashion, like when she puts the autopsy portrait of pillar
man up for everyone to see, Coon makes us understand and empathise with the
character. Any lesser actress may not be able to walk the tightrope to deliver
the emotional messiness that Coon does so well throughout “Don’t be Ridiculous.”
Her performance makes Nora as complex and fascinating a character from an
emotional standpoint we have seen on television and continues to, whenever
given the opportunity, deliver television’s best performance.
Ok we’ve gone too far now without discussing the true main
event of “Don’t be Ridiculous.” See “Don’t be Ridiculous” not only featured the
amazing music cue of the Perfect Strangers’ theme at the very beginning of the
show but then proceeded to top itself in the grandest of grand fashions. The
only thing better than paying off a running joke in spectacular fashion is
having slow motion trampoline jumping montage featuring two of the best
actresses working on television set to the Wu-Tang Clan. As soon as Nora
brought up the fact that she ended up, through the sheer randomness of picking
the first thing on the wall, covered up the tattoo of her departed kids with
the logo of the Wu-Tang Band Clan I was waiting for the music cue. “Surely
they couldn’t have gotten music from the Wu-Tang Clan, that would be too
expensive,” I though foolishly, all the while hoping that they did. Luckily for
me they not only got “Protect your Neck (The Jump Off)” but they used it to its
maximum potential providing us with one of the most fantastically absurd scenes
of coping in recent memory. Yes folks, to repeat, we got a slow motion
trampoline jumping montage, and it was glorious. Few scenes, even the best and
most emotional, stick with me to the point of me thinking “I will remember that
forever,” but long after The Leftovers has been off the air I will be telling
the story of the time this crazy show gave us a slow motion trampoline jumping
montage set to the Wu-Tang clan and that somehow, someway, it was perfect.
“Don’t be Ridiculous” continues the roll incredible the Leftovers
has been on since its second season. It’s another masterful hour of television that
hits all the right notes, and furthers along yet another character arc in incredible
fashion while still surprising in strange and wonderful ways. To put it simply,
even in a time of a lot of great television there is no show that is operating
at the level of The Leftovers. From construction, to emotional punch, to the
fact that its willing to go to strange and unexpected places on a near weekly
basis, The Leftovers is a show that provides an incredible ride unlike any
other. And it’s done in six more episodes. I am going to miss this show.
Some other Musings:
- The book of Kevin spreads to Australia! We got another strange future Australia montage this week that involves yet another case of faith gone awry as a group of “true Kevin believers” end up drowning another sheriff named Kevin thinking he is the messiah. Like last week the flash forward raises a lot of questions of which I’m sure we are getting answers to down the line. However strange these get I have faith that the show is going to be able to pull this off when all is said and done.
- RIP pillar man. You experienced so much pain just to have a heart attack and fall off your tower. Your watching over the strange town of Jordan will be missed.
- Kevin and Nora are headed for some bad times. You can tell immediately that them not talking about the elephants in the room (Nora’s pain about her children still haunting her, and her walking into week two of Kevin’s “low budget flatlining”) is going to blow up at some point. They are both treading on thin ice emotionally which is most certainly going to break in dramatic fashion if they don’t work things out soon (hint they probably won’t).
- I wonder what Lily’s name is now that she is back with Christine. I go with Nora Jr but am open to other theories.
That’s all for this week. Exams are over so I should be back
to the normal late Sunday next week. The week after next will be delayed due to
a road trip vacation but after that it should be Sunday’s for the back half of
the season.
That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?
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