HBO’s “The Leftovers” recently did a katabasis episode called “International Assassin.” So I scribbled about it.
“Liminal Assassin”
Katabasis: from the verb καταβαίνω (katabaínō), from κατά (katá, “downwards”) + βαίνω (baínō, “go.”) In epic convention, a katabasis is a descent into the underworld.
We open on an abstract image. It seems to be water making its way along the edge of a surface, akin to an infinity pool. Boundaries are unclear.
We come into focus on a tap dripping water. And then a bathtub full of water. Our hero Kevin Garvey emerges from the tub, naked and confused as hell. He steps out of the bathroom into a room and we realize he’s in a hotel room. Ah, yes. The Hades Hotel.
Previously used in a variety of pop cultural contexts like HBO’s “The Sopranos,” Christopher Nolan’s “Memento” and The Eagles’ song “Hotel California,” the hotel is an excellent destination for a katabatic hero:
It’s a foreign place yet familiar (it’s a bedroom but it’s not your bedroom), one needs to identify oneself before checking in (at least in Orphic tradition) and it’s de rigueur to have a pool (a stand in for the River Lethe/Spring of Memory).
Kevin opens up the closet and finds a variety of outfits (including a police uniform, a suit and some kind of hippie robe) and Epictetus’ mantra “Know, first, who you are and then adorn yourself accordingly.” After putting on the suit, he’s accosted by a delivery man who brings flowers and a “get well” card to his door. He kills the man after a struggle and seeks answers by heading into the lobby. The elevators don’t work when a fire alarm goes off so Kevin takes the stairs. (In case of fire, take the stairs; makes sense, Hell is a fiery place).
Once he gets downstairs, Kevin notices a girl floating face down in a pool. He runs outside to rescue her and gets tasked by a man who appears to be her father. Then he heads to the front desk attendant and asks her who sent him flowers. (Floral imagery is seen throughout the episode, including a floral dress worn by the little girl in one of the final scenes. Flowers are part of a Persephone motif).
The front desk attendant tells Kevin to see the concierge, who happens to be the man, Virgil, who poisoned him in the previous episode (recaps: http://www.avclub.com/tv/the-leftovers/). Of course his name is Virgil; he’s going to be Kevin’s (Dante’s) tour guide.
Virgil acts like he doesn’t know who Kevin is, but writes him a note: “Parking Garage, 5 minutes.” Upon meeting in the parking garage, Virgil says that Kevin is an international assassin (his clothes are his identity) and tells him how to kill Patti (this is what his katabasis mission is). He also warns him to not drink the water. (By drinking from the Lethe, the dead forget their past lives; doing so for the living would result in amnesia and presumably a permanent liminal state).
Like Heracles bringing Cerberus to Eurystheus or Orpheus rescuing Eurydice or Theseus kidnapping Persephone, Kevin has a clear task. But it’s not to bring someone to the earthly surface, it’s to keep them below.
He’ll go to Patti Levin’s hotel room for a “meet and greet” (she’s running for President) and assassinate her. He runs into a few problems (Patti’s bodyguards assault him and then give him a lie detector test to “vet” him) and is eventually allowed into Patti’s room, where a gun is hidden for him underneath the toilet tank. He meets another familiar face there, Holy Wayne, who chalks up Kevin’s familiar face to deja vu. (“That’s deja vu. That’s the mind taking an event you’re experiencing in the present moment and mistaking it for a memory.”) Wayne has been drinking the water.
After listening to Patti’s speech about assassins wanting to kill their targets because they secretly have similar beliefs (“John Wilkes Booth loved black people. Hated slavery. Hated it. But he still popped Lincoln right in his stovepipe.”), Kevin hesitates to kill Patti. In their conversation, Kevin says that an assassin would want to kill Patti because she “destroys families.” And perhaps that’s what he is secretly doing, destroying his own family, symbolically, by choosing to be an assassin, who is free to travel internationally without the burden of a wife and children, in this place).
Still, he kills her, despite her claims that she is a “double” and not the “real” Patti. (Perhaps she is an “eidololn,” εἴδωλον: “image, idol, double, apparition, phantom, ghost.”)
And nothing happens. He doesn’t make an anabasis to the earth. He asks Virgil why but Virgil doesn’t recognize Kevin. Turns out, he got thirsty and drank the water.
Meanwhile, snowy television interference in Kevin’s hotel room reveals a message from his father who tells him that he sent him the “get well” card. But the message isn’t “get well,” it’s “get to the well.” Kevin will figure this out soon.
He sees the father of the little girl he saved sitting in the hallway, guzzling Jim Beam. After the man relates a certain scatological fact about himself, the audience and Kevin realize that he’s Patti’s ex-husband Neil. Moreover, Kevin realizes that the little girl is not his daughter, but Patti.
Virgil tells Kevin that the “Orphan’s Well” is out in Jarden, Texas and if they leave now, they’ll make it by sunrise (just like Dante made his anabasis by sunrise). Patti is Kevin’s Beatrice. He must guide her to the celestial spheres so that they both can move on from this hell scape.
Upon arriving in Jarden, they come to a bridge containing numerous garbage cans on fire. The gatekeeper (Charon?) attacks Kevin and puts a noose around his neck. He questions Kevin’s intents with the girl and says that he has a choice: he can cross or jump (jumping would mean he doesn’t kill a little girl). Again, this recalls Epictetus and the Stoic notion of prohairesis which can be defined as “choice.” As he states in his Discourses, “you have a will incapable of being coerced or compelled (1.17.21).
Moreover, the concept of “abandonment” is mentioned several times, first by adult Patti, who tells an anecdote about a man she met on the campaign trail who handed her his baby and walked away. “That baby is now in an orphanage and it’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna grow up and it’s gonna have difficulty attaching to people and it’s gonna have difficulty giving and accepting love. But that is no longer a difficulty. It is a strength.” She continues to praise this idea in light of the October 14th rapture. On that day, “it became cosmically and abundantly clear that you can lose anyone at any time.”
Abandonment surfaces again when Kevin goes to the aptly titled “Orphan’s well.” But, despite crossing the bridge and pushing little Patti into the orphan’s well, Kevin will take Epictetus’ advice. As Epictetus states in reaction to the idea of child abandonment, “even a sheep does not desert its own offspring, or a wolf; should a human desert his? Would you have us be as foolish as sheep or as savage as wolves — neither of which abandons its young? Come on, whoever remembers your advice when they see their little child fallen and crying on the ground?”
So, when he hears Patti cry “help,” Kevin jumps in after her, now appearing as her adult self. He pities her, consoles her, listens to her mourn for herself and her mistakes (her sin was not leaving Neil). Their attachment has been an unwanted one, but in this moment, compassion and love come through. The spectre Patti was wrong when she said “On October the 14th, attachment and love became extinct.” Kevin finally puts her out of her misery, drowning her in the well, a kind of reverse baptism.
As much as Kevin’s journey is a katabasis with the clear goal of offing a tortured spirit, it is also a journey of Stoic self discovery. Kevin’s fear that he’s abandoning his family and his struggle to make sense of the “departure” have led to this critical moment.*
*Much of Epictetus (and Stoicism in general) is about fate and man’s ability to choose. (Dobbin’s translation of “Discourses and Selected Writings” attaches titles to each excerpt of writing, e.g 1.1 is titled “Concerning what is in our power and what is not.” Other exemplary titles include 1.16 “On providence,” 1.24 “How we should struggle with circumstance,” and 1.29 “On steadfastness”). Was the departure fated or was it somehow generated by deeds/misdeeds people have done? This is the question “The Leftovers” poses.
Epictetus also writes about “impressions” and “preconceptions.” (1.22 1.27, 2.17, 2.18, 3.8). Kevin had a preconceived notion that he had to kill Patti, to release himself of her torments. He didn’t realize she was the one who was being tortured. (Cf. also the numerous references to “illusions” within the episode: Patti’s insistence that she is a double, Holy Wayne’s statements about the mind playing tricks on you, Kevin saying “none of this is real” to which the bridge guard responds, “Friend, this is more real than it’s ever been”).
And finally, Epictetus’ discourse about decisions holds particular relevance for Kevin’s change of heart (his first decision was to be an assassin but he changes his mind and decides to NOT be an unfeeling assassin). ’If it was a reckless decision, it should be open to change.’ ‘But we must stick to a decision.’ ‘For heaven’s sake, man, that rule only applies to sound decisions.’ (2.15.6–7).
Once Patti dies, an earthquake starts, causing the well’s walls to cleave. Kevin clings to the wall for safety and we then see a hand reaching out from beneath loose soil. It is Kevin making his anabasis, climbing out of the earth.
For Epictetus summary: