Takeaways from “The Leftovers”
Reviewing an absurd odyssey that was part “LOST” sequel and pure performance art.
HBO’s “The Leftovers” aired its series finale last Sunday, wrapping up a painful and bizarre 3-season run. When the show premiered in 2015 I was enthralled with HBO’s offerings of “Game of Thrones” and season 1 of “True Detective” and was ready for more Sunday night appointment viewing. Being a fan of “LOST,” I was also intrigued by that show’s co-runner Damon Lindelof being involved.
I proceeded to watch every episode, but The Leftover” quickly fell into the category of a show that I stuck with mostly to see how it ends. Its production and performances were excellent and its story (of a world where 2% of the world’s population has vanished) was mysterious, so I didn’t bail out along the way. However, it was a difficult, depressing, mostly unfulfilling slog. In order to justify 28 hours of faithful viewing, I’ve had to look at the show through a different prism over the past couple days, now that the curtain has closed. Through a different lens, looking back, I could give it a recommendation to the right audience.
If you’re interested in taking the show for a spin, the following takeaways should give you a sense for what kind of show it is, without giving away any spoilers.
Takeaway #1: LOST 2.0
As I mentioned, one aspect of The Leftovers that kept me tuning in was its LOST pedigree. Taken as a whole, the three seasons of The Leftovers could be regarded as a LOST “anthology” series. Like anthology shows Fargo and American Horror Story that swap in new casts and plots each season while maintaining the same general locale and/or thematics (Fargo shifts around to different murder-noire stories at different times and places in the Dakotas and Minnesota each season, for example). The Leftovers could be considered the LOST sequel its fans have been clamoring for. The same forces that caused the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 to vanish and re-appear and time-travel could have also been responsible for The Leftovers’ “Sudden Departure” … couldn’t it?
With a little bit of nuanced massaging of a few plot details surrounding the Departure, The Leftovers could have been positioned as happening in the same “universe” as LOST. In the 2.0 version, the metaphysical, purgatorial realm that features smoke monsters and sideways-worlds is “at it again” and has this time taken 2% of us on some new adventure. Only this time, the story focus is on those “left behind.” The “vanishing” (from the earth to who-knows-where in The Leftovers, through time and dimension in LOST) even happens the same way in both shows: First you’re here, now you’re there, clothing and all, no Star-Trekky beaming or dissolving or laser-sparking. Not even a “poof.”
In hindsight, there are a myriad of red herrings and McGuffins that feel like they’re shared across Lindelof’s LOST world: Seeing ghosts, vanishings, sideways worlds, predestination, immortality, and spiritual beings. The Leftovers doesn’t make use of flashbacks (and flash-forwards) as much as LOST, however (which is unfortunate because that was one of my favorite parts of the show and the impetus for the all-time classic “we have to go back!” scene … nothing anything like that twist ever happens on The Leftovers, f.y.i.).
My overall point is that if you were a fan of LOST, The Leftovers might also be for you. Like LOST, the show gives you a lot to figure out for yourself, theorize about, and mostly leaves you to your own conclusions. The photography, casting and the acting performances are also similarly first-rate. (The show’s leads, Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon, have been made stars by their often-incendiary, sometimes-smoldering performances of often ludicrously “WTF” material.) The Leftovers is much more a kindred spirit of LOST than half-baked copycats like the dreadful “Flash Forward,” “The Dome,” “Revolution” (shows that I definitely bailed on, and quickly) and many others.
Takeaway #2: 18 hours of performance art
Season 1 of The Leftovers was based mostly on Tom Perrotta’s novel of the same name. For seasons 2 and 3, Perrotta and Lindelof ventured into uncharted territory to advance the storyline. The transition is jarring, a major new location and characters are introduced and significant plot points from the previous season are abandoned. As the show continues to explore the Departure’s aftermath, its episodes increasingly resemble performance art and a cohesive plot takes a back seat to pure emotion, visual metaphors and more red herrings. It’s interesting to watch, in the same way a poem is as interesting to read as a novel, and an abstract expressionist painting is as interesting to look at as a photograph.
Season 3 grows weirder still, with the final five episodes standing on their own as cinematic art pieces rather than any attempt to finally codify any plot elements or set up a big, final reveal. The episodes are visually ambitious, strangely entertaining, and make absolutely no sense. In fact, they cause any reflection on the previous 23 episodes to make even less sense. In the pretty final scene of the finale, a flock of homing pigeons returns to their coop. This is obviously a metaphor for something, but at this point we don’t know what — it certainly isn’t all the stray plot points returning.
A final small takeaway is that I always hated the name, the “leftovers.” Always made me think of cold chicken and pizza, while being too close to the evangelical “Left Behind” series title. (To be clear, “Leftovers” is about “A” rapture, “Left Behind” is about THE Rapture.) Perhaps “LOST: Sudden Departure” would have been better.
Conclusion
To summarize, The Leftovers is the best-quality “LOST-genre” show I’ve seen, so much so that if I squinted I could just imagine the “Departed” story existing in the same mystical, bewildering, thought-provoking universe. The caveat is that LOST was, ultimately, a story about redemption and forgiveness. The Leftovers has tones of forgiveness, but the redemption aspect is mostly non-existent. In its place, are expressions of pain, and grief, and sadness. The show also juxtaposes mental illness alongside the alt-rapture in an often uncomfortable way. It’s often not an easy watch, and doesn’t offer much in the way of payoff. Loved ones depart, they are gone … and remain gone (there’s another alternate anthology series name: “GONE”).
So, The Leftovers is not for everyone. For the casual consumer of today’s “prestige”/“peak television” content is interested I’d say, show us your LOST-fan card. If that show didn’t resonate with you, or its ending left you anywhere between frustrated and infuriated, I’d suggest taking a pass. Also, if you’re looking for content that is either action-packed and/or uplifting, push this one to the bottom of the watchlist. The Leftovers is the television-serial equivalent to an abstract expressionist painting: Its plot prioritizes emotional effect over a cohesive plot structure to evoke its moods and ideas. Like expressionist artists, the show seeks to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than the raw emotional reality. Does it succeed? In the end, I don’t think so, but it was a tall order: Millions of loved ones vanish into thin air — what now?
