The Lucky Ones: All 28 Episodes of The Leftovers, Ranked
Art By Patrick Yurick | Edited By Stephen Verman & Michael Stahl
Writing assistance by Angela Lee
[Note: This is for people who’ve seen the entire show, or people who don’t care about spoilers. With the successful launch of HBO’s Watchmen, now is a good moment to look back at the show that directly preceded it.]
_____
Rapture. Pathos. Karaoke.
The final episodes of The Leftovers stuck the landing with a grace rarely seen in any medium. But what about the rest of the series?
As far as three-season shows go, you can’t get much better than The Leftovers. Professional television fans, from Bald Move’s A. Ron to The Ringer’s Andy Greenwald have lavished the show — or at least the final two seasons — with high praise.
The Leftovers left behind far fewer loose ends than co-creator Damon Lindelof’s previous effort, Lost. In many ways, the series’ 28 episodes feel like atonement for the earlier show’s missteps. In many ways, it’s a rewrite of particular themes of loss (or being, titularly, Lost), the battle between men of faith and men of science, and following unstable fathers to the continent-state of Australia.
But even without that subtext, the show, at its best, is among the greats. Though it spins its wheels a bit at the beginning and delivers the occasional inert episode later in the series, the show is for the most part like Kevin Garvey’s abs: tight & lean.
Ok, let’s slide out of the tub and save the world! Onto the rankings!
The Bad
The Leftovers cast does not have a deep bench. At one point they were perhaps hoping to — the first season’s setting of Mapleton, NY is layered with rich secondary and tertiary characters. But, just as 2% of the world’s population disappeared on that fateful day, a large percentage of cast members disappear between seasons.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is Kevin and Nora’s story.
When the writers get away from the white-hot nucleus of the core cast members and main storyline, the show often flags. The shows in this section largely follow that pattern.
28.
Season 3 — Episode 3
“Crazy Whitefella Thinking”
Director: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Tom Spezialy
The B Squad simply can’t hold it down in this episode. Kevin Sr. — and his jarringly youthful hair — is best used as a spicy side dish, never a main a course. Showing the other side of the transmission to Garvey Jr.’s hotel room in International Assassin (Season 2, Episode 8) also undermines the efficiency of that scene. We know Dad went to Australia and eventually tripped balls and dropped the key line of “Don’t drink the water,” but now having to go back and walk through these steps is a decided drag.
27.
Season 1 — Episode 6
“Guest”
Director: Carl Franklin
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Kath Lingenfelter
Among the greatest episodes in the series are the moments when the “new normal” of ritualistic batshit crazy domesticity are on display: Bags over heads. Joining chain-smoking cults. Getting shot in the chest by prostitutes on a weeknight. You know, fun stuff like that.
So, despite the strength of the opening hooker with a gun scene, this episode quickly devolves into wacky TV tropes. Lindelof and co. have constructed a rigorous universe which meditates on love, loss and other giant concepts, so when it occasionally lowers itself into a “comedy of errors,” it stings a bit. People don’t check into conferences like this. People don’t drink vodka like that. The only things that needed to happen in this episode were for Nora to hug Wayne, and to establish the existence of designer cadavers. We didn’t need 50 mins of wacky television to get there.
26.
Season 2 — Episode 3
“Off Ramp”
Director: Carl Franklin
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Patrick Somerville
Another B plot from the B squad. Hey Lori, if “psychology” is your special power, why not try to use that to get the laptop back, rather than slinking into the house like Solid Snake and rambling out like a Keystone Cop. The best parts of the episode are when Laurie and Tom talk about other, better characters.
Just as in “Guest”, where the way people were drinking and partying was “off,” something about that bagel scene really bugs me. You know, the one where the guy takes the uncooked bagel and bites it like a donut? No one has ever eaten a bagel that way. Interdimensional travel, cheating death and messianic prophecy I can deal with, but this is a departure from realism that I simply cannot abide.
Finally, if any viewer could have found room in his or her heart to actually give a fuck about Laurie’s book subplot, that sentiment would have been betrayed by the wacky publisher tackle at the end. If you don’t recall this moment, you’re better off.
25.
Season 2 — Episode 5
“No Room at the Inn”
Director: Nicole Kassell
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Jacqueline Hoyt
This is the one where Matt and his catatonic wife go on a day-trip outside of Jardin and can’t get back in.
Christopher Eccelston’s Matt Jameson proves over three seasons to be the third-best player on a championship team. He even proves he can carry an episode, but not here. There are enough real threats and risks in this world that careless behavior isn’t necessary to move things along. This is the plot equivalent of locking your keys out of the house. Furthermore, John’s righteous anger is overwrought and his turn-on-a-dime revocation of sponsorship is histrionic and further undermined by the fact that the whole setup is dumb.
24.
Season 3 — Episode 5
“It’s a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World”
Director: Nicole Kassell
Writer(s): Lila Byock & Damon Lindelof
So, despite an amazing performance by Eccleston, despite a text rich with imagery and allegory, this episode is kind of a dud. If it was the middle of season 2, a side quest episode such as this might be a lark, even a legend. But, positioned where it is, with a mere four or so hours left in the series, it is merely a misappropriation of precious resources. There’s a plane to land, and we’re burning a lot of fuel on things that aren’t particularly important.
Then, and this isn’t unique to this episode alone, there is “The Case of the Disappearing Supporting Cast”. Although I suppose the remaining supporting characters should be grateful they didn’t suffer the same complete vanishing fate as the season 1 cast, at this point they’re basically cardboard cutouts of themselves. Where is Michael’s piety when confronted with a godless orgy? Where is John’s firefighter backbone? I understand that in this season these characters exist to be reflectors of Kevin’s luminosity, but, if you’re gonna stick these fuckers on a boat with a brand new villain, a lion and some Studio 54 sex, at least let them get some shots off.
Getting Warmer
When dealing with with one of the Great Shows, it’s important to remember that mid-tier episodes are still knocking on the door of that greatness. The following picks may not live up to the whiz-bang subliminity of the series’ top offerings, but are nonetheless great television.
23.
Season 3 — Episode 2
“Don’t Be Ridiculous”
Director: Keith Gordon
Writer(s): Tom Perrotta & Damon Lindelof
This one was right on the line between bad and decent, bolstered largely by a transcendent Wu Tang trampoline moment. Seriously, let’s all take a moment and watch that clip.
Generally, when Nora is in a hotel room it’s not going to be a great episode. I didn’t think I’d have to say this, ever, but at this point, the show has returned to the “Perfect Strangers” well one too many times.
22.
Season 1 — Episode 3
“Two Boats and Helicopter”
Director: Keith Gordon
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Jacqueline Hoyt
The show is still in its infancy here, and the growing pains are evident. Elemental rule of television viewing #47: it’s not fun or interesting to watch people make stupid decisions, even if it ends up working out. Thus, the gambling subplot is weak.
21–20
Season 1 — Episode 1
“Pilot”
Director: Peter Berg
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta
Season 1 — Episode 2
“Penguin One, Us Zero”
Director: Peter Berg
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Kath Lingenfelter
You could do worse than Peter Berg’s steady hand when setting the tone for a new television series. Although as an auteur his vision can often border on…like, guns and muscles, and as a cultural conduit his choices are downright douchey (he directed two Maroon 5 videos), Berg seems to operate with a lightness now that he’s untethered from our actual reality, thus not compelled to put his big, broad, contemporary American lens on things.
As a show, this opening salvo is muddled. The inside-smoking, the slow reveal of character detail. Still, the charisma of Kevin can’t be denied, and there are enough false flags about what kind of show this is going to be to keep the watcher interested. Is this a love story between Kevin and the mayor? Is this an other-dimensional police procedural?
The show eventually settles into its groove as a dark and high-strung comedy, but these first two episodes only really establish the dark part. Of the pair, the second one gets the slight edge, if only because one of the GC actually speaks.
19.
Season 1 — Episode 4
“B.J. and the A.C.”
Director: Lesli Linka Glatter & Carl Franklin
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Elizabeth Peterson
Alright. Here we go.
This is the episode where the show finally reveals just how charming and brutal it can actually be. The Baby Jesus sublot is the perfect mix of Kevin’s need to fix things and the futile rage that arises when he can’t. It’s also another false flag of the chemistry between Kevin and Mayor Warburton. In another universe, these two could have been an incendiary love story.
The case builds against the GC as the photo stealing fuels one of the show’s guilty pleasures: absolutely hating fundamentalist cults.
18.
Season 3 — Episode 6
“Certified”
Director: Carl Franklin
Writer(s): Patrick Somerville & Carly Wray
This episode could have been an all-timer, except for the fact that it’s undermined heavily by the lack of definitive suicide. Yeah, I know that sounds insensitive, but we’re talking about drama, not self-care. Also, one of the great Leftovers quotes from Laurie:
“You want to drown Kevin so that he can go to this place where the dead people are. And while he’s there, he’s going to learn a song from one of the dead people and he’s gonna bring that song back to you so you can sing it and stop the biblical flood that’s gonna happen tomorrow.”
17.
Season 1 — Episode 10
“The Prodigal Son Returns”
Director: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta
The final episode of the weakest season finds the show reaching, but not always connecting. Noteworthy reaches include the symmetry between Nora’s pilot episode “one bad day” speech and her letter to Kevin, which resigns herself to knowing that she can’t have any more days.
The ambiguity of what Kevin wishes for during Wayne’s death leaves enough room to be enticing: Was it for his family? Because that kind of came true. Was it that all The Departed would return? Because that kind of happened as well.
Still, this episode is hurt by omitting key elements of basic communication (such as the existence of cell phones in order to serve the melodrama.
16.
Season 1 — Episode 7
“Solace for Tired Feet”
Director: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Jacqueline Hoyt
A decent set-up episode, but let’s keep it moving.
15.
Season 2 — Episode 6
This episode peels back the layers a bit. Is it a religious show, and, if so, does the MIT-assigned designation of Nora as “Azrael” mean anything? Probably not, but it’s at least haunting. By the way, if you’re about done reading this article and looking for something else to do, brushing up on Christian hierarchy of angels is a pretty cool way to spend 20 minutes. If someone smarter and more schooled in theology could respond with the implications of Nora being Azrael, we will definitely publish it here.
This episode also benefits from heaping spoonfuls of two-man drama between Nora and Erika.
14.
Season 2 — Episode 2
“A Matter of Geography”
Mimi Leder
Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta
A largely uneven episode that falls back continually on rote television tropes is bolstered by one of the strongest cameos in the series: the one-eyed FBI agent that once again gives us a glimpse of the macro level, “total war” policy that’s happening at on national scale.
The shaky auction scene gives way to a the parallel point of view from the previous episodes, with the Garveys taking lead in the same story we saw from the murphys’ perspective in the season 2 opener. In the end, Patti’s query about who is in whose story rings empty since we all know that this is Kevin and Nora’s tale.
13.
Season 2 — episode 4
“Orange Sticker”
Damon Lindelof & Tom Spezialy
This episode answers the final question that every couple needs their secrets. More of a set up episode. Every season needs them. There’s some great Kevin/Patti stuff in this one.
Bonus points for a bit of puppy love between young Margaret and young Michael. Pretty good, but not quite good enough to be one of….
The Chosen
Ok, no more preamble. No more qualifiers. These are the 12 best episodes in one of television’s greatest achievements.
12.
Season 1 — Episode 9
“The Garveys at Their Best”
Dir: Daniel Sackheim
Writer(s): Kath Lingenfelter & Damon Lindelof
I found myself disoriented by this jarring flashback episode. Is this an alternate reality? Fantasy? Ahhh…there are the threads that connect past and present.
The characters, stripped of the narrative thrust of the present timeline, are shown to be wrestling their own pre-Fall demons. The event damaged them, but they were busy damaging themselves and each other long before anyone disappeared.
The filmmaking decision to not show the mechanics of the disappearance is key in the unresolved feelings. In the Bible, the prelapsarian and postlapsarian worlds were partitioned by the satisfying crunch of the apple. In The Leftovers, there is no Moment. No flashy effects of people being transported away. No taste of fruit. There is only before and after.
11–10.
Season 2 — Episode 9
Season 2 — Episode 10
“I Live Here Now”
Dir: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta
Two absolute standout episodes.From Episode 9 we learned that sometimes it’s about getting the kid into the well.
From Episode 10 we had even more takeaways:
This world is populated with some awful people. Sociopathic cultists, pedophiliac messiahs and steady doses of more banal betrayal and disloyalty. Mothers abandon their kids, fathers drown their sons, brothers give their sisters to mad scientists. And still, “Not Your Baby” Lady is the fucking worst.
And, once again, we have a season-ending catastrophe caused not by otherworldly powers, but by those losers at the Revenant. Man, those people suck. But, again, despite the long-term harm that the cult causes to individuals, families and the fabric of society, it’s “Not Your Baby” Lady that manages to ooze to the bottom of shitty person power rankings.
Beyond the enduring stench of NYBL’s thankfully short time on screen, the rest of the episode pushes. It pushes the series into allegory and symbolism. It pushes the boundaries of realism, but that’s sort of the besides the point. And, most importantly, it pushes Kevin back into a controlling role. After a season of passivity, Kevin finally gets his mojo back.
This is another sneaky great music episode. In fact, though not necessarily known as a “music” show, The Leftovers has a pretty great record for song cues.
9.
Season 2 — Episode 1
“Axis Mundi”
Director: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Jacqueline Hoyt
Establishing a tectonic fault line: telling vs. showing.
Telling: “Hey Steve, remember when there was that earthquake a while back? Sure wasn’t a good idea to build this town on a fault line.”
Showing: a mini-epic wherein a stone age mother is separated from tribe by an earthquake, thousands of years in the past.
After which we settle in on the present day, where an apparently semi-evil fire chief living next to mostly-good police chief. We are hitting peak American symbolism here, and it’s good stuff. Toss in some bird allegory and we’re working with a rich text.
8.
Season 3 — Episode 4
“G’Day Melbourne”
Director: Daniel Sackheim
Writer(s): Story by : Damon Lindelof/ Teleplay by : Tamara P. Carter & Haley Harris
Most hotel rooms come pre-equipped with a King James Bible, but Kevin and Nora checked in with a custom version of their own kind of holy book. Most hotel rooms also come with smoke detectors.
This episode is bookended by heat. There’s the scorching airport sex scene at the beginning, and the hotel fire at the end. By that point, our two heroes are spent — just emotionally-blasted people using the last of their oxygen to scorch the other as much as they can.
7.
Season 1 — Episode 8
“Cairo”
Dir: Michelle MacLaren
Writer(s): Curtis Gwin & Carlito Rodriguez
Top five series moment:
Jill Garvey: Did you? Did you fuck my dad?
Aimee: [sarcastically] Yeah, Jill. I did. i fucked your dad. And I felt really bad about it, so I was like “Hey Mr Garvey this is so wrong.” But he was like “Hey, let’s stop pretending to be okay, because no one is okay” and he was totally right. And he was so hard, Jill. So I fucked the shit out of him on top of a pile of guns.
Beyond the blistering exchange, big reveals in Gladys’s death (it was the GR), a found gun, a wayward daughter, a missing cult leader, and a freed dog make for a fantastic episode.
6.
Season 2 — Episode 7
“A Most Powerful Adversary”
Dir: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Patrick Somerville
Well, isn’t this a pickle. The man who was supposed to escort you to the afterlife and shepherd you safely back has actually poisoned you and shot himself.
We have an example of a great actress playing a compromised character with the return of Amy Brenneman’s Laurie. The tension truly ratchets up with Kevin and Patti’s laser-guided back-and-forth, punctuated by a bit of poison and a classic cliffhanger.
5.
Season 3 — Episode 1
“The Book of Kevin”
Director: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Patrick Somerville
Season 3 sees the episode open up with a cast and story mixed like a finely proportioned cocktail. Speaking of cocktails — i.e. seemingly singular constructs made up of disparate parts — who the fuck is Kevin Garvey?
Season 1 Kevin was a man holding it together (just barely) as the world went crazy around him. It wasn’t until he muttered “I need you” on the phone with Nora from up in the cabin that we saw the emergence of Broken Kevin. Broken Kevin is the main Kevin of season 2. Season 3 Kevin is a blend of those other two Kevins. He’s reaching higher highs but his lows are lower and more despairing (such as his chokesterbation scene).
And among all those classic Leftovers tropes, such as closets, birds and rocks (Shirley Jackson’s rifle), we have insanity and destabilization as a relative concept. Even as our heroes continue to crack and get weird, there’s always room the margin for someone’s idea to be too weird. Like dog guy.
4.
Season 2 — Episode 8
“International Assassin”
Director: Michelle MacLaren
Writer(s): Curtis Gwinn & Carlito Rodriguez
Welcome to the Afterlife Hotel.
Michelle MacLaren helms this masterclass in editing, imagery and scoring. We present this episode with very little commentary but the highest regards.
3.
Season 1 — Episode 5
“Gladys”
Director: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta
Alas, poor Gladys. Betrayed by her own kind.
This standout season 1 episode sees the show stretching to explore the extremities of high-strung black comedy (Garvey’s work day), dour world-building (phone call with the feds), and concentrated doses of intimate violence (Gladys!). Fire in the diner. Fire in the preacher’s quote. Fire at the end. Welcome to the first great Leftovers episode.
2.
Season 3 — Episode 7
“The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)”
Director: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta
There’s little chance for resolution in this universe. There’s no burial of the disappeared, only the interrupted conversation; a tennis ball never returned.
There’s some deft mirroring going on with the audience when it comes to the unresolved. The unrest that these characters have based on the disappearance and the subsequent issues that spool out from it reflects what we, the audience, are most likely to feel. Even while respecting the elegance with which they handle The Event, knowing that it was aliens or God or whatever would certainly scratch that itch. But, this is a show about tension, not satisfaction.
Kevin’s ultimate unraveling seems to occur when his support system breaks down (some purposefully and some because they were drugged) and, more simply, because no one ever asks him what he wants or needs. He returns to the fold and continues the process despite this.
Kevin, lost alone in the Here and Now. Kevin, the spine of the community and his family, even when he was bent and compromised.
But, beyond all of this text and subtext, what makes this one of the great episodes of one of the great shows, is the way it feels. There’s a quickening; a dramatic tightening that only the best television ever achieves, and rarely as it comes to a close. Will they stick the landing?
1.
Season 3 — Episode 8
“”The Book of Nora””
Director: Mimi Leder
Writer(s): Story by : Tom Spezialy & Damon Lindelof
Teleplay by : Tom Perrotta & Damon Lindelof
Yes, they stick the landing.
Every once in a while, a music cue can pull a song back from the status of musical wallpaper to a new and powerful moment. Scorsese has done it time and again, most notably with Goodfellas and Layla, Taika Waititi pulled it off in Thor: Ragnarok by delivering a molten placement of the oft-reheated “Immigrant Song”:
And Mimi Leder & team are able to get a similar lift out of the Otis Redding classic “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember”. It’s a song we’ve all heard a thousand times, but here we are reintroduced in a fashion that might approach the freshness of a 1968 basement slow-dance needle drop. The song, like the individuals occupying the frame, is fragile and reactive — made of up people who make the most sense in the context of each other.
For one sweet moment, both the players and dancers are one, could we stay here forever? And then, modulation bordering on dissonance, before a return to the safety of the chorus. But it will never be the same. Sam insists while Nora resists. Sam shouts and Nora bails.The spell is broken.
This is not the final scene of the episode, nor is it the most haunting. But it is the most indelible, and one of the most emotionally wrenching in a series full of them. One moment they are together, the next they are not. And, like the event which brought them together — an event that’s ongoing frustration is its lack of a palpable, material instant — this short dance will forever contain both the before and after, but never the now.
___
Agree? Disagree? We’d love to hear what you think. Comment below or hit me at christopherokeeffe@gmail.com to chat, or to talk about syndication of this article.
