The Leftovers - Don't Give Up On This Show!

The Leftovers – Don’t Give Up On This Show!!!!

Here we sit halfway through the first season of this new HBO show and I have decided that I am all in for the long haul. For the uninitiated this show takes place 3 years after the sudden vanishing of 2% of the earth’s population. I know I am in the minority for deciding to stick with this show as many people have decided to quit this program while many more never even gave it a chance. Just yesterday a whole article on the EW website was about why that author was no longer going to view this program; this shows you what I am up against with my views. My own wife just the other day declared “no more!” to "The Leftovers" meaning I now have to find time on my own to watch this show, a tough but not impossible task. Yet, I will find the time as I think this program is worth it. There are countless reasons people have decided to jump ship and I will attempt to discuss each of those points throughout the rest of this post.

Let me start with one of the biggest gripes I have heard so far, “Why do we have to follow the Garvey family, they didn't even lost anyone in the departure”? I believe the fact that this family did not lose anyone from their immediate family is exactly why they should be the main focal point of the show. Yes, it would be easy to follow someone like Nora who lost both of her kids and husband in the departure because she is someone the audience can instantly sympathize with. We would all say to ourselves, “Who cares what she does, its justified, she lost her entire world”. Yet, when you think about it, wouldn't we as an audience actually be able to relate to a family more like the Garvey’s. Only 2% of the population vanished making it a good chance that in this situation most people may not have lost anyone in this event, but in the end everyone on earth was affected one way or another.  How could anyone go on living in a world when at any moment now someone could just vanish? That fear alone would make us all question ourselves and the world around us; nothing would be the same anymore. I have gathered must people have no issue with the father Kevin Garvey (he seems to be doing his best keeping the town safe and his family intact) or his daughter Jill (she is moody but we get that since she is a teenager and her mom just joined the town cult) so I will spend my time on the two most hated members of this family unit. Let us start with Tommy Garvey who even annoys me and seems like an idiot for following the “Cult of Wayne” but I understand it.  Here is a kid who was abandoned by his biological father at an early age, he grew up with a mom who suffered from depression, and he then witnessed college kids committing suicide after the departure. This is a kid without a tether who went looking for any meaning in this new world. It sucks that he found his answers and put his trust in what seems to be a creepy guy who is having sex with underage girls; but Wayne seems to be offering relief to people around him.  Then there is of course the mom Laurie Garvey. From the very first episode she has not been a fan favorite.  She was always going to be a tough character to like from the fact she abandoned her family to join the “Guilty Remnant” cult; a cult that is so infuriating I will write more on them next. We learn in the first episode she left her family and she didn’t even “lose” anyone when the world vanished.   I don’t understand why the audience would need her to lose someone to be affected by this event.  There are countless reasons why she may have snapped after the vanishing. First we learned she has always been prone to depression before the world changing event, second the father of her first child left them (maybe even beat her), and finally her current good husband Kevin cheated on her. When you add all these facts up, one can see how the certainty of what the Guilty Remnant believe could be enticing to her. She is a very flawed woman, but won’t that make her journey hopefully to redemption throughout the series that much more gratifying.  There was a moment at the end of episode 5 where you finally thought she was coming to her senses and getting ready to re-join the world, that if she had, man, everyone would have cheered. The fact that she remained with the cult was sad; yet the show worked, I was feeling for her as a character on television.  When one looks at all the facts it is easy to see why following this family makes sense.

I will now tackle one of the most talked about and hated aspects of this show, “The Guilty Remnant”, The chain smoking, stalking, and quiet cult members that infuriate the towns citizens and viewers all across the world.  I hate everything about this cult too, and I am supposed to feel that way. There is something that just stirs up so much hate as smug assholes who wear nothing but white stalk families who lost a loved while at the same time smoke cigarettes.  Every time they appear on screen I just want to punch one. The thing is, I am pretty sure the writers want us to feel that way so that we can understand why everyone on the show hates them too. The audience and the characters on the show each feel the same hatred and therefore we can relate to one another and understand.  Viewers have questioned why the members of this cult would want to subject people to such sadness and make them remember what they are trying so hard to forget and move on from. Perhaps the “Guilty Remnant” do not want people to move on like we as a society have done many times.  Countless times major tragedies have happened to the United States; the moment after that the world is united; a few months later the world has moved on. Try and remember all the cars that sported American Flags after 9/11; now try and think of the last time you saw one.  The difference between past real tragedies and the one in the show is that in the real world, we know what and who caused the bombing of buildings and planes. We have bad guys we can capture and hold accountable for their crimes and help us move on. Yet, in this show 2% of the world has vanished and no one knows why it happened and who did it. This is not something you should just forget. This act should transform everything you ever believed and turn your world upside down. Are there better ways to make people remember then what the cult does; of course, but they do what they think needs to be done. I hate them but I understand them.  The real brilliance is I hate them so much that I actively cheered when one of them was stoned to death in a previous episode. I saw this as an act of catharsis and I was just watching a show. These maybe the least sympathetic character's to ever grace a television screen. 

Another thing I have heard is that the show “is too depressing”, “moves to slow” and “I don’t know where the story is going”. I like the fact that all of these issues are true.  This may be the most depressing show HBO has ever done and they once had a show centered on nothing but death.  I would expect this show to be sad, a horrible act happened that offers no closure and no hope.  This is how I fully expect a town to react when everything from normalcy to religious faith has now been questioned. Every day you walk the earth in this universe you will always ponder "why did that person vanish", "why didn't I vanish", "who took them", and "will they ever come back".  Secondly, I know the show can be a bit slow but I am invested in that slowness. This allows each scene to be played out and allow the drama to percolate the whole hour. I never know what could happen at any second and that leaves me on the edge of my seat.  Finally, some have found this show aimless as so far none of the big questions are even discussed about the departure or the larger meaning behind it.  I believe at some point the show will get around to answering the big questions questions but in the meantime I sit and wait for the answers the same way these characters are also stuck in purgatory unable to move on from the departure because they still don’t understand it. That in essence is the brilliance of the show, the viewers and characters are in this journey together. What was frustrating with a show like “Lost” was someone always had the answers but just refused to tell us, here, no one knows anything and we are on this journey together.

The biggest thing going for the show is its unpredictable and strangeness.  One never knows what type of episode you will get.  One second a huge plot point could be the sheriff focusing on whether someone stole his bagel or if he is crazy and left to ponder if he ever even had a bagel to having a whole episode centered around the great character of Matt Jamison played by the amazing actor Christopher Eccleston. That episode as we follow Matt trying to save his dying church should alone show you the potential this program has. That episode had me captivated the whole time and I never knew I would care so much about the outcome of  a game of roulette as Matt bets everything he has to try and raise the money he needs. This episode also went and showed us that even though you may not lose someone physically when the the vanishing happened does not mean your world is forever changed. Matt's wife is still around but is basically comatose because the day of the vanishing caused her car to crash. In addition Matt is a priest and once the vanishing happens he loses most of the city as they now all question their faith in god.   

I know this is not the most exciting show, it sure doesn't have the action of “Game of Thrones” or “24” both programs I love but this is great for other reasons. In a world full of  "Case of the Week" Cop Shows and shows that insult our intelligence such as “Under The Dome” I like this look deep hard look at a world full of broken humans while I root for their recovery.  

*On a side note please do not forget that this show does have some sense of humor, I mean the whole cast of “Perfect Strangers” are part of the departed!!!