Most professional critics are given four episodes in advance of the season. They then will write a review of the season based upon those four episodes. Since I'm not a professional, I obviously do not receive such advances. Thus, we are four episodes into The Leftovers so I am giving my review of it.
One thing is very clear about The Leftovers thus far: if you have any interest whatsoever in finding "the answers," this show is not for you. It's pretty obvious early on that in order to watch this show, you have to accept that. You have to be able to find the journey compelling, not the mystery. With that said, through four episodes, I'm still very unsure of what to think of this show.
It's intriguing, but it's not clear it's going anywhere. Worse, there is literally one thoroughly compelling and well-written character, Reverend Jamison, who basically is on the sidelines for three of the four episodes, but gets his very own episode in the other. None of the others are that interesting or well-defined. Sure, they still kind of get away with it, because the acting talent in the cast is stunning.
The lead, our audience surrogate of sorts, is Kevin Garvey, played by Justin Theroux. Well, audience surrogate is the wrong term as he shoots a dog and might be going insane. The fact that he might be going insane is the only interesting thing about him actually. It's difficult to explain how to describe his character he's so ill-defined. Sure, I can explain facts about his place in the story: he has a wife and son who he no longer talks to and a daughter who misbehaves and he seems woefully unqualified to be police chief of a town that is dealing with tragedy. But his actual characteristics consist of "nice guy losing his mind and trying to remain sane."
There are so far two reasons to watch this show: one, despite having very few actual characters, the concept is innately fascinating. Three years ago, a significant amount of the population just disappeared for no identifiable reason. (And I mean literally disappeared. If you were talking to a person when it happened, they would just vanish) This show is adept at showing the result of such a thing happening. It's not so much that a tragedy happened, it's the not knowing what the hell happened that would drive you mad.
And this is the kind of thing I talked about in my opening paragraph: don't expect an answer to why that happened. The show isn't about the mystery of what happened to the world, it's about how people deal with such a traumatic event. It would just help a lot if this show had characters to go with the premise.
The second reason to watch this show is for the performance by Christopher Eccleston. He's truly incredible as Reverend Jamison. He gets 54 minutes of an episode to himself - it's all about him, and it's by far the best episode. I'm not going to spoil one minute of that episode, but the reason to continue watching is the hope that The Leftovers has episodes like that for our other characters. Eccleston is fantastic, but the rest of the acting talent would be up to the challenge I'm sure.
While I certainly understand that I won't get answers, it'd be nice if I had some insight into the motivations of The Guilty Remnant. I mean if their purpose is purely to force people to acknowledge that there is no hope and to constantly remember that "The Sudden Departure" happened, then they don't work for me at all. I can't relate to them and I'm so clearly supposed to.
Members of the Guilty Remnant include Liv Tyler, Amy Brennaman, and Ann Dowd. I'd say their actual names, but I need IMDB to figure that out because none of them speak except Tyler. I can't shake the feeling that the writers want us to connect with them and look at them with sympathetic eyes. Except the things they do are creepy and downright awful. If they are such good people, why are they in this? Dowd and Brennaman do about as well as they can without having actual speaking lines. Tyler's serviceable, but doesn't work as well as I think she should because her actions are volatile (I would blame the writing more than her performance for that)
Still, they are better than whatever the hell Tom, Kevin's son, is involved with. Chris Zyllka is pretty solid, but it raises the question of why he's involved with whatever he's involved with. He's dropped out of college (understandable) to join what appears to be a cult of some sort called "Holy Wayne." (not as understandable) The problem is that Paterson Joseph is so good at giving off a "crazy cult leader" vibe that it's a wonder why any sane person would ever step near him. And it's pretty clear that Kevin is played as a directionless, yet normal person. I don't care how directionless I am (and I'm pretty fucking directionless right now), I run away from Wayne immediately.
Rounding out the cast is Kevin's daughter, Jill, played by Margaret Qualley. She's extremely cliche as a misbehaving teenager. It really doesn't help that the writers seem to have no grasp of how teenagers act as judging by the ridiculous party in the pilot. She has a best friend named Aimee, who may as well be called "Impersonating Mena Suvari in American Beauty." Emily Meade is not totally unsuccessful at it to her credit. Lastly, Amanda Warren is good as the mayor.
There remain enough interesting parts about the show to keep me watching for the time being. The core reason for me to watch this show is that it reminds me of when I'm laying in bed alone at night, questioning if there's really a purpose and getting freaked out whenever I try to grasp the concept of eternity. THAT is this show really: 2 percent of the world's population disappears (including Shaq!) and the "leftovers" remain to ponder the purpose of it all.
Grade - B
Playlist
1. "Rollercoaster" - Bleachers
2. "Electric Relaxation" - A Tribe Called Quest
3. "Not Fair" Lilly Allen
4. "Australia" - The Shins
5. "Otherside" - Macklemore ft. Fences
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