Yesterday I fiinished “The Leftovers” (both the TV show and the tikka masala i had in the fridge)- the HBO show from Damon Lindelof showrunner for Lost. Awesome show with excellent instincts and a passionate resistance to wasting time, especially after Season 1. Couldn’t recommend it enough. In a world where it seems like every work of fiction espouses itself as being “about Grief” or “about Trauma” (as if anything ever made was NOT about ‘trauma’!!), I’d argue that The Leftovers actually meaningfully engages with that subject in a challenging and creative way that sets it apart from stories where, for example, someone’s anxiety is depicted as an evil guy.
I had some thoughts about it and how it relates to its predecessor- no direct spoilers but plenty of talk about the "point" of the show as I see it:
It’s such an interesting followup to LOST, which was also a show about characters contending with irreconcilable weirdness that only served to expose how fucked up they were. In LOST, it was always The Island (or other forces) driving people towards or away from self-actualization, all revolving around the central theme of “letting go”, of whether its possible to let go of anything in the first place. The show (imo!) was never about the weird shit, it was about the effect the weird shit HAD on the characters. The characters were bugs and The Island was the jar they were trapped in while God shook it around.
Lost got some backlash throughout its run/after its controversial finale. Part of that may be thanks to the show’s insinuations that there might be some underlying logic or structure to the Weird Shit, but never actually delivering the entire playbook. There are science guys studying it, there are ancient temples and weird machines, references to mythology and complicated charts you only see for a few seconds onscreen, dream sequences rich in symbolism etc. People were sure they could “solve” Lost, and the marketing certainly played into that mindset (there was this one episode promo that promised “THREE QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED!” and it turned out that a character was like, at a job interview in a flashback. Being asked questions.)
But it’s a show about the struggle between science and faith, and how both of those institutions struggle in the face of life’s great questions. So within the text of the show, I’m not sure that Lost ever truly promised anything other than a good time (and a bunch of really hot people going to the most roundabout form of therapy ever devised). I do think the show makes some missteps regarding which mysteries are ineffable because ‘they relate to questions we must all answer for ourselves’ and which mysteries might actually matter to the plot and characters, but I come down on the side that everything that really matters to the characters is eventually resolved.
I really appreciated The Leftovers evolving on this approach by repeatedly overtly telling the audience that there will never be closure on how/why 2% of the population suddenly vanished, then going full steam ahead implying connections between forces, people, and events- much in the same way as Lost. People theorize about it, people get close to some sort of metaphysical underpinning, but all of these answers only ever end up being personally relevant.
In The Leftovers, things seem to happen for a reason, and then they don’t. God touches Earth, but only to show everyone that they’re never going to get a straight answer for anything. There’s something really compelling about opening the mystery box and finding another mystery box inside that is impossible to open. A really interesting series exploring a genre that is often obtuse in a bad way instead of obtuse in a spiritually challenging, haunting, and ultimately healing in a Lacanian sort of way. Five stars!
