‘The Leftovers’ Review: New Season More Thrilling Than The First
The new season of The Leftovers is an exhilarating experience in trying to understand that certain fundamental things cannot be understood. Within the context of this HBO show — about the fact that 140 million people have disappeared from Earth without explanation — the unknowable becomes a source of confusion and grief, to be sure, but also of freedom and a bold challenge. The show asks big questions (what is it like to lose people you love for no rational reason? why do people find such different ways to achieve comfort?) while rooting the drama in smaller, compelling stories.
The new season premiering Sunday follows Justin Theroux’s ex-cop Kevin Garvey as he brings his daughter Jill (Margaret Qualley) and the woman he’s fallen in love with, Nora Durst (Carrie Coon), to a small town in Texas with a large park called Miracle. Yes, Garvey is seeking a kind of healing miracle — a seemingly impossible escape from the tragedies of the Sudden Departure — but he finds something different: new people who’ve responded to the Departure in unimagined ways.
Added to the cast this year is a couple we meet in the Texas town, firefighter John Murphy (Kevin Carroll) and his wife, a doctor named Erika, played by the wonderful Regina King. They are Kevin’s new next-door neighbors, and like so much in The Leftovers, the degree to which they are friends or the subverters of friendship is unclear.
The new season takes its time catching up with characters from the first season — where is Kevin’s ex-wife Laurie (Amy Brenneman), one of the silent, cigarette-smoking Guilty Remnants? Don’t worry: She comes back, changed with the passage of time between seasons, as does Liv Tyler’s Megan, Laurie’s Remnant-convert son Tommy (Chris Zylka), and even Ann Dowd’s ostensibly dead Patti, but in what form? I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew. I do know, however, that Dowd probably deserves an Emmy nomination just for the way she looks at Kevin in the new season and says simply, quietly, chillingly: “Uh-oh.”
I’ve read here and there that some people think The Leftovers is depressing, the implication being, “Why would I want to watch something that’s depressing?” First, I don’t find the show depressing at all — in fact, as I said up top, I find its unending interest in exploring various interpretations of humanism exhilarating. Second, I don’t know about you, but I like to read and watch creative work that is funny, sad, savage, depressing, you name it — all the emotions it’s possible to have, or have provoked in you by experiencing a good work of art.
Show creators Damon Lindelof (Lost) and Tom Perrotta, author of the 2011 novel of the same name, have moved beyond their source material to delve deeper into this world that seems a lot like our world, but with certain decisive, fundamental shifts.
I don’t want to give plot details, because The Leftovers is a source of constant surprise. (Okay, I’ll tell you this: In the premiere, there’s a great moment for any fan of the ABC “TGIF”-era sitcom Perfect Strangers.) But I have to say that Carrie Coon’s performance as Nora continues to knock me out for presenting Nora’s complex mix of tough-mindedness, vulnerability, sharp humor, and sharper defiance.
There’s a lot of Sunday night TV competition — Homeland, The Good Wife, the return of The Walking Dead coming up soon — so I wanted to urge you early: Check out the new season of The Leftovers.
The Leftovers airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
