Why The Leftovers is the best show no one’s watching

Did you see last week’s episode of The Leftovers? Do you think the pie left on the Murphys doorstep was poisoned? Will TV’s most enthralling couple Kevin and Nora be able to stick together under enormous emotional pressure still lingering from past traumas? These are questions no one is asking me.

Is there any hope for a zombie cure? Is Jon Snow really dead? Did you see Dany ride her dragon? These questions are more in tune with the cultural consciousness.

We are living in a golden age of television where premium shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead have surpassed the cinematic medium for intelligent adult stories that delve deeply into characters lives. But nothing has occupied my mind quite like The Leftovers. I am utterly engrossed.

To clarify, I am not talking about last night’s dinner; I am talking about HBO’s best drama that has not gotten the recognition it deserves. Perhaps it’s because setting a show in a small town in the aftermath of a rapture-like disappearance of 2% of the world’s population makes for depressing viewing.

I describe having found this show as like buying a new property that has golden nuggets buried in the backyard and no one knows but you. There is an inclination to keep it to myself. To not share these golden nuggets. To be all hipster and I say: I liked it before it was cool. But there is a stronger inclination to shout it from the rooftops.

I first shared the show with my sister who said, "I can see why you like it" and "Is the lead guy engaged to Jen Aniston?" I then tried to wring in my brother who flatly refused saying “there’s enough suffering in the world, why would I want to see more on TV.” Lastly I tested my mother, who after viewing the pilot said democratically, as she often does when we have a difference in taste, “it's not my favourite.”

Granted, the first season has been snubbed by some for being too slow, obscure and hard to get a grasp on. But I adored it like nothing else.

The intrigue of the show revolves around a high-concept: what if hundreds of thousands of humans departed this earth without explanation?

It's a tough pill to swallow, I know.

It would be all too easy to write it off as religious hokum, a gimmick, a conceit as contrived and ludicrous as the island from Lost. And in some ways it is. I mean where the fuck did they go? And who took them? Was it God? Was it aliens? Was it the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Initially these questions were at the front of my mind. Someway through the first block of episodes, I almost expected a Stargate portal to open, and out would step a wizard to tell our characters why this happened to them and what their next mission was. But no such answers came. I soon learnt that this was not the story the writers were interested in telling, and so I was not interested in knowing.

Instead we saw characters struggle with identity, harm one another, join cults, abandon families, and fight against all odds to regain a sense of normalcy. The question of what happened to those who departed falls to the wayside in favour of how do the leftovers live now? The drama comes from their reaction to tragedy. How do those left behind deal with survivor’s guilt? It’s a meditation on how we cope with loss, if you will.

  

We see the world through the lens of the Garvey family who are trying to stay together in a post apocalyptic society where family seems to have lost all meaning. Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) is the chief of police, a father of two who is trying to maintain order in a town of chaos. His wife has left him to join a mysterious cult called the Guilty Remnant, his son has dropped out of college and his relationship with his daughter is strained. Kevin must keep the peace between townspeople and the cult, which is made tougher by his family situation. Throw in a concoction of mystery, strange dream sequences, bouts of psychosis, and then down the cocktail all in one. It's a wild and unsettling ride, bemusing and confusing. I can best describe it as if David Lynch and Stephen King had a love child. 

It’s a risky follow up to Lost for showrunner Damon Lindelof who swore he was done with TV way back in 2010. It actually sounds like it would suffer from the same mistakes Lost did, but apart from the general conceit, the comparisons end there.

Lindelof describes his return to television with the metaphor of a baby who keeps sticking a key into an electrical socket. You may get zapped but the heart wants what the hearts wants. For this, I respect him tremendously because he goes boldy where other writers do not have the guts to go.

Maybe the show doesn’t represent everyone. At the end of the day it's entertainment. But it's entertainment that engages one’s critical faculties. We're encouraged to ask tough questions: Is this right, or is this wrong? Is this happenstance or is it something more? And more pervasively, how would I react if I were in the same situation?

I can't pretend that some people won't find it pretentious. There are no zombies, no dragons, no badass dwarfs, and not nearly enough nudity as Game of Thrones. The climax of an episode of the leftovers could be someone washing the dishes and I would be utterly riveted. That is a testament to the technique and calibre with which this story is told.

  

If there were a thesis to the show perhaps it is this: that people prescribe meaning to things differently. In a modern context, it's becoming harder and harder to not land on an atheistic point of view. And yet there is this growing space of people who reject institutionalised religion but retain a certain spirituality. "I don't know what I believe, but I'm kind of spiritual" they might muse over coffee or a cigarette. Whether we openly admit it or not, there is a part of all of us that wants to believe in something greater.

I tend to be defensive of one's right to their beliefs, whether they align with mine or not. It would be egregious of me to claim I have the answers, but to deny them theirs seems arrogant.

Just like us, the characters in The Leftovers cover a wide spectrum of belief and unbelief. Some people turn to religion, others lose faith completely, many land in the grey area where we prescribe our own personal meaning to things. In regards to the show, the ambiguity is alright with me. In fact, I love the ambiguity. Not simply because it's provocative but because it touches on something deep down within all of us searching for meaning.