I want to believe that Im not surrounded by the abandoned ruin of a dead civilization, Nora Durst writes as she prepares to leave everyone shes ever known. I want to believe that its still possible to get close to someone. But even if its possible, shes chosen not to try. The pain is too much to bear, as actor Carrie Coons almost unwatchable silent scream upon being confronted with grotesque simulations of her vanished family made clear. Here in the real world, with uncanny echoes of The Leftovers breathtakingly paced season finale The Prodigal Son all around us, its easy to agree with her.
Look back, if you can stomach it, at the long horrendous summer we just suffered through. A berserk and benighted subset of the video game community targeted prominent women critics and creators with a campaign of trolling, harassment, and threats so severe that one victim had to flee her home. An apparent ring of hackers specializing in stealing female celebrities nude selfies began releasing them to the public en masse. Police in Ferguson, Missouri responded to citizen protests over the killing of unarmed teenager Mike Brown his body exposed in the street for four hours by essentially staging a days-long blue riot, aiming loaded weapons at civilians, arresting journalists, and firing teargas and rubber bullets seemingly indiscriminately.
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Now look at The Leftovers. Trolling-as-religion is one of its central plot points, with two separate denominations the Guilty Remnant, with their callous performance art, and Rev. Matt, with his muckraking flyers deliberately being assholes to make a point. Stealing photographs in order to turn private moments into a public spectacle was a core component of the cults master plan involving replicas of Departure victims. And law-enforcement complicity, even participation, in violence against the civilian population has been a constant: the Heroes Day, the brutal assault on Holy Waynes compound, the Feds black-ops methodology in destroying cults and incinerating members bodies, Kevins assault and kidnapping of Patti, and, tonight, the Mapleton P.D.s half-assed efforts to stop the townsfolk from retaliating against the G.R. The shows sociopolitical prescience is almost freakish.
But theres something even more impressive at work here, something that drills down deep into the stuff that fuels all of these fires. It emerges gradually, the result of layering one scene on top of another like notes in a chord. Note one goes back to the Bible: Rev. Matt has Kevin read from the Book of Job, expressing terror of an unreachable God who demands obedience even as he torments the obedient.
Note two: Kevin is institutionalized alongside his father, and discovers he too can hear the same voices from beyond in this case an amorous Patti. It could be a shared hallucination, or it could be theyve both been let in on the secret of the universe. Ultimately, its just a nightmare Kevin wakes up from.
Note three: Pressed by Rev. Matt to reveal what he thinks Patti wanted him to understand, Kevin recalls how on the day of the Departure, hed wanted nothing more than to leave his family behind. But his joyous reunion with his kids that morning, in which their happiness that he hadnt vanished was written all of their faces, made him want nothing more than to keep his family together. He couldnt, he blames himself, and hes devastated, which Justin Therouxs performance conveys with remarkable power.
Note four: Kevin gets up from the table and stumbles across Holy Wayne, gutshot and dying in the restroom. Wayne knows the end is near, and is terrified. I think I may be a fraud, he confides. But if Im not, I can give you anything you want. That will mean I was real. Kevin quietly makes a wish, and given his preceding monologue its easy enough to guess its about a family reunion.
Note five: Kevin and Matt return to a town in chaos, as furious residents chase Guilty Remnant members through the streets. He comes across Meg, bound and beaten but smiling with the confidence of a zealot. She wanted this to happen.
Note four: Pushed past the breaking point by the Remnants mannequins, which shatter whatever fragile peace she gained from her encounter with Wayne several weeks ago, Nora plans to leave town for good. Theres no going back, no fixing it, she writes in her Dear-John note to Kevin. Im beyond repair. Maybe were all beyond repair.
Note five: Noras stopped in her tracks by Holy Waynes infant son, deposited in the Garveys doorstep by the prodigal son himself, Tommy. She picks him up, smiles, turns to a bewildered but delighted Kevin and Jill as they arrive at the house themselves and says, Look what I found. Shes not going anywhere.
This, then, is the message of The Leftovers, revealed in the final minute of the final episode of the season. Pain, loss, grief, failure, shame: these things are real, and the damage they do is lasting and debilitating. There is no God capable of communicating to us, giving us a reason to endure. Theres no particularly compelling reason to do so at all, for many of us. But some of us get lucky first to stumble across someone or something worth caring about, and second to have the strength left to do the caring. Those lucky few can turn that connection into a reason to go on. The choice is up to them.
The guts of an ending like that! Unlike True Detective, which feinted in the direction of nihilism for a season before washing it off in the cleansing water of spiritual-not-religious bromides, The Leftovers stays true to co-creator Damon Lindelofs promise that there will be no Answers. You have Nora Dursts silent shout when shes forced to relive the worst trauma of her life, and you have her smile when she encounters a brand new life yet untouched by that kind of suffering. Which one matters most in terms of determining what is real, what is true, what is the point? The universe is as mute on this question as the Guilty Remnant. Its up to us to answer.
Previously: The Shape of Things to Come