<em>The Leftovers</em>: A Nicer Story
Each week following episodes of the third and final season of The Leftovers, Sophie Gilbert and Spencer Kornhaber will discuss HBO’s drama about the aftermath of 2 percent of the world’s population suddenly vanishing.
Spencer Kornhaber: By the time of its series finale, The Leftovers had already proven itself as a powerful statement about humanity. Its very last episode added in a powerful statement about goats. In this extremely weird, extremely emotional closing chapter, Nora’s Shawshank Redemption-esque assumption of an ensnared beast’s beads may have been the most weirdly emotional moment of all—one last mysterious encounter between human intelligence and nature’s randomness. With doves, dogs, deer, lions, and goats, The Leftovers has shown that to look into an animal’s eyes is to realize something about yourself. It has also shown that a jammed door can be the source of an epiphany, and the human search for meaning can result in unthinkable betrayal and incredible forgiveness.
A one-of-a-kind, utterly committed work of art and philosophy, the finale was a microcosm of The Leftovers itself. It opened terrifying and closed heart-wrenchingly; it was, at no point, predictable. If it had a message, it was that grief creates madness but also can inspire love, that inner peace lies somewhere between faith and reason, and that Justin Theroux will remain dreamy a decade or more on. Below, I’ll try to recap and parse an episode that seems to want to resist recapping and parsing.
To start, Nora held a newspaper and looked into a video camera, stating her desire to leave this world. The Finnish physicists gave her one last test: skepticism about her sincerity. “I don’t lie,” Nora said through gritted teeth, a statement worth revisiting later in the episode. Her steeliness dissolved, though, when asked to say her children’s names. The
