The Leftovers: Season 3

There's a certain type of person (let's call the type a "TV critic") that thinks The Leftovers is just the pinnacle of what you can do on television, easily an all time great TV show, one for the ages. And I can see that line of thinking! I really can. I'm, like, 75% of the way there myself. This is the rare show (or movie) that's better than the book it's based on, no question, and the whole thing is largely just this exploration of grief and coping with it and moving on, and how fucked up we can be to ourselves and to each other when we don't have closure.

Famously, Damon Lindelof flubbed the ending of Lost - maybe even the whole second half of Lost - because he (and Carlton Cuse) just wanted to keep making weird shit happen without any regard for how it would all fit together or make sense. And of course this problem was compounded by a combination of fans, ABC, and the writers and actors themselves all wanting the show to eventually make sense, all assuming the show would eventually make sense. What were we left with? The saddest Hail Mary in the world, when in the antepenultimate episode we were told the answer to the island's mysteries was "there's a wheel, and when you turn it, the water, and also wood, good and evil, but time travel, have to let the light through." The whole thing was widely and deservedly derided, but plenty of fans and critics still clung to the "no, the Lost finale was actually good" take. Their argument was that the finale did justice to all of the characters, and to all of their moments with each other, and their line of thinking was that if you were watching Lost for the time travel and the polar bears, you were watching it for the wrong reasons. (Sanctimonious fucks, those Lost finale defenders.)

Anyway, it turns out that's just Lindelof in a nutshell - excellent at portraying those human interactions, those shortcomings, that sense of why a person might have a faith or belief in something totally insane, a relationship between two broken people told in tears and smiles and anguish - but maybe not so great at, say, science fiction. Or even plotting and storytelling.

I guess what I'm saying in a roundabout way is that Lindelof learned his lesson from Lost, and so did the rest of us, regarding what to expect, and The Leftovers wound up being so much like Lost without any compelling need for a satisfying answer, an explanation, what have you. And it was awesome! If anything, I could have used some more ambiguity from The Leftovers' finale - I didn't necessarily need to know the fates of Matt, of Kevin's father, of Laurie in particular, after her powerful, excellent episode. (Also the antepenultimate - wow!) - but I can't complain at all about the way The Leftovers ended and I'm looking forward to Lindelof's next project, whatever it may be.